TCM Schedule for Friday, April 29 -- Royal Romance

[Staph]

In recognition of today's royal wedding, TCM is celebrating with five films about royal romance -- Royal Wedding (1951), Roman Holiday (1953), The Glass Slipper (1955), The Swan (1956), and The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg (1927). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Them! (1954)
Federal agents fight to destroy a colony of mutated giant ants.
Cast: James Arness, James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn.
Dir: Gordon Douglas.
93 min, TV-PG, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects

Walt Disney screened the movie because he was interested in casting James Arness as Davy Crockett. However, he was so impressed by Fess Parker as the "Crazy Texan Pilot" that he chose him for the part.


7:44 AM -- Shoe Shine Boy (1943)
A young shoeshine boy must earn $6 to buy a second-hand bugle, because the next day he is going into the U.S. Army.
Cast: Mel Bryant, Sam Levene, Walter Catlett
Dir: Walter Hart
15 min


8:00 AM -- The Phenix City Story (1955)
A crusading lawyer takes on the corrupt machine running a Southern town.
Cast: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant.
Dir: Phil Karlson.
100 min, TV-14

In the film, John Patterson (Richard Kiley) is depicted as supportive of African-American Zeke Ward (James Edwards) and his family. In real life, following his term as Alabama attorney general (1954-1958), he ran for governor in 1958, ran an openly racist campaign and won. One of his opponents, George Wallace, had run as a racial moderate and told his friends after the election, "John Patterson out-niggered me, and I'm never gonna be out-niggered again." Four years later, in 1962, Wallace won the governorship of Alabama as an open racist.


9:48 AM -- The Soundman (1950)
This short on movie sound men starts with a short history of sound in the movies.
Cast: Lola Albright, Jack Carson, George Cooper
10 min

Features clips from Lights of New York (1928), In Old Arizona (1928), Tugboat Annie (1933), One Night of Love (1934), The Voice That Thrilled the World (1943), The Jolson Story (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), The Return of October (1948) and The Good Humor Man (1950).


10:00 AM -- Good-Bye, My Lady (1956)
A stray dog brings together a young boy and an old man in the Georgia swamps.
Cast: Walter Brennan, Brandon De Wilde, Sidney Poitier.
Dir: William A. Wellman.
95 min, TV-G

According to Hedda Hopper's column of August 28, 1955, director William A. Wellman was planning to cast Vivian Vance and William Frawley (the Mertzes in "I Love Lucy" (1951)) to play a married couple in a single scene for this film.


11:44 AM -- Spotlight (2000)
14 min


12:00 PM -- April In Paris (1952)
A bureaucrat's mistake sends a chorus girl to Paris representing American theatre in place of a star actress.
Cast: Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin.
Dir: David Butler.
C-100 min, TV-G, CC

Doris Day writes in her autobiography that she only encountered trouble or tension on two of her Warner Bros. films, "Young at Heart" and "April in Paris". On "Paris", she writes that leading man Ray Bolger and director David Butler clashed early on, with Butler accusing Bolger of trying to steal scenes away from Day. Doris says that, being a relative newcomer to films, she was unaware of Bolger's tricks and managed to stay out of the line of fire.


1:46 PM -- Jimmy Dorsey And His Orchestra (1938)
In this short, bandleader Jimmy Dorsey performs four of his best known songs.
Cast: Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Eberly, Evelyn Oaks
Dir: Lloyd French
9 min

The songs include "Beebe", "Parade of the Milk Bottle Caps", "It's the Dreamer in Me", "I Love You in Technicolor", and "Dusk in Upper Sandusky".


2:00 PM -- Dear Heart (1964)
A middle-aged postmistress falls for an engaged man during a convention in New York.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Geraldine Page, Angela Lansbury.
Dir: Delbert Mann.
114 min, TV-PG, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music), Jay Livingston (lyrics) and Ray Evans for the song "Dear Heart"

At the time this movie was being filmed, the demolition of the above-track-level portions of New York's Pennsylvania Station was beginning. In the opening scene of Evie Jackson's arrival in New York, you can see several panes of station windows broken and replaced with boards. By 1966, the station had been converted from its old to its new form, and the new Madison Square Garden had been added on top of it.


4:00 PM -- Pretty Baby (1950)
A pair of advertising executives use a woman's child to snag a client.
Cast: Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, Zachary Scott.
Dir: Bretaigne Windust.
92 min, TV-G

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on November 20, 1950 with Betsy Drake and Dennis Morgan reprising their film roles.


5:48 PM -- Nostradamus And The Queen (1953)
An old Catherine de Medici reflects back on the prophecies of Nostradamus.
Cast: Carey Wilson, Grandon Rhodes, Maria Palmer
11 min


TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: ROYAL ROMANCE


6:00 PM -- Royal Wedding (1951)
A brother-and-sister musical team find romance when they tour to London for Elizabeth II's wedding.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford.
Dir: Stanley Donen.
C-93 min, TV-G, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Burton Lane (music) and Alan Jay Lerner (lyrics) for the song "Too Late Now"

June Allyson was first cast in the role of Ellen, but became pregnant. Judy Garland was cast next, but MGM terminated her studio contract. Near the end of filming, Jane Powell discovered she was pregnant.


8:00 PM -- Roman Holiday (1953)
A runaway princess in Rome finds love with a reporter who knows her true identity.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert.
Dir: William Wyler.
118 min, TV-G, CC

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Audrey Hepburn, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Edith Head, and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Dalton Trumbo (The screen credit and award were originally credited to Ian McLellan Hunter who fronted for Dalton Trumbo. In December 1992 the Academy decided to change the records and to credit Mr. Trumbo with the achievement. Ian McLellan Hunter was removed from the Motion Picture Story category and the Oscar was posthumously presented to Trumbo's widow on May 10th, 1993.)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Eddie Albert, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Hal Pereira and Walter H. Tyler, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Franz Planer and Henri Alekan, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Film Editing -- Robert Swink, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton, and Best Picture

Audrey Hepburn won the role of Ann thanks to a legendary screen test. In it, she performed one of the scenes from the film, but the cameraman was instructed to keep the cameras rolling after the director said, "Cut." Several minutes of unrehearsed, spontaneous Hepburn was thus captured on film and this, combined with some candid interview footage, won her the role.


10:15 PM -- The Glass Slipper (1955)
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Cast: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn.
Dir: Charles Walters.
C-94 min, TV-G, CC

One of umpteen variations of the Cinderella story. The earliest one mentioned in IMDB was made in 1898 in the UK, starring Mrs. George Albert Smith, aka Laura Bayley.


12:00 AM -- The Swan (1956)
On the eve of her marriage to a prince, a noblewoman falls for her brother's tutor.
Cast: Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan.
Dir: Charles Vidor.
C-108 min, TV-G, CC

While filming The Swan (1956) in Hollywood, Alec Guinness he met James Dean, just days before the young actor's death. Sir Alec later recalled predicting that Dean would die in a car crash: when Dean showed Guinness his newly-bought Porsche, Guinness advised him to "Get rid of that car, or you'll be dead in a week!" Guinness unfortunately proved right.


2:00 AM -- The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
In this silent film, a young prince attending college falls for a barmaid below his station.
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Norma Shearer, Jean Hersholt.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch.
106 min, TV-G

Based on the novel Alt Heidelberg (Old Heidelberg in English) by Wilhelm Meyer-Förster.


4:00 AM -- Murder On A Bridle Path (1936)
Schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers matches wits with the police to solve the murder of a society bride in Central Park.
Cast: Helen Broderick, James Gleason, Louise Latimer.
Dir: William Hamilton, Edward Killy.
67 min, TV-PG

The fourth of seven films starring James Gleason as Police Inspector Oscar Piper. The character was created by novelist Stuart Palmer.


5:17 AM -- A Neckin' Party (1937)
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy visit Bergen's ranch (named the "Costa Mucha") in Mexico.
Cast: Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd
Dir: Lloyd French
11 min

For those too young to know, Edgar Bergen is Candice Bergen's father, and Charlie McCarthy is her older brother (and her father's ventriloquist's dummy).


5:30 AM -- Dark Journey (1937)
Rival spies fall in love during World War I.
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Vivien Leigh, Ursula Jeans.
Dir: Victor Saville.
79 min, TV-G

The story takes place in 1918, but all of Vivien Leigh's fashions and hairstyles, as well as those of the other women in the cast, are strictly up-to-the minute 1937 modes.

[lavenderdiva]

1. I love all your background stories Staph!

In honor of the royal wedding today, here's a special wedding smilie!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing 'The Swan' again.... Grace Kelly is SO darned beautiful!

from IMDB: The only film in which Grace Kelly plays a princess (she later became one in real life). In this film, she is courted by Prince Albert of a small European country. Prince Albert of Monaco is Grace Kelly's son.

[Matilda]

2. I always adored Grace Kelly,

and she was beautiful in this. I also loved her scenes with Louis Jourdan, who had just the right European romantic look for the role.

But I also think the film owes a lot to Jessie Royce Landis and Estelle Winwood, whose often understated sense of comedy prevented the film from becoming just another romance. They're both delightful, and when you throw in Agnes Moorehead as well, they're lots of fun to watch.