TCM Schedule for Friday, June 15 -- What's On Tonight: Directed By Honda Inoshiro

[Staph]

I guess that school must be out everywhere, for TCM is saluting teachers today, with a series of films about the teaching profession. I only wish that they were showing the original 1939 version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips in place of the musical 1969 version. (I never knew that there was a 2002 version, starring Martin Clunes -- the BBC/PBS Doc Martin!). This evening TCM is featuring the films of Honda Inoshiro, director of Rodan and Godzilla and Mothra. Enjoy!

And my sincere apologies for being so late -- real life intervened. Mea culpa!



6:00 AM -- Forty Little Mothers (1940)
A girls'-school teacher stumbles on an abandoned baby.
90 min, TV-G
Dir: Busby Berkeley
Cast: Eddie Cantor, Judith Anderson, Rita Johnson

Based on a story by Jean Guitton. This was filmed in 1936 in France as Le mioche.


7:30 AM -- Playmates (1941)
A bandleader enlists a down-on-his-luck actor to teach him Shakespeare.
95 min, TV-G
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Kay Kyser, John Barrymore, Lupe Velez

This final film of John Barrymore contains the only screen footage of Barrymore reciting Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy.


9:15 AM -- Tennessee Johnson (1942)
Biography of Andrew Johnson, who followed Abraham Lincoln into office and became the first U.S. president ever to be impeached.
103 min, TV-G
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Van Heflin, Lionel Barrymore, Ruth Hussey

There was a protest from some sectors that the film distorted the life of Thaddeus Stevens (who initiated the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson). Additional filming occurred in October 1942, but it is not known if it was because of these protests. One line in the script (Stevens referring to Lincoln as "the old ape&quot was eliminated. Still, the film treats Johnson much more favorably than it does Stevens.


11:15 AM -- The Corn Is Green (1945)
A dedicated teacher sacrifices everything to send a young miner to Oxford.
114 min, TV-G
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Bette Davis, Nigel Bruce, Rhys Williams

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Dall, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Joan Lorring

The play and the film tell the true story of playwright Emlyn Williams and his schoolmistress Miss Cooke.


1:15 PM -- Good News (1947)
A football hero falls in love with his French tutor.
C-93 min, TV-G
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Patricia Marshall

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Ralph Blane, Roger Edens and Hugh Martin for the song "Pass That Peace Pipe"

Since Peter Lawford spoke French fluently and June Allyson did not, Lawford had to teach Allyson how to teach him to speak French in the French Lesson scene.


3:00 PM -- The Miracle Worker (1962)
True story of the determined teacher who helped Helen Keller overcome deafness and blindness to learn to communicate.
107 min, TV-PG
Dir: Arthur Penn
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Bancroft (Anne Bancroft was not present at the awards ceremony. Joan Crawford accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Patty Duke

Nominated for Oscars for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Ruth Morley, Best Director -- Arthur Penn, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- William Gibson

Although Patty Duke had been playing Helen Keller in the play for more than year, she almost didn't get the part in the film adaptation. The studio felt that being a teenager, she looked too old to play a seven-year-old. However, they decided to use Duke after deciding to use Anne Bancroft, who played Duke's original Annie Sullivan in the play.


5:00 PM -- Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
In this musical remake, a conservative boys' school teacher falls in love with an actress.
C-155 min, TV-G
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark, Michael Redgrave

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation) -- Leslie Bricusse and John Williams

Originally cast in the lead roles were Rex Harrison and Samantha Eggar, who were replaced by Richard Burton and Lee Remick. When MGM opted to replace Remick with Petula Clark, based on her reviews and Golden Globe nomination for Finian's Rainbow, Burton balked at playing opposite a "singer" rather than an "actress", so Peter O'Toole was cast instead.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DIRECTED BY HONDA INOSHIRO


8:00 PM -- Gojira (1954) (aka Godzilla)
American nuclear weapons testing results in the creation of a seemingly unstoppable, dinosaur-like beast.
96 min, TV-PG
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Momoko Kochi, Fuyuki Murakami, Takashi Shimura

The name Gojira is a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla (gorira) and whale (kujira). The monster was so named because his original design was that of a gorilla-whale monster, which is recounted by people who worked on the film. 'Shigeru Kayama' (who was hired by Tomoyuki Tanaka to write the original story) recounted in a book of memoirs he published in Japan, that Tanaka told him the creature would be a sea monster that was "a cross between a whale and a gorilla". After producer Tanaka saw the American monster film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, he got the idea to turn Godzilla into a dinosaur monster. Despite the physical change the name of the monster was kept. There has always been a legend that Godzilla was named after a hulking man nicknamed Gorilla-Whale who worked at Tôhô, but this is untrue. Not only is there no evidence of this man even existing, but the various stories about him kept changing through the years (he worked as a stagehand, he worked as a PR man, etc.). According to Kimi Honda, wife of Ishirô Honda, the Gorilla-Whale man was just an inside joke between her husband and various others on the Tôhô lot - specifically producer Tanaka.


9:45 PM -- Rodan (1957)
Miners uncover the nest of a giant pterodactyl.
82 min, TV-PG
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Kenji Sawara, Yumi Shirakawa, Akihiko Hirata

The original Japanese film's climactic monster invasion was filmed around, and set in, Fukuoka, the largest city on Japan's southernmost island of Kyushu. However, the American version relocated the action in the dubbing to another city in Kyushu, Sasebo, perhaps concerned that their dubbing actors would sorely mispronounce the word "Fukuoka" at inappropriate moments. Among the people doing the voice over work for this film are Paul Frees, Keye Luke and a young George Takei.


11:15 PM -- Mothra (1962)
After Godzilla kills a legendary giant moth, its offspring set out for revenge.
C-101 min, TV-PG
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Franky Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyoko Kagawa

Jerry Ito and Robert Dunham both spoke their lines in both English as well as Japanese. Jerry Ito's slow stilted delivery of his Japanese dialog fit his character as a foreigner speaking Japanese. This was not an intentional part of his performance. At the time this was made, Jerry Ito had been studying the Japanese language for over six months and was not completely fluent.


1:00 AM -- The H-Man (1958)
Nuclear tests create a radioactive man who can turn people into slime.
C-79 min, TV-PG
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Yumi Shirakawa, Kenji Sahara, Akihiko Hirata

In the original Japanese version, the detectives make a big deal out of the fact that Chikako owns a television. At the time this was made, 1958, a television set was still beyond the budget of the typical Japanese family.


2:30 AM -- Hausu (1977)
A schoolgirl spends her summer vacation in a haunted house.
88 min, TV-MA
Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Cast: Kimiko Ikegami, Eriko Tanaka, Kumiko Ohba

Released as House in the U.S.


4:00 AM -- Empire of Passion (1979)
An affair between a young man and an older woman turns deadly.
C-105 min, TV-MA
Dir: Nagisa Oshima
Cast: Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Tatsuya Fuji, Takahiro Tamura

While filming the scene where Toyoji tries to break into the burning house by ramming the door down, Tatsuya Fuji tore three ligaments in his shoulder and dislocated his arm. Three days later, he was back on the set filming the scene where he was being hung from a tree and beaten, with his arm still in a sling (although removed during takes).