TCM Schedule for Friday, April 24, 2015 -- Friday Night Spotlight - A. Arnold Gillespie

[Staph]

During the day, we're celebrating the birth of Shirley MacLaine, born Shirley MacLean Beaty on April 24, 1934, in Richmond, Virginia. Good Lord, Shirley MacLaine is 81 years old! Today we get to see three of her Oscar-nominated roles, in Some Came Running (1958), The Apartment (1960), and Irma la Douce (1963). In prime time, TCM continues featuring films by special effects wizard A. Arnold Gillespie, including Forbidden Planet (1956), North By Northwest (1959), Ben-Hur (1959), and How The West Was Won (1962). Enjoy!



6:15 AM -- The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
A classic car changes the lives of three sets of owners.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Edmund Purdom
C-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The Rolls-Royce used in the film was a pale blue 1930 Phantom II Sedanca de Ville, which M-G-M technicians covered with 20 coats of yellow paint; a few coats of black were added to the top of the hood, the roof, and the wings.


8:18 AM -- The Car That Became A Star (1964)
This short documentary follows the story of the antique Rolls that appeared in the title role of MGM's "The Yellow Rolls Royce" (1964).
BW-10 mins,


8:30 AM -- Two Loves (1961)
A conservative teacher struggles with her values while teaching natives in New Zealand.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Laurence Harvey, Jack Hawkins
C-97 mins, Letterbox Format

Shirley MacLaine wrote that she and Laurence Harvey did not like each other. She found him pompous and insensitive. Once right before the director shouted "action", Harvey leaned toward her, scrutinized her left cheek and asked "What on earth is that?" and acted as though she had a hickey the size of Mount Fuji. Just when she was about to ask for a mirror, Harvey said "Never mind, they'll never notice, it's not your face you should be concerned about". MacLaine did a slow burn and went on with the scene. The next day they were to film a love scene. Before it, MacLaine ate a clove of raw garlic. "That settled his hash", she wrote.


10:07 AM -- Stopover In Hollywood (1963)
This short film takes the viewer to various landmarks and attractions in Hollywood, CA.
Dir: Will Williams
Cast: Tony Winhall, Lori Lyons,
C-16 mins,


10:30 AM -- Irma La Douce (1963)
A Parisian policeman gives up everything for the love of a free-living prostitute.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Lou Jacobi
BW-143 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- André Previn

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Shirley MacLaine, and Best Cinematography, Color -- Joseph LaShelle

Shirley MacLaine was not happy with the script, and thought even less of the film after it was finished, calling it "crude and clumsy". She was surprised to get a Best Actress Oscar nomination out of it, saying "I would have been nonplussed had I won it."


1:00 PM -- Being There (1979)
Political pundits mistake an illiterate gardener for a media genius and turn him into a national hero.
Dir: Hal Ashby
Cast: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas
C-130 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Douglas was not present at the awards ceremony. Co-presenter Liza Minnelli accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter Sellers

It took Peter Sellers nearly nine years to get this movie made by a studio, mainly because by the 1970s Sellers' career had hit rock bottom and no studio in Hollywood would work with him. After the revival (and success) of the Pink Panther movies, Lorimar Pictures finally greenlit the project.


3:15 PM -- The Apartment (1960)
An aspiring executive lets his bosses use his apartment for assignations, only to fall for the big chief's mistress.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
BW-125 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Alexandre Trauner and Edward G. Boyle, Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Jack Lemmon, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Shirley MacLaine, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Kruschen, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph LaShelle, and Best Sound -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)

Billy Wilder originally thought of the idea for the film after seeing Brief Encounter (1945) and wondering about the plight of a character unseen in that film. Shirley MacLaine was only given forty pages of the script because Wilder didn't want her to know how the story would turn out. She thought it was because the script wasn't finished.


5:30 PM -- Some Came Running (1958)
A veteran returns home to deal with family secrets and small-town scandals.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine
C-136 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Shirley MacLaine, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur Kennedy, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Martha Hyer, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White or Color -- Walter Plunkett, and Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "To Love and Be Loved"

It was during the making of this film that Shirley MacLaine found herself welcomed into what would later be called the "Rat Pack" fraternity that included Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, her co-stars in this film. MacLaine says the group known as the "Rat Pack" was actually called "The Clan" by the members while "Rat Pack" was a term given in the 1950s to Humphrey Bogart and his pals.


7:47 PM -- Crashing The Water Barrier (1956)
This short documentary follows the exploits of Donald Campbell, who attempts to set a water speed record on Lake Mead. Vitaphone Release 2589A.
Dir: Konstantin Kalser
C-10 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: A. ARNOLD GILLESPIE



8:00 PM -- Forbidden Planet (1956)
A group of space troopers investigates the destruction of a colony on a remote planet.
Dir: Fred McLeod Wilcox
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie, Irving G. Ries and Wesley C. Miller

Star Trek (1966) creator Gene Roddenberry has been quoted as saying that this film was a major inspiration for that series. Perhaps not accidentally, Warren Stevens, who plays "Doc" here, would later be a guest star in 1968's Star Trek: By Any Other Name (1968), where the true shape of the alien Kelvans, like the Krell in this movie, was implied to be extremely non-humanoid but never shown. 1701, which is the serial number of the Starship Enterprise, allegedly comes from the clock mark 17:01 when the C57D enters orbit around Altair IV.


10:00 PM -- North By Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
C-136 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ernest Lehman, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Film Editing -- George Tomasini

While filming Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock described some of the plot of this project to frequent Hitchcock leading man and "Vertigo" star James Stewart, who naturally assumed that Hitchcock meant to cast him in the Roger Thornhill role, and was eager to play it. Actually, Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant to play the role. By the time Hitchcock realized the misunderstanding, Stewart was so anxious to play Thornhill that rejecting him would have caused a great deal of disappointment. So Hitchcock delayed production on this film until Stewart was already safely committed to filming Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959) before "officially" offering him the North by Northwest (1959) role. Stewart had no choice; he had to turn down the offer, allowing Hitchcock to cast Grant, the actor he had wanted all along.


12:30 AM -- Ben-Hur (1959)
While seeking revenge, a rebellious Israelite prince crosses paths with Jesus Christ.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet
C-222 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charlton Heston, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Hugh Griffith (Hugh Griffith was not present at the awards ceremony. Director William Wyler accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Edward C. Carfagno and Hugh Hunt (In case of Horning the Oscar win was posthumously.), Best Costume Design, Color -- Elizabeth Haffenden, Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer SSD), Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters and John D. Dunning, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (visual), Robert MacDonald (visual) and Milo B. Lory (audible), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, and Best Picture

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Karl Tunberg

Upon reading Karl Tunberg's original script, William Wyler had written in the margins "awful . . . horrible". Consequently, he brought in Gore Vidal--who was under contract to MGM at the time and hated it--to rewrite the screenplay. Vidal also thought that Tunberg's script was dreadful and initially didn't even want to take on the project. He changed his mind when Wyler promised to get him out of the remaining two years of his contract. Christopher Fry then polished Tunberg's and Vidal's work on the screenplay and wrote a new ending. Neither Fry nor Vidal received screen credit for their work on the film, which infuriated Wyler so much that he leaked the story to the press.


4:30 AM -- How the West Was Won (1962)
Three generations of pioneers take part in the forging of the American West.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb
C-165 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- James R. Webb, Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), and Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Daniels, Milton R. Krasner, Charles Lang and Joseph LaShelle, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, William Ferrari, Addison Hehr, Henry Grace, Don Greenwood Jr. and Jack Mills, Best Costume Design, Color -- Walter Plunkett, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Alfred Newman and Ken Darby, and Best Picture

During the Indian attack that was filmed in Lone Pine, California, a Conestoga Wagon tumbles down a hill. In order to create the illusion of the audience being inside of a tumbling wagon, a track was built down the slope of a small hill and the top portion of a Conestoga Wagon, without the wheels, was affixed onto a flatbed along with a mechanism that would turn the wagon over and over as the flatbed was guided down the hill. The Cinerama camera, in turn, was attached to one end of the flatbed so that it could shoot directly through the turning wagon as the stuntmen, including Loren Janes, were tumbled around the insides of the wagon along with boxes, barrels, blankets and other cargo. It took more than two days to prepare the scene and several takes to complete. In the final cut, this scene lasts no more than five seconds on the screen.