TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 29 (Guest Programmer Mark Mothersbaugh)

[Staph]

Today we get three very different movie series. First, The Durango Kid, a western serial about a Robin Hood-like character who robs the rich and gives to the poor. Second, the original Father of the Bride, with Spencer Tracy as the father and Elizabeth Taylor as the beautiful bride. And finally, a three movie series about rare-book dealers Joel and Garda Sloane, who seem to keep stumbling over dead bodies (rather like living in Cabot Cove, Maine, or any of a series of small English villages!).

This evening's guest is Mark Motherbaugh, who has chosen four diverse films, including Stanley Kramer's Inherit the Wind, Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits, and John Brahm's Hot Rods to Hell. I told you it was diverse!

Multi-talented Mark Mothersbaugh is a musician, composer, singer and visual artist. One of the founders of the rock group Devo, Mothersbaugh has enjoyed a prolific career creating musical scores for film, television and video games. He has scored such Wes Anderson films as Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, as well as writing music for such children’s TV shows as Rugrats and Felix the Cat. A painter who leans toward surrealism, Ohio-born Mothersbaugh hosts a drawing segment on the children's TV series Yo Gabba Gabba!



5:00am -- Hot Water (1924)
In this silent film, a newlywed husband has in-law problems.
Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Josephine Crowell.
Dir: Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor.
BW-60 mins, TV-G

An interesting fact -- A 1919 accident with a prop bomb which turned out to be a live bomb, cost Lloyd the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. In subsequent films, he wore a glove and prosthetic device to hide it. Remarkably, he was able to do many of his gags (he employed a stunt man for serious stunts) convincingly afterward.


6:00am -- The Durango Kid (1940)
A Western Robin Hood gets caught in the middle of a range war when he's framed for murder.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Luana Walters, Kenneth MacDonald.
Dir: Lambert Hillyer.
BW-61 mins

The first of the Durango Kid movies, with music by the Sons of the Pioneers. Starrett was an interesting choice for a western hero -- he was born in Massachusetts and educated at Worcester Academy and Dartmouth College.


7:15am -- The Return of the Durango Kid (1945)
A masked outlaw steals from bank robbers to help the poor.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Tex Harding, Jean Stevens.
Dir: Derwin Abrahams.
BW-58 mins

This time the Durango Kid's real name is Bill Blaydon, instead of Bill Lowry, and music is by the Jesters.


8:15am -- Both Barrels Blazing (1945)
The Durango Kid tries to track down stolen money after the bandits are killed.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Tex Harding, Dub Taylor.
Dir: Derwin Abrahams.
BW-58 mins

In this outing Kip Allen, the Durango Kid, is an undercover Texas Ranger, with music again by the Jesters.


9:15am -- Blazing the Western Trail (1945)
The Durango Kid tries to save a beautiful young woman's stagecoach line from an unscrupulous rival.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Dub Taylor, Carole Mathews.
Dir: Vernon Keays.
BW-57 mins

Now the Durango Kid is named Jeff Waring, and music is supplied by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.


10:30am -- Lawless Empire (1945)
The Durango Kid helps a small-town minister drive off land raiders.
Cast: Charles Starrett, Tex Harding, Dub Taylor.
Dir: Vernon Keays.
BW-58 mins

Steve Ranson is his name, and his music is once again by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.


11:45am -- Father Of The Bride (1950)
A doting father faces mountains of bills and endless trials when his daughter marries.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli.
BW-93 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, and Best Picture

Do not accept imitations. This is the real, the best Father of the Bride. Steve Martin is a good actor but he's no Spencer Tracy, and there never has been and never will be a more beautiful bride than Elizabeth Taylor. (And she had a lot of practice over her lifetime!)


1:30pm -- Father's Little Dividend (1951)
In this sequel to Father of the Bride, a doting father faces a series of comic trials when his daughter has her first child.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Bennett.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli.
BW-81 mins, TV-G

Shot in 22 days, with the same main cast as the first movie. Watch for Russ Tamblyn as the younger brother, Hayden Rorke as a doctor (best known as the psychiatrist on I Dream of Jeannie), and in a bit part holding the baby at the christening, Dick Martin of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in his first movie role.


3:00pm -- Fast Company (1938)
Married book-dealers Joel and Garda Sloane try to clear a friend in the murder of a rival book-seller.
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Florence Rice, Louis Calhern.
Dir: Edward Buzzell.
BW-75 mins, TV-PG

The first in the Joel and Garda Sloane movies -- think of them as Nick and Nora Charles in a book-store without the excessive liquor.


4:30pm -- Fast And Loose (1939)
Married book-dealers Joel and Garda Sloane investigate the killing of a noted collector.
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Reginald Owen.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin.
BW-80 mins, TV-G

Same characters, but different actors.


6:00pm -- Fast And Furious (1939)
Married book-dealers Joel and Garda Sloane get mixed up with murder during a beauty pageant.
Cast: Franchot Tone, Ann Sothern, Ruth Hussey.
Dir: Busby Berkeley.
BW-73 mins, TV-G

This time Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern play Joel and Garda. I wonder if the series would have lasted longer if MGM had been able to keep the same actors in the roles.


What's On Tonight: TCM GUEST PROGRAMMER: MARK MOTHERSBAUGH


8:00pm -- Inherit The Wind (1960)
In the twenties, a schoolteacher creates a national furor when he breaks the law against teaching evolution.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly.
Dir: Stanley Kramer.
BW-128 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Laszlo, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith

Based on the true events of the Scopes Monkey Trial which took place in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, the title of the movie comes from the Book of Proverbs, 11:29: "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."


10:15pm -- A Face In The Crowd (1957)
A female television executive turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau.
Dir: Elia Kazan.
BW-126 mins, TV-PG

Film debuts of Andy Griffith, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Lee Remick.

SPOILER: In the "Making of" documentary on the 2005 DVD release of A Face in the Crowd (1957), Andy Griffith says that the inspiration for way that Marcia reveals Rhodes' hypocrisy (by broadcasting his true feelings about his audience after he believes the sound has been cut off) came from the famed "Uncle Don incident," in which "Uncle" Don Carney, a longtime children's radio host, was supposed to have been broadcast saying "there, that oughta hold the little bastards" into a live microphone after he thought it had already been turned off. Griffith recounted this story as fact, even though it is believed by most broadcasting historians to be nothing more than a widespread and very popular urban legend.


12:30am -- Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
An aging housewife seeks direction when she catches her husband in an affair.
Cast: Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Valentina Coretese.
Dir: Federico Fellini.
C-137 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Piero Gherardi, and Best Costume Design, Color -- Piero Gherardi

Federico Fellini's first full-color feature. He claimed he took LSD in preparation for making this film.


3:00am -- Hot Rods To Hell (1967)
A family traveling through the desert is set up by a teen gang.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Jeanne Crain, Mimsy Farmer.
Dir: John Brahm.
C-100 mins, TV-PG

Originally made for television in 1966, but released first in theaters and drive-ins instead.


4:45am -- Go, Johnny, Go! (1959)
Rock-n-roll promoter Alan Freed searches for a talent contest's mysterious winner.
Cast: Alan Freed, Jimmy Clanton, Chuck Berry.
Dir: Paul Landres.
BW-74 mins, TV-G

Shot in two days, this was Ritchie Valens' only screen appearance.

[Staph]

1. Inherit the Wind

Courtroom dramas usually provide a bonanza for film extras, who can count on several weeks of work filling in the background as prosecution and defense attorneys battle it out. When producer-director Stanley Kramer brought the Broadway smash, Inherit the Wind to the screen in 1960, they got an added bonus - free acting lessons as two of the screen's very best locked horns.

The fireworks had really started in 1925 when high-school teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in Dayton, Tennessee. The "monkey" trial that followed attracted national attention. With crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow defending Scopes in the name of intellectual freedom and one-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryant assisting the prosecution in the name of Christian Fundamentalism, it became the true trial of the 20th century, a battle for the hearts and minds of the nation.

Next came the stage production, adapted from actual trial transcripts but with the names changed to avoid litigation (some of the original participants were still alive). Paul Muni and Ed Begley won Tonies for performances based on Darrow and Bryant respectively, while Tony Randall scored an early hit as a newspaper reporter modeled on professional cynic H.L. Mencken, who convinced Darrow to take the case.

For the film version of Inherit the Wind, Kramer only had two choices for the leads, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March. He had no problem convincing the latter. March had scored an Oscar nomination for his performance in the film version of Death of a Salesman, which Kramer had produced in 1951. Tracy was another matter. The veteran actor had been in poor health and hadn't made a film in two years. But he was flattered at the offer, saying, "I might as well do it. Nobody else wants me." When he protested that he might not have the energy for the role, Kramer assured him that he would shoot around his problems, even guaranteeing him a two-hour lunch break each day.

The first day of shooting, however, Tracy and Kramer faced off. The director asked for a second take because Tracy had mumbled the end of his line. Tracy stared at him for ten seconds, then said, "Mister Kramer, it has taken me just about 40 years to learn to read a line that way. Now do you want some college kid from UCLA to come over here and do this? Just say so, and we can arrange it." Kramer stared back for what seemed an eternity, and then calmly said, "Well, OK Spence, can we do another take?" and his star agreed. The two became close friends after that, and Tracy would make three more films with Kramer.

Tracy and March were great admirers of each other's work, but that didn't stop either from trying to upstage the other. March would fuss with his props during Tracy's lines, while Tracy would react to March in ways that drew the camera to him. But each knew the acting duel perfectly reflected the courtroom battle between their characters. And the challenge lifted both to new heights. As word of their performances got out, the set began filling with visitors eager to watch the two masters at work. During one courtroom scene, Tracy delivered a speech so effectively the onlookers began applauding before March could finish the take. In another exchange, the two delivered their increasingly heated dialogue so convincingly that Kramer was convinced they would never speak to each other again. But when it was over, March said, "You played the scene magnificently," and Tracy replied, "That's because you fed me my lines magnificently."

Inherit the Wind opened to glowing reviews, but ran into problems around the country, where theatres showing the film were picketed by religious fundamentalists convinced the picture was "anti-God." Fearing more protests, the distributor, United Artists, cut back its advertising budget to nearly nothing. Kramer had to tour the nation on his own in a futile attempt to drum up box office. Yet the film was well enough liked in Hollywood to garner Oscar nominations for Tracy, the screenplay, the cinematography and the editing, all of which had helped ensure that this particular courtroom drama would be anything but static.

Director/Producer: Stanley Kramer
Screenplay: Nedrick Young, Harold Jacob Smith (Based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee)
Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo
Editing: Frederic Knudtson
Music: Ernest Gold
Production Design: Rudolph Sternad
Cast: Spencer Tracy (Henry Drummond), Fredric March (Matthew Harrison Brady), Gene Kelly (E. K. Hornbeck), Dick York (Bertram T. Cates), Donna Anderson (Rachel Brown), Harry Morgan (Judge), Elliott Reid (Prosecutor Davenport), Florence Eldridge (Mrs. Sarah Brady).
BW-129m. Letterboxed.

by Frank Miller