TCM Schedule for Friday, June 6, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Pirate Pictures

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, we're learning about all sorts of brides for the month of June. And in prime time, it's the beginning of this month's Friday Night Spotlight, Pirate Pictures, beginning with a silent version of Rafael Sabatini's The Sea Hawk (1924). Enjoy!



7:00 AM -- Bride By Mistake (1944)
An heiress poses as her own secretary to screen out fortune-hunting suitors.
Dir: Richard Wallace
Cast: Alan Marshal, Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt
BW-81 mins, CC,

Written by Henry and Phoebe Ephron, parents of Amy, Delia, Hallie and Nora Ephron.


8:30 AM -- Forsaking All Others (1934)
A woman pursues the wrong man for almost twenty years.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable
BW-83 mins, CC,

The screenplay was written for Loretta Young, George Brent and Joel McCrea, but later was given to Gable, Crawford, and Montgomery.


10:00 AM -- Libeled Lady (1936)
When an heiress sues a newspaper, the editor hires a reporter to compromise her.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy
BW-98 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Jean Harlow and William Powell were a couple at the time the film was made. She desperately wanted the part of Connie Allenbury (Myrna Loy's role) so that she and Powell's character would end up together. The director and MGM execs would not heed her demand, however. They always intended on the film being another Powell/Loy vehicle and knew that audiences wanted Powell and Loy to end up together in their films. Harlow was very disappointed but had already signed on to the film and had no choice but to play the role of Gladys Benton. In the end, she liked the film and agreed that she was more suited to the role of Gladys. When Harlow was entombed in Glendale's Forest Lawn Cemetery in 1937, she was dressed in the gown she wore in this film.


11:45 AM -- They Wanted to Marry (1937)
A photojournalist and his pet pigeon crash a society party and find love.
Dir: Lew Landers
Cast: Betty Furness, Gordon Jones, E. E. Clive
BW-60 mins,

In the photo Jim takes inside the casino, the woman standing next to Mr. Hunter appears to be Bess Flowers, probably the most well-known and prolific extra to work in Hollywood films.


1:00 PM -- Law of the Tropics (1941)
A night-club singer on the lam marries a South American rubber planter to escape the law.
Dir: Ray Enright
Cast: Constance Bennett, Jeffrey Lynn, Regis Toomey
BW-76 mins,

Miriam Hopkins turned down the role of Joan Madison, eventually played by Constance Bennett.


2:30 PM -- Janie Gets Married (1946)
A war bride helps her husband adjust to civilian life.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Leslie, Robert Hutton, Edward Arnold
BW-89 mins,

A sequel to Janie (1944).


4:15 PM -- June Bride (1948)
Two bickering reporters turn a small-town wedding into a battleground.
Dir: Bretaigne Windust
Cast: Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, Fay Bainter
BW-97 mins, CC,

Because the Dewey-Truman presidential race was going on during filming, one of Mary Wickes' lines was shot with both candidates names in it. The original print used Dewey as the winner. When Truman unexpectedly won, the other version was quickly printed and rushed to theaters.


6:00 PM -- The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
Life on the road isn't what it's cracked up to be when a honeymooning couple invests in an oversized motor home.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The New Moon trailers, produced by The Redman Trailer Co. (as per original sales brochures & in viewing the actual 1953 models), didn't come with a "sunken living room" as was highlighted in the film. This was done to add a reason for Desi Arnaz's character to take his pratfall when first entering the trailer. You can see that the floor of the kitchen is flat with the living room floor if you look closely when he opens the door for the first time at the trailer show, as this was simply a regular production coach in the shot. The interior shots had a "dropped" section in the living room area and you can see that the vent windows are much further from the ceiling than they would be as seen from the exterior. New Moon trailers also had a furnace in the corner between the front door and the kitchen cabinet. It is assumed this was removed from the interior mock up for aesthetic reasons.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: PIRATE PICTURES



8:00 PM -- The Sea Hawk (1924)
In this silent film, an English noble sold into slavery escapes and turns himself into a pirate king.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Milton Sills, Enid Bennett, Lloyd Hughes
BW-124 mins,

Based on the novel by Rafael Sabatini, but not related to the Errol Flynn 1940 film The Sea Hawk.


10:15 PM -- The Black Swan (1942)
When he's named governor of Jamaica, a former pirate sets out to clean up the Caribbean.
Dir: Henry King
Cast: Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Laird Cregar
C-85 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Leon Shamroy

Nominated for Oscars for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Fred Sersen (photographic), Roger Heman Sr. (sound) and George Leverett (sound), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alfred Newman

Although it is supposed to be based on Rafael Sabatini's novel "The Black Swan", in fact the story is completely original, and the only character retained from the original novel is the historical personage Henry Morgan.


12:00 AM -- The Spanish Main (1945)
Dutch rebels in the Caribbean turn pirate and kidnap the corrupt Spanish governor's bride-to-be.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Paul Henreid, Walter Slezak
C-101 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- George Barnes

This was the first RKO Radio produced film to be shot in Technicolor.


2:00 AM -- Pirates of Tripoli (1955)
A pirate tries to help a deposed Arabian princess reclaim her throne.
Dir: Felix Feist
Cast: Paul Henreid, Patricia Medina, Paul Newland
C-71 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Henreid's third pirate role, after Captain Van Horn in The Spanish Main (1945) and Jean Lafitte in Last of the Buccaneers (1950).


3:30 AM -- The Golden Hawk (1952)
Male and female pirates join forces against a corrupt Caribbean governor.
Dir: Sidney Salkow
Cast: Rhonda Fleming, Sterling Hayden, Helena Carter
C-82 mins,

Based on a novel by Frank Yerby, African-American best-selling author of action-filled romantic period fiction. Yerby's short story "Health Card" won a special O. Henry Memorial Award for a first published short story in 1944. His first novel, The Foxes of Harrow, was incredibly successful; published in 1946, by the end of the year it had sold over a million copies. He went on to publish 31 more novels. In the latter half of his life, Yerby lived in France and then in Spain.


5:00 AM -- Hurricane Island (1951)
A captain assists Ponce de León with the search for the Fountain of Youth.
Dir: Lew Landers
Cast: Jon Hall, Marie Windsor, Romo Vincent
C-71 mins,

From Wikipedia's entry on Juan Ponce de León:
According to a popular legend, Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Though stories of vitality-restoring waters were known on both sides of the Atlantic long before Ponce de León, the story of his searching for them was not attached to him until after his death. In his Historia General y Natural de las Indias of 1535, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés wrote that Ponce de León was looking for the waters of Bimini to cure his aging. A similar account appears in Francisco López de Gómara's Historia General de las Indias of 1551. Then in 1575, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, a shipwreck survivor who had lived with the Native Americans of Florida for 17 years, published his memoir in which he locates the waters in Florida, and says that Ponce de León was supposed to have looked for them there. Though Fontaneda doubted that Ponce de León had really gone to Florida looking for the waters, the account was included in the Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas of 1615. Most historians hold that the search for gold and the expansion of the Spanish Empire were far more imperative than any potential search for the fountain.