TCM Schedule for Friday, September 21 -- What's On Tonight -- Adolphe Menjou

[Staph]

We've got a day of award-winning and -nominated 50-year-old films, and an evening with the debonair Adolphe Menjou. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Sweet Bird Of Youth (1962)
A young gigolo returns to his southern hometown in search of the lost love of his youth.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight
C-120 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Ed Begley

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Geraldine Page, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Shirley Knight

Was given a pre-rating advisory of restricted by the MPAA, disallowing any persons under the age of 18 from attending. This was pre-rating equivalent of an X (later NC-17) rating. By modern standards the film is so tame, when Shown on Turner Classic Movies, it's rated TV-PG.


8:02 AM -- Vaudeville Reel #3 (1935)
Cast: Al Trahan, Chaz Chase, The Holman Sisters
BW-11 mins,


8:15 AM -- Gypsy (1962)
A domineering mother pushes her two daughters to burlesque stardom.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden
C-143 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Color -- Orry-Kelly, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank Perkins

The real Gypsy Rose Lee visited the set and gave Natalie Wood some tips on her stripping routines.


10:45 AM -- The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
A Korean War hero doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill by the enemy.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh
BW-127 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, and Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

In the scene where Frank Sinatra gives the all-queens deck of cards to Laurence Harvey, Sinatra is out of focus. He had trouble recreating his performance, so director John Frankenheimer left the footage as is. Audiences weren't bothered; they interpreted it as Harvey's blurred perspective.


1:00 PM -- Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
A husband and wife fight to conquer alcoholism.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford
BW-117 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "Days of Wine and Roses"

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Jack Lemmon, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Lee Remick, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph C. Wright and George James Hopkins, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Donfeld

The cast and crew were very concerned that the bleak ending would be changed. Director Blake Edwards recalled for Entertainment Weekly magazine that studio head Jack L. Warner wanted a lighter ending, but he came into a screening with a very attractive date who blasted the decision. Warner reluctantly gave in. In addition, Jack Lemmon purposely flew to Paris after filming had wrapped so he would be "unavailable" for re-shoots.


3:08 PM -- From Paris-Your Reporter Richard Crenna (1966)
"Reporter" Richard Crenna provides insight into his latest movie within which he stars, Made in Paris.
Cast: Ann-Margret, Richard Crenna, Chad Everett
C-7 mins,

Ann-Margret got to keep whatever she wanted of the wardrobe created for her by Helen Rose as part of her contract to do the movie Made In Paris.


3:15 PM -- Jules And Jim (1962)
A tempestuous beauty comes between college friends.
Dir: François Truffaut
Cast: Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, Henri Serre
BW-106 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

Nominated for BAFTA Film Awards for Best Film from any Source -- France, and Best Foreign Actress -- Jeanne Moreau

One of the earliest foreign films to be distributed in the US by two Harvard students, Cyrus Harvey and Brian Halliday, under their newly formed company, Janus Films. Janus went on to distribute all sorts of classic foreign films and is now owned by Criterion.


5:15 PM -- Lolita (1962)
Vladimir Nabokov's racy classic focuses on an aging intellectual in love with a teenager.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: James Mason, Sue Lyon, Shelley Winters
BW-153 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Vladimir Nabokov

The famous heart-shaped sunglasses that Lolita wears appear only in publicity photos taken by Bert Stern; Lolita wears cat eye sunglasses in the movie.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: ADOLPHE MENJOU



8:00 PM -- Easy to Love (1934)
When she thinks her husband has been unfaithful, a woman claims to be having an affair of her own.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Genevieve Tobin, Adolphe Menjou, Mary Astor
BW-61 mins, TV-G, CC,

The play, "As Good as New," opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 3 November 1930 and closed in December 1930 after 56 performances. The opening night cast included Marjorie Gateson, Otto Kruger and Vivienne Osborne.


9:15 PM -- Paths Of Glory (1957)
A military lawyer comes to question the status quo when he defends three men accused of cowardice.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Fred Bell, John Stein, Harold Benedict
BW-88 mins, TV-PG, CC,

In 1969, Kirk Douglas recalled about this film "There's a picture that will always be good, years from now. I don't have to wait 50 years to know that; I know it now".


10:48 PM -- The Fabulous Fraud (1948)
BW-11 mins,




11:00 PM -- The Hucksters (1947)
A war veteran fights for honesty in the advertising game.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Clark Gable, Deborah Kerr, Sydney Greenstreet
BW-115 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The novel upon which this film is based was itself inspired by a real-life exposé in "The Saturday Evening Post". The four-part article, entitled "The Star Spangled Octopus," was a look at how the talent and promotional agency MCA had managed to monopolize most areas of popular entertainment by the mid-1940s. In the novel, the character of Dave Lash is based directly on MCA founder and president Jules C. Stein and his right-hand-man is based on Lew Wasserman. The movie version retains these elements of the book's form but is otherwise fairly sanitized. The one exception: the exterior of the fictional agency Talent Ltd. is shown once during the movie - and the building in the shot is unmistakably MCA's Beverly Hills headquarters.


1:00 AM -- Journal Of A Crime (1934)
Before she can confess to shooting her husband's mistress, a woman succumbs to amnesia.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Dodd
BW-65 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The source is credited to a play onscreen, but it is actually a remake of the French film "Une vie perdue (1933)", written by the same author. Perhaps "screen play" was meant, since "screenplay" in the 30's was two separate words.


2:15 AM -- The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1977)
A small Texas town is terrorized by a hooded serial killer.
Dir: Charles B. Pierce
Cast: Ben Johnson, Andrew Prine, Dawn Wells
C-90 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

This movie is a semi-documentary based on the real-life string of mysterious killings that terrorized the people of Texarkana, Texas, in 1946. The murder spree became known as the "Texarkana Moonlight Murders" and ultimately would claim five lives and injure many others. The only description of the killer ever obtained was of a hooded man. To this day no one has been convicted and these murders remain unsolved.


4:00 AM -- 10 Rillington Place (1971)
A serial killer frames a mentally challenged man.
Dir: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, John Hurt
C-111 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

According to the commentary by John Hurt on the DVD, real-life retired executioner Albert Pierrepoint was a technical advisor for the execution scene. This scene was the first British people had seen in a cinema of a British hanging, and as it was still covered under the government's Official Secrets Act, no details regarding the scene were available. This is where Albert Pierrepoint came in, under an assumed name, and was able to re-create the harrowing scene to maximize the true terror of what it must have been like.

[Graybeard]

1. Paths Of Glory - Extraordinary acting.

Scenes between Adolph Menjou and George Macready are unforgettable.