TCM Schedule for Friday, July 3, 2015 -- TCM Spotlight - Summer of Darkness

[Staph]

TCM is continuing their new special program, Summer of Darkness, featuring 24 hours of film noir every Thursday in June and July. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Johnny Belinda (1948)
A small-town doctor helps a deaf-mute farm girl learn to communicate.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford
BW-102 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jane Wyman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Lew Ayres, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Bickford, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead, Best Director -- Jean Negulesco, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Irma von Cube and Allen Vincent, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ted D. McCord, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Robert M. Haas and William Wallace, Best Sound, Recording, Best Film Editing -- David Weisbart, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

Jane Wyman became the first person, actor or actress since the silent era to win an Oscar without uttering a word, after sound was created, just before The Jazz Singer (1927) was filmed.


7:51 AM -- This Theatre And You (1948)
This short film takes a look at the importance of the motion picture theatre to small-town communities.
Cast: Brandon Beach,
BW-8 mins,


8:00 AM -- Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
BW-101 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

Fourth and final film pairing of Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall. A fifth film was planned several years later, but Bogart died before it could be made.


9:48 AM -- The Fabulous Fraud (1948)
This short film focuses on Dr. Anton Mesmer, the man who discovered hypnotism.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Morris Ankrum, Phyllis Morris, John Baragrey
BW-11 mins,


10:00 AM -- The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane
BW-87 mins, CC,

According to Orson Welles, this film grew out of an act of pure desperation. Welles, whose Mercury Theatre company produced a musical version of "Around the World in 80 Days," was in desperate need of money just before the Boston preview. Mere hours before the show was due to open, the costumes had been impounded and unless Welles could come up with $55,000 to pay outstanding debts, the performance would have to be canceled. Stumbling upon a copy of "If I Die Before I Wake," the novel upon which this film is based, Welles phoned Harry Cohn, instructing him to buy the rights to the novel and offering to write, direct and star in the film so long as Cohn would send $55,000 to Boston within two hours. The money arrived, and the production went on as planned.


11:30 AM -- The Bribe (1949)
A sultry singer tries to tempt a federal agent from the straight-and-narrow.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton
BW-98 mins, CC,

Vincente Minnelli directed the pyrotechnical climax scene.


1:15 PM -- Scene of the Crime (1949)
A detective tries to solve a policeman's murder.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Van Johnson, Arlene Dahl, Gloria De Haven
BW-94 mins, CC,

Based on the story Smashing the Bookie Gang Marauders by John Bartlow Martin.


3:00 PM -- They Live by Night (1949)
After an unjust prison sentence, a young innocent gets mixed-up with hardened criminals and a violent escape.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva
BW-96 mins, CC,

Robert Mitchum lobbied unsuccessfully for the role of Chicamaw. He told Nicholas Ray that he was very familiar with bank robbers and chain gangs, and even cut and dyed his hair black (in the original treatment Chicamaw was an Indian). He was rejected because he had recently been nominated for an Oscar, and a supporting role was considered unworthy for a rising star.


4:45 PM -- The Threat (1949)
An escaped con kidnaps the people he thinks put him behind bars.
Dir: Felix Feist
Cast: Michael O'Shea, Virginia Grey, Charles McGraw
BW-66 mins,

Working title -- Terror.


6:00 PM -- White Heat (1949)
A government agent infiltrates a gang run by a mother-fixated psychotic.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien
BW-113 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Virginia Kellogg

If the surprise expressed by James Cagney's fellow inmates during "the telephone game" scene in the prison dining room appears real, it's because it is. Director Raoul Walsh didn't tell the rest of the cast what was about to happen, so Cagney's outburst caught them by surprise. In fact, Walsh himself didn't know what Cagney had planned; the scene as written wasn't working, and Cagney had an idea. He told Walsh to put the two biggest extras playing cons in the mess-hall next to him on the bench (he used their shoulders to boost himself onto the table) and to keep the cameras rolling no matter what.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: SUMMER OF DARKNESS



8:00 PM -- The Big Clock (1948)
A corrupt publisher tries to frame a career-driven editor for murder.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Sullivan
BW-95 mins, CC,

The novel on which this film is based was written by its author, poet Kenneth Fearing, as revenge on publisher Henry Luce and his "Time" magazine, where Fearing was obliged to work (for financial reasons) for many years. The fearsome Earl Janoth is often regarded as a libelous parody of Luce, although the book was given a rave review in "Time" when it was first published, as was the film.


9:45 PM -- The Window (1949)
A boy who always lies witnesses a murder but can't get anyone but the killer to believe him.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff
Cast: Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart
BW-73 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson

In the 1950 Academy Awards, Bobby Driscoll won the Oscar for the most outstanding juvenile actor of 1949, in response to his work in this film as well as Disney's tearjerker, So Dear to My Heart (1948). The award was not given every year, but only when exceptional acting was performed by a child.


11:15 PM -- Shadow On The Wall (1950)
A child is left mute by the sight of her stepmother's murder.
Dir: Patrick Jackson
Cast: Ann Sothern, Zachary Scott, Gigi Perreau
BW-84 mins, CC,

The first woman seen is a maid, Olga, who is played by none other than "The Beaver's" mother, Barbara Billingsly!


12:45 AM -- High Wall (1947)
Psychiatry provides the key to proving a veteran flyer innocent of his wife's murder.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Robert Taylor, Audrey Totter, Herbert Marshall
BW-99 mins, CC,

Based on the story/play by Alan R. Clark and Bradbury Foote.


2:30 AM -- The Long Goodbye (1973)
Detective Phillip Marlowe investigates shady characters involved in a long-lost friend's murder.
Dir: Robert Altman
Cast: Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden
C-112 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film is dedicated to Dan Blocker in the closing credits. The dedication states: "With Special Remembrance for Dan Blocker". Robert Altman, who had directed many early episodes of Bonanza (1959), had originally cast his friend Blocker in the role of Roger Wade, but he died before filming commenced. The role subsequently was filled by Sterling Hayden.


4:30 AM -- Marlowe (1969)
Detective Philip Marlowe probes the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in search of a woman's missing sister.
Dir: Paul Bogart
Cast: James Garner, Gayle Hunnicutt, Carroll O'Connor
C-96 mins, CC,

In the nightclub scene, Marlowe (James Garner) takes a sip of wine and smirking, judges it "impertinent. . .even baroque." These were the exact words that a character in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (published a year earlier) had used to describe Garner's butt in an excerpt from an obtuse film journal that appeared in the novel. Obviously, an inside joke and from Garner's smarmy delivery of what was otherwise a pointless remark, he was very much in on the gag.