TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 24, 2022 -- 31 Days of Oscar: 1960s Winners

[Staph]

Today is day twenty-four of the 31 Days, and it's another round of Oscar-winning films from the 1960s. TCM is giving us a pair of my favorite films this evening: The Producers (1967) and Tom Jones (1963). Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)
1h 39m | Musical | TV-PG
Madcap musical set in ancient Rome, where a clever slave connives to win his freedom.
Director: Richard Lester
Cast: Zero Mostel, Phil Silvers, Buster Keaton

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Ken Thorne

Even before it was released, producer Melvin Frank announced a sequel called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Guillotine". It never went any further than development stage.


8:30 AM -- Exodus (1960)
3h 40m | Epic | TV-PG
A young Israeli activist fights to set up a homeland for his people.
Director: Otto Preminger
Cast: Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Ernest Gold

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sal Mineo, and Best Cinematography, Color -- Sam Leavitt

Producer and director Otto Preminger helped to end the stigma of the Hollywood blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo to adapt the screenplay for this movie, before Trumbo was hired for Spartacus (1960).


12:30 PM -- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
3h 12m | Comedy | TV-PG
After witnessing a fatal car crash, a group of motorists race across California to find a hidden stash of loot.
Director: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Walter Elliott

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Ernest Laszlo, Best Sound -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, Robert C. Jones and Gene Fowler Jr., Best Music, Original Song -- Ernest Gold (music) and Mack David (lyrics) for the song "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Ernest Gold

Jack Benny's cameo role was originally offered to Stan Laurel, but Laurel turned it down. When his best friend and partner Oliver Hardy died in 1957, he pledged never to perform again. He kept that promise for the rest of his life. By the time this happened, a long shot of the character had already been filmed with a stand-in wearing Laurel's trademark bowler hat. This is why Benny is seen wearing a bowler hat despite his never having worn one as part of his regular work.


3:30 PM -- The Time Machine (1960)
1h 43m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-G
A turn-of-the-century inventor sends himself into the future to save humanity.
Director: George Pal
Cast: Rod Taylor, Alan Young, Yvette Mimieux

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Gene Warren and Tim Baar

During the 1966 air raid scene the little girl running up the steps drops a Woody Woodpecker doll onto the ground. The reason Woody was chosen is because his creator Walter Lantz was good friends with director George Pal.


5:30 PM -- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2h 40m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Classic sci-fi epic about a mysterious monolith that seems to play a key role in human evolution.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Stanley Kubrick

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Stanley Kubrick, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer

Incrementing each letter of "HAL" gives you "IBM". Writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke claimed this was unintentional, and if he had noticed ahead of time, he would have changed it. HAL stands for Heuristic Algorithmic Computer. IBM brand placements appear in the movie as well, including the computer panels in the spaceplane that docks with the space station, the forearm control panel on Dave's spacesuit, and the portable viewscreens on which Dave and Frank watch "The World Tonight". These were not paid endorsements but were used to make things appear to be routine tech. (Personal note: I met Arthur C. Clarke when he was on a tour promoting 2010. I asked him about the IBM>HAL (I worked for IBM!), and he denied it to me as well.)



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR -- 1960s WINNERS



8:00 PM -- The Producers (1967)
1h 28m | Comedy | TV-14
A Broadway producer decides to get rich by creating the biggest flop of his career.
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Mel Brooks

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Wilder

The original Swedish title for the film was a direct translation of the original title, Producenterna (The Producers). The film didn't arouse much interest from the public. This changed when the title was replaced by "Det våras för Hitler" (Springtime for Hitler). Then the film became an instant smash. All subsequent Mel Brooks films then got Swedish title starting with "Det våras för..." e.g. "Det våras för Frankenstein" (Young Frankenstein (1974))/ ..."Sherriffen" (Blazing Saddles (1974)) / ..."Galningarna" (High Anxiety (1977) et cetera except for Brooks' two last films, which received the Swedish titles "Robin Hood: Karlar i trikåer" (Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)) and "Dracula - Död men lycklig" (Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995); literally "Dracula - Dead but Happy" ).


9:45 PM -- Tom Jones (1963)
2h 11m | Comedy | TV-14
In this adaptation of Henry Fielding's novel, a country boy in 18th-century England becomes a playboy.
Director: Tony Richardson
Cast: Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- Tony Richardson, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- John Osborne, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- John Addison, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Albert Finney, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Hugh Griffith, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Diane Cilento, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Edith Evans, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Joyce Redman, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Ralph W. Brinton, Edward Marshall, Jocelyn Herbert and Josie MacAvin

As an undergraduate art students, Jeffrey Boam, later the author of screenplays like Innerspace, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and Lethal Weapon 2 and 3, thought this one of the best screenplays ever written, an opinion he held well into his own career. But when he met Tony Richardson and expressed that admiration to him, Boam was confused by the uncomfortable, even disturbed response Richardson gave him. Boam didn't have the advantage of knowing about Richardson's conviction that the film was a failed execution that got lucky with audiences.


12:00 AM -- Splendor in the Grass (1961)
2h 4m | Drama | TV-14
Set in the 1920s, two midwest teenagers fall in love, are frightened by their physical desires.
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Inge

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Natalie Wood

Right before shooting was set to begin, Pat Hingle suffered devastating injuries when he accidentally fell 54 feet down an elevator shaft in his apartment building. It would take Hingle over a year to fully recover from the accident. In the meantime, however, he decided to go ahead and do the film - he would simply incorporate his limp into the character. "I broke everything," Hingle said later. "I landed upright, so I broke hips and knees and ankles and ribs, and that sort of thing. That lurching walk that Ace Stamper has - that was as good as I could walk."


2:15 AM -- Planet of the Apes (1968)
1h 52m | Adventure | TV-14
An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy Mcdowall, Kim Hunter

Winner of an Honorary Oscar Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement in the movie

Nominee for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- Morton Haack, and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Jerry Goldsmith

During breaks in filming, actors made up as different ape species tended to hang out together, gorillas with gorillas, orangutans with orangutans, chimps with chimps. It wasn't required, it just naturally happened.


4:15 AM -- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
2h 12m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A crazed, aging star torments her sister in a decaying Hollywood mansion.
Director: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono

Winner of an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Norma Koch

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Victor Buono, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Sound -- Joseph D. Kelly (Seven Arts-Warner Bros. Glen Glenn Sound Department)

These roles, Jane and Blanche, were very quintessentially Bette and Joan. Bette was once again playing the sharp tongued, bitchy little whippersnapper; as she had already in movies like All About Eve. And Joan was playing the noble, long suffering martyr character; just as she had in Mildred Pierce. It was sadist vs masochist again; they were perfectly matched.