TCM Schedule for Friday, November 16 -- What's On Tonight: Peter O'Toole

[Staph]

A day of (mostly) James Coburn (with a touch of Blake Edwards), and an evening of the euphemistically named Peter O'Toole. (Think about it. ) Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
A husband and wife fight to conquer alcoholism.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford
BW-117 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "Days of Wine and Roses"

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Jack Lemmon, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Lee Remick, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph C. Wright and George James Hopkins, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Donfeld

The cast and crew were very concerned that the bleak ending would be changed. Director Blake Edwards recalled for Entertainment Weekly magazine that studio head Jack L. Warner wanted a lighter ending, but he came into a screening with a very attractive date who blasted the decision. Warner reluctantly gave in. In addition, Jack Lemmon purposely flew to Paris after filming had wrapped so he would be "unavailable" for re-shoots.


8:00 AM -- The Great Race (1965)
A bumbling villain plots to win an early 20th-century auto race.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood
C-160 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Treg Brown

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Russell Harlan, Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "The Sweetheart Tree", and Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD)

Features the largest pie fight ever staged, with a running gag that The Great Leslie remains clean while everyone else is covered in pie. Tony Curtis was required to change clothes several times when he was accidentally splattered with debris from a pie that had hit someone else. The pies used during the pie throwing scene were real, containing fruit, custard, whipped cream and other ingredients. Following this scene the crew devoured more than 300 leftover pies.


10:45 AM -- The Carey Treatment (1972)
A doctor uncovers a hotbed of corruption when he tries to clear a colleague of a murder charge.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: James Coburn, Jennifer O'Neill, Pat Hingle
C-101 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on a novel entitled 'A Case of Need', published in 1968 and credited to Jeffrey Hudson. Decades later, Hudson was revealed to be a pseudonym for Michael Crichton.


12:30 PM -- In Like Flint (1967)
A super-agent must save the world from a secret organization of women who plan to seize power.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: James Coburn, Lee J. Cobb, Jean Hale
C-115 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

The W.P. Lear Sr. listed in the credits (his character co-pilots Flint's Lear Jet) is William Powell Lear, the inventor of the Lear Jet.


2:30 PM -- The Americanization of Emily (1964)
A British war widow falls for an opportunistic American sailor during World War II.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: James Garner, Julie Andrews, Melvyn Douglas
BW-115 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- George W. Davis, Hans Peters, Elliot Scott, Henry Grace and Robert R. Benton, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Philip H. Lathrop

According to screenwriter Joe Eszterhas's 2004 autobiography "American Animal", producer Martin Ransohoff removed director William Wyler from the picture as Wyler wanted to change Paddy Chayefsky's script. It was a rare instance in which a producer supported a screenwriter over a director, particularly one of Wyler's caliber. As Chayefsky was known to have guarantees written into his contracts protecting his scripts, Ransohoff may have had no choice but to replace Wyler with Arthur Hiller.


4:30 PM -- The Loved One (1965)
An Englishman in Hollywood moves into the funeral business.
Dir: Tony Richardson
Cast: Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer
BW-121 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

After WWII, Evelyn Waugh came to Hollywood to work on a movie adaptation of his novel "Brideshead Revisited". While in Hollywood he went to a funeral at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Waugh was offended by the pretense of both the American film industry and the American funeral industry, and wove the two together into the novel on which this film was based.


6:45 PM -- Ride Lonesome (1959)
A bounty hunter tries to bring a murderer to justice through perilous territory.
Dir: Budd Boetticher
Cast: Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts
C-73 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Film debut of James Coburn.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PETER O'TOOLE



8:00 PM -- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
A British military officer enlists the Arabs for desert warfare in World War I.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
C-227 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, John Stoll and Dario Simoni, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Director -- David Lean, Best Film Editing -- Anne V. Coates, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre, Best Sound -- John Cox (Shepperton SSD), and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Omar Sharif, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (The nomination for Wilson was granted on 26 September 1995 by the Academy Board of Directors, after research at the WGA found that the then blacklisted writer shared the screenwriting credit with Bolt.)

Peter O'Toole is considerably taller and better looking than the real T.E. Lawrence (6'3" to Lawrence's real life height of 5'6&quot . Noel Coward is rumored to have said, on seeing the premiere, "If he'd been any prettier, they'd have had to call it Florence of Arabia."


12:00 AM -- Peter O'Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival (2012)
BW-55 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

O'Toole is only one of four actors to be nominated for an Oscar twice for playing the same role in two separate films. He was nominated as Best Actor for Henry II in Becket (1964) and for Henry II in The Lion in Winter (1968). The others are Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961) and The Color of Money (1986), Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974)and Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I in Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). Furthermore, O'Toole is the only one of these four who was nominated for playing the same character (at two different stages in his life) in two totally different films, neither of which was a sequel or prequel to the other.


1:00 AM -- Simon of the Desert (1965)
A religious sage fights temptation from Satan himself.
Dir: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Claudio Brook, Silvia Pinal, Hortensia Santoveña
C-45 mins, TV-MA,

Based on a story by Luis Buñuel.


2:00 AM -- Savage Weekend (1979)
Several couples are stalked by a murderer behind a ghoulish mask.
Dir: David Paulsen
Cast: Yancy Butler, Christopher Allport, James Doerr
BW-76 mins,

Filmed in 1976 as "The Killer Behind the Mask" and released as Savage Weekend in 1981.


4:00 AM -- See No Evil (1971)
A blind woman returns home not knowing that a madman has murdered her entire family.
Dir: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Mia Farrow, Dorothy Alison, Robin Bailey
C-89 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

"Blind Terror" went through two other scores (one by star Mia Farrow's then husband Andre Previn, and another one by David Whittaker), before ending up with original music by Elmer Bernstein.


5:30 AM -- There's a Message in Every Bottle (1968)
A teenager recalls an incident where he and three of his friends used fake IDs to buy and consume alcohol in a bar.
Dir: Nick Boris
Cast: Wayne Byers
BW-27 mins, TV-G,

[Graybeard]

1. Lawrence Of Arabia. A real treat.

If anyone out there has not seen it be prepared for one of the finest film making achievements of all time.

Epic action, drama, intrigue, wonderful acting by all. It lacks only the love story. No leading lady. No women at all!

Enjoy.