TCM Schedule for Friday, July 2 -- Starring Terry

[Staph]

Today we celebrate the amazing career of an actress named Terry, a cairn terrier best known for her role as Toto in The Wizard Of Oz (1939). Tonight we have a trio of Terry's performances in Oscar-winning and -nominated roles, and during the day, we have one film for each of Terry's costars from The Wizard of Oz. Enjoy!


5:00am -- The Wild One (1953)
Motorcycle-riding delinquents take over a small town.
Cast: Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith, Lee Marvin
Dir: Laslo Benedek
BW-79 mins, TV-14

The name of Lee Marvin's motorcycle gang is "The Beatles." Although it has never formally been acknowledged as an inspiration for the name of the 1960s rock band, the scene from the movie where Marvin introduces The Beatles is used at the beginning of The Beatles Anthology.


6:30am -- The Show-Off (1934)
A man's loud-mouthed bumbling almost ruins his new wife's family.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Madge Evans, Henry Wadsworth, Lois Wilson
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
BW-77 mins, TV-G

The part of J. Aubrey Piper was originally to be played by Lee Tracy, but his contract was terminated by MGM when, during the production in Mexico of Viva Villa! (1934), he got drunk, urinated off a balcony onto a passing patrol of Mexican soldiers (who almost shot him) and was deported from Mexico. Spencer Tracy got the part with the help of Frank Morgan, and afterwards signed a long-term contract with MGM.


8:00am -- Stepping Out (1931)
After catching their husbands with other women, two wives go on a girls-only vacation.
Cast: Charlotte Greenwood, Leila Hyams, Reginald Denny, Lilian Bond
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
BW-74 mins, TV-G

A print of this film with sound discs, survives in the UCLA Film and Television Archives.


9:15am -- Flying High (1931)
A hare-brained inventor invents a new flying machine but can't figure out how to land it.
Cast: Bert Lahr, Charlotte Greenwood, Pat O'Brien, Kathryn Crawford
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
BW-81 mins, TV-G

There was considerable pressure from the Hays Office to remove the examination scene from the movie, but MGM held firm, claiming they paid $100,000 for the rights to the play just for that particular scene. Eventually some aspects of that scene was removed when some exhibitors rejected the film. The TCM print contains the scene, but it may be the abbreviated version.


10:45am -- Success At Any Price (1934)
A young man ruthlessly climbs the corporate ladder only to attempt suicide when the stock market crashes.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Genevieve Tobin, Frank Morgan, Colleen Moore
Dir: J. Walter Ruben
BW-74 mins, TV-G

The play, "Success Story," opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 26 September 1932 and closed in January 1933 after 121 performances. The opening night cast included Stella Adler as Sarah (Colleen Moore in the film), Franchot Tone as Raymond (Frank Morgan in the film), Luther Adler and Morris Carnovsky.


12:00pm -- Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943)
On a trip to New York, a small-town blowhard gets caught between a wealthy widow and a gold digger.
Cast: Harold Peary, Billie Burke, Claire Carleton, Richard Le Grand
Dir: Gordon Douglas
BW-65 mins, TV-G

His bit part as the tough looking cab driver was the first screen role for Lawrence Tierney, beginning a film career that would last almost 60 years.


1:15pm -- Four Jacks And A Jill (1942)
A nightclub band's new singer becomes the center of a romantic mix-up.
Cast: Ray Bolger, Anne Shirley, June Havoc, Desi Arnaz
Dir: Jack Hively
BW-67 mins, TV-G

Desi Arnaz's autobiography suggests that the director of this film, Jack Hively, was a complete idiot who knew nothing about directing despite the fact that he was an editor before he took the job. Hively - despite not being mentioned by name in the book - would reportedly embarrass actors and put them through several long takes of the same monologues from the same angle knowing that there would have to be cuts to other angles made at some point.


2:30pm -- Mister Cinderella (1936)
A timid young man longs to enter high society.
Cast: Jack Haley, Betty Furness, Arthur Treacher, Raymond Walburn
Dir: Edward Sedgwick
BW-75 mins, TV-PG

Jack Haley's last public appearance, just a few weeks before his death, was at the 1979 Academy Awards, co-presenting an award with his old friend and The Wizard of Oz (1939) co-star Ray Bolger.


4:00pm -- Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937)
A young jockey goes crooked to land a valuable riding job.
Cast: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Ronald Sinclair, C. Aubrey Smith
Dir: Alfred E. Green
BW-80 mins, TV-G

This film, the first of 10 to feature both Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, is also the only one in which she is billed ahead of him.


5:30pm -- 13 Ghosts (1960)
A family inherits a house haunted by 13 ghosts and a living killer.
Cast: Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Martin Milner, Rosemary DeCamp, Margaret Hamilton
Dir: William Castle
BW-82 mins, TV-PG

Margaret Hamilton's character Elaine Zacharides is often referred to by Buck as a witch. This is an in-joke in reference to Hamilton's most famous role, the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939).


7:00pm -- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: 50 Years of Magic (1990)
The story of how MGM created one of the most beloved family films of all time.
Cast: Angela Lansbury, John Lahr, Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft
Dir: Jack Haley Jr.
C-51 mins, TV-G

Originally shown as a short feature immediately following the 1990 telecast of "The Wizard of Oz".


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: STARRING TERRY


8:00pm -- The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
A Kansas farm girl dreams herself into a magical land where she must fight a wicked witch to escape.
Cast: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr
Dir: Victor Fleming
C-102 mins, TV-G

Won Oscars for Best Music, Original Score -- Herbert Stothart, and Best Music, Original Song -- Harold Arlen (music) and E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) for the song "Over the Rainbow"

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons and William A. Horning, Best Cinematography, Color -- Harold Rosson, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound), and Best Picture

Rick Polito of the Marin Independent Journal printed in Northern California is locally famous for his droll, single-sentence summations of television programs and movies which the newspaper reports will be broadcast. For the Wizard of Oz, he wrote, "Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again."


10:00pm -- Memories of Oz (2001)
An original TCM documentary reflection upon the beloved musical fantasy, its place in film history and how it has affected so many lives.
Cast: Woolsey Ackerman, Mickey Carroll, Willard Carroll, Stephen Cox
BW-28 mins, TV-G

MGM had originally planned to incorporate a "stencil printing" process when Dorothy runs to open the farmhouse door before the film switches to Technicolor; each frame was to be hand-tinted to keep the inside of the door in sepia tone. This process-cumbersome, expensive, and ineffective-was abandoned in favor of a simpler and more clever alternative (a variation of this process was used, however, in 1939 release prints of The Women (1939)). The inside of the farmhouse was painted sepia, and the Dorothy who opens the door from the inside is not Judy Garland but her stand-in wearing a sepia-rinsed version of the famous gingham dress. Once the door is opened and the camera advances through it, Garland (wearing her bright blue dress) walks through the door and the audience is none the wiser. This effect does not work on older video/TV prints where the Kansas scenes appear in true black and white, as the changeover to color is all too apparent. With the Kansas scenes returned to their original sepia tints, however, they closely match the magical opening door and the effect is powerful.


10:30pm -- Fury (1936)
An innocent man escapes a lynch mob then returns for revenge.
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot
Dir: Fritz Lang
BW-93 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Norman Krasna

This was Fritz Lang's first American movie, having arrived from a year in Paris after he fled the Nazi regime in Germany. It was also actress Sylvia Sidney's only film for MGM, and according to the papers of director Fritz Lang, he stipulated that she be cast in the part before he signed his contract with the studio.


12:15am -- George Washington Slept Here (1942)
A pair of New Yorkers face culture shock when they buy a dilapidated country house.
Cast: Jack Benny, Ann Sheridan, Charles Coburn, Percy Kilbride
Dir: William Keighley
BW-91 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Max Parker, Mark-Lee Kirk and Casey Roberts

In order to create the dilapidated farmhouse, the house used in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) (filmed in 1941) was modified by knocking out bannisters, rafters and plaster.


2:00am -- Blue Velvet (1986)
A small-town boy unearths a world of corruption when he stumbles upon a severed ear.
Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Dir: David Lynch
C-120 mins

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Director -- David Lynch

Isabella Rossellini actually was naked under her velvet robe when she did the "ritualistic rape scene", a fact that her partner Dennis Hopper was not aware of, until the cameras started rolling and his co-actor opened her legs for him to kneel between. This scene was the very first time the two of them ever worked together.


4:15am -- Persona (1966)
An actress recovering from a breakdown exercises a strange hold over her nurse.
Cast: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Gunnar Björnstrand, Jörgen Lindström
Dir: Ingmar Bergman
BW-83 mins, TV-MA

According to himself, Ingmar Bergman fell in love with Liv Ullmann during the making of the movie.


5:45am -- Short Film: RFD Greenwich Village (1969)
A couple tours around New York in this promotional short for corduroy clothing.
C-11 mins

Sponsored by the Cotton Producers Association.

[Staph]

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Over the last half century or so, the story of Dorothy and her friends on the Yellow Brick Road to the Emerald City has stamped itself indelibly on the national psyche, thanks to the 1939 film version of The Wizard of Oz. It is, perhaps, the closest thing we have today to a universal fairy tale. Stand outside when a strong wind kicks up and someone is likely to yell out, "Auntie Em! Auntie Em!" The theme music for Miss Gulch's demonic bicycle ride or the march of the Wicked Witch's palace guards come easily to everyone's lips. A scary situation will often be faced with someone saying, "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" And the phrase "I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," has become part of everyday parlance and even literary reference as an expression of the strange and wonderful encounters in life. It has been remade, sequeled, prequeled, spoofed, and referenced in dozens of movies, television shows, books (Wicked by Gregory Maguire {Harper Collins, 1996} tells the story from the witch's point of view), and music (notably Elton John's 1973 release Goodbye Yellow Brick Road), but none have had the imaginative power or lasting imprint of the original.

All of this was doubtless unforeseen by L. Frank Baum when he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), the first of his 16 successful books employing the characters and setting of the fantasy land beyond the rainbow. Baum was a devoted family man and dreamer who had little success at his various vocations ­ store owner, stamp collector, newspaper publisher and actor. His lack of business sense brought just about every venture to ruin, and he filed for bankruptcy only a year before the first Oz book appeared. In writing children's fantasies, he at last found his calling.

The film's producer, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, probably had no clue to its eventual impact, either, although no expense was spared in bringing the story to the screen. Two early silent versions were made in 1910 and 1924, neither of which were particularly successful, and the 1939 version initially lost money, roughly a million dollars on its first release ­ it was expensive to make, there was not a huge market for children's movies, and the onset of World War II dried up foreign markets for Hollywood product. It took more than a decade for the movie to go into the black, thanks largely to repeated showings on television beginning in the 1950s and video sales years later.

The making of the The Wizard of Oz wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Although the characters of Dorothy and her friends have become forever linked with the actors who created the roles, particularly Judy Garland, the film might have looked very different if original casting plans had been followed. W.C. Fields was the first choice to play the Wizard, but a disagreement between the studio and the notoriously difficult comic actor squelched that deal. Character actress Gale Sondergaard, memorable that same year as the Empress Eugenie in Juarez, was tested for the Wicked Witch. Sondergaard was an accomplished actress (whose career was halted for 20 years thanks to the Hollywood Blacklist), but her exotic beauty was bypassed in favor of Margaret Hamilton's more traditionally "witchy" look. Buddy Ebsen, best known today as Jed Clampett from TV's The Beverly Hillbillies began shooting as the Tin Man, but he was hospitalized with a near-fatal reaction to the silver paint used for the character's make-up and was replaced by Jack Haley (father of producer Jack Haley, Jr., who was once married to Garland's daughter Liza Minnelli).

And, of course, there was the central character herself, a part some sources say MGM head Louis B. Mayer was desperate to give reigning child star Shirley Temple, then under contract to Fox. With Temple unavailable, MGM contract player Judy Garland was brought in to the role that made her a star, won her a special juvenile-performer Oscar, and became an integral part of her legend. The memorable Harold Arlen/E.Y Harburg tune "Over the Rainbow" (which was almost cut from the picture) became Garland's theme and a song that has attained cult status in American music.

Casting was not the only problem. The script was labored over by 16 writers, 13 of whom went uncredited ­ including cast members Jack Haley and Bert Lahr, poet Ogden Nash, and screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who authored Citizen Kane (1941). The picture went through three directors, weathered legendary mayhem created by its 116 Munchkin extras (a story chronicled in the 1981 Chevy Chase-Carrie Fisher comedy Under the Rainbow), and almost fried Margaret Hamilton in the effects created for the Wicked Witch's fiery exit. Yet despite the difficulties, and the initial lackluster box office, The Wizard of Oz was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Color Cinematography, Interior Decoration, and Special Effects and won awards for Best Song ("Over the Rainbow") and Original Score. It also placed tenth on the list of the Greatest American Films of All Time, compiled in 1977 by 35,000 members of the American Film Institute.

Producer: Victor Fleming, Arthur Freed (associate producer) (uncredited), Mervyn LeRoy
Director: Victor Fleming, Richard Thorpe (original scenes) (uncredited), King Vidor (Kansas scenes(uncredited)
Screenplay: L. Frank Baum (novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf, Irving Brecher (uncredited), William H. Cannon (uncredited), Herbert Fields (uncredited), Arthur Freed (uncredited), Jack Haley (additional dialogue) (uncredited), E.Y. Harburg (uncredited), Samuel Hoffenstein (uncredited), Bert Lahr (additional dialogue) (uncredited), John Lee Mahin (uncredited), Herman J. Mankiewicz (uncredited), Jack Mintz (uncredited), Ogden Nash (uncredited), Sid Silvers (uncredited)
Cinematography: Harold Rosson
Costume Design: Adrian
Film Editing: Blanche Sewell
Original Music: Harold Arlen, George Bassman (additional music), George E. Stoll (additional music) Herbert Stothart, Robert W. Stringer (additional music)
Cast: Judy Garland (Dorothy Gale), Frank Morgan (Professor Marvel/Guardian of the Gates/Cabbie/Soldier/The 'Wizard of Oz'),Ray Bolger (Hunk Andrews/Scarecrow), Bert Lahr (Zeke/Cowardly Lion), Jack Haley (Hickory Twicker/Tin Woodman), Billie Burke (Glinda, the Good Witch of the North), Margaret Hamilton (Miss Almira Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West).
BW & C-102m. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video.

by Rob Nixon