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Staph

(6,245 posts)
Tue Nov 21, 2017, 11:07 PM Nov 2017

TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 23, 2017 -- What's On Tonight: Family Comedies

In the daylight hours, it's family dramas (every one an Oscar nominee or winner!), and in prime time, family comedies. Enjoy, and have a happy and calorie-filled Thanksgiving!


6:30 AM -- LITTLE WOMEN (1933)
The four March sisters fight to keep their family together and find love while their father is off fighting the Civil War.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas
BW-116 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- George Cukor, and Best Picture

Mr. Davis, the school teacher who could not bring himself to punish Amy, was portrayed both the 1933 and 1949 Little Women by the same actor, Olin Howland, apparently in the same outfit. In both movies he holds up Amy's slate with the same exact writing and cartoon drawing of the teacher, with a huge nose, with cartoon balloon stating, "YOUNG LADIES MY EYES ARE UPON YOU".



8:30 AM -- MRS. MINIVER (1942)
A British family struggles to survive the first days of World War II.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright
BW-134 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Teresa Wright, Best Director -- William Wyler (William Wyler was not present at the awards ceremony because he was overseas shooting for the Army Air Force. His wife Margaret Tallichet on his behalf.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Walter Pidgeon, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Henry Travers, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- May Whitty, Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD), Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress, and Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic), Warren Newcombe (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound)

William Wyler openly admitted that he made the film for propaganda reasons. Wyler - a Jew who was born in Germany - strongly believed that the US should join the war against Nazism, and was concerned that America's policy of isolationism would prove damaging, so he made a film that showed ordinary Americans what their British equivalents were undergoing at the time. The film's subsequent success had a profound effect on American sympathy towards the plight of the British. The US was already supporting the British Empire through Lend-Lease and the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. Lend-Lease had also been extended to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.



11:00 AM -- I REMEMBER MAMA (1948)
Norwegian immigrants face the trials of family life in turn-of-the-century San Francisco.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka
BW-134 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Oskar Homolka, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Barbara Bel Geddes, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ellen Corby, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Nicholas Musuraca

Irene Dunne worked with dialect coach Judith Sater for two months to perfect her Norwegian accent. Dunne became so immersed in getting her character's voice down that she used the accent around her home with her family. In order to physically submerse herself in the role of Mama, Dunne wore no make up and used body padding to make herself appear heavier.



1:30 PM -- PLACES IN THE HEART (1984)
A farmer's widow fights to keep her land during the Depression.
Dir: Robert Benton
Cast: Sally Field, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan
BW-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Sally Field, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Robert Benton

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Malkovich, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lindsay Crouse, Best Director -- Robert Benton, Best Costume Design -- Ann Roth, and Best Picture

Although they first met years earlier, actor Ed Harris and actress Amy Madigan got married after working together on this film.



3:30 PM -- A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (1945)
A girl in the slums tries to find her way with the help of her devoted mother and alcoholic father.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn
BW-129 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- James Dunn

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Frank Davis and Tess Slesinger

In the June 1945 issue of Screenland Magazine costume designer Bonnie Cashin, in her column "Notes from a Designer's Diary" comments "If the average American girl could be the heroine of her own life story, and dress accordingly! This thought struck me more forcibly than it ever had before while I was fitting Dorothy McGuire for the part of Katie in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn." Most of the girls want to look a little glamorous on screen (and off) whether the story calls for rags or riches. Not Dorothy. A stickler for characterization, she stood for hours in her old rags and ravels, suggesting a patch here, a droop there, deliberately deglamorizing herself in order to make sure that not a single bright thread should give the lie to Katie's threadbare life. Dorothy was playing a heroine of poverty and she dressed accordingly. So should we all, in the parts we play, in make believe, or in life. Joan Blondell didn't complain, either, when as Aunt Sissy, she had to wear the sort of ugly-period-of-1914 clothes, the high-topped shoes, the blousy blouses, the too-tight corset. "Oh, Bonnie," little Peggy Ann Garner said to me when we were making Francie's clothes, "oh, Bonnie, every picture they put me in I have to wear poor girls' clothes. Can't I have one good dress?" So we gave her the white graduation dress and the red roses and Peggy Ann accepted poverty and trouped through the picture, patiently ironing her one faded cotton (and she did iron it) and well content.



5:45 PM -- NATIONAL VELVET (1944)
A British farm girl fights to train a difficult horse for the Grand National Steeplechase.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Elizabeth Taylor
C-124 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Anne Revere, and Best Film Editing -- Robert Kern

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Clarence Brown, Best Cinematography, Color -- Leonard Smith, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary, Edwin B. Willis and Mildred Griffiths

12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor underwent drastic measures to prove that she was right for the role. Velvet brown was supposed to be a girl in her late teens, going through the natural changes into womanhood. Taylor was told by the director that she couldn't be velvet, as she was rather "boyish". This only provoked Elizabeth more; she ate steak everyday, doubled her portion of meals, and rode her horse constantly to train. In three months, Elizabeth grew three inches, and began to gain the natural curves of a woman. For her efforts alone, she won the role.




TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FAMILY COMEDIES



8:00 PM -- CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (1950)
A pioneering efficiency expert tests his theories on his large family.
Dir: Walter Lang
Cast: Clifton Webb, Jeanne Crain, Myrna Loy
C-86 mins, CC,

The big house the family moves to in Montclair is the same house set originally built for Judy Garland's family in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Fox didn't have an appropriate standing outdoor set so they rented time on the "St. Louis Street" on MGM lot #2.


9:30 PM -- LET'S TALK TURKEY (1939)
This comedic short provides the "do's" and "don'ts" of carving a turkey for Thanksgiving.
Dir: Felix E. Feist
Cast: George Guhl, Tommy Bond, Sally Payne
BW-10 mins,


9:45 PM -- YOURS, MINE AND OURS (1968)
A widow with eight children marries a widower with ten, then gets pregnant.
Dir: Melville Shavelson
Cast: Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Van Johnson
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Lucille Ball co-produced the film under her company, Desilu Productions. When the film became a surprise smash hit grossing over $17 million on a $2.5 million investment, she became furious about it. She hadn't anticipated the film's huge box-office success and failed to provide a tax shelter for her personal profits, resulting in most of her share going in taxes.


11:45 PM -- LIFE WITH FATHER (1947)
A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: William Powell, Irene Dunne, Elizabeth Taylor
C-118 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- William Powell, Best Cinematography, Color -- J. Peverell Marley and William V. Skall, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Robert M. Haas and George James Hopkins, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

The play's writers, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and Clarence Day's widow were on the set and were given veto power on all aspects of the film. According to author David Chierichetti, Mrs. Day approved Irene Dunne's characterization and even lent some jewelry that belonged to the real Vinnie.



2:00 AM -- THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER (1963)
A young boy plays matchmaker for his widowed father.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Appearing in "Courtship of Eddie's Father" in his film debut in the uncredited role of Child at Party in Indian headdress is Ron Howard's (Eddie) younger brother, Clint Howard. This marks the beginning of a career for Clint punctuated by appearing in film and television work that also involves his brother Ron.


4:03 AM -- EVERY SUNDAY (1936)
Two girls try to stop city officials from canceling a Sunday concert series in this comedic short.
BW-11 mins,


4:15 AM -- LOVE FINDS ANDY HARDY (1938)
A small-town boy tries to juggle two girlfriends at once.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker
BW-91 mins, CC,

The fourth of sixteen Andy Hardy films starring Mickey Rooney, the first pairing of Mickey with Judy Garland.


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