TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 13 -- Samuel Goldwyn Productions

[Staph]

Tonight features six films from the Samuel Goldwyn Studios, including two of the three films starring the elusive Anna Sten. Enjoy!


3:30am -- Quartet (1948)
W. Somerset Maugham introduces four of his most famous short stories.
Cast: W. Somerset Maugham, Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling.
Dir: Ken Annakin, Arthur Crabtree, Harold French, Ralph Smart.
BW-120 mins

The four Maugham stories are The Facts of Life, The Alien Corn, The Kite, and The Colonel's Lady.


5:37am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Inflation (1943)
The Devil tells Hitler that he will cause high inflation in the USA, and his worries will be over.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Stephen McNally, Esther Williams.
Dir: Cy Endfield.
BW-17 mins

The debut of Esther Williams.


6:00am -- Grandma's Boy (1922)
In this silent film, a young coward thinks a magical charm can make him a hero.
Cast: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Anna Townsend.
Dir: Fred C. Newmeyer.
BW-56 mins, TV-G

Originally intended as a serious movie, this film was altered by Harold Lloyd into a comedy by adding the gag scenes later on.


7:00am -- Something to Sing About (1936)
A New York bandleader takes Hollywood by storm.
Cast: James Cagney, Evelyn Daw, William Frawley.
Dir: Victor Schertzinger.
BW-92 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Score -- C. Bakaleinikoff (musical director), score by Victor Schertzinger

Known as "the picture that broke Grand National". Grand National Pictures, which produced and distributed this film, was a "B" studio known mostly for low-budget westerns and action pictures. It signed James Cagney during one of his frequent disputes with Warner Bros. and saw this picture as its chance to compete with the major studios by doing a lavish musical with a major star. It poured more than $900,000 into this film, not much by MGM or 20th Century Fox standards but a tremendous sum for a small studio like Grand National.

Unfortunately the film was a major flop and the studio lost just about all the money put into it. Grand National folded just a few years later, having never recovered from the financial beating it took on this picture.


8:45am -- Sailing Along (1938)
A musical star considers giving it all up in the name of love.
Cast: Jessie Matthews, Barry MacKay, Roland Young.
Dir: Sonnie Hale.
BW-95 mins

The last musical film of Jessie Matthews, The Dancing Divinity.


10:15am -- Double Harness (1933)
After tricking a playboy into marriage, a woman sets out to win his love honestly.
Cast: Ann Harding, William Powell, Henry Stephenson.
Dir: John Cromwell.
BW-69 mins, TV-PG

This film hadn't been shown for decades and was found in a Merian C. Cooper collection which had been used for television. A two-and-half minute sequence that had been cut from the print was located in a French negative discovered in the National Center for Cinematography in France and restored to the print. The brief segment had been cut for television because it indicated that the characters of "Joan Colby" and "John Fletcher" were having pre-marital sex.


11:30am -- Living on Love (1937)
A man and woman working different shifts share the same apartment without realizing it.
Cast: James Dunn, Whitney Bourne, Joan Woodbury.
Dir: Lew Landers.
BW-62 mins, TV-G

One of the six "lost" RKO films (another is the first version of the story, Rafter Romance (1933)) unseen for many years and not released to television. In 2006, Turner Classic Movies acquired the rights and showed all six in April 2007.


12:45pm -- The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Feuding co-workers don't realize they're secret romantic pen pals.
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch.
BW-99 mins, TV-G

Ernst Lubitsch delayed the start of the movie until both James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan were available. In the mean time, he filmed Ninotchka (1939).


2:30pm -- The Reformer And The Redhead (1950)
A small-town politician falls for an idealistic zookeeper.
Cast: Dick Powell, June Allyson, Cecil Kellaway.
Dir: Norman Panama, Melvin Frank.
BW-90 mins, TV-G

One of three films made starring husband-and-wife Powell and Allyson.


4:00pm -- Some Came Running (1958)
A veteran returns home to deal with family secrets and small-town scandals.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Dean Martin.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli.
C-136 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur Kennedy, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Shirley MacLaine, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Martha Hyer, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White or Color -- Walter Plunkett, and Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "To Love and Be Loved".

It was during the making of this film that Shirley MacLaine found herself welcomed into what would later be called the "Rat Pack" fraternity that included Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, her co-stars in this film. Shirley MacLaine says the group known as the "Rat Pack" was actually called "The Clan" by the members while "Rat Pack" was a term given in the 1950s to Humphrey Bogart and his pals.


6:30pm -- The Bigamist (1953)
A woman discovers her husband has another family in another city.
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmond O'Brien.
Dir: Ida Lupino.
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

This would be the last feature film directed by Ida Lupino for more than 12 years until The Trouble with Angels (1966).


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: SAMUEL GOLDWYN PRODUCTIONS


8:00pm -- We Live Again (1934)
A Russian nobleman discovers the peasant girl he once seduced has turned to crime.
Cast: Anna Sten, Fredric March, C. Aubrey Smith.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian.
BW-82 mins

Fredric March and his second wife Florence Eldridge were both active supporters of the Democratic Party.


9:30pm -- Beloved Enemy (1936)
During an Irish uprising, a rebel leader and a British noblewoman fall in love.
Cast: Merle Oberon, Brian Aherne, David Niven.
Dir: H.C. Potter.
BW-86 mins

Retired film star Eve Southern loaned Samuel Goldwyn a rare Rolls Royce for this film.


11:15pm -- Come And Get It (1936)
Years after deserting his true love, a lumber tycoon vies with his son for her daughter's hand.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Frances Farmer, Walter Brennan.
Dir: Howard Hawks, William Wyler.
BW-99 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Brennan

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Edward Curtiss

Director Howard Hawks was replaced by William Wyler, after Hawks was rude to producer Samuel Goldwyn. Howard Hawks's take on his being "fired" is that he wasn't. Rather, he quit, after refusing to agree with Samuel Goldwyn, who wanted the narrative to stay closer to that of the book. Goldwyn had been ill and absent for the 42 days of shooting that Hawks directed and was unaware of Hawks' rewrites. Hawks left the production with only 14 days left to go. Howard Hawks stated that William Wyler's contribution was only ten minutes of screen time. However, it's generally thought that Wyler directed the last 30 minutes of the film.


1:00am -- Nana (1934)
A streetwalker rises to stage stardom but triggers a scandal when two brothers fall for her.
Cast: Anna Sten, Lionel Atwill, Richard Bennett.
Dir: Dorothy Arzner, George Fitzmaurice.
BW-87 mins

Anna Sten was appearing in Russian and German silent films went discovered by Samuel Goldwyn. Unfortunately, her agent signed her to a contract with Goldwyn without mentioning that she spoke no English. She spent a year studying English every day and working out makeup and acting. However, her first picture, Nana (1934), even though almost completely rewritten and reshot from the original, didn't bring audiences into the theaters. While Anna was looked great, the script and picture were average. Her second film, We Live Again (1934), marginally better suited to her style, also died within weeks at the box office. After her third film for Goldwyn, The Wedding Night (1935), also flopped, she and Goldwyn parted company after it became known around Hollywood as "Goldwyn's Last Sten." Anna made a few more movies, but by the end of the decade she was forgotten.


2:35am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Wild And Woolly (1931)
A Pete Smith short showcasing a western-style rodeo with bronco riding, steer wrestling (bulldogging), and bull riding.
Cast: Pete Smith.
Dir: Charles Dorian.
BW-9 mins

Pete Smith always punctuated impending disasters in his movies with a very distinctive Uh-OOh !... When we heard that, we knew the 'worst' was about to happen and got ready to laugh.


2:45am -- One Heavenly Night (1930)
A flower seller goes into exile in place of a notorious opera singer.
Cast: Evelyn Laye, John Boles, Leon Errol.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice.
BW-80 mins

Based on a short story by Louis Bromfield, member of New York City's "cafe society" in the 1930s and direct descendant of frontiersman Daniel Boone.


4:06am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Harry Warren: America'S Foremost Composer (1933)
Songwriter Harry Warren performs several of his own compositions, including "I Found a Million Dollar Baby" and "Shadow Waltz."
Cast: Harry Warren, Gladys Brittain, Marjorie Hines.
BW-9 mins

As of 2008, Harry Warren's music has been featured in more than 960 films and television shows, from The Wolf Song (1929) (music: Mi Amado) to What Happens in Vegas (2008) (music: An Affair To Remember).


4:30am -- The Masquerader (1933)
An unemployed reporter impersonates his look-alike cousin and falls for the man's wife.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elissa Landi, Juliette Compton.
Dir: Richard Wallace.
BW-77 mins

Based on the 1904 political thriller John Chilcote by Irish-born novelist Katherine Cecil Thurston.

[Staph]

1. Behind the Camera on THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

James Stewart was at the top of Ernst Lubitsch's list to play the simple Alfred Kralik because the actor was "the antithesis of the old-time matinee idol; he holds his public by his very lack of a handsome face or suave manner."

At first, European actress Dolly Haas was penciled in for the female lead, but Lubitsch had second thoughts about casting an unknown actress for American audiences.

Ernst Lubitsch waited for James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan - his personal picks for the film's leads - to become available in the midst of their busy schedules. In the meantime, he shot and completed Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas.

While directing The Shop Around the Corner, Ernst Lubitsch drew upon his extensive experiences working in his father's Berlin shop as a young lad.

At the film's January 25, 1940 premiere at Radio City Music Hall, Lubitsch remarked, "I have known just such a little shop in Budapest...The feeling between the boss and those who work for him is pretty much the same the world over, it seems to me. Everyone is afraid of losing his job and everyone knows how little human worries can affect his job. If the boss has a touch of dyspepsia, better be careful not to step on his toes; when things have gone well with him, the whole staff reflects his good humor."

In preparation for her character, Margaret Sullavan purchased a simple dress for $1.95 that she thought a shop girl would wear but Ernst Lubitsch took one look and told her it was too stylish.

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan had known each other a long time before making The Shop Around the Corner. Both were in a summer stock company called the University Players. It was there that Stewart realized his potential as an actor, so he followed Sullavan and fellow player Henry Fonda to New York to begin an acting career in earnest.

Even though Margaret Sullavan was infamous for her quick temper and disdainful attitude towards Hollywood, James Stewart counted working with her as one of the great joys of his professional career. And because he knew her personally, he was more equipped than most of the cast and crew members to deal with her frequent and volatile emotional outbursts.

Even James Stewart could get flustered working with Margaret Sullavan, though, and one day it took him forty-eight takes to get a scene right. Stewart said: "We were in this little restaurant and I had the line: 'I will come out on the street and I will roll my trousers up to my knees.' For some reason I couldn't say it. She was furious. She said, 'This is absolutely ridiculous.' There I was standing with my trousers rolled up to my knees, very conscious of my skinny legs, and I said, 'I don't want to act today; get a fellow with decent legs and just show them.' Margaret said, 'Then I absolutely refuse to do the picture.' So we did more takes."

Soon after wrapping principal photography, Ernst Lubitsch talked to the New York Sun in January 1940. "It's not a big picture, just a quiet little story that seemed to have some charm. It didn't cost very much, for such a cast, under $500,000. It was made in twenty-eight days. I hope it has some charm."

by Scott McGee

[CBHagman]

2. "The Shop Around the Corner" never gets old.

That's another of those films I will make any excuse to watch each time it comes on (Unfortunately, I can't stay home from work this time...rats!).

Sullavan and Stewart are good, a nice balance of neurotic and lovable, but the entire cast is wonderful. I loved Felix Bressart (Mr. Pirovitch) and William Tracy (Pepi), true scene-stealers both.