TCM Schedule for Friday, March 28, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Food In The Movies

[Staph]

During the day, TCM is celebrating Louis Wolheim, born March 28, 1880, in New York City. He had his face smashed up and his nose badly broken while playing football at Cornell University. Lionel Barrymore, his mentor, once told him, "With that face you could make a fortune in the theater." Wolhim tried the stage late in his career and won considerable attention in Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape." He later became O'Neill's friend. In prime time, it's another high calorie night, when TCM celebrates amazing meals in the movies. Enjoy, but don't eat the soylent green!



6:00 AM -- MGM 40th Anniversary (1964)
A brief overview of MGM releases from the first 40 years of the studio.
C-32 mins,


6:45 AM -- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
In this silent film, a doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous monster.
Dir: John S. Robertson
Cast: John Barrymore, Martha Mansfield, Brandon Hurst
BW-68 mins,

Contrary to popular belief, this film was not shot at the Astoria Studios in Long Island. Principal photography took place between December 1919 and January 1920 in the rooftop auditorium of the Amsterdam Opera House on 44th St. in Manhattan, in order for Barrymore to make his regularly scheduled Broadway appearances. In between February, 1920 and September, 1920, Paramount used the downstairs auditorium when it became available. The Astoria studios opened the following month.


8:00 AM -- Orphans of the Storm (1921)
In this silent film, two sisters, one of them blind, fight to find each other during the French Revolution.
Dir: D. W. Griffith
Cast: Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut
BW-151 mins,

D.W. Griffith used this movie as a means of commenting, obliquely, on contemporary politics of his time. He drew parallels between the anarchist mobs that overthrew the French aristocrats, and what he says in opening titles to the film are the present American dangers of succumbing to the kind of "anarchy and Bolshevism" he perceived in the recent Russian Revolution. It is a great historical irony that those Bolsheviks Griffith railed against were quite smitten with the director's incomparable ways of generating film tension in crosscutting as well as his cinematic means of conveying good and evil via sophisticated editing and framing techniques. As the father of film syntax Griffith was an enormous influence on the Soviet filmmakers Sergei M. Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, who were inspired by many of his films including the anti-Bolshevik Orphans of the Storm (1921).


10:45 AM -- Sherlock Holmes (1922)
Sherlock Holmes faces off against Professor Moriarty.
Dir: Albert Parker
Cast: John Barrymore, Roland Young, Carol Dempster
BW-86 mins,

This is one of a few silent Holmes films that have survived, including his first appearance on screen (an Edison short called Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900)), the 1912 Danish short "The Copper Beeches" and a number of the series produced in Britain in the 1920s and starring Eille Norwood as Holmes. The restoration of this film began in 1970, when the George Eastman House discovered several cans of negative of the film, consisting of incomplete, out-of-order clips. Film historian Kevin Brownlow screened a print of these clips for the film's director, Albert Parker, and with the information Parker gave him began a decades-long process of reassembling the film from the bits and pieces that survived.


12:15 PM -- The Racket (1928)
In this silent film, a renegade police captain sets out to catch a sadistic mob boss.
Dir: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Thomas Meighan, Marie Prevost, Louis Wolheim
BW-84 mins,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, Production

Only one copy of the film is known to have survived. It was long thought lost before being located in Howard Hughes' film collection after his death. The film was restored and preserved by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas film department.


1:45 PM -- The Ship From Shanghai (1929)
Raging storms and a crazed steward threaten the passengers on a South Pacific ship.
Dir: Charles Brabin
Cast: Conrad Nagel, Kay Johnson, Carmel Myers
BW-67 mins,

Based on the novel Ordeal by Dale Collins.


3:00 PM -- The Silver Horde (1930)
An Alaskan fisherman is dogged by a ruthless competitor and an ambitious dance hall girl.
Dir: George Archainbaud
Cast: Evelyn Brent, Louis Wolheim, Joel McCrea
BW-75 mins,

The title refers to migrating salmon.


4:30 PM -- Danger Lights (1931)
A family railroad is threatened when the owner's girl falls for a conductor.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Louis Wolheim, Robert Armstrong, Jean Arthur
BW-74 mins,

Features rare footage of a tug of war between two steam locomotives, actual documentary footage of the activities in the Miles City yard, and what is believed to be the only motion picture footage of a dynamometer car from the steam railroad era.


5:45 PM -- Gentleman's Fate (1931)
A bootlegger falls apart when his wife leaves him.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: John Gilbert, Louis Wolheim, Leila Hyams
BW-93 mins,

Wolheim died before the release of this film and following six days of rehearsal for the film The Front Page (1931). Adolphe Menjou, the epitome of sartorial elegance and the polar opposite of the brutish-looking Louis, replaced him and was nominated for a "Best Actor" Oscar for his efforts. Menjou played Walter Burns, the role you may better remember played by Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (1940), to be shown tomorrow night on TCM.


7:30 PM -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Sydney Pollack (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-28 mins, CC, Letterbox Format



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: FOOD IN THE MOVIES



8:00 PM -- Babette's Feast (1987)
A French refugee in Denmark transforms the lives of the elderly women for whom she works.
Dir: Gabriel Axel
Cast: Stephane Audran, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Gudmar Wivesson
C-103 mins, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film -- Denmark

Based on a story from Karen Blixen's collection "Skaebne-Anekdoter" or Anecdotes of Destiny.


10:00 PM -- Big Night (1996)
A failing Italian restaurant run by two brothers gambles on one special night to try to save the business.
Dir: Campbell Scott
Cast: Marc Anthony, Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci
C-109 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Primo, Tony Shalhoub's name in Big Night, translates as "First". Secondo, 'Stanley Tucci''s character, translates as "Second". This relates to their birth order in the film. It is briefly referenced in the Cadillac scene when Secondo meets Bob (the car salesman played by Campbell Scott).


12:00 AM -- Soylent Green (1973)
A future cop uncovers the deadly secret behind a mysterious synthetic food.
Dir: Richard O. Fleischer
Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Edward G. Robinson
C-97 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Spoiler, but a wonderful bit of trivia and insight into the performers....

When Thorn discovers that he is too late to stop Sol's suicide, he begins to cry. According to a 1997 interview with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies, Charlton Heston was really crying because he was so moved by Edward G. Robinson's performance. Robinson knew he was dying from cancer and kept it from the cast and crew. He knew this would be his last film, and his death scene was the last scene he ever filmed. He died just ten days after shooting wrapped.


1:45 AM -- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
A space probe unleashes microbes that turn the dead into flesh-eating zombies.
Dir: George A. Romero
Cast: Judith O'Dea, Russell Streiner, Duane Jones
BW-96 mins, CC,

When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies, as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway.


3:30 AM -- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
A crazed, aging star torments her sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
BW-134 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Norma Koch

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Victor Buono, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Sound -- Joseph D. Kelly (Seven Arts-Warner Bros. Glen Glenn Sound Department)

While touring the talk show circuit to promote the movie, Bette Davis told one interviewer that when she and Joan Crawford were first suggested for the leads in this film, Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner replied: "I wouldn't give a plugged nickel for either one of those two old broads." Recalling the story, Davis laughed at her own expense. The following day, she reportedly received a telegram from Crawford: "In future, please do not refer to me as an old broad!"

[CBHagman]

1. Judging by the evening line-up, someone at TCM has exquisitely good taste...

...combined with a warped sense of humor.