TCM Schedule for Monday, June 2 -- TCM MEMORIAL TRIBUTE: SYDNEY POLLACK

[Longhorn]

3:45am Hair (1979)
A young man joins a hippie commune on the eve of reporting for military service.
Cast: John Savage, Treat Williams, Beverly D'Angelo. Dir: Milos Forman. C-121 mins, TV-MA

5:47am Short Film: From The Vaults: San Sebastian 1746 In 1968 (1968)
C-10 mins

6:00am Doctor Takes a Wife, The (1940)
A man-hating author and a woman-hating doctor have to pretend they're married.
Cast: Loretta Young, Ray Milland, Reginald Gardiner. Dir: Alexander Hall. BW-88 mins, TV-G

7:30am Bedtime Story (1942)
A stage star's dreams of retirement conflict with her playwright husband's need for a hit -- with her starring.
Cast: Fredric March, Loretta Young, Robert Benchley. Dir: Alexander Hall. BW-85 mins, TV-G

9:00am Housekeeper's Daughter, The (1939)
A gangster's moll runs home to mother, with reporters and amateur detectives hot on her tail.
Cast: Joan Bennett, Adolphe Menjou, William Gargan. Dir: Hal Roach. BW-80 mins, TV-G

10:15am Ambassador's Daughter, The (1956)
A diplomat's daughter in Paris turns a fact-finding mission into a non-stop party.
Cast: Olivia de Havilland, John Forsythe, Myrna Loy. Dir: Norman Krasna. C-103 mins, TV-G

12:00pm Too Many Husbands (1940)
When her long lost husband returns after her re-marriage, a woman decides to try life with two mates.
Cast: Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray, Melvyn Douglas. Dir: Wesley Ruggles. BW-81 mins, TV-G

1:30pm Facts of Life, The (1960)
Suburban marrieds are tempted to dabble in adultery.
Cast: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Ruth Hussey. Dir: Melvin Frank. BW-104 mins, TV-PG

3:15pm Turnabout (1940)
Battling spouses accidentally switch bodies.
Cast: Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard. Dir: Hal Roach. BW-83 mins, TV-G

4:45pm Miracle of Morgan's Creek, The (1944)
During World War II, a 4F tries to help the woman he loves cover up a surprise pregnancy.
Cast: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, William Demarest. Dir: Preston Sturges. BW-98 mins, TV-PG

6:30pm Man to Remember, A (1938)
A small-town doctor fights crooked politicians during a polio epidemic.
Cast: Anne Shirley, Edward Ellis, Lee Bowman. Dir: Garson Kanin. BW-78 mins, TV-G

What's On Tonight: TCM MEMORIAL TRIBUTE: SYDNEY POLLACK

8:00pm Slender Thread, The (1965)
A crisis line volunteer tries to save a woman from suicide.
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas. Dir: Sydney Pollack BW-98 mins, TV-PG

9:49pm Short Film: From The Vaults: Goodbye Girl Featurette, The (1977)
C-9 mins

10:00pm Three Days of the Condor (1975)
A CIA researcher uncovers top secret information and finds himself marked for death.
Cast: Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson. Dir: Sydney Pollack. C-117 mins, TV-MA

12:00am Tootsie (1982)
An unemployed actor masquerades as a woman to win a soap-opera role.
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr. Dir: Sydney Pollack. C-116 mins, TV-MA

2:00am Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
An ex-soldier moves to the Colorado wilderness but cannot escape civilization.
Cast: Robert Redford, Will Geer, Stefan Gierasch. Dir: Sydney Pollack. C-116 mins, TV-14

4:00am Fighting Kentuckian, The (1949)
A militiaman falls for a Frenchwoman and tries to protect her people from land grabbers.
Cast: John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Oliver Hardy. Dir: George Waggner. BW-100 mins, TV-G

[Longhorn]

1. Slender Thread, The (1965)

Notable as the feature film debut of actor-turned-director Sydney Pollack, The Slender Thread (1965) is an accomplished first film for Pollack who would go on to garner three Oscar® nominations for Best Director in the ensuing years with They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in 1969, Tootsie in 1983, and Out of Africa in 1986 which won him the Academy Award. It was inspired by a real incident and dramatized as the short story "Decision to Die" which appeared in Life magazine in the May 29, 1964 issue. The writer was Shana Alexander and her husband Hollywood producer Stephen Alexander optioned it as a film property shortly thereafter.

Set in Seattle's Crisis Clinic, the movie sets up a dramatic situation at the outset with a suicidal woman (Anne Bancroft) calling into the clinic after taking an overdose of barbiturates. Her call is received by Alan Newell (Sidney Poitier), a student volunteer at the center who is majoring in psychology. As the clinic staff races against time to trace the call and rescue the distraught woman, Alan tries to keep her talking and in the process learns of the events leading up to her decision to kill herself. Alternating between flashbacks and the stressful situation at the crisis clinic, The Slender Thread works best as a dramatic showcase for the performances of Anne Bancroft as the suicidal Mrs. Dyson and Sidney Poitier as her lifeline to survival.

The original working title of the film was "Cross My Heart and Hope to Die" with Elizabeth Ashley slated to play Mrs. Dyson but a contract dispute forced her to drop out and she was replaced by Ms. Bancroft. As for Sidney Poitier, he recalled his involvement in his autobiography This Life: "Martin Baum heard of a producer who was about to make a film called The Slender Thread. He read the script and found a part he thought I could play, although again the part was not designated for a black actor. Through a determined effort, Marty sold the producer, who in turn sold the film company, who in turn gave permission for Sydney Pollack to hire me to play that part opposite Anne Bancroft, Steven Hill, and Telly Savalas. So off I went again to face the cameras - this time in Seattle...The Slender Thread experience gave me great satisfaction. Anne Bancroft was simply fantastic, and Telly, of course, is an infinitely better actor than Kojak allowed us to see (alas, Kojak may have completely submerged his large talent; its imagery is so indelible in people's minds)." In addition to Savalas and Steven Hill, Edward Asner and Dabney Coleman are also featured in key supporting roles.

According to Janet L. Meyer in Sydney Pollack: A Critical Filmography, "The dramatization of the first suicide attempt revealed in the film could have been a costly one. Bancroft was wearing the bottom of a wetsuit under her costume. As she waded off shore to dramatize the suicide, the wet suit became saturated and pulled her underwater. Pollack and other members of the film crew had to rescue her!"

Filmed on location in Seattle and at the University of Washington, The Slender Thread features striking black and white cinematography by Loyal Griggs and a music score by Quincy Jones. Seattle, a picturesque but rarely used film location at that time, was also the backdrop for the 1963 Elvis Presley movie, It Happened at the World's Fair. Except for the interior scenes of the crisis center in The Slender Thread, which were filmed on a Paramount sound stage, everything else was filmed on location.

Stirling Silliphant, who based his screenplay on Shana Alexander's short story, would go to work on another Sidney Poitier film two years later - In the Heat of the Night (1967) - and for that, he would win the Best Screenplay Oscar®. However, it was the Art Direction by Hal Pereira, Jack Poplin, Robert Benton, and Joseph Kish and the costumes by Edith Head that received Academy Award nominations for The Slender Thread.

A modestly budgeted, small scale movie, The Slender Thread was much closer in spirit to the live television dramas of the fifties a la Marty and Days of Wine and Roses. And Pollack, a former actor who came from a background in television directing on such shows as The Defenders, Ben Casey and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, was perfectly at home with this intimate type of drama. Yet, despite the strong central performances of Bancroft and Poitier, The Slender Thread received mostly mixed reviews from the critics. Typical of the overall consensus is this notice by New York Times reviewer A.H. Weiler: "…an often awesome, compelling but occasionally banal soap opera study stemming from the chillingly final statistic, "every two minutes someone attempts suicide in the United States" that hangs in Seattle's Crisis Clinic. Despite the obvious attribute of exposing the clinic's largely unheralded good works, the performances of the principals and the film's naturalistic dialogue are more memorable than the story itself. The Slender Thread makes its dramatic statement long before it unwinds in denouement."

Producer: Stephen Alexander
Director: Sydney Pollack
Screenplay: Shana Alexander, David Rayfiel, Stirling Silliphant
Cinematography: Loyal Griggs
Film Editing: Thomas Stanford
Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Jack Poplin
Music: Quincy Jones
Cast: Sidney Poitier (Alan Newell), Anne Bancroft (Inge Dyson), Telly Savalas (Dr. Joe Coburn), Steven Hill (Mark Dyson), Edward Asner (Det. Judd Ridley), Indus Arthur (Marian).
BW-98m. Letterboxed.

by Jeff Stafford

SOURCES:

This Life by Sidney Poiter
Sydney Pollack: A Critical Filmography by Janet L. Meyer
AFI

[lavenderdiva]

2. One of the best dramas I've ever seen-

It is a tense, nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat drama. Sidney Poitier's performance is riveting. Mr. Pollack's direction is masterful and superb. I had not realized that this film was based on a short story by Shana Alexander. I used to love her banter on 60 Minutes!

[Longhorn]

3. I saw this several years ago and agree!

Good performances all around!