TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 21 -- Primetime Feature -- The Rock

[Staph]

Happy birthday, J. Carrol Naish, born on this day in 1896 (according to IMDB) or 1897 (according to Wikipedia). He was of Irish descent, but he never used his dialect skills to play Irishmen, explaining, "When the part of an Irishman comes along, nobody ever thinks of me." Instead, he portrayed myriad other ethnic groups on screen: Latino, Native American, East Asian, Polynesian, Middle Eastern/North African, South Asian, Eastern European and Mediterranean.

Then this evening, we have a sextet of films about Alcatraz, including Clint Eastwood attempting to Escape From Alcatraz (1979), and Burt Lancaster as the Birdman Of Alcatraz (1962). Enjoy!


5:45am -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: John Leguizamo (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-28 mins, TV-PG

John Leguizamo was accepted into Lee Strasberg's Actors' Studio and studied with the master for one day before Strasberg died. "I have that affect on people," Leguizamo quipped.


6:15am -- Tiger Shark (1932)
A tuna fisherman marries a woman in love with another man.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Richard Arlen, Zita Johann, Leila Bennett
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-77 mins, TV-PG

Zita Johann is best remembered as the woman that the Mummy (played by Boris Karloff) loved in the originial The Mummy (1932).


7:45am -- Crooner (1932)
A saxophone player rises to fame as a singing star.
Cast: David Manners, Ann Dvorak, Ken Murray, J. Carroll Naish
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
BW-67 mins, TV-G

David Manners also appeared in The Mummy (1932) as archeologist Frank Whemple, and in Dracula (1931 -- the Bela Lugosi version) as John Harker.


9:00am -- The Hatchet Man (1932)
When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Dudley Digges, Leslie Fenton
Dir: William A. Wellman
BW-74 mins, TV-14

A well-made and exciting film, done in "yellowface".


10:15am -- It's Tough To Be Famous (1932)
Fame complicates a naval hero's private life.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Brian, Harold Minjir, Emma Dunn
Dir: Alfred E. Green
BW-79 mins, TV-G

Naish's scenes were actually deleted from this film.


11:45am -- Two Seconds (1932)
In the last moments of his life, a criminal reviews the circumstances that led him to death row.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Vivienne Osborne, Guy Kibbee, Preston Foster
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
BW-67 mins, TV-PG

The premise behind this film was previously used in The Last Moment (1928).


1:00pm -- Captured! (1933)
While in a POW camp, a man discovers his best friend was his wife's lover.
Cast: Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Paul Lukas, Margaret Lindsay
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
BW-69 mins, TV-G

The airplane escape sequence at the end used 75 biplanes and 1,500 people, and was filmed at night.


2:15pm -- No Other Woman (1933)
A newly rich couple finds wealth drives them apart.
Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Bickford, Gwili Andre, Eric Linden
Dir: J. Walter Ruben
BW-58 mins, TV-G

The original play, "Just a Woman," opened in New York City, New York, USA on 17 January 1916 and had 136 performances.


3:15pm -- Little Big Shot (1935)
Small-time hoods turn nursemaid when a gangster's daughter is orphaned.
Cast: Sybil Jason, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong, Edward Everett Horton
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-72 mins, TV-G

Sybil Jason stated in her autobiography that director Michael Curtiz filmed some scenes at a real Hollywood orphanage, and (in the interest of realism) cast real orphans as extras. Among them, Jason remembered, was a young Marilyn Monroe, long before her first "recognized" role. This has not yet been confirmed by film historians and Monroe biographers.


4:30pm -- Absolute Quiet (1936)
Murder follows when a plane filled with shady characters is forced to land on a tycoon's ranch.
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Irene Hervey, Raymond Walburn, Stuart Erwin
Dir: George B. Seitz
BW-70 mins, TV-PG

Naish was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the first for his role in the 1943 film, Sahara, then for his performance in the 1945 film, A Medal for Benny, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture.


5:45pm -- The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1936)
Two brothers love the same woman at a perilous Indian outpost.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Patric Knowles, Henry Stephenson
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-116 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Assistant Director -- Jack Sullivan

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Score -- Leo F. Forbstein (head of department) with Score by Max Steiner, and Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD)

The original script used the real-life siege of a British fort at Cawnpore (and subsequent massacre of its survivors) during the Sepoy Rebellion - a nationwide mutiny of Indian soldiers in the British army - as the reason for the famous Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava during the Crimean War. However, shortly before the film was started, someone pointed out that the Sepoy Rebellion took place three years AFTER the Crimean War. The fort's name was hurriedly changed to Chukoti, and instead of mutinous Indian soldiers, the besiegers were changed to tribesmen of a fictitious warlord called Surat Khan.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: THE ROCK


8:00pm -- Point Blank (1967)
A gangster plots an elaborate revenge on the wife and partner who did him dirty.
Cast: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor
Dir: John Boorman
C-92 mins, TV-14

This was the first major picture to film on location at Alcatraz Island after the closure of the federal prison in 1963.


10:00pm -- Escape From Alcatraz (1979)
A prison lifer attempts to tunnel his way out of the inescapable island fortress.
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Roberts Blossom, Jack Thibeau
Dir: Don Siegel
C-112 mins, TV-MA

The television show, "MythBusters" (2003) proved that this escape worked (or was at least plausible). They recreated the entire escape right down to using the same materials to which the cons had access. They even used the same type of raincoats from which the boat was made. They successfully crossed the bay and reached the shore in exactly the spot that the cons were supposed to have reached.


12:00am -- Seven Miles From Alcatraz (1942)
Escaped convicts land at a lighthouse being used by Nazi spies.
Cast: James Craig, Bonita Granville, Frank Jenks, Cliff Edwards
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
BW-62 mins, TV-PG

The name on the crate the escapees were clinging to in San Francisco Bay is "H. Schlom". Herman Schlom is the film's producer.


1:15am -- Experiment Alcatraz (1951)
A doctor testing drugs on convicts gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
Cast: John Howard, Joan Dixon, Walter Kingsford, Lynne Carter
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
BW-59 mins, TV-PG

John Howard played Bulldog Drummond, a suave British private detective, in seven films, but for me, he will always be George Kittredge, Katharine Hepburn's fiance in The Philadelphia Story (1940).


2:15am -- Birdman Of Alcatraz (1962)
True story of Robert Stroud, the prison lifer who became an expert on birds.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter, Betty Field
Dir: John Frankenheimer
BW-149 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Burt Lancaster, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Telly Savalas, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Thelma Ritter, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey

Robert Stroud really should be known as the "Birdman of Leavenworth," since it was there that he kept his birds and did his research. He was not actually allowed any birds during his time at Alcatraz.


5:00am -- Alcatraz Island (1937)
A prison inmate is framed for killing a con who once tried to kidnap his daughter.
Cast: Ann Sheridan, John Litel, Mary Maguire, Gordon Oliver
Dir: William McGann
BW-63 mins, TV-G

This was the first film set in the prison on Alcatraz Island, which had opened in 1934.

[Staph]

1. The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)

No one says a director and his leading man have to get along in order to make a terrific movie, but it's a lot easier if at least one of them is capable of behaving like a mature person during the shoot. Though Errol Flynn was on the cusp of major stardom when he and Michael Curtiz teamed up for Warner Bros.' horse and sand epic, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Flynn would later contend that the picture was the most miserable experience of his career...never mind that his on-set hijinks also drove his co-star, Olivia de Havilland, to distraction. Even with Flynn acting like a love-struck nine year-old, however, it's Curtiz who forever stereotyped himself as a tyrant of a director.

History students should put away their notepads while watching this one. Michel Jacoby's narrative has virtually nothing to do with the very real Crimean War story it's theoretically based upon, outside of the presence of a lot of galloping horses and falling soldiers. In fact, the British Lords who were responsible for one of the deadliest blunders in all of military history never get so much as a finger pointed at them during the movie. That would ruin the phony heroism.

Flynn and Patric Knowles play Geoffrey and Perry Vickers, sibling British soldiers who have to contend with a murderous (and purely fictional) Indian Chieftain named Surat Khan (C. Henry Gordon.) When Geoffrey is sent to Arabia to secure thousands of horses for the British, he meets up with his long-time fiancée, Elsa Campbell (Olivia de Havilland.) Unfortunately, Elsa has hooked up with Perry in the interim, but still feels she should marry Geoffrey.

Later, Khan attacks and destroys Geoffrey's garrison, but Geoffrey and Elsa manage to get away unscathed. Later, in what would be viewed as a willfully idiotic move if this weren't an Errol Flynn picture, Geoffrey more or less tricks his division into a revenge attack on Khan and thousands of his followers. Still, the reckless confrontation is jolting enough to make you throw your popcorn in the air.

Curtiz would go on to direct such classic pictures as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938; also starring Flynn), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and Mildred Pierce (1945). But he was less than loved by the people who worked for him, and Flynn openly hated his guts. Their initial falling out stemmed from Curtiz's insistence on taking the protective tips off of some swords during a big fight scene in Captain Blood (1935). He thought the performers' reactions ­ including Flynn's - would be more realistic that way.

Flynn complains extensively about Curtiz, and The Charge of the Light Brigade in particular, in his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways: "Shortly after the company arrived (at the Bishop, California location), the hotel we stayed at burned down. Afterwards we were quartered poorly, and for the whole five months period of the screen work we froze."

He goes on to say that the cast, wearing flimsy costumes, often huddled with each other to combat the bitter desert cold, and they regularly had to withstand stinging dust storms...this while Curtiz badgered the actors into action from beneath a protective layer of winter clothing. Flynn claimed a typical morning salutation from Curtiz was along the lines of, "Get your ass over here. We're behind schedule." On several occasions, the two men almost came to blows.

But Flynn himself was no saint. For whatever reasons, he thought the best way to convey his sexual attraction to de Havilland would be to pull schoolboy pranks on her. At various times during filming, de Havilland found her dressing room door nailed shut, was slapped with a rusty flyswatter, and discovered a rubber snake hidden in her pants. Flynn would also stand behind the camera and make faces at her while she played dramatic scenes, and, at one point, deemed it necessary to load her chair with a whoopee cushion.

De Havilland was able to resist Flynn's "charms." "If only he had been considerate," she once said. "If only he had known to woo and win me! He didn't need to do childish, unfair things to insure his own romantic effectiveness. He disappointed me on more than one level. I had idealistic notions of behavior and his was hardly the heroic manner he offered the world on screen."

Warner Bros. spared no expense on The Charge of the Light Brigade. Its $1,200,000 budget was enormous at the time, and Curtiz (and his second unit director, B. Reeves "Breezy" Eason) certainly made the most of it. The final, suicidal charge is truly one of the great action sequences in all of movie history, a dazzling display of camera placement, precise editing, and stunt-man fortitude. But Curtiz so abused the use of trip-wires in pulling supposedly wounded horses to the ground during the sequence, animals were regularly breaking their necks and legs. Many of them had to be shot.

Flynn, to his endless credit, was so appalled by what he was seeing he secretly contacted the ASPCA and implored them to come to the location. Curtiz's cruel methods (which, it should be noted, he didn't invent) would forever change the handling of animals on movie sets.

Perhaps the only charming thing that can be said about the Hungarian-born Curtiz is that he often humorously mangled the English language. His Charge of the Light Brigade cry of "Bring on the empty horses!" (meaning, "Bring out the horses with no riders on them") later served as the title to one of Niven's immensely entertaining memoirs.

Director: Michael Curtiz
Executive Producer: Hal B. Wallis
Associate Producer: Samuel Bischoff
Screenplay: Michel Jacoby and Rowland Leigh (based on an original story by Michel Jacoby)
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Editor: George Amy
Music: Max Steiner
Art Director: John Hughes
Sound: C.A. Riggs
Special Effects: Fred Jackman and Hans F. Koenekamp
Director of Horse Action: B. Reeves Eason
Principal Cast: Errol Flynn (Maj. Geoffrey Vickers), Olivia de Havilland (Elsa Campbell), Patric Knowles (Capt. Perry Vickers), Henry Stephenson (Sir Charles Macefield), Nigel Bruce (Sir Benjamin Warrenton), Donald Crisp (Col. Campbell), David Niven (Capt. Randall), C. Henry Gordon (Surat Khan ), G.P. Huntley, Jr. (Maj. Jowett).
BW-116m. Closed captioning.

by Paul Tatara