TCM Schedule for Friday, June 8, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Directed by Edward Dmytryk

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is hanging around a bunch of different hotels. That includes the original all-star picture, Gramd Hotel (1932)!

In prime time, TCM is featuring director Edward Dmytryk. Fill us in, Roger!

Director Edward Dmytryk (1908-1999) first won critical praise for his film noir mysteries, then moved on to epic subjects in Westerns, war movies and historical melodramas. A bravura director of actors, he guided such stars as Robert Ryan, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Fonda through some of their most colorful roles.

Born in Grand Forks, Canada, to Ukrainian immigrants, Dmytryk rose above his impoverished youth to build a career in Hollywood, starting as a messenger boy for Paramount Studios. He worked his way up to film editor, with credits that include Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). He began directing with The Hawk (1935), a low-budget Western shot at Monogram Studios, moved up the latter to Columbia where he directed Boris Karloff in The Devil Commands (1941)and gained major attention with the wartime drama Tender Comrade (1943), starring Ginger Rogers as a selfless World War II aircraft worker whose husband (Robert Ryan) is killed in action. Although they passed unnoticed at the time, that film's political underpinnings (and even its title) would later figure in Dmytryk's trouble with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Two detective thrillers starring Dick Powell, Murder My Sweet (1944, from Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely) and Cornered (1945), further enhanced Dmytryk's reputation. But the outstanding film of his early career is Crossfire (1947), a riveting study of anti-Semitism, with Ryan in a blistering performance as a bigoted soldier who murders a Jewish man.

Crossfire, which brought Dmytryk his only Oscar® nomination as Best Director, also figured in his investigation by the HUAC, which led to his being found guilty of Communist associations and a one-year prison sentence. After his release, he worked for a time in Great Britain, then returned to the U.S., where he cooperated in committee hearings and was able to resume his career.

Other well-regarded films made during his tenure at RKO before he was blacklisted include the WWII action adventure Back to Bataan (1945) with John Wayne and Till the End of Time (1946), a drama which focuses on the problems faced by returning war veterans and featured Robert Mitchum and Dorothy McGuire. During a period of self-imposed exile in England where he was offered work, Dmytryk directed two of his least known films which deserve reassessement: Obsession (1949, aka The Hidden Room), a tense suspense thriller, and Give Us This Day (1949, aka Christ in Concrete), a powerful social drama about an Italian immigrant living to find work in New York City (though it was filmed in England).

Among his Hollywood successes of the 1950s were the military drama The Caine Mutiny (1954), with Humphrey Bogart in an Oscar®-nominated performance as the neurotic Captain Queeg; the Western Broken Lance (1954), with an Oscar®-winning screenplay by Philip Yordan; and the Civil War romance Raintree County (1956), with Elizabeth Taylor in her first Oscar®-nominated performance as a mentally disturbed Southern belle.

Dmytryk's subject matter grew somewhat lurid in such films as Walk on the Wild Side (1962), in which Jane Fonda plays a prostitute working for lesbian madame Barbara Stanwyck; and The Carpetbaggers (1964), with George Peppard playing a fictionalized version of Howard Hughes in the film version of Harold Robbins' steamy novel of Hollywood in the 1920s and '30s.

Dmytryk's final film was Not Only Strangers (1979). In the late 1970s and early '80s he taught film studies at the University of Texas and the University of Southern California. His second wife was actress Jean Porter.

by Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- TEN THOUSAND BEDROOMS (1956)
A playboy finds love while managing a posh hotel in Rome.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Dean Martin, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Eva Bartok
C-114 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Dean Martin's first film without Jerry Lewis.


8:00 AM -- HER HIGHNESS AND THE BELLBOY (1945)
A hotel bellboy is the unlikely choice to escort a visiting princess, over the protests of his invalid girlfriend.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, June Allyson
BW-111 mins, CC,

Hedy Lamarr insisted on top billing. Lamarr's relative star power had waned, and several of the film's up-and-coming young stars were likely more popular with audiences at the time. After a heated fight with the star, the studio acquiesced and Lamarr was billed first. However, her inflexibility on the matter likely contributed to the studio's unwillingness to renew her contract, and as result, this was her last motion picture for MGM.


10:00 AM -- HOTEL RESERVE (1946)
An Austrian refugee tries to figure out which guest at a French resort is a spy.
Dir: Victor Hanbury
Cast: James Mason, Lucie Mannheim, Raymond Lovell
BW-79 mins, CC,

Clare Hamilton, who plays Mary Skelton, was the sister of Maureen O' Hara. This would be her one and only screen appearance.


11:30 AM -- HOTEL BERLIN (1945)
During World War II's final days, people with a variety of problems converge on a Berlin hotel.
Dir: Peter Godfrey
Cast: Faye Emerson, Helmut Dantine, Raymond Massey
BW-98 mins, CC,

Vicki Baum's novel upon which this film is based was published in 1943. Production was from late 1944 to early 1945 and the script was continually updated to take the fast-moving events of the war into account.


1:15 PM -- GRAND HOTEL (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford
BW-113 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Picture

Daringly conceived by MGM production chief Irving Thalberg as what would become the first all-star film. Each studio had produced one all-star musical revue in 1929-30 to showcase the splendors of sound, but conventional wisdom decreed that no more than one or two stars should appear in a picture, thus maximizing profits by forcing audiences to pay separate admissions to see their favorite stars spread across many films. That philosophy changed after Grand Hotel (1932), which featured five of MGM's top-tiered stars and became one of the highest grossing pictures in studio history. Realizing that one star-laden vehicle could lasso attendance from each of its performers' respective fan bases, as opposed to producing five or six separate vehicles to achieve the same effect, Thalberg immediately set Dinner at Eight (1933) into motion as the first all-star comedy.


3:15 PM -- WEEKEND AT THE WALDORF (1945)
In this remake of Grand Hotel, guests at a New York hotel fight to survive personal tragedy.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon
BW-130 mins, CC,

Some interior and exterior scenes were shot on location at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, but the majority of the film was produced at the MGM studios - where the lobby, Starlight Roof Garden, and about sixty other sets were created.


5:29 PM -- THE SEESAW AND THE SHOES (1945)
This short film shows how two objects, the seesaw and a pair of shoes, led to important discoveries.
Dir: Douglas Foster
Cast: Gregory Golubeff, Helen Dickson, Sheldon Jett
BW-11 mins,


5:45 PM -- HOTEL (1967)
A New Orleans hotel owner fights off a corporate raider while his guests struggle through a variety of personal problems.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: Rod Taylor, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden
C-125 mins, CC,

In an odd twist of fate that could not be appreciated for at least a decade, Karl Malden plays a hotel thief who breaks into guest rooms and steals wallets; following one lowly heist that nets him him only a few dollars in actual cash, he bemoans that his livelihood is being snuffed out by rampant popularity of credit cards - which ironically later became his real-life late-career claim to fame as spokesman for American Express credit cards: "Don't leave home without it!"



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DIRECTED BY EDWARD DMYTRYK



8:00 PM -- WARLOCK (1959)
A Western town hires a famous gunman to rid it of outlaws.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn
C-121 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

DeForest Kelley rather famously told an anecdote about the filming of this movie in his later years on the Star Trek convention circuit, about the time Princess Sofia of Greece was visiting the set and Kelley flubbed a scene by falling over a chair onto his backside and saying "Oh, shit," in front of the princess. Henry Fonda told him the following Monday not to worry about it because he had danced with the princess over the weekend and ascertained that she had no idea what "shit" meant. This did not stop Kelley from getting a standing ovation at the commissary when the cast and crew broke for lunch.


10:15 PM -- THE LEFT HAND OF GOD (1955)
The new priest at a Chinese mission takes an unorthodox approach to spreading God's word.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gene Tierney, Lee J. Cobb
C-87 mins, CC,

This film unites Victor Sen Yung with Benson Fong. They played number two son Jimmy Chan and number three son Tommy Chan in the long running Charlie Chan film franchise. Interestingly, they never appeared together in any of the Chan films, and later in the series for some unknown reason, the producers changed Sen Young's character's name to Tommy Chan.


11:48 PM -- CAMERA SLEUTH (1950)
This short film dramatizes how real-life investigator Jo Goggin uses a motion-picture surveillance camera to gather evidence.
Dir: Dave O'Brien
Cast: John Miljan,
BW-10 mins,


12:00 AM -- OBSESSION (1949)
A jealous husband plots to dispose of his wife's lover in an acid bath.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Robert Newton, Naunton Wayne, Phil Brown
BW-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Also known as The Hidden Room.


1:49 AM -- THE BIRDS AND THE BEASTS WERE THERE (1944)
This short film focuses on three animal parks in Miami, Florida. Vitaphone Release 1288A.
Dir: André De La Varre Jr.
Cast: Knox Manning,
C-10 mins,


2:00 AM -- TWILIGHT PEOPLE (1973)
A diver is abducted by a mad scientist who wishes to experiment on him and turn him into one of his half human, half animal creations.
Dir: Eddie Romero
Cast: John Ashley, Pat Woodell, Jan Merlin
C-81 mins,

In September 1972, Dimension Pictures was widely exhibiting this film on a double bill with The Doberman Gang (1972).


3:30 AM -- ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932)
On a remote island, a mad scientist turns wild animals into human monsters.
Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
BW-70 mins, CC,

In response to British censors who claimed the film was "against nature", Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton) is said to have stated, "Of course it's against nature. So's Mickey Mouse!"


4:45 AM -- THE DISTANT DRUMMER: FLOWERS OF DARKNESS (1972)
Filmmakers trace the history of opium and its role in today's drug trade in this short film.
Dir: William Templeton
C-22 mins,


4:45 AM -- THE DISTANT DRUMMER: A MOVABLE SCENE (1970)
An education short film that exposes drug use and drug culture.
Dir: William Templeton
C-22 mins,


4:45 AM -- DUCK AND COVER (1951)
In this short film, a monkey's prank on a turtle demonstrates how to survive a nuclear attack.
Dir: Anthony Rizzo
Cast: Leo M. Langlois III, Ray J. Mauer,
BW-9 mins,


5:49 AM -- PARTY FEVER (1938)
In this comedic short, a group of children compete to become mayor for a day.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Harold Switzer, Bobby Callahan, Joe Levine
BW-10 mins,

The 170th of 220 "Our Gang" shorts produced from 1922 to 1944 and the second one from MGM.