TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 17 -- Romance Films

[Staph]

This morning we have three more films with Star of the Month James Cagney. Most of the day features films from Teddington Studios outside London, run by Warner Brothers during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, to fulfill a British law requiring American studios to make a certain percentage of their films in Britain.

Tonight's films continue the Romance theme, including Wartime Romance (Casablanca (1942) and From Here to Eternity (1953)), Suspenceful Romance (Notorious (1946) and To Catch a Thief (1955)), Exotic Romance (Mogambo (1953) and tomorrow morning's Green Fire (1955)). Enjoy!


5:30am -- Other Men's Women (1931)
A railroad engineer falls for a co-worker's wife.
Cast: James Cagney, Mary Astor, Joan Blondell.
Dir: William A. Wellman.
BW-70 mins, TV-PG

Cagney's third film.


6:45am -- Picture Snatcher (1933)
An ex-con brings his crooked ways to a job as a news photographer.
Cast: James Cagney, Ralph Bellamy, Patricia Ellis.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon.
BW-77 mins, TV-PG

The scene of Danny photographing an execution is based an actual incident in which Chicago-based crime photographer Tom Howard (who incidentally, was the grandfather of 'George Wendt' ) surreptitiously snapped the famous photo of convicted murderess Ruth Snyder's 1927 execution in the electric chair at Sing Sing for the New York Daily News.


8:15am -- Frisco Kid (1935)
A shanghaied sailor turns himself into the king of San Francisco's rough-and-tumble Barbary Coast.
Cast: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Ricardo Cortez.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon.
BW-77 mins, TV-G

This is the movie that co-star Lily Damita was filming when she met future husband Errol Flynn. The film has no relation to The Frisco Kid (1979), starring Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford.


9:45am -- Something Always Happens (1934)
When a gasoline company president rejects his marketing proposal, an unemployed man joins the competition.
Cast: Ian Hunter, Nancy O'Neil, John Singer.
Dir: Michael Powell.
BW-69 mins, TV-G

An early "quota quickie" by Robert Powell, who later directed The Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948).


11:00am -- Crime Unlimited (1935)
A young police academy recruit tries to break up a gang of thieves.
Cast: Esmond Knight, Lilli Palmer, Cecil Parker.
Dir: Ralph Ince.
BW-71 mins, TV-G

Esmond Knight served in the Royal Navy on the Prince of Wales during World War II and lost one eye and was almost totally blinded in the other during an engagement against The Bismark. This didn't stop him later portraying the Captain of the Prince of Wales in Sink the Bismarck! (1960).


12:15pm -- Man of the Moment (1935)
A fortune-hunter saves a young woman from drowning, risking his marriage to an heiress.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Laura La Plante, Margaret Lockwood.
Dir: Monty Banks.
BW-81 mins, TV-G

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was a confirmed Anglophile and spent a good deal of his time in Britain, where he was well known in the highest social circles. It has been claimed that Fairbanks was one of the naked men in the incriminating photos which were used as evidence in the divorce trial of Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll in 1963.


1:45pm -- Crown vs. Stevens (1936)
An ex-dancer marries a rich man hoping to pay off a loan shark.
Cast: Beatrix Thomson, Patric Knowles, Googie Withers.
Dir: Michael Powell.
BW-66 mins, TV-G

Patric Knowles is a familiar face to classic movie fans -- he played Will Scarlett in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn as Robin Hood) and one of the Roddy McDowell and Maureen O'Hara's brothers in How Green Was My Valley (1941).


3:00pm -- The Peterville Diamond (1942)
A husband's attempt to quiet his nagging wife with jewelry leads to disaster.
Cast: Anne Crawford, Donald Stewart, Renee Houston.
Dir: William Forde.
BW-85 mins, TV-G

Fourth lead, Oliver Wakefield, has been described as an English comedian with an American sense of humor. This specialist in making nonsense sound philosophical - and vice versa - was born to be a comedian. Who else in the world can stand before an audience and announce, truthfully, that he was born in Zululand, South Africa? Only another Zululander, and at last count there weren't very many Zulu comedians making the rounds in show business.


4:30pm -- The Dark Tower (1943)
A romantic triangle involving a hypnotist and two trapeze artists threatens to destroy a circus.
Cast: Ben Lyon, Anne Crawford, David Farrar.
Dir: John Harlow.
BW-93 mins, TV-G

While working as casting director at 20th Century-Fox, Ben Lyon discovered and named Marilyn Monroe.


6:15pm -- Hotel Reserve (1946)
An Austrian refugee tries to figure out which guest at a French resort is a spy.
Cast: James Mason, Lucie Mannheim, Raymond Lovell.
Dir: Victor Hanbury, Lance Comfort, Mutz Greenbaum.
BW-79 mins, TV-G

An avowed pacifist, James Mason refused to perform military service during the Second World War, a stance that caused his family to break with him for many years.


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: ROMANCE FILMS


8:00pm -- Casablanca (1942)
An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-103 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Arthur Edeson, Best Film Editing -- Owen Marks, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

No one knew right up until the filming of the last scene whether Ilsa would end up with Rick or Laszlo. During the course of the picture, when Ingrid Bergman asked director Michael Curtiz with which man her character was in love, she was told to "play it in between". Since the ending was not the final scene shot, there are some scenes where she *was* aware of how everything would turn out, and these include the scene in the black market with Rick and the scene in the Blue Parrot where Ferrari offers the Laszlos one exit visa.


10:00pm -- From Here To Eternity (1953)
Enlisted men in Hawaii fight for love and honor on the eve of World War II.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann.
BW-118 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Frank Sinatra, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Donna Reed, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey, Best Director -- Fred Zinnemann, Best Film Editing -- William A. Lyon, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Daniel Taradash, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Montgomery Clift, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Burt Lancaster, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Deborah Kerr, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Morris Stoloff and George Duning

The title phrase comes originally from Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Gentlemen-Rankers", about soldiers of the British Empire who had "lost way" and were "damned from here to eternity".


12:15am -- Notorious (1946)
A U.S. agent recruits a German expatriate to infiltrate a Nazi spy ring in Brazil.
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock.
BW-101 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Ben Hecht

The legendary on-again, off-again kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was intended to flaunt then-current film code regulations that restricted the length of kisses to only a couple of seconds each. Both Grant and Bergman found the scene quite problematic, according to Alfred Hitchcock, because of the complicated blocking that needed to be remembered in the several long takes that it took to shoot it.


2:00am -- To Catch a Thief (1955)
A retired cat burglar fights to clear himself of a series of Riviera robberies committed in his style.
Cast: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock.
C-106 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Burks

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Hal Pereira, J. McMillan Johnson, Sam Comer and Arthur Krams, and Best Costume Design, Color -- Edith Head

Cary Grant had announced his retirement from acting in February 1953, stating that since the rise of Method actors like Marlon Brando most people were no longer interested in seeing him. He was also angry at the way Charles Chaplin had been treated by the HUAAC. He was lured out of his retirement to make this film, and thereafter continued acting for a further 11 years.


4:00am -- Mogambo (1953)
In this remake of Red Dust, an African hunter is torn between a lusty showgirl and a married woman.
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly.
Dir: John Ford.
C-116 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ava Gardner, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Grace Kelly

When the film was dubbed into Spanish, Francisco Franco's censors found the adultery between Victor Marswell (Clark Gable) and Linda Nordley (Grace Kelly) immoral, so they changed the dialog to make them incestuous siblings.

[Staph]

1. History of Teddington Studios

For close to a century, Teddington Studios has been an important source of production for the entertainment industry, with an output ranging from silent films to contemporary television shows.

The studio, located in Teddington in South-West London, had its origins in the early 20th century when stockbroker Henry Chinnery, the owner of a property in Teddington called Weir House, permitted local filmmakers to use his greenhouse as an impromptu studio. Within a few years studio facilities had been built, and from 1916 to 1922 a company called Master Films produced full-length features at Teddington.

In 1931 filmmaker E.G. Norman and actor Henry Edwards bought the property and renamed it Teddington Film Studios Limited. Facilities were expanded to include up-to-date cameras, lighting and recording equipment, along with workshops, dressing rooms and other amenities. The company had produced only one film, Stranglehold (1931), when Warner Bros. leased the studio as its British base later in 1931.

Under the title Warner Bros. First National Productions Ltd., the American company began producing "quota quickies," low-budget films with short shooting schedules that were made to meet the quota of British-made films required by the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927. (The act, created to diminish the dominance of American-made films in The United Kingdom, was modified by the Cinematograph Films Act 1938 and further acts, and eventually repealed by the Films Act of 1960.)

In 1934 Warners bought the studio and initiated some major rebuilding. The facility thrived throughout the 1930s, producing a long line of thrillers, crime dramas and "women's pictures," along with occasional musicals. Among the actors who appeared in Teddington films of the period were Rex Harrison, Margaret Lockwood and Ida Lupino. Errol Flynn was featured in Murder at Monte Carlo (1934), a Teddington movie credited with bringing him to the attention of Warner Bros. executives back in the States.

The distinguished English director Michael Powell had some of his early experience in Warners' "quota quickies." Other directors, from both sides of the Atlantic, included Monty Banks, John Daumery, Leslie Hiscott, Ralph Ince, John Rawlins and Frank Richardson. Many of Britain's most accomplished scriptwriters worked on these cheaply made movies, including Guy Bolton, John Dighton, Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder, Reginald Purdell and A.R. Rawlinson.

As one of the few British film studios that managed to continue operating during World War II, Teddington produced a series of patriotic films designed to help the war effort. In July 1944 a German rocket exploded on the property, destroying several buildings and killing three employees including the American studio manager Doc Salomon.

At the war's end, reconstruction began, with some buildings being completely rebuilt. The studios were formally reopened in 1948 and attracted such noted film actors as Richard Burton, Joan Greenwood, Peter Lorre, Burgess Meredith, Kenneth More and Richard Todd.

After a decline in British filmmaking in the 1950s, Teddington rebounded when it was bought for use as a television studio by Associated British Corporation (ABC) in 1958. Among the studio's most famous television productions was The Avengers, which began filming at Teddington in 1960. In 1968, ABC merged with the London company Rediffusion to form Thames Television, which based itself at Teddington and, during the following two decades, created an impressive array of distinguished TV productions.

Today Teddington is a part of the Pinewood Studios Group and, with its modern, multi-stage facility, provides a production site for various companies including the BBC.

by Roger Fristoe

[CBHagman]

2. Interesting view of romance.

Notice that adultery, in its own little Production Code way, is a theme in at least three of these movies. C.S. Lewis, call your office!