TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 1 -- 31 Days of Oscar -- Hawaii

[Staph]

TCM is headed to the Pacific today, with a day in Japan and an evening in Hawaii. Enjoy!


7:15 AM -- The Good Earth (1937)
Epic adaptation of the Pearl Buck classic about Chinese farmers battling the elements.
Dir: Sidney Franklin
Cast: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly
138 min, TV-PG, CC

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer, and Best Cinematography -- Karl Freund

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Sidney Franklin, Best Film Editing -- Basil Wrangell, and Best Picture

Chinese-born Anna May Wong desperately wanted the role of O-Lan. Being a close friend of author Pearl S. Buck helped. She tested for the role, but producer Irving Thalberg was unsatisfied. Also, since Paul Muni, a Caucasian actor, had already been cast in the lead, Thalberg knew he couldn't cast Wong as Muni's wife. The Hays Code prohibited actors of different races from playing husband/wife couples on film. (This was to avoid offending white audiences in the segregated American South, where there were laws against mixed-race marriages.) Thalberg offered her the "vamp" role of Lotus, but a distraught Anna May turned it down.


9:45 AM -- Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
General Jimmy Doolittle trains American troops for the first airborne attacks on Japan.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Van Johnson, Robert Walker, Tim Murdock
138 min, TV-PG, CC

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic), Donald Jahraus (photographic), Warren Newcombe (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound)

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Surtees and Harold Rosson

When Lawson's plane arrives in "Tokyo" and sees the fire and smoke from the previous bomber, Davy Jones, we are not looking at a special effect. During the making of the film, there was a fuel-oil fire in Oakland, near the filming location. The quick-thinking filmmakers scrambled to fly their camera plane and B-25 through the area, capturing some very real footage for the movie.


12:15 PM -- Dodes 'Ka-Den (1970)
Slum dwellers in Tokyo fight to survive while dreaming of better lives.
Dir: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Hiroshi Akutagawa, Michiko Araki, Junzaburo Ban
C- 140 min, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film -- Japan.

The title is an onomatopoeic sound that a train makes as it travels over the tracks. Rokku-chan makes this sound as he drives his imaginary trolley through the slum neighborhood.


2:45 PM -- Kwaidan (1964)
Four stories mix love and the supernatural in exotic settings.
Dir: Masaki Kobayashi
Cast: Rentaro Mikuni, Michiyo Aratama, Misako Watanabe
C- 161 min, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film -- Japan.

This film contains four distinct, separate stories. "Black Hair": A poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money, but finds the marriage disastrous and returns to his old wife, only to discover something eerie about her. "The Woman in the Snow": Stranded in a snowstorm, a woodcutter meets an icy spirit in the form of a woman spares his life on the condition that he never tell anyone about her. A decade later he forgets his promise. "Hoichi the Earless": Hoichi is a blind musician, living in a monastery who sings so well that a ghostly imperial court commands him to perform the epic ballad of their death battle for them. But the ghosts are draining away his life, and the monks set out to protect him by writing a holy mantra over his body to make him invisible to the ghosts. But they've forgotten something. "In a Cup of Tea": a writer tells the story of a man who keep seeing a mysterious face reflected in his cup of tea.


5:30 PM -- A Majority of One (1961)
A Jewish widow falls in love with a Japanese businessman.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Alec Guinness, Ray Danton
C- 149 min, TV-PG, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr.

His role as Captain Norcross became the final feature film role for Alan Mowbray, ending a movie career of over thirty years.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: HAWAII


8:00 PM -- Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)
The Japanese take advantage of American blunders to launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Dir: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Martin Balsam, So Yamamura, Jason Robards Jr.
C- 149 min, TV-PG, CC

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- A.D. Flowers and L.B. Abbott

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Jack Martin Smith, Yoshirô Muraki, Richard Day, Taizô Kawashima, Walter M. Scott, Norman Rockett and Carl Biddiscombe, Best Cinematography -- Charles F. Wheeler, Osamu Furuya, Shinsaku Himeda and Masamichi Satoh, Best Film Editing -- James E. Newcom, Pembroke J. Herring and Shinya Inoue, and Best Sound -- Murray Spivack and Herman Lewis

The civilian pilots hired to fly the Japanese aircraft were a bunch of characters. One, never identified, was taken by a line of stage direction in the script which read, "Watanabe smiles". After each successful shot with the aerial coordinator announced his satisfaction, this pilot would anonymously announce on his aircraft radio, "Watanabe smiles". During the filming of one shot, a civilian general aviation aircraft inadvertently flew into their formation, forcing them to perform emergency evasive maneuvers. The aerial coordinator performed an immediate inventory of flying aircraft, announced his relief that disaster had been avoided. This same unknown pilot this time announced, "Watanabe shits!"


10:30 PM -- From Here To Eternity (1953)
Enlisted men in Hawaii fight for love and honor on the eve of World War II.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr
118 min, TV-PG, CC

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, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Morris Stoloff and George Duning

Joan Crawford was originally meant to play her role in From Here to Eternity, but when she insisted on shooting the film with her own cameraman, the studio balked. They decided to take a chance and cast Deborah Kerr, who then was struggling with her ladylike stereotype, to play the adulterous military wife who has an affair with Burt Lancaster. The casting worked and Ms. Kerr's career thereafter enjoyed a new, sexier versatility.


12:45 AM -- In Harm's Way (1965)
An aging Naval officer leads his men against the Japanese after Pearl Harbor.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal
167 min, TV-14, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Loyal Griggs

Kirk Douglas wrote that John Wayne wanted him for the role of Commander (later Captain) Eddington. Douglas was surprised as they did not know each other and did not socialize, and their political opinions were very different. Nonetheless, the collaboration was a success and the two later co-starred in The War Wagon and Wayne had a cameo in Douglas' ode to Israel, Cast a Giant Shadow.


3:45 AM -- Flirtation Walk (1934)
A West Point cadet falls for his commanding officer's daughter.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Pat O'Brien
98 min, TV-G, CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director - Warner Bros.- First National Studio Sound Department), and Best Picture

Bobby Connolly shot the Hawaiian number on the biggest set ever constructed at Warner Bros. studio up to that time. He followed with the military wedding number, using 400 professional dancers.


5:30 AM -- The Hawaiians (1970)
A wanderer returns home only to find political turmoil, disease and romantic difficulties.
Dir: Tom Gries
Cast: Charlton Heston, Tina Chen, Geraldine Chaplin
C- 134 min, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design -- Bill Thomas

Based on a portion of James Michener's novel Hawaii. The movie Hawaii (1966) is based on the same novel, but an earlier part of Michener's sprawling story. Charlton Heston's character Whip Hoxworth (in The Hawaiians) is a descendent of Richard Harris' sea captain character Rafer Hoxworth (from Hawaii).