TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 12, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month - Steve McQueen

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, TCM is featuring the French Revolution. According to Wikipedia, "The sudden dismissal of popular finance minister Jacques Necker by King Louis XVI on 11 July 1789 proved the spark that lit the fuse of (journalist Camille) Desmoulins' fame. On 12 July, spurred by the news of this politically unsettling dismissal, Desmoulins leapt onto a table outside the Cafe du Foy (one of many cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal frequented in large part by political dissidents) and delivered an impassioned call to arms. Shedding his customary stammer in the excitement, he urged the volatile crowd to "take up arms and adopt cockades by which we may know each other", calling Necker's dismissal the tocsin of the St. Bartholomew of the patriots. The stationing of a large number of troops in Paris, many foreign, had led Desmoulins and other political radicals to believe that a massacre of dissidents in the city was indeed imminent. This was an idea that his audience also found plausible and threatening, and they were quick to embrace Desmoulins and take up arms in riots that spread throughout Paris rapidly.

"The "cockades" worn by the crowd were initially green, a color associated with liberty, and made at first from the leaves of the trees that lined the Palais Royal. However, the color green was also associated with the Comte d'Artois, the reactionary and conservative brother of the King, and the cockades therefore were quickly replaced by others in the traditional colors of Paris: red and blue. The forces semi-organized under this banner attacked the Hôtel des Invalides to gain arms and, on 14 July, embarked upon the Storming of the Bastille."

In the evening hours, TCM continues the films of July's Star of the Month, Steve McQueen. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- MARIE ANTOINETTE (1938)
Lavish biography of the French queen who "let them eat cake."
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Norma Shearer, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore
BW-157 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Norma Shearer, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Morley, Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons, and Best Music, Original Score -- Herbert Stothart

From its initial inception up until right before the cameras started to roll, the film was designed to be shot in Technicolor. All of the sets and costumes were designed with color in mind. MGM went as far as to send the fox cape that Norma Shearer wears (to see Henry Stephenson on the night she becomes Queen) to New York to be specially dyed to match the blue of her eyes. Fearing that the addition of Technicolor would swell the already mammoth (for the time) $1.8-million budget, the production went before black-and-white cameras instead.


8:45 AM -- THE BLACK BOOK (1949)
Opponents plot to bring down Robespierre during the French Revolution.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Richard Hart
BW-89 mins, CC,

Shot on sets left over from Joan of Arc (1948).


10:30 AM -- A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1935)
Charles Dickens' classic story of two men in love with the same woman during the French Revolution.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elizabeth Allen, Edna May Oliver
BW-126 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Film Editing -- Conrad A. Nervig, and Best Picture

Actor Ronald Colman agreed to play the role of Sydney Carton with the sole condition that he not also be required to play the role of Charles Darnay, as was usually expected in adaptations of the Dickens novel. The plot of A Tale of Two Cities turns on the physical resemblance between the two characters. Colman had long wanted to play Sidney Carton, and was even willing to shave off his beloved mustache to play the part.


12:45 PM -- THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1934)
A British aristocrat's effete facade masks a swashbuckling hero rescuing victims of the French revolution.
Dir: Harold Young
Cast: Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey
BW-98 mins, CC,

When Sir Percy recites his poem, it contains the word "demmed" which, in the US in 1934, would have been construed as profanity and would not have been allowed. This film was produced in England, however, where it was.


2:45 PM -- SCARAMOUCHE (1952)
In 18th-century France, a young man masquerades as an actor to avenge his friend's murder.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Stewart Granger, Eleanor Parker, Janet Leigh
C-115 mins, CC,

Scaramouche is a roguish, burlesque clown who originated as a stock character in the 17th century Italian commedia dell'arte, where he was known as "Scaramuccia," which literally means "skirmish." He wears a black mask with a large nose who broadly grimaces and indulges in slapstick behavior and is generally beaten by Harlequin for his boasting and cowardice. He is an traditionally iconic character found in Punch and Judy shows.


4:45 PM -- VOLTAIRE (1933)
The famed French writer becomes the conscience of his country during the French Revolution.
Dir: John G. Adolfi
Cast: George Arliss, Doris Kenyon, Margaret Lindsay
BW-72 mins,

Although the onscreen source of the movie is a novel, it was never published. But modern sources say George Gibbs and E. Lawrence Dudley wrote a play for George Arliss, and it was the source adapted for the movie. The play also was never published or even produced.


6:15 PM -- DANGEROUS EXILE (1958)
A nobleman rescues King Louis XVI's son from the French Revolution.
Dir: Brian Desmond-Hurst
Cast: Louis Jourdan, Belinda Lee, Keith Michell
BW-92 mins,

Peter Finch turned down the Louis Jourdan part.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: STEVE McQUEEN



8:00 PM -- THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963)
Thrown together by the Germans, a group of captive Allied troublemakers plot a daring escape.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Robert Graf, Nigel Stock, Angus Lennie
C-172 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

During the climactic motorcycle chase, John Sturges allowed Steve McQueen to ride (in disguise) as one of the pursuing German soldiers, so that in the final sequence, through the magic of editing, he's actually chasing himself. McQueen played the German motorcyclist who hits the wire.


11:00 PM -- SOLDIER IN THE RAIN (1963)
A story of friendship between a worldly-wise Army Master Sergeant and his naive worshiper.
Dir: Ralph Nelson
Cast: Jackie Gleason, Steve McQueen, Tuesday Weld
BW-87 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The large patch on the left shoulder of everyone's uniform is of the U.S. Sixth Army. At the time of this film, it was headquartered at The Presidio in San Francisco. It was the training Army for soldiers being sent overseas. Inactivated in 1995, it was reactivated in 2008 and is now headquartered at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.


12:45 AM -- BABY, THE RAIN MUST FALL (1965)
A parolee tries to launch a musical career and keep out of trouble.
Dir: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Lee Remick, Steve McQueen, Don Murray
BW-99 mins, CC,

According to photographer William Claxton, the crew was shooting in Columbus, Texas on November 22, 1963 when the radio announced the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Everyone gathering around the radio was stunned. Especially Steve McQueen who took it very hard and kept very quiet for the rest of the stay in Texas.


2:45 AM -- THE HONEYMOON MACHINE (1961)
Two sailors discover a way to beat the roulette tables in a Venice casino.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Steve McQueen, Brigid Bazlen, Jim Hutton
C-87 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The type of computer program in this story did not exist in the late 1950s when this play was written, but did as of 1990 and is a form of artificial intelligence called a neural network. They were not developed until about thirty years later, so this story in a way foresaw their development. Although probably not able to predict numbers of a roulette wheel spin because each result is independent of previous ones, neural networks can, by simulating the human brain, solve widely ranging problems using real data that are interdependent.


4:30 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

This is believed to be the first of a handful of films shot in the short lived Panacolor system. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer struck the U.S. release prints in their own lab under the Metrocolor label.