TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 3, 2014 -- What's On Tonight - Doris Day's 90th Birthday

[Staph]

Throught the day and evening, TCM is celebrating the birthday of Doris Day, born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff on April 3, 1924, in Cincinnati, Ohio. She now lives in Carmel, California, and actively works for the Doris Day Pet Foundation. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- I'll See You in My Dreams (1951)
Songwriter Gus Kahn fights to make his name, then has to fight again to survive the Depression.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Doris Day, Danny Thomas, Frank Lovejoy
BW-110 mins, CC,

Doris Day and Danny Thomas recorded a Columbia 10-inch LP featuring eight film songs which climbed to number one on the "Billboard" pop albums chart.


8:00 AM -- Lover Come Back (1961)
An ad exec in disguise courts his pretty female competitor.
Dir: Delbert Mann
Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall
C-107 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning

The original ending had Carol and Jerry getting drunk on VIP and checking into a hotel. Doris Day insisted the concluding events be rewritten, having Carol and Jerry get married in their drunken state before going to bed.


10:00 AM -- Billy Rose's Jumbo (1962)
The daughter of a circus owner fights to save her father from a takeover spearheaded by the man she loves.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Doris Day, Stephen Boyd, Jimmy Durante
C-128 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated
Oscar Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment
George Stoll

This was Doris Day's last appearance in a full-on musical - and one of the last of the lavishly-budgeted MGM musicals as well. Despite Day being ranked the #1 box office star at the time of its release, it was widely considered a box office failure. This musical also marked the end of Busby Berkeley's movie career.


12:15 PM -- Love Me Or Leave Me (1955)
True story of torch singer Ruth Etting's struggle to escape the gangster who made her a star.
Dir: Charles Vidor
Cast: Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell
C-122 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Daniel Fuchs

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Cagney, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart, Best Sound, Recording -- Wesley C. Miller (M-G-M), Best Music, Original Song -- Nicholas Brodszky (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "I'll Never Stop Loving You", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Percy Faith and George Stoll

Doris Day wrote in her autobiography that she hesitated before accepting the lead in this film. Ruth Etting was a kept woman who clawed her way up from seamy Chicago nightclubs to the Ziegfeld Follies. It would require her to drink, wear scant, sexy costumes and to string along a man she didn't love in order to further her career. There was also a certain vulgarity about Ruth Etting that she didn't want to play. Producer Joe Pasternak convinced Day to accept the role because she would give the part some dignity that would play away from the vulgarity.


2:30 PM -- April in Paris (1952)
A bureaucrat's mistake sends a chorus girl to Paris representing American theatre in place of a star actress.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin
C-100 mins, CC,

Doris Day writes in her autobiography that she only encountered trouble or tension on two of her Warner Bros. films, "Young at Heart" and "April in Paris". On "Paris", she writes that leading man Ray Bolger and director David Butler clashed early on, with Butler accusing Bolger of trying to steal scenes away from Day. Doris says that, being a relative newcomer to films, she was unaware of Bolger's tricks and managed to stay out of the line of fire. I've heard similar stories about Judy Garland and the old hands (Bolger, Jack Haley and Bert Lahr) on the set of The Wizard of Oz (1939).


4:15 PM -- Calamity Jane (1953)
The Wild West heroine helps bring a star attraction to Deadwood and finds love.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn McLerie
C-101 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Sammy Fain (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for the song "Secret Love".

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- William A. Mueller (Warner Bros. Sound Department), and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Ray Heindorf

Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1970s, Doris Day recalled seeing early dailies from this film, in which she was stomped about the set in buckskins and leather, speaking in a high, girlishly feminine voice. She immediately brought her line readings down several registers, so she'd sound as tough as she looked.


6:00 PM -- The Tunnel Of Love (1958)
A married couple endures endless red tape when they try to adopt a child.
Dir: Gene Kelly
Cast: Doris Day, Richard Widmark, Gig Young
BW-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Doris Day wrote that her manager/husband Martin Melcher was terribly concerned over the box-office failure of this film and It Happened to Jane (1959). Their failures caused Day to drop out of the Top Ten Box Office Stars. Day and Melcher had words about him hustling her into almost any film for the money instead of waiting to find good scripts that would have produced better results.


7:39 PM -- Stopover In Hollywood (1963)
This short film takes the viewer to various landmarks and attractions in Hollywood, CA.
Dir: Will Williams
Cast: Lori Lyons, Tony Winhall,
C-16 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DORIS DAY'S 90TH BIRTHDAY



8:00 PM -- The Thrill Of It All (1963)
A doctor tries to cope with his wife's newfound stardom as an advertising pitch woman.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Doris Day, James Garner, Arlene Francis
C-108 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The ad agency's viewing room has both color and black-and-white TVs side by side. This was common at ad agencies in the 1960s to confirm that color commercials would also be acceptable on black-and-white sets.


10:00 PM -- Move Over, Darling (1963)
A husband who believes his wife has disappeared is in a for a big surprise.
Dir: Michael Gordon
Cast: Doris Day, James Garner, Polly Bergen
C-103 mins, CC,

Doris Day proved what a trouper she truly was when James Garner accidentally cracked two of her ribs (during the massage scene, when he pulls her off of Polly Bergen). Garner wasn't even aware that Day was injured until the next day, when he felt the bandage while putting his arms around her. Doris Day wrote in her 1975 autobiography that because of her cracked ribs, she was so mummified with tape and bandages under her costumes that it was difficult to breathe and painful to laugh.


12:00 AM -- Send Me No Flowers (1964)
When he mistakenly thinks he's dying, a hypochondriac tries to choose his wife's next husband.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall
C-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Although many people think Doris Day and Rock Hudson co-starred as often as Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, this was only their third - and final - appearance as a screen team. Tony Randall also appeared with them in all three films: Pillow Talk (1959), Lover Come Back (1961) and this.


1:43 AM -- Every Girl's Dream (1966)
Nancy Bernard, the 1966 Maid of Cotton, is given a studio tour for MGM in this short film.
C-9 mins,


2:00 AM -- With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)
A widow and a widower have to contend with hostile children when they fall in love.
Dir: Howard Morris
Cast: Doris Day, Brian Keith, Pat Carroll
C-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The final scenes of this film feature Doris Day teary-eyed, wearing a housecoat and slippers. When her husband of 17 years Martin Melcher died suddenly just after production was completed, gossip magazines at the time used stills of Day from this movie, looking distraught and out-of-sorts, to accompany their articles about Melcher's death.


3:38 AM -- Glass Bottom Boat In Catalina (1966)
This promotional short provides a behind-the-scenes look at the shooting location of Catalina for "The Glass Bottom Boat" (1966)
Cast: Arthur Godfrey,
C-5 mins,


3:53 AM -- Midnight Lace - Fashion Featurette (1960)
Doris Day presents fashions designed by Irene in this promotional short film for "Midnight Lace" (1960).
C-5 mins,


4:00 AM -- Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1960)
A drama critic and his family try to adjust to life in the country.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Beginning her feature-film career portraying Katharine Hepburn's mother in Little Women (1933), Spring Byington closed her movie years playing Doris Day's mother in this film.

[brooklynboy49]

1. Doris Day, Queen of Fluff

She made some very entertaining movies, most notably Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back, and she was very good at what she did. Not only with Rock Hudson, but with James Garner as well. But so many, too many, of her movies were busts. Other than that string of classics I just referred to, the only other movie of note she made was Love Me or Leave Me, she was very good in that. She didn't really add much to The Man Who Knew Too Much. Very limited range. She could work a good comedy script, but wasn't given many to work with. Calamity Jane? With Six You Get Eggroll? Utter crap. Even her TV show was a bust.

I try to remember her for Pillow Talk and the like, movies I still rewatch to this day, feel good movis that are loaded with laughs. And I try to forget all the busts. Arguably the most overrated actress of her generation.

Just my personal opinion.

[bananas]

2. Doris Day - Que Sera Sera

Perhaps her most well-known song.

[CBHagman]

3. "Move Over, Darling" with DU favorite James Garner is fun.