TCM Schedule for Saturday, May 24, 2014 -- The Essentials - Memorial Day Marathon

[Staph]

It's the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend, and TCM is celebrating with a series of war films -- today with WWI, WWII and the Korean War. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Journey For Margaret (1942)
An American correspondent tries to adopt two children orphaned during the London blitz.
Dir: Major W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Robert Young, Laraine Day, Fay Bainter
BW-81 mins, CC,

This is the film from which Margaret O'Brien took her name. She was born Angela O'Brien, but she so identified with the character she played in this film that she decided to change her name to Margaret.


7:30 AM -- The Shopworn Angel (1938)
A showgirl gives up life in the fast lane for a young soldier on his way to fight World War I.
Dir: H. C. Potter
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Walter Pidgeon
BW-85 mins, CC,

Mary Martin provides the singing voice for Margaret Sullavan. This same year she also dubbed the singing voice for Gypsy Rose Lee in "The Battle of Broadway."


9:00 AM -- A Guy Named Joe (1943)
A downed World War II pilot becomes the guardian angel for his successor in love and war.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson
BW-120 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- David Boehm and Chandler Sprague

The General, played by Lionel Barrymore, wears the Medal of Honor ribbon on his uniform, but the ribbon is displayed upside down (the five stars forming a "W" instead of an "M&quot . Interestingly, James Doolittle also wore the Medal of Honor ribbon upside down, leading some to ask if there might be an aviation connection .


11:15 AM -- Hell to Eternity (1960)
A young man adopted by Japanese-Americans becomes a hero in World War II.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen, Vic Damone
BW-132 mins, Letterbox Format

The real Guy Gabaldon - unlike Jeffrey Hunter, the tall Anglo actor who played him - was Chicano and only 5'4", 130 pounds. He enlisted in the Marines after Pearl Harbor at age 17. Even though he captured more enemy soldiers single-handedly than anyone else, including WW I hero Sergeant Alvin C. York, he was not awarded the Medal of Honor, as York was.


1:45 PM -- The Steel Helmet (1951)
Americans trapped behind enemy lines fight off Communists during the Korean War.
Dir: Samuel Fuller
Cast: Robert Hutton, Steve Brodie, James Edwards
BW-84 mins,

One scene in the picture shows an American officer killing an unarmed prisoner, and another has a Japanese-American soldier talking about how his parents were separated and sent to different "relocation" camps during World War II because they were Japanese. These two incidents, coming at the height of the McCarthy-led "Red hysteria" that was sweeping the country at the time, led to calls for writer/director Samuel Fuller to be arrested for treason and for writing anti-American/pro-Communist "propaganda" for giving "the Reds" ammunition to attack the US, and he later learned that he was in fact investigated by the FBI because of that film.


3:15 PM -- Objective, Burma! (1945)
An American platoon parachutes into Burma to take out a strategic Japanese outpost.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Errol Flynn, James Brown, William Prince
BW-142 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Alvah Bessie, Best Film Editing -- George Amy, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Franz Waxman

The movie was pulled from release in the UK after just one week. It was banned there after heated protest from British veterans groups and the military establishment. As the Burma campaign was a predominantly British and Australian operation, the picture was taken as a national insult due to the movie's Americanization of the Burma operation. The resentment that many felt was seen as yet another example of Americans believing they had won the war singlehandedly. It was not shown in Britain again until 1952/1953 and then with an apology disclaimer. Incidentally, writer Lester Cole, who co-wrote the somewhat overly patriotic flag-waving script, would be branded an "Un-American" Communist, becoming one of the Hollywood Ten just a few years later.


5:45 PM -- The Hill (1965)
Prisoners fight to survive the grueling conditions in a North African military stockade.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen
BW-123 mins, CC,

In Sidney Lumet's autobiography "Making Movies", the director recalled suffering through the horrendous heat of the location and asking Sean Connery if he was urinating at all, to which Connery's reply was "Only in the morning".



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: MEMORIAL DAY MARATHON



8:00 PM -- The Dirty Dozen (1967)
A renegade officer trains a group of misfits for a crucial mission behind enemy lines.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson
C-150 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- John Poyner

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Cassavetes, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing -- Michael Luciano

Production on the film ran for so long that Jim Brown was in danger of missing training camp for the up-coming 1967-68 football season. As training camp and the NFL season approached, the NFL threatened to fine and suspend Brown if he did not leave filming and report to camp immediately. Not one to take threats, Brown simply held a press conference to announce his retirement from football. At the time of his retirement, Brown was considered to be one of the best in the game and even today is considered to be one of the NFL's all-time greats.


10:45 PM -- Where Eagles Dare (1969)
An Allied team sets out to free an American officer held by the Nazis in a mountaintop castle.
Dir: Brian G. Hutton
Cast: Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure
C-155 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Despite Clint Eastwood's reputation for violence in other films, his character kills more people in this film than any other Eastwood character.


1:30 AM -- Kelly's Heroes (1970)
An American platoon tries to recover buried treasure behind enemy lines.
Dir: Brian G. Hutton
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles
C-143 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Film is based upon a true incident. The caper was covered in a book called "Nazi Gold: The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up" by Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting. The heist was perpetrated by a combinations of renegade Nazi and American officers. It was also listed as the "biggest" robbery ever in the Guinness Book of Records, in the 1960's.


4:00 AM -- Men Of The Fighting Lady (1954)
Men on a U.S. aircraft carrier fight to survive the Korean War.
Dir: Andrew Marton
Cast: Van Johnson, Walter Pidgeon, Louis Calhern
C-80 mins, CC,

The scene where Keenan Wynn's character is killed in a crash landing on the carrier, the footage is the actual accident of a F9F during one of its early test flights. On June 23, 1951, pilot George Duncan hit an air pocket just before landing on the USS Midway. The pocket dropped the plane but he managed to keep the nose up at the time of impact, severing the plane and expelling the plane's cockpit onto the carrier deck as a fireball erupted behind him. Except for burning his ears, Duncan survived the crash.


5:30 AM -- The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962)
During World War II, an inept intelligence officer falls hard for a military nurse.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Jack Carter
C-90 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on the 1961 novel The Bottletop Affair by Gordon Cotler