TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 21, 2013 -- What's On Tonight -- Dean Stockwell

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating the birth of prolific director W. S. Van Dyke, born Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II on March 21, 1889 in San Diego, California. From his mini-biography on IMDB: "For the better part of his career, Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke lived up to his sobriquet,'One- Take Woody', by steadfastly adhering to his credo of shooting each scene as quickly and efficiently as possible. During a period of 25 years, he economically directed over 90 diverse entertainments, which not only saved the studios vast amounts of money, but also turned out to be some of the most interesting motion pictures created during this period."

And in prime time, TCM is featuring the films of Dean Stockwell, one of the few to make the leap from child star to working adult actor. His first film, at age 9, was Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, and he has two new films coming out in 2013. (But I still love him best as Admiral Al Calavicci in the television series Quantam Leap. Oh boy!) Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Pagan (1929)
A South Seas native falls for a white woman.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Renée Adorée, Donald Crisp
BW-78 mins, TV-PG,

From the credits: "Produced and photographed in the Paumotu Islands of the South Seas."


7:30 AM -- Night Court (1932)
A corrupt judge attacks a reformer's family.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Phillips Holmes, Walter Huston, Anita Page
BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC,

You've heard of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, presented at the Oscars? In 1939 Hersholt helped to form the Motion Picture Relief Fund. This helped to support industry employees with medical care when they were down on their luck and was used to create the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. This led to the creation in 1956 of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian an honorary Academy Award given to an "individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry."


9:15 AM -- Eskimo (1933)
An Eskimo family fights to survive harsh conditions in the frozen North.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Mala, Lotus, Joseph Sauers
BW-114 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Conrad A. Nervig

This is the first film to ever win an Academy Award for Editing (1934 was the first year when an Oscar for Editing was introduced.)


11:15 AM -- Laughing Boy (1934)
A young Navajo defies tribal custom to marry an outcast.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Lupe Velez, William Davidson
BW-79 mins, TV-PG,

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Oliver La Farge.


12:45 PM -- Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Boyhood friends grow up on opposite sides of the law.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy
BW-90 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Arthur Caesar

This is probably the only major film to offer a fairly accurate re-creation of the General Slucum disaster. The popular excursion steamer caught fire in New York's East River on the morning of June 15, 1904, while transporting passengers to a picnic organized by St. Mark's Evangelical German Lutheran Church (Lower East Side, Manhattan). At an estimated 1,021 fatalities, mostly women and children, this was New York City's single worst tragedy, in terms of lives lost, before 9/11. An incompetent, inexperienced crew was held primarily to blame for the tragedy.


2:30 PM -- I Live My Life (1935)
A flighty society girl tries to make a go of her marriage to an archaeologist.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Joan Crawford, Brian Aherne, Frank Morgan
BW-97 mins, TV-G, CC,

A different ending was shot for the British release, which toned down the behavior of Brian Aherne at the wedding.


4:15 PM -- Love On The Run (1936)
Rival newsmen get mixed up with a runaway heiress and a ring of spies.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone
BW-80 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The film was written to cash in on the popularity of "runaway heiress" films, like "It Happened One Night."


5:45 PM -- Cairo (1942)
A war correspondent in Egypt thinks a screen star on tour is a spy.
Dir: Maj. W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Robert Young, Ethel Waters
BW-101 mins, TV-G,

First lines in the film:
Homer Smith: Have you ever been in San Francisco?
Marcia Warren: Yes, once with Gable and Tracy and the joint fell apart!

W. S. Van Dyke was the uncredited director for the film San Francisco (1936), starring Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.


7:30 PM -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Joan Allen (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-27 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

'I was very shy, but was desperate to meet boys. So my sister told me to be a cheerleader. I didn't make cheerleading squad, so I thought, "Why not try out for a play?" As soon as I did I found out I absolutely loved it. I could cry and scream and laugh, but in a controlled environment.' Joan Allen



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DEAN STOCKWELL



8:00 PM -- Compulsion (1959)
Two wealthy law-school students go on trial for murder in this version of the Leopold-Loeb case.
Dir: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Orson Welles, Diane Varsi, Dean Stockwell
BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Because Orson Welles was having tax problems during the production, at the end of shooting his salary for the movie was garnisheed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. This upset Welles so much that just before he finished looping his dialogue in post-production, he stormed off the studio and left the country. All that was left to be looped was the last 20 seconds of his end speech in the courtroom. Incredibly, editor William Reynolds fixed this problem without needing Welles. Reynolds took words and pieces of words Welles had spoken earlier in the movie, and pieced them one by one into those 20 seconds.


10:00 PM -- Down to the Sea in Ships (1949)
A re-make of the 1922 silent film that details the lives of the people in a small Quaker community and the adventures of a whaling ship.
Dir: Henry Hathaway
Cast: Richard Widmark, Lionel Barrymore, Dean Stockwell
BW-120 mins, CC,

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on April 30, 1951 with Lionel Barrymore and Richard Widmark reprising their film roles.


12:15 AM -- Kim (1950)
Rudyard Kipling's classic tale of an orphaned boy who helps the British Army against Indian rebels.
Dir: Victor Saville
Cast: Errol Flynn, Dean Stockwell, Paul Lukas
C-113 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Originally bought as a property for Freddie Bartholomew in 1938. Production was so far under way (including Bartholomew posing with Indian elephants for newsreel cameras), that the project was eventually abandoned to save costs.


2:15 AM -- The Boy With Green Hair (1948)
An orphaned boy mystically acquires green hair and a mission to end war.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale
C-82 mins, TV-G, CC,

Unfortunately for the film's director, Joseph Losey, the eccentric, politically conservative Howard Hughes took over RKO while this film was being shot and, hating the film's pacifist message, did his best to sabotage it. Losey, however, managed to protect the integrity of his project. Screenwriter Ben Barzman, who was also later blacklisted along with Losey, would later recall that "Joe shot the picture in such a way that there wasn't much possibility for change. A few lines were stuck in here and there to soften the message, but that was about it". Barzman also remembered that 12-year-old Dean Stockwell was called into Hughes' office and Hughes told him that when the other children spoke of the horror of war, he should say, "And that's why America has gotta have the biggest army, and the biggest navy, and the biggest air force in the world!" According to Barzman, little Stockwell was so in sympathy with the film's message that he dared to respond, "No, sir!" Even after Hughes started to scream at him, the boy held his ground and refused to do it.


3:45 AM -- The Careless Years (1957)
A rich girl and her poor boyfriend flee to Mexico to escape family disapproval.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Dean Stockwell, Natalie Trundy, John Larch
BW-73 mins, TV-G,

Arthur Hiller's feature film directorial debut.


5:00 AM -- Port of Shadows (1939)
An army deserter on the run risks his freedom to protect a beautiful young woman.
Dir: Marcel Carne
Cast: MichFle Morgan, Jean Gabin, Michel Simon
BW-91 mins, TV-14,

Based on the novel by Pierre Dumarchais, writing as Pierre Mac Orlan.

[graham4anything]

1. Have this on our DVD William Powell set, just watched the other day. Great movie.

12:45 PM -- Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Boyhood friends grow up on opposite sides of the law.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy
BW-90 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Arthur Caesar

This is probably the only major film to offer a fairly accurate re-creation of the General Slucum disaster. The popular excursion steamer caught fire in New York's East River on the morning of June 15, 1904, while transporting passengers to a picnic organized by St. Mark's Evangelical German Lutheran Church (Lower East Side, Manhattan). At an estimated 1,021 fatalities, mostly women and children, this was New York City's single worst tragedy, in terms of lives lost, before 9/11. An incompetent, inexperienced crew was held primarily to blame for the tragedy.

[Staph]

2. There's a lot of interest trivia associated with this film.

This was the movie that bank robber John Dillinger had just seen before he was gunned down in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. He had been set up by Anna Sage, the madam of a brothel, who knew Dillinger's girlfriend, Polly Hamilton. Sage was facing deportation and thought the tip might get her off. She told FBI agent Melvin Purvis that she would be wearing orange which appeared red, leading her to be dubbed "The Woman in Red". Dillinger was shot three times when he tried to escape, and Sage wound up being sent back to Romania.

Lorenz Hart was asked to write more commercially appealing lyrics to "The Bad in Every Man" after this movie was released. The result was "Blue Moon," which was copyrighted under that title in December 1934.

And my favorite bit of trivia...

This is the first of 14 pairings of Myrna Loy and William Powell and the first of three movies they would make together in 1934.

I love Myrna Loy and William Powell together! They just sparkle on the screen.