TCM Schedule for Friday, August 16, 2013 -- Summer Under The Stars -- Ann Blyth

[Staph]

Today's star is the beautiful and gifted Ann Blyth, born Ann Marie Blyth on August 16, 1928, in Mount Kisco, New York. She could move easily from teen musicals to operettas, from serious drama to light romance, from soap opera to biography. Her best role was likely her Oscar-nominated turn as Joan Crawford's evil daughter in Mildred Pierce (1945).

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- One Minute to Zero (1952)
A U.S. colonel in Korea tries to evacuate American civilians.
Dir: Tay Garnett
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ann Blyth, William Talman
BW-106 mins, TV-PG,

During a battle, the character played by Alvin Greenman is asked by another soldier if he "believes in Santa Claus". Greenman befriended Santa Claus when he played Alfred in the movie Miracle on 34th Street.


8:00 AM -- All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953)
Brothers on a whaling schooner become romantic rivals.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth
C-95 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey

In earlier versions of this story, Ann Blyth's role was played by Bilie Dove (All the Brothers Were Valiant (1923)), and by Joan Crawford (Across to Singapore (1928)).


9:45 AM -- The King's Thief (1955)
A highwayman uncovers a plot to assassinate King Charles II.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven
C-79 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on a story by Robert Hardy Andrews.


11:15 AM -- Rose Marie (1954)
A trapper's daughter is torn between the Mountie who wants to civilize her and a dashing prospector.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas
C-104 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Originally, Thurl Ravenscroft was to be only the single voice double for the Medicine Man. However, the actor could not synchronize his lip movements to Thurl's recording, so the studio called in Thurl at the last minute to actually play the role on-screen. (How do you know the name Thurl Ravenscroft? Why, he's grrrrreeeeaaattt!


1:00 PM -- The Great Caruso (1951)
The legendary opera singer fights to win his place in society.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten
C-109 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Costume Design, Color -- Helen Rose and Gile Steele, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Peter Herman Adler and Johnny Green

Conductor Richard Hageman, who played Carlo Santi in the film, actually knew Enrico Caruso and led several performances with him at the Metropolitan Opera, including the 1918 War Relief Benefit re-created in the film.


3:00 PM -- Brute Force (1947)
Tough, disgruntled prisoners plan a daring, possibly bloody escape while on a drain pipe detail.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford
BW-98 mins, TV-14, CC,

When the Group Theater (1931-1940), the first American acting company to attempt to put the Russian Stanislavski's principles into action, disbanded many of the actors who had participated in its revolutionary realistic productions on Broadway ("Awake and Sing" "Waiting for Lefty&quot made their way to Hollywood in search of work;, Roman Bohnen ("Warden&quot , and Art Smith ("Dr. Walters&quot - all of whom can be seen in this film. As many of the actors in The Group were members of the Communist Party or leftist organizations, they would soon be blacklisted during the HUAC period along with the director of this film, Jules Dassin. In 1946, a year before the release of this film, Elia Kazan, one of the members of The Group Theater who named names, happened to be in Hollywood and saw a production of one of Tennessee Williams's early plays "Portrait of a Madonna" directed by Hume Cronyn - who plays the sadistic Capt. Munsey in this film. Kazan was so impressed by the work of Cronyn's wife, Jessica Tandy, that he offered her the role of Blanche Dubois in his Broadway production of "Streetcar Named Desire."


4:45 PM -- Killer McCoy (1947)
A lightweight boxer gets mixed up in murder.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Brian Donlevy, Ann Blyth
BW-104 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Remake of The Crowd Roars (1938).


6:30 PM -- Slander (1957)
A TV star almost loses his career and his marriage over a tabloid story.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Van Johnson, Ann Blyth, Steve Cochran
BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Harold J. Stone's movie debut.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: ANN BLYTH



8:00 PM -- Mildred Pierce (1945)
A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott
BW-111 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford (Joan Crawford was not present at the awards ceremony and feigned ill that night. Meanwhile she listened to the show on the radio. When she won, she ushered the press into her bedroom, where she finally accepted her Oscar.)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eve Arden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ann Blyth, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ranald MacDougall, and Best Picture

Shooting the early scenes, director Michael Curtiz accused Joan Crawford of needlessly glamorizing her working mother role. She insisted she was buying her character's clothes off the rack, but didn't mention that her own dressmaker was fitting the waists and padding out the shoulders.


10:00 PM -- Kismet (1955)
In this Arabian Nights musical, the "king of the beggars" infiltrates high society when his daughter is wooed by a handsome prince.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray
C-113 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

The orange seller (the man who Hajj (Howard Keel) holds down and calls the "father of none and son of many&quot is played by Jamie Farr best known for his role as Corporal Klinger in the TV show "M.A.S.H".


12:00 AM -- The Student Prince (1954)
A prince falls in love with a barmaid during his last fling before assuming the crown.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, John Ericson
C-107 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

In August 1952 Mario Lanza recorded the soundtrack. The whole recording was done in single takes. Every phrase in it was Lanza magic at its best. However, on the film set things were not to go well at all. The first scene to be shot was the song "Beloved" on the terrace. Director Curtis Bernhardt did not like the way the song was sung and corrected Lanza, telling him that he was putting too much emotion in his singing instead of sounding more stuffy and rigid like a Prussian prince. Lanza informed Bernhardt that he was to direct only his acting, and that Lanza's singing was strictly Lanza's department. Bernhardt would not accept this, and Lanza would not be told how to sing by a movie director. The end result was that Lanza walked off the set and vowed not to return as long as Bernhardt was the director. The studio took an injunction against Lanza for damages and losses. He could not perform in public, on radio, or in the recording studio for the remaining time of his contract with MGM (which was then 15 months). A solution was reached in May 1953: the studio would remove the embargo on Lanza if he would allow his voice to be used while another actor played the part of the prince. This was agreed to and the filming got under way with Edmund Purdom lip-synching Lanza, which he did marvelously. The irony is that when the film was finally made, the director was no longer Bernhardt, but Richard Thorpe, who had worked harmoniously with Lanza on The Great Caruso.


2:00 AM -- The Helen Morgan Story (1957)
A singer rises from sordid beginnings to fame and fortune... only to lose it all.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Ann Blyth, Paul Newman, Richard Carlson
BW-118 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

Although Ann Blyth had done her own singing in her other movie musicals, her trained soprano voice was judged too operatic for the role of Helen Morgan, and pop singer Gogi Grant's voice was dubbed in. Ironically, the real Helen Morgan's light soprano voice was actually closer to Blyth's in quality than it was to Grant's. Ann Blyth revealed to writer-producer John Fricke that studio head Jack L. Warner had insisted on an intense, belting, Judy Garland-type sound for the film's Morgan.


4:15 AM -- Our Very Own (1950)
The discovery that she's adopted shakes a young girl's sense of security.
Dir: Dave Miller
Cast: Ann Blyth, Farley Granger, Joan Evans
BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer

Rita Hamilton and Phyllis Kirk's debut film, and Jessica Grayson's final film.


5:50 AM -- Pest Control (1950)
A narrated how to short on how to handle various pest including, an obnoxius man, a bratty kid and an ink pen that does not work.
Dir: David Barclay
Cast: Dave O'Brien,
BW-8 mins

[snappyturtle]

1. Thanks! nt