TCM Schedule for Friday, January 15 -- Stool Pigeons

[Staph]

Happy birthday, Margaret O'Brien! She turns a youthful 73 today, and we're celebrating with a nice selection of her films, including her first credited role in Journey for Margaret. And tonight, we've got a bunch of stool pigeons, including the classic prison film The Big House (1930). Enjoy!


5:00am -- The Dick Cavett Show: Katharine Hepburn (Two) (1973)
Katharine Hepburn appears on The Dick Cavett Show in an interview that originally aired October 2, 1973.
C-70 mins, TV-14

During this two-part interview with Katharine Hepburn, Hepburn got up and left at the end of the first half of the interview, thinking her job was done. Cavett apologized to the audience, promising she would be back the next evening (she was). However, this was actually staged by Cavett and Hepburn as a joke, seen in "Bonus Features" on the recently-released "Hollywood Greats" DVD box set.


6:15am -- Journey For Margaret (1942)
An American correspondent tries to adopt two children orphaned during the London blitz.
Cast: Robert Young, Laraine Day, Fay Bainter, Nigel Bruce
Dir: Herbert Kline
BW-81 mins, TV-G

This is the film from which Margaret O'Brien took her name. She was born Angela O'Brien, but she so identified with the character she played in this film that she decided to change her name to Margaret.


7:45am -- Lost Angel (1943)
A girl raised to be a genius gets lost and discovers the simple pleasure of life.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, James Craig, Marsha Hunt, Philip Merivale
Dir: Roy Rowland
BW-91 mins, TV-G

Lost Angel was adapted as a radio play on the June 19, 1944 and October 22, 1945 broadcasts of Lux Radio Theater and the December 18, 1946 broadcast of Academy Award Theater, each starring Margaret O'Brien.


9:30am -- Bad Bascomb (1946)
A western bandit is reformed by his love for a little girl.
Cast: Wallace Beery, Margaret O'Brien, Marjorie Main, J. Carrol Naish
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon
BW-110 mins, TV-G

According to page 70 of "Notes For A Memoir", Janet Jeppson, second wife of Isaac Asimov, describes how she was acting as an extra in this movie on August 14, 1945, when Wallace Beery came out of his trailer to tell everyone on-site that World War II had been declared over.


11:30am -- Three Wise Fools (1946)
An orphan girl melts the hearts of three crusty old men.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Edward Arnold
Dir: Edward Buzzell
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Previously made in 1923 and directed by King Vidor.


1:15pm -- The Unfinished Dance (1947)
A young dance student accidentally cripples a teacher she doesn't like.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Cyd Charisse, Karin Booth, Danny Thomas
Dir: Henry Koster
BW-101 mins, TV-G

This was Danny Thomas' film debut.


3:00pm -- Big City (1948)
Three bachelors adopt an orphan, then fight over custody when each falls in love.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Robert Preston, Danny Thomas, George Murphy
Dir: Norman Taurog
BW-103 mins, TV-G

Betty Garrett's film debut.


5:00pm -- Tenth Avenue Angel (1948)
A child of the tenements helps an ex-con find a new life.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, George Murphy, Phyllis Thaxter
Dir: Roy Rowland
BW-74 mins, TV-G

Filmed between March 11 and May 15, 1946, with retakes shot in April 1947, the movie was held back until its nationwide release on February 20, 1948. Moreover, the picture was not given a contemporary New York Times review.


6:30pm -- Private Screenings: Child Stars (2006)
Robert Osborne sits down with former child stars Margaret O'Brien, Jane Withers, Dickie Moore and Darryl Hickman for an interview on their lives and careers.
BW-82 mins, TV-G

Features clips from The Squaw Man (1931), So Big! (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), Gabriel Over the White House (1933), Bright Eyes (1934), Men of Boys Town (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Babes on Broadway (1941), Miss Annie Rooney (1942), Jackass Mail (1942), Journey for Margaret (1942), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Bad Bascomb (1946), Little Women (1949), Any Number Can Play (1949), and Giant (1956).


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: STOOL PIGEONS


8:00pm -- The Big House (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery
Dir: George Hill
BW-87 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director), and Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

In Frances Marion's original script, the characters played by Leila Hyams and Robert Montgomery were husband and wife. After the film flopped in a preview screening, MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg decided that the problem was that audiences, especially women, didn't want to see the Chester Morris character have an affair with a married woman. So the script was rewritten to make Montgomery and Hyams brother and sister. Scenes were reshot and the film, in its modified form, became a major hit.


9:30pm -- Race Street (1948)
A night-club owner takes on the crooks who killed his best friend.
Cast: George Raft, William Bendix, Marilyn Maxwell, Frank Faylen
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

Raft was born George Ranft in Hell's Kitchen, New York City to German immigrant Conrad Ranft and his wife Eva Glockner. A boyhood friend of gangster Owney Madden (Manhatten mob boss and owner of the Cotton Club), he admittedly narrowly avoided a life of crime.


11:00pm -- White Lightning (1973)
A convicted moonshiner helps police track down the bayou bad guys who killed his brother.
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Jennifer Billingsley, Bo Hopkins
Dir: Joseph Sargent
C-101 mins, TV-MA

This was originally slated to be Steven Spielberg's first theatrical feature and he spent months on pre-production.


12:45am -- The Friends Of Eddie Coyle (1973)
An aging hood turns police informer, with deadly results.
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats, Peter Boyle
Dir: Peter Yates
C-99 mins, TV-14

Based on the first novel by George V. Higgens, prosecutor and defense lawyer who had defended both Eldridge Cleaver and G. Gordon Liddy.


2:30am -- Deep End (1971)
A 15-year-old's obsession with a co-worker leads to a deadly string of crimes.
Cast: Jane Asher, John Moulder Brown, Karl Michael Vogler, Christopher Sandford
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
C-91 mins

Jane Asher was Paul McCartney's muse for much of the 1960s; "Here, There And Everywhere" and many other songs were written with Jane in mind. They were engaged for seven months until finally separating in July 1968.


4:00am -- The Shout (1979)
A married man protects his marriage from a mysterious traveler who can kill with a shout.
Cast: Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, Robert Stephens
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
C-86 mins

The first cinema film of Jim Broadbent, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Iris (2001).


5:30am -- MGM Parade Show #16 (1955)
Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald perform in a clip from "Maytime"; George Murphy introduces a clip from "I'll Cry Tomorrow." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins, TV-G

I've got to figure out what the big deal is about this particular episode of the MGM Parade Show -- TCM seems to replay it every other week!

[Staph]

1. The Big House (1930)

One of the first and most powerful prison films ever to come out of Hollywood, The Big House (1930) played a decisive role in creating and defining the prison movie genre. Its influence on the hundreds of other prison films that have since followed is incalculable. From revealing the harsh environment, rampant paranoia and grimy reality of prison life, to the use of terminology we now so readily identify with prison dramas (guards are screws or bulls, solitary confinement is "the hole," etc.), it can all be traced back to the The Big House.

The film opens with an incident of vehicular homicide. While driving drunk, Kent Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) kills some pedestrians and is sentenced to a 10-year manslaughter term. Montgomery quickly loses his identity as he is photographed, fingerprinted, stripped, measured, numbered and outfitted in prison drab. He is then tossed in a tiny cell with two hardened cons: forger and petty thief John Morgan (Chester Morris), and the cellblock leader Butch Schmidt (Wallace Beery), aka "Machine Gun," a crude, calculating thug who lives for the day that he can break out of prison. In order to procure some favors from the warden (Lewis Stone), Kent rats on Butch about his escape plans and is murdered during the climactic breakout as a consequence. However, John behaves courageously during the ensuing riot, saving the warden and the guards from Butch's murderous rage; as a reward, he earns a reduced sentence and the love of Kent's sister Anne (Leila Hyams), whom he met during a previous escape attempt.

The story seems fairly standard by today's standards, and the romantic subplot involving John and Anne is unnecessary, but these are minor flaws to a film that is brimming with riveting sequences, strong dialogue, superb acting and innovative direction by George William Hill. Indeed, the director's use of natural light and unconventional camera angles combined with a harsh view of prison life are strikingly effective in creating the stark, vivid mood of the picture. This is best exemplified in the chilling scene where Butch is escorted down a narrow hallway which leads to the solitary block: he is thrown into the cell and the door is bolted while the camera lingers in the empty corridor. A deafening silence prevails. Slowly, the voices of other prisoners are heard, making comments about the new arrival; one convict curses, another cries hysterically and another sings. All the while, the camera remains immobile, focused on that empty corridor which seems to stretch interminably.

MGM arranged for screenwriter Frances Marion to tour San Quentin and she kept a diary of conversations with prison officials and inmates to observe atmosphere, personalities and prison jargon. The studio spared no expense in building huge sets that reproduced San Quentin cellblocks, the mess hall and the high-walled prison yard. Harold Wenstrom's fluid cinematography enabled him to capture some impressive crane shots that travel up and down the spiral staircases leading to the tiers of cells, giving the film a sense of movement that was ahead of its time. (Most films still revealed their stage-bound origins in the early thirties.) Even the film's editing techniques (supervised by Blanche Sewell) are impressive, particularly in the mess-hall sequence; at first the room is seen empty, but with the use of a quick dissolve, it soon fills with convicts and the camera pans along a row of sullen faces as the men wait for the signal to turn over their tin cups. It's a superior example of pure cinematic storytelling that captures the anonymity of prison life beautifully.

Also noteworthy is the realistic use of sound by Douglas Shearer (brother of MGM's grand star Norma Shearer). Movie audiences for the first time heard the stomping feet of hundreds of prisoners parading down the stairs, the rapid fire of machine guns, and the sound of steel doors slamming shut. Shearer would go on to win an Oscar for this film (the first of his 14 Academy Awards), and was eventually appointed head of MGM's Sound Recording Studio, where his advancement in sound effects were later demonstrated in his brilliant earthquake climax of San Francisco (1936) and his ferocious aerial battle scenes in the exciting Thirty Second Over Tokyo (1944).

The Big House was also something of a breakthrough for the lead actors, especially Wallace Beery. Although the studio had originally tailored the role of Butch for Lon Chaney, the actor unfortunately died of throat cancer just prior to this production. Newly signed by MGM after his long-term contract with Paramount was cancelled, Beery had been out of work for a year (the longest drought in his 20-year film career) when Frances Marion saw him eating spaghetti in the MGM commissary. His massive frame and hulking visage reminded her of some of the San Quentin inmates, and Beery was promptly cast as Butch. Beery played the role with delicious intensity and he created a hulking, menacing figure, as violent as he was conniving.

Until this film, both Robert Montgomery and Chester Morris had mostly been cast as romantic leads opposite such strong female stars as Joan Crawford, Dolores Costello and Norma Shearer. In fact, both Montgomery and Morris starred with Shearer in The Divorcee (1930), one of MGM's biggest box-office hits in 1930 and made just prior to The Big House. But in The Big House, both Montgomery and Morris deliver tough and uncompromising performances that went against their established screen personas.

Although George William Hill would direct a few more noteworthy films for MGM in the next few years, most notably those scripted by his wife Frances Marion (Min and Bill, 1930, and The Secret Six, 1931), his promising career was never fulfilled; he unexpectedly committed suicide in 1934 at the age of 39, leaving many to wonder what he might have achieved had he lived longer. At any rate, The Big House continues to stand as one of the most impressive prison dramas to emerge from the era of early talkies.

Director: Paul Fejos, George W. Hill
Screenplay: Joseph Farnham, Martin Flavin, Frances Marion, Lennox Robinson
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Cinematography: Harold Wenstrom
Costume Design: David Cox
Film Editing: Blanche Sewell
Principal Cast: Chester Morris (John Morgan), Wallace Beery (Butch Schmidt), Lewis Stone (Warden James Adams), Robert Montgomery (Kent Marlowe), Leila Hyams (Anne Marlowe), George F. Marion (Pop Riker), J. C. Nugent (Mr. Marlowe).
BW-88m. Closed captioning.

by Michael T. Toole