TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 19, 2017 -- Star of the Month - Jane Wyman

[Staph]

Last edited Wed Jan 18, 2017, 11:55 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films with Herbert Marshall. He lost a leg in World War I -- see if you can tell that he isn't walking on two original legs. In prime time, it's more of Star of the Month Jane Wyman, with a selection of her films from the 1940s and 1950s. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- MELODY CRUISE (1933)
A playboy finds true love during an ocean cruise.
Dir: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Charlie Ruggles, Phil Harris, Helen Mack,
BW-76 mins,

Phil Harris' first film.


7:30 AM -- COCKEYED CAVALIERS (1934)
Two nitwits are mistaken for the king's physicians in medieval England.
Dir: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Thelma Todd,
BW-72 mins,

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey were originally scheduled to star in a college spoof entitled "Frat Heads", but with the success of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's The Devil's Brother (1933) and Roman Scandals (1933) with Eddie Cantor, RKO decided to make a costume period piece. All that remains of "Frat Heads" are a few publicity stills.


8:45 AM -- A WOMAN REBELS (1936)
A Victorian feminist has an illegitimate baby.
Dir: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Herbert Marshall, Elizabeth Allen,
BW-88 mins, CC,

The film lost $222,000 at the box office and was Katharine Hepburn's 3rd flop in a row, contributing to exhibitors declaring her "box office poison".


10:30 AM -- OUTCAST LADY (1934)
A spoiled rich girl sacrifices her reputation to preserve her dead husband's memory.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Constance Bennett, Herbert Marshall, Mrs. Patrick Campbell,
BW-77 mins,

The Hays office refused to sanction the movie under its original tile, "The Green Hat." Michael Arlen's original novel had acquired a salacious reputation, so MGM reluctantly changed it. They were not even allowed to use it as a screen story credit.


12:00 PM -- RIPTIDE (1934)
A chorus girl weds a British lord then falls for an old flame.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Herbert Marshall,
BW-92 mins, CC,

Snow was trucked in from the Sierra Mountains for use in the Alpine scene.


1:45 PM -- THE FLAME WITHIN (1935)
A lady psychiatrist falls for a patient's husband.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Ann Harding, Herbert Marshall, Maureen O'Sullivan,
BW-72 mins, CC,

Screenplay was written by director Edmund Goulding.


3:00 PM -- MAKE WAY FOR A LADY (1936)
A widower's daughter plays matchmaker for her father.
Dir: David Burton
Cast: Herbert Marshall, Anne Shirley, Gertrude Michael,
BW-65 mins,

Based on the novel Daddy and I by Elizabeth Jordan.


4:15 PM -- WOMAN AGAINST WOMAN (1938)
A divorcee decides she wants her husband back after he's re-married.
Dir: Robert B. Sinclair
Cast: Herbert Marshall, Virginia Bruce, Mary Astor,
BW-61 mins,

In the scene in the hotel room between Virginia Bruce and Herbert Marshall, she sings a bit of Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" - a song she had introduced in the musical Born to Dance (1936) two years earlier.


5:30 PM -- THE RAZOR'S EDGE (1946)
A young man's quest for spiritual peace threatens his position in society.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, John Payne,
BW-145 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Anne Baxter

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Clifton Webb, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day, Nathan Juran, Thomas Little and Paul S. Fox, and Best Picture

Fox purchased the screen rights to the novel in March 1945 for $250,000 plus 20% of the net profits. To avoid another $50,000 specified in the contract if the principal photography was not started by 2 February 1946, producer Darryl F. Zanuck provided for location shooting in the mountains around Denver, Colorado (the Himalayas in the film), in August 1945. The cast had not yet been set, so the character of Larry was played by a double and seen only in long-shot. Zanuck hoped to get Tyrone Power to star and delayed casting until Power was released from military service in January 1946.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: JANE WYMAN



8:00 PM -- HERE COMES THE GROOM (1951)
A foreign correspondent woos his former fiancee so he can maintain custody of some orphans he's adopted.
Dir: Frank Capra
Cast: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith,
BW-113 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening"

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Robert Riskin and Liam O'Brien

"In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" was the fourth song performed by Bing Crosby in a film that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Song.


10:00 PM -- MAGIC TOWN (1947)
A political pollster discovers the perfect cross-section of American tastes and fights to keep it that way.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: James Stewart, Jane Wyman, Kent Smith,
BW-103 mins, CC,

Final film of Donald Meek.


12:00 AM -- LARCENY, INC. (1942)
An ex-convict and his gang try to use a luggage store to front a bank robbery, but business keeps getting in the way.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, Broderick Crawford,
BW-95 mins, CC,

Woody Allen loved this film so much he remade it in 2000, he called it "Small Time Crooks".


1:45 AM -- THREE GUYS NAMED MIKE (1951)
A stewardess can't choose among three suitors.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Jane Wyman, Van Johnson, Howard Keel,
BW-90 mins, CC,

A young Barbara Billingsley shows up as the instructor at stewardess school. A wonderful tie to her turn as the Jive Lady in Airplane! (1980).


3:30 AM -- THE DOUGHGIRLS (1944)
Honeymooners in Washington get caught up in wartime crowding, with disastrous results.
Dir: James V. Kern
Cast: Ann Sheridan, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson,
BW-101 mins, CC,

The hotel bill Arthur is handed for $463.47 would be the equivalent of $6,250 in 2015. And that bill was for just one day.


5:30 AM -- MAKE YOUR OWN BED (1944)
Detectives masquerade as butler and maid to get the goods on a crook.
Dir: Peter Godfrey
Cast: Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Irene Manning,
BW-82 mins,

At the beginning of the film, Walter Whirtle's car has a "C" gas rationing sticker on the windshield. It was red in color and was the largest such gas rationing sticker as underneath the letter is a check-box list of 17 different professions entitled to use it - such as physicians, ministers, construction workers, and even embalmers.

[longship]

1. Larceny, Inc.

Anthony Quinn plays an incredible heavy in this film. Also, look for Jackie Gleason as a soda jerk in his (AFAIK) first casting in Hollywood.

A fun little film.