TCM Schedule for Friday, July 27, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Based on Pat Conroy

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing films by screenwriter Jane Murfin. From IMDB's entry:

American playwright and screenwriter, best known as the author of the play "Lilac Time" (1917), co-written with her actress friend Jane Cowl. Murfin started in Hollywood as a scenarist with Vitagraph in 1913. For a while, she headed her own production company (1920-26) in conjunction with her director-husband Laurence Trimble, mostly making films featuring Strongheart the Dog. Subsequently, she worked under contract as a screenwriter for RKO (1929-36) and MGM (1938-44), specialising in romantic comedies, including classics like Roberta (1935), Alice Adams (1935), Come and Get It (1936) and The Women (1939).

In prime time, TCM has a trio of films based on the books of Pat Conroy. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- SMILIN' THROUGH (1941)
An embittered man threatens the love life of his niece, who's a dead ringer for his lost fiancee.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Brian Aherne, Gene Raymond
C-100 mins, CC,

The original play opened in New York on 30 December 1919 and ran for 175 performances. Authors Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin used a single pseudonym (Allan Langdon Martin) as the author, but Cowl starred in the play under her real name. Also in the play were Charlotte Granville and Henry Stephenson.


7:45 AM -- STAND UP AND FIGHT (1939)
A southern aristocrat clashes with a driver transporting stolen slaves to freedom.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke II
Cast: Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Florence Rice
BW-97 mins, CC,

The $850 that Blake has left over from his estate in 1844 would equate to about $27,800 in 2015.


9:30 AM -- ROBERTA (1935)
A football player inherits a chic Paris fashion house.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Irene Dunne, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers
BW-106 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jerome Kern (music), Dorothy Fields (lyrics) and Jimmy McHugh (lyrics) for the song "Lovely to Look at"

The floor in the "I'll Be Hard to Handle" dance was the only wooden floor in all of the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers musicals. They both loved working on it, as they could tap and actually make the sounds of the taps. In the other musicals their taps were dubbed over, as they were too quiet. Their enjoyment is clearly seen, as their giggles at each other are unscripted.


11:30 AM -- ANDY HARDY'S PRIVATE SECRETARY (1941)
On the verge of graduation, a high-school boy decides he needs a social secretary.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Fay Holden
BW-101 mins, CC,

Film debut of Kathryn Grayson.


1:30 PM -- THE LITTLE MINISTER (1934)
A young miss masquerades as a gypsy to win a minister's love.
Dir: Richard Wallace
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, John Beal, Alan Hale
BW-110 mins, CC,

Katharine Hepburn reportedly wasn't interested in taking the part of "Babbie" until she heard Margaret Sullavan wanted the part badly.


3:30 PM -- PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1940)
Jane Austen's comic classic about five sisters out to nab husbands in 19th-century England.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland
BW-118 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse

Although Jane Austen's novel was set in Regency England (late 18th-early 19th century), the period was set at a later time. This anachronism has been explained in a couple of ways. Those more favourably disposed to the studio system claim the styles of the Regency Period (when women's dresses resembled nightgowns) were thought too plain for public taste, so new gowns were created in the voluminous Victorian style of the 1830s to give it a more romantic flair. Others have pointed out that because MGM wasn't willing to put a huge budget behind the risky venture, costumes left over from Gone with the Wind (1939) were altered slightly and placed on background players to save money. New gowns in the same flouncy style were designed for the female leads.


5:45 PM -- THE WOMEN (1939)
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell
BW-133 mins, CC,

There are over 130 roles in this movie, all played by women. Phyllis Povah, Marjorie Main, Mary Cecil and Marjorie Wood originated their roles in the play, which opened on 7 September 1937 and had 666 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York. No doubles were used in the fight sequence where Rosalind Russell bites Paulette Goddard. Despite the permanent scar resulting from the bite, the actresses remained friends. In addition to its all-female cast, every animal that was used in the film (the many dogs and horses) was female as well. In addition, none of the works of art seen in the backgrounds were representative of the male form, except for the cartoon bull that appears in the picnic scene during the fashion sequence.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: BASED ON PAT CONROY



8:00 PM -- CONRACK (1974)
A white teacher begins teaching in an all-black school, on an island in a South Carolina river delta.
Dir: Martin Ritt
Cast: Jon Voight, Paul Winfield, Hume Cronyn
BW-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In a 2007 interview on the Dennis Miller Radio Show, Jon Voight recalled a reunion that was held twenty years after the release of the movie, with all of the available actors and actresses. Of the twenty-one actors and actresses who portrayed students, at the time of the reunion, three were teachers.


10:00 PM -- THE GREAT SANTINI (1979)
A marine has problems adjusting to domestic life during peacetime.
Dir: Lewis John Carlino
Cast: Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe
C-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Duvall, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael O'Keefe

According to Pat Conroy, Lieutenant Colonel "Bull" Meecham is based entirely on his own father, Donald Conroy, a Marine fighter pilot who referred to himself in the third person as "The Great Santini". Donald Conroy took the nickname from a magician he'd seen as a child. Pat and Donald Conroy were on the set on the day that Robert Duvall and Michael O'Keefe filmed the scene where Bull Meecham bullies and taunts Ben after losing to him in a basketball game. A woman on the set asked Donald Conroy if he and Pat had really played games like that. Donald Conroy replied, "Every day, madam. Every single day." However, the book and movie gave Donald Conroy an opportunity to mend fences with his children, especially Pat. After the novel was published, Donald Conroy would often accompany his son to book signings, and would sign his son's novels with the signature, "Donald Conroy - The Great Santini".


12:15 AM -- THE PRINCE OF TIDES (1991)
A troubled man talks to his suicidal sister's psychiatrist about their family history and falls in love with her in the process.
Dir: Barbra Streisand
Cast: Nick Nolte, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner
C-132 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Nick Nolte, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Kate Nelligan, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published -- Pat Conroy and Becky Johnston, Best Cinematography -- Stephen Goldblatt, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Paul Sylbert and Caryl Heller, Best Music, Original Score -- James Newton Howard, and Best Picture

When NBC broadcast the movie in 1995, Barbra Streisand called the network mid-movie to request they lower the volume on the commercials, which were loud compared to the relatively quiet movie. The weekend operations manager obliged, reducing them 2 decibels.


2:45 AM -- WHITE LINE FEVER (1976)
A young man becomes an independent long-haul driver and risks his life fighting the corruption in the local trucking industry.
Dir: Jonathan Kaplan
Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent, Kay Lenz, Slim Pickens
BW-89 mins, CC,

In a telephone conversation, one character says, "Go get Joe Dante". Director Joe Dante is an old friend of the film's director, Jonathan Kaplan, and, like Kaplan, is one of the legion of directors given his start by producer Roger Corman.


4:30 AM -- HIGH BALLIN' (1978)
Two truck drivers fight off thugs who have been hired to drive them out of business.
Dir: Peter Carter
Cast: Peter Fonda, Jerry Reed, Helen Shaver
BW-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film is set in the U.S., but filmed in Canada. In the climactic scenes Toronto's C.N. Tower appears in the middle distance; much too close for any U.S. location, even in New York state.