TCM later:
6:00 PM -- The Candidate (1972)
1h 49m | Drama | TV-14
A senate candidate's ideals weaken as his position in the polls gets stronger.
Director: Michael Ritchie
Cast: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Melvyn Douglas
Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Jeremy Larner
Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound -- Richard Portman and Gene S. Cantamessa
Robert Redford and Michael Ritchie had recently worked together on Downhill Racer (1969), when they approached Jeremy Larner together wanting to make a movie about "a candidate who sold his soul." According to Larner: "Warners would not have financed the film were not Redford willing to take responsibility for it, and though he did not want the credit, he was a most conscientious producer from beginning to end, and the movie certainly reflects his personality."
WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR -- 1970s WINNERS
8:00 PM -- Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
3h | Musical | TV-G
Before the Russian revolution, a Jewish milkman tries to marry off his daughters who have plans of their own.
Director: Norman Jewison
Cast: Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey
Winner of Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Oswald Morris, Best Sound -- Gordon K. McCallum and David Hildyard, and Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song Score -- John Williams
Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Topol, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Leonard Frey, Best Director -- Norman Jewison, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Robert F. Boyle, Michael Stringer and Peter Lamont, and Best Picture
Perchik is a student revolutionary from Kiev, who is strident and condescending with the villagers about their apathy towards world events. But it's never explained why he's in their obscure, and remote little village, 400 to 500 miles away. It is possible that he was there hiding from the authorities. He could also have been in the settlements recruiting members for the revolution.
((What is Anatevka based on?
**Where is Anatevka Fiddler on the Roof?
In 1905, Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Ukrainian village of Anatevka, a typical shtetl in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia, compares the lives of the Jews of Anatevka to a fiddler on the roof (who appears throughout the film in this metaphorical role),))
11:15 PM -- All That Jazz (1979)
2h 3m | Adaptation | TV-MA
Director/choreographer Bob Fosse tells his own life story as he details the sordid life of Joe Gideon, a womanizing, drug-using dancer.
Director: Bob Fosse
Cast: Gary Bayer, Leonard Drum, Jan Flato
Winner of Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Philip Rosenberg, Tony Walton, Edward Stewart and Gary J. Brink, Best Costume Design -- Albert Wolsky, Best Film Editing -- Alan Heim, and Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score -- Ralph Burns
Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Roy Scheider, Best Director -- Bob Fosse, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Robert Alan Aurthur and Bob Fosse, Best Cinematography -- Giuseppe Rotunno, and Best Picture
There's a lot of life imitates art here and vice versa. Ann Reinking was Bob Fosse's girlfriend and protégé in 1975, which was the timeframe Fosse documented with this movie. The wife's character was likely based on Gwen Verdon from whom he was separated but had a working relationship. The daughter is based pretty closely on his real daughter, Nicole Fosse, who was a dancer in this period and would go on to star in A Chorus Line (1985), another seminal backstage musical movie. And Gideon is, of course, Fosse himself. (Fosse was pretty open about all this stuff in interviews.)