TCM Schedule for Friday, April 25, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Film Festival Memories (Update!)

[Staph]

Last edited Fri Apr 1, 2022, 07:28 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating the birthday of Debbie Reynolds, born on April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas, as Mary Frances Reynolds. Her film career began at MGM after she won a beauty contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton. Reynolds wasn't a dancer until she was selected to be Gene Kelly's partner in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Not yet twenty, she was a quick study. Twelve years later, it seemed like she had been around forever. Most of her early film work was in MGM musicals, as perky, wholesome young women. She continued to use her dancing skills with stage work.

Then in prime time, the official TCM Now Playing schedule says that tonight is the first night of a salute to baseball. But the films tonight have nothing to do with baseball! Once I receive the new copy of Now Playing, I'll update this information. Enjoy!

ETA: It looks like the theme for this evening is actually TCM Film Festival Memories, with a trio of films, including Girl Crazy (1943), The Southerner (1945), and Day for Night (1973). Continue to enjoy!


6:30 AM -- Give a Girl a Break (1953)
1h 21m | Musical | TV-G
Three young dancers vie for a starring role on Broadway.
Director: Stanley Donen
Cast: Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Debbie Reynolds

Along with Kiss Me Kate (1953) and The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), this is one of three musicals Bob Fosse made at MGM during the same year. Although Fosse devised his own dances in all three films, the studio did not recognize or nurture his choreographic talent. Realizing that Metro had no investment in him, Fosse left Hollywood and headed back to Broadway as choreographer for "The Pajama Game" (1954), which proved to be the turning point in his career. Fosse did make two more appearances as a performer during the golden age of movie musicals, in My Sister Eileen (1955) and Damn Yankees (1958), in which he made an unbilled guest appearance partnering Gwen Verdon for "Who's Got the Pain?" -- which he also staged.


8:00 AM -- It Started with a Kiss (1959)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-PG
After a whirlwind courtship, an Army officer and his wacky wife try to make their marriage work.
Director: George Marshall
Cast: Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, Eva Gabor

The car that Glenn Ford wins is a 1955 Lincoln Futura, the one-off concept car that ultimately became the Batmobile on Batman (1966). The car cost Ford $250,000 ($2.37M in 2019), and unlike most concept cars at the time was completely driveable. It was originally pearlescent white, but that color did not photograph well, so it was painted red for this film. The car, as the original "Batmobile" was sold at auction for $4.62M in 2013.


10:00 AM -- The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964)
2h 8m | Musical | TV-G
Musical biography of the backwoods girl who struck it rich in Colorado and survived the sinking of the Titanic.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Debbie Reynolds, Harve Presnell, Ed Begley

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Debbie Reynolds, Best Cinematography, Color -- Daniel L. Fapp, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, E. Preston Ames, Henry Grace and Hugh Hunt, Best Costume Design, Color -- Morton Haack, Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Robert Armbruster, Leo Arnaud, Jack Elliott, Jack Hayes, Calvin Jackson and Leo Shuken

MGM's original choice for the role of Molly Brown was Shirley MacLaine but she was locked in contract with Hal B. Wallis at the time. The film's director even asked Reynolds to decline the role. When Reynolds asked "Why?", he commented that she was too short. Reynolds replied "Well, just how short is the part?" That was the end of his objections.


12:15 PM -- Bundle of Joy (1956)
1h 38m | Musical | TV-PG
A recently fired shop girl is mistaken for a single mother when she finds an abandoned baby.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Adolphe Menjou

In her autobiography, Carrie Fisher says that her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was pregnant with her whilst making this film. This accounts for several shots where Reynolds is hidden behind a shop display or wearing a cloak-style coat.


2:15 PM -- The Mating Game (1959)
1h 37m | Comedy | TV-G
A tax agent falls for a farm girl whose father he's investigating.
Director: George Marshall
Cast: Debbie Reynolds, Tony Randall, Paul Douglas

Debbie Reynolds was 27 when this film was made, and Tony Randall was 39 - but his character states that he's 29 in one scene.


4:00 PM -- Singin' in the Rain (1952)
1h 43m | Musical | TV-G
A silent-screen swashbuckler finds love while trying to adjust to the coming of sound.
Director: Gene Kelly
Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O'connor, Debbie Reynolds

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jean Hagen, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Lennie Hayton

Debbie Reynolds later stated that she "learned a lot from Gene Kelly. He is a perfectionist and a disciplinarian--the most exciting director I've ever worked for. And he has a good temper. Every so often he would yell at me and make me cry. But it took a lot of patience for him to work with someone who had never danced before. It's amazing that I could keep up with him and Donald O'Connor." Kelly later commented on her work, "Fortunately, Debbie was strong as an ox . . . also she was a great copyist, and she could pick up the most complicated routine without too much difficulty . . . at the university of hard work and pain."


6:00 PM -- The Tender Trap (1955)
1h 51m | Comedy | TV-PG
A swinging bachelor finds love when he meets a girl immune to his line.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, David Wayne

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Love Is The Tender Trap"

Debbie Reynolds and Frank Sinatra became good friends and during production he took her to lunch and said, "Sweetie, don't get married. Don't marry a singer. We're nice guys but we're not good husbands." Reynolds was engaged to Eddie Fisher at the time, who ultimately left her for Elizabeth Taylor.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- PLAY BALL, NIGHT ONE



8:00 PM -- Girl Crazy (1943)
1h 39m | Musical | TV-G
A womanizing playboy finds true love when he's sent to a desert college.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gil Stratton

Judy Garland's character's name, Ginger Gray, is a tribute to Ginger Rogers, who played the part on Broadway when the character was named Molly Gray. Rogers wrote that one night onstage in the play, her costar Allen Kearns accidentally said, "Ginger, I love you" instead of "Molly". The mistake got such a huge laugh from the audience that they decided to continue to do that in subsequent performances, pretending it was a mistake.


10:00 PM -- The Southerner (1945)
1h 31m | Drama | TV-G
A sharecropper fights the elements to start his own farm.
Director: Jean Renoir
Cast: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, J. Carrol Naish

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Director -- Jean Renoir, Best Sound, Recording -- Jack Whitney (Sound Services Inc.), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Werner Janssen

Based on the novel "Hold Autumn in your Hand", by George Sessions Perry, which won the first National Book Award in 1941.


11:45 PM -- Day for Night (1973)
2h | Comedy | TV-14
A committed film director struggles to complete his movie while coping with a myriad of crises, personal and professional, among the cast and crew.
Director: François Truffaut
Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut

Winner of an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film -- France

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Valentina Cortese, Best Director -- François Truffaut, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- François Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard and Suzanne Schiffman

In "Meet Pamela," the film-within-the-film, Pamela (Jacqueline Bisset) explains that she met Alphonse's character after the girl he was supposed to be with in England came down with chicken pox. This is a reference to Bisset's first movie role, in Stanley Donen's "Two for the Road," where architecture student Albert Finney ends up traveling through France with English girl Audrey Hepburn after the girl he was supposed to travel with (Bisset) comes down with chicken pox.


2:15 AM -- Day of the Dead (1985)
1h 42m | Horror
Zombies have been on the rampage for so long that there are very few humans left.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Jarlath Conroy, Jeff Hogan, Deborah Carter

All the extras who portrayed zombies in the climax received for their services: a cap that said "I Played A Zombie In 'Day of the Dead'", a copy of the newspaper from the beginning of the film (the one that says THE DEAD WALK!), and one dollar.


4:15 AM -- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
1h 36m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
An army of dead bodies comes to life and terrorizes a group of friends trapped into flesh-eating zombies.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Judith O'dea, Russell Streiner, Duane Jones

When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck, they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea-inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway.