TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 28, 2013 -- What's On Tonight -- Directed by Martin Ritt

[Staph]

It's a day full of twins (or amazing look-alikes) and an evening of films directed by Martin Ritt. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Kissin' Cousins (1964)
A singing military officer gets mixed up with his look-alike hillbilly cousin.
Dir: Gene Nelson
Cast: Elvis Presley, Arthur O'Connell, Glenda Farrell
C-96 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Elvis Presley supposedly loathed the "strawberry blond" wig he had to wear as the hillbilly cousin in this film, in part because it made him look as he had before deciding to dye his hair black in the mid-fifties.


7:45 AM -- Dead Ringer (1964)
A woman murders her rich twin and tries to take her place.
Dir: Paul Henreid
Cast: Bette Davis, Karl Malden, Peter Lawford
BW-116 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

The original script was written in 1944 and sat on the shelf at Warner Brothers until 1963 when at long last it was finally in production.


9:45 AM -- House Of Numbers (1957)
A man tries to spring his twin brother from prison.
Dir: Russell Rouse
Cast: Jack Palance, Harold J. Stone, Edward Platt
BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on a novel by Jack Finney.


11:30 AM -- A Stolen Life (1946)
A twin takes her deceased sister's place as wife of the man they both love.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Bette Davis, Glenn Ford, Dane Clark
BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- William C. McGann (visual) and Nathan Levinson (audible)

Because of her constant insistence for better productions to work on, and an overall better atmosphere on set, Jack L. Warner asked Bette Davis to produce the film. It would be the first and only time she would be able to do this. Reportedly, she was so overworked and also intrigued by this job that she started a relationship with the director of this film to iron out her mind.


1:30 PM -- Twice Blessed (1945)
Twin sisters set a parent trap to reunite their divorced mother and father.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Preston Foster, Gail Patrick, Lee Wilde
BW-76 mins, TV-G,

Twin sisters Lee and Lyn Wilde, who play the twins in this film, married brothers Thomas and James Cathcart (respectively).


3:00 PM -- Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944)
A college boy has to cope with a pair of beautiful twins.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Fay Holden
BW-107 mins, TV-G, CC,

MGM originally intended to continue the Hardy family pictures without Mickey Rooney, who was overseas in the Army. The New York Times reported in February 1945 that author Booth Tarkington had been hired by MGM to write a film story to feature Lewis Stone, Fay Holden and Sara Haden in their usual roles. The film was never made and Mickey Rooney was back by the time the next Hardy family film went before the cameras.


5:00 PM -- Two-Faced Woman (1941)
A woman pretends to be her own twin sister to win back her straying husband.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Constance Bennett
BW-90 mins, TV-G, CC,

Greta Garbo's last film.


6:45 PM -- Penrod and His Twin Brother (1938)
A young boy's lookalike lands him in hot water.
Dir: William McGann
Cast: Billy Mauch, Bobby Mauch, Frank Craven
BW-63 mins, TV-G, CC,

You have probably seen the Mauch twins before, in The Prince And The Pauper (1937), with Errol Flynn.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DIRECTED BY MARTIN RITT



8:00 PM -- Edge of the City (1957)
An army deserter and a black dock worker join forces against a corrupt union official.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden
BW-86 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Expanded from the 1955 hour-long live TV play "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall," broadcast on "Philco Television Playhouse (1948)," also with Sidney Poitier in the role of Tommy. Martin Ritt's first theatrical film.


9:30 PM -- Norma Rae (1979)
A young single mother and her co-worker try to unionize the milll where they work.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Sally Field, Beau Bridges, Ron Leibman
C-115 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Sally Field, and Best Music, Original Song -- David Shire (music) and Norman Gimbel (lyrics) for the song "It Goes Like It Goes".

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., and Best Picture

The movie is based on a true life union organizing campaign at J.P. Stevens Mill in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. The real life Norma Rae is named Crystal Lee Sutton. The union organizer, Reuben Warshowsky, is based on Eli Zivkovich. (In real life, Zivkovich was a 55-year-old former West Virginia coal miner, not a New Yorker, as depicted in the film.) In 1974, thanks to the efforts of Crystal Lee Sutton and Eli Zivkovich, workers at J.P. Stevens Mill voted to join the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. However, it still took 10 years to get a union contract at J.P. Stevens after the workers won the election. Some real-life events from Crystal Lee Sutton's story are re-created verbatim in the movie, including the famous scene where Norma Rae holds up the "UNION" sign and the plant workers shut down their machines, and the following scene where Norma Rae wakes her children to tell them about her relationships with their fathers. Crystal Lee Sutton did both in real life.


11:30 PM -- Sounder (1972)
Black sharecroppers during the Depression fight to get their children a decent education.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks
C-105 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Winfield, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Cicely Tyson, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Lonne Elder III

Cicely Tyson commented in a TCM interview that director Martin Ritt's cinematographer (principal cameraman), while shooting the famous "homecoming sequence" with Tyson and co-star Paul Winfield, was so moved by their performances that he was certain he missed framing the action properly in the shots and respectfully asked them to do the difficult scene again. They obliged, but a later examination of daily rushes revealed that they got shot and acting perfect the first time, and take 1 was a print.


1:30 AM -- The Front (1976)
A bookie agrees to put his name on scripts by blacklisted writers.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi
C-95 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Walter Bernstein

Several people involved in this film were themselves on the McCarthy-era blacklists that it is about: director Martin Ritt; writer Walter Bernstein; and actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Lloyd Gough and Joshua Shelley.


3:15 AM -- The Outrage (1964)
A Mexican bandit's crimes receive wildly different interpretations from four witnesses.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom
BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Claire Bloom previously played her role in the U.S. stage version of "Rashomon".


5:00 AM -- The MGM Story (1950)
A collection of MGM previews with an introduction by Lionel Barrymore.
Dir: Herman Hoffman
C-57 mins, TV-G,

[CBHagman]

1. "The Front."

A very watchable film, one that deserves to be better known, though I'll confess Zero Mostel is a bit much for me to take.

But he was playing a variation on his own story, and they even incorporated elements of that into the script.