TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 19, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month - Steve McQueen

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, TCM is featuring a lovely selection of the work of costume designer Edith Head. It's not her birthday, but any day is a great day to show the work of the woman with 35 Oscar nominations! And eight Oscar wins! (And if you're a fan of The Incredibles films, Edith Head is the inspiration for the character Edna Mode, down the the black-rimmed glasses and pageboy haircut. In the evening hours, TCM continues the films of July's Star of the Month, Steve McQueen. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- CRITIC'S CHOICE (1963)
A Broadway critic must write a negative review about his wife's play.
Dir: Don Weis
Cast: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Marilyn Maxwell
C-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Last of four feature films that Bob Hope and Lucille Ball made together.


8:00 AM -- 36 HOURS (1964)
Nazis kidnap a key American intelligence officer and try to convince him that World War II is over.
Dir: George Seaton
Cast: James Garner, Rod Taylor, Eva Marie Saint
BW-115 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The writing credits not only claim Roald Dahl's short story, "Beware Of The Dog", as the source of the plot, but also an original film story by Luis Vance and Carl K. Hittleman. It has been suggested that MGM bought the Vance-Hittleman plot whilst unaware of the Dahl story, also unknown to the writers and director George Seaton. However, when the script was coincidentally offered to Dahl's wife, Patricia Neal, she spotted the resemblance straight away and brought it to her husband's attention. (She turned down the female lead, which went to Eva Marie Saint). MGM was required to pay a large sum for the film rights of Dahl's very brief story to avoid a lawsuit.


10:00 AM -- SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL (1964)
A journalist sets out to expose a female sex expert but falls for her instead.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda
C-114 mins, CC,

While dressed in a woman's nightgown, Tony Curtis says he looks just like Jack Lemmon in the movie where he dresses up like a girl. Curtis co-starred in that movie, Some Like It Hot (1959), with Lemmon, and both of them dressed like girls.


12:00 PM -- THE YELLOW ROLLS-ROYCE (1964)
A classic car changes the lives of three sets of owners.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Edmund Purdom
C-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The Rolls-Royce used in the film was a pale blue 1930 Phantom II Sedanca de Ville, which MGM technicians covered with twenty coats of yellow paint; a few coats of black were added to the top of the hood, the roof, and the wings.


2:15 PM -- ASSAULT ON A QUEEN (1966)
Mercenaries salvage a sunken submarine to rob the Queen Mary at sea.
Dir: Jack Donohue
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Virna Lisi, Tony Franciosa
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In its entry for this 1966 movie, the 2003 edition of Leonard Maltin's 'Movie and Video Guide' repeats a popular American terminological inexactitude by referring to the ocean liner as "HMS Queen Mary", thus implying that it was a warship at the time of the events depicted in the movie. The truth is that its designation has always been "RMS", traditionally meaning "Royal Mail Steamer" but nowadays sometimes taken to mean "Royal Mail Ship".


4:15 PM -- NOT WITH MY WIFE, YOU DON'T! (1966)
Two fliers during the Korean War compete for a beautiful Italian nurse.
Dir: Norman Panama
Cast: Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C Scott
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

While they both played service men in the Air Force for this film, Tony Curtis and George C. Scott once served in the Armed Forces during WWII and before entering show business. But unlike their characters, Curtis was in the Navy while Scott was in the Marines.


6:15 PM -- PENELOPE (1966)
A neglected wife turns to bank robbery to get her husband's attention.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Natalie Wood, Ian Bannen, Dick Shawn
C-98 mins, CC,

After "Penelope", Natalie Wood bought herself out of her Warner Bros. contract for $175,000, and fired her staff of agents, managers and lawyers. She didn't make another film for 3 years.



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



8:00 PM -- BULLITT (1968)
When mobsters kill the witness he was assigned to protect, a dedicated policeman investigates the case on his own.
Dir: Peter Yates
Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset
C-114 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Film Editing -- Frank P. Keller

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound

While filming the scene where the giant airliner taxis just above Steve McQueen, observers were shocked that no double was used. Asked if the producers couldn't have found a dummy, McQueen wryly replied, "They did."


10:00 PM -- THE SAND PEBBLES (1966)
A naval engineer stationed in 1926 China defies local authorities to rescue a group of missionaries.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna
C-179 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Steve McQueen, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Mako, Best Cinematography, Color -- Joseph MacDonald, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Boris Leven, Walter M. Scott, John Sturtevant and William Kiernan, Best Sound -- James Corcoran (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Film Editing -- William Reynolds, Best Music, Original Music Score -- Jerry Goldsmith, and Best Picture

The experience of making the film and the nature of the film's story had left a profound, incredible impact on Steve McQueen's life. After the release of the film, McQueen did not do any film work for about a year, saying that whatever sins that he had committed in his life had been paid for when he made The Sand Pebbles (1966). He remained true to his word for two years and then, in 1968, returned back to film acting with his appearances in both The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Bullitt (1968) (the latter of which included his fellow Sand Pebbles actor Simon Oakland as Bullitt's boss).


1:30 AM -- THE CINCINNATI KID (1965)
Card sharps try to deal with personal problems during a big game in New Orleans.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret
C-103 mins, CC,

Edward G. Robinson wrote in his autobiography, "In the film I played Lancey Howard, the reigning champ of the stud poker tables...I could hardly say I identified with Lancey; I was Lancey. That man on the screen, more than in any other picture I ever made, was Edward G. Robinson with great patches of Emanuel Goldenberg [his real name] showing through. He was all cold and discerning and unflappable on the exterior; he was ageing and full of self-doubt on the inside....Even the final session of the poker game was real...I played that game as if it were for blood. It was one of the best performances I ever gave on stage or screen or radio or TV, and the reason for it is that is wasn't a performance at all; it was symbolically the playing out of my whole gamble with life."


3:30 AM -- NEVADA SMITH (1965)
A part-Indian cowboy avenges his parents' murder.
Dir: Henry Hathaway
Cast: Steve McQueen, Karl Malden, Brian Keith
C-131 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The name "Nevada Smith" was the original inspiration for the name "Indiana Jones"; the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) character's name was originally "Indiana Smith". George Lucas named him "Indiana" after his dog, and "Smith" after this movie. But then it was changed to "Indiana Jones".