TCM Schedule for Friday, February 27 -- 31 Days of Oscar -- Political Science

[Staph]

Our overall subject area for today is from the Political Science Department. This morning we cover the Espionage, Diplomacy and Covert Action, in Trinidad, Rio de Janeiro, and South Dakota. In the afternoon, we will study Revolution and Political Change, particularly Pancho Villa and his Villistas, the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, and the founding fathers of the American Revolution. In prime time, we'll look at American Elections and the Legislative Process (a subject of great interest to DUers), including Mr. Smith in the U.S. Senate, Willie Stark as Governor, Korean War veteran Raymond Shaw, idealist William Russell, and opportunist Joe Cantwell running for President, as well as Lum and Abner dispensing political advice to Congress. Enjoy!


5:00am -- Affair in Trinidad (1952)
A nightclub singer enlists her brother-in-law to track down her husband's killer.
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, Alexander Scourby, Valerie Bettis
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-98 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis

The song "Rum and Coca Cola" by The Andrews Sisters was originally a calypso song composed and performed by a Trinidad calypso band in the mid-1940s. At that time the American military maintained two bases in Trinidad. The song is about the soldiers from these bases and how a mother and daughter provided "pleasure" for the "Yankee dollar". Actually, if one walked around Port of Spain - Trinidad's capital city - during this period it was a common sight to see American soldiers and sailors with local women at hotels and bars.


7:00am -- Notorious (1946)
A U.S. agent recruits a German expatriate to infiltrate a Nazi spy ring in Brazil.
Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-101 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Ben Hecht

After filming had ended, Cary Grant kept the famous UNICA key. A few years later he gave the key to his great friend and co-star Ingrid Bergman, saying that the key had given him luck and hoped it would do the same for her. Decades later at a tribute to their director Alfred Hitchcock, Bergman went off-script and presented the key to him, to his surprise and delight.


9:00am -- North By Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
C-136 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace and Frank R. McKelvy, Best Film Editing -- George Tomasini, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ernest Lehman

Ernest Lehman became the film's scriptwriter following a lunchtime meeting with Alfred Hitchcock, arranged by their mutual friend, composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock originally wanted him to work on his new project The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) (which was eventually made instead by Michael Anderson), but Lehman refused. Hitchcock was so keen to work with him that he suggested they work together on a different film using Mary Deare's budget (without MGM's approval) even though he had only three ideas to set Lehman on his way: mistaken identity, the United Nations building, and a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore.


11:30am -- Viva Villa! (1934)
Rousing biography of the bandit chief who led the battle for Mexican independence.
Cast: Wallace Beery, Leo Carrillo, Fay Wray, Donald Cook
Dir: Jack Conway
BW-110 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Assistant Director -- John Waters

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director), Best Writing, Adaptation -- Ben Hecht, and Best Picture

On 19 November 1933, during location filming in Mexico, Lee Tracy, originally cast as Johnny Sykes, got drunk, urinated from his hotel balcony onto a passing military parade, was arrested, fired from the film and replaced by Stuart Erwin. Original director Howard Hawks was also fired for refusing to testify against Tracy, and replaced by Jack Conway. However, in his autobiography, Charles G. Clarke, the cinematographer on the picture, said that he was standing outside the hotel during the parade and the incident never happened. Tracy, he said, was standing on the balcony observing the parade when a Mexican in the street below made an obscene gesture at him. Tracy replied in kind, and the next day a local newspaper printed a story that said, in effect, Tracy had insulted Mexico, Mexicans in general and the Mexican flag in particular. The story caused an uproar in Mexico, and MGM decided to sacrifice Tracy in order to be allowed to continue filming there.


1:30pm -- Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Illicit lovers fight to stay together during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution.
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness
Dir: David Lean
C-200 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, Terence Marsh and Dario Simoni, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Costume Design, Color -- Phyllis Dalton, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre, Best Writing, and Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Courtenay, Best Director -- David Lean, Best Film Editing -- Norman Savage, Best Sound -- A.W. Watkins (M-G-M British SSD) and Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), and Best Picture

The film was shot in Spain during the regime of Gen. Francisco Franco. While the scene with the crowd chanting the Marxist theme was being filmed (at 3:00 in the morning), police showed up at the set thinking that a real revolution was taking place and insisted on staying until the scene was finished. Apparently, people who lived near where filming was taking place had awoken to the sound of revolutionary singing and had mistakenly believed that Franco had been overthrown. (By the way, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.)


5:00pm -- 1776 (1972)
The founding fathers struggle to draft the Declaration of Independence.
Cast: Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard, Donald Madden, John Cullum
Dir: Peter H. Hunt
C-165 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Harry Stradling Jr.

Many of the outdoor shots were filmed at what is now the Warner Ranch just north of the main studio. The water fountain seen during the number with Franklin, Adams, and Lee is probably best known to television viewers as the fountain seen at the beginning of the TV show "Friends" (1994). The fountain still exists directly across the street from the house facades used in "Bewitched" (1964), and "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965). Most of the other colonial sets were destroyed by a devastating fire in the mid-70s.


What's On Tonight: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: AMERICAN ELECTIONS & THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS


8:00pm -- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
An idealistic Senate replacement takes on political corruption.
Cast: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Dir: Frank Capra
BW-130 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Lewis R. Foster

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Harry Carey, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Art Direction -- Lionel Banks, Best Director -- Frank Capra, Best Film Editing -- Gene Havlick and Al Clark, Best Music, Scoring -- Dimitri Tiomkin, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman, and Best Picture

In 1942, when a ban on American films was imposed in German-occupied France, the title theaters chose Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) for their last movie before the ban went into effect. One Paris theater reportedly screened the film nonstop for thirty days prior to the ban.


10:15pm -- All the King's Men (1949)
A backwoods politician rises to the top only to become corrupted.
Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek
Dir: Robert Rossen
BW-110 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Broderick Crawford, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mercedes McCambridge, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Ireland, Best Director -- Robert Rossen, Best Film Editing -- Robert Parrish and Al Clark, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Robert Rossen

Producer-Director Robert Rossen offered the role of Willie Stark to John Wayne. Rossen sent a copy of the script to Wayne's agent, Charles K. Feldman, who forwarded it to Wayne. After reading the script, Wayne sent it back with an angry letter attached. In it, he told Feldman that before he sent the script to any of his other clients, he should ask them if they wanted to star in a film that "smears the machinery of government for no purpose of humor or enlightenment," that "degrades all relationships," and that is populated by "drunken mothers; conniving fathers; double-crossing sweethearts; bad, bad, rich people; and bad, bad poor people if they want to get ahead." He accused Rossen of wanting to make a movie that threw acid on "the American way of life." If Feldman had such clients, Wayne wrote that the agent should "rush this script... to them." Wayne, however, said to the agent that "You can take this script and shove it up Robert Rossen's derrière..." Wayne later remarked that "To make Huey Long a wonderful, rough pirate was great," he said; "but, according to this picture, everybody was shit except for this weakling intern doctor who was trying to find a place in the world." Broderick Crawford, who had played a supporting role in Wayne's Seven Sinners (1940), eventually received the part of Stark. In a bit of irony, Crawford was Oscar-nominated for the part of Stark and found himself competing against Wayne, who was nominated the same year for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). Crawford won the Best Actor Oscar, giving Rossen the last laugh.


12:15am -- The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
A Korean War hero doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill by the enemy.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Dir: John Frankenheimer
BW-127 mins, TV-PG

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

John Frankenheimer opted to direct this movie after plans to film author Richard Yates's 1961 novel "Revolutionary Road" failed to materialize. Revolutionary Road was finally filmed and released in 2008, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.


2:30am -- The Best Man (1964)
Two presidential hopefuls get caught up in the dirty side of politics.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams, Margaret Leighton
Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner
BW-102 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee Tracy

Ronald Reagan was rejected for a role in this film because a studio executive didn't think he had "that
presidential look."


4:30am -- So This Is Washington (1943)
Two country bumpkins rock the nation's capital with their formula for synthetic rubber.
Cast: Chester Lauck, Norris Goff, Alan Mowbray, Mildred Coles
Dir: Raymond McCarey
BW-64 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- James L. Fields (RCA Sound)

Chester Lauck as Lum Edwards and Norris Goff as Abner Peabody, co-owners of the Jot 'em Down Store in Pine Ridge, Arkansas, starred in Lum and Abner on different radio networks through the years (NBC, CBS, ABC, Mutual), as well as playing the same roles in seven movies.

[Staph]

1. 1776

A new nation was born as a Hollywood era ended with the release of the 1972 musical, 1776. Just as the film version of the award-winning Broadway hit offered a musical version of the thirteen colonies’ battle for independence it also marked the last production for Hollywood pioneer Jack L. Warner, former production head of Warner Bros. Studios.

The American Revolution had hardly been a goldmine for the Broadway musical. Since A Daughter of the Revolution in 1895, only five shows had dealt with the topic, only two of them -- Rodgers and Hart’s Dearest Enemy in 1925 and the Robert Preston vehicle Ben Franklin in Paris (1964) -- running more than 200 performances. That didn't stop history teacher Sherman Edwards, however, from pursuing his dream, the creation of a musical about the Continental Congress that culminated with the framing of the Declaration of Independence. Edwards was already a successful songwriter with such hits as "Broken Hearted Melody" and "Dungaree Doll" when he took on the seven-year job of researching the show and creating the score. He read all he could about the founding fathers, even drawing on John Adams' letters to his wife for some of the songs' lyrics. Then book-writer Peter Stone signed on for another two-and-half years of writing and re-writing.

1776 opened on Broadway on March 16, 1969, to strong reviews and impressive ticket sales, leading to a three-year run and two-years of touring. It captured Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Ron Holgate) and Best Director (Peter Hunt). But there was some controversy. At the time, Tony categories were assigned on the basis of billing, and although he was clearly the show's leading man, William Daniels, who played John Adams, was put into the featured actor category because he was not billed above the title. He declined the nomination, forfeiting an almost sure shot at the award. More political were some objections from President Richard Nixon. He requested the show be brought to the White House, but then Secret Service members informed the production company that they would have to cut two numbers -- "Cool, Considerate Men," in which conservative members of the Continental Congress sang of their opposition to U.S. independence, and "Mama, Look Sharp," an anti-war song delivered by a young man recently returned from battle. The producers declined to make the cuts, and the matter was dropped. At the performance, however, the President stood and cheered at the end of "Cool, Considerate Men," a surprise to the production company.

Another surprise came when Jack L. Warner, a long-time Hollywood conservative, bought the film rights. Long since departed from Warner Bros., the studio he had founded with his brothers, Warner was then working as an independent producer, He had scored a hit with Camelot in 1967 and was looking to put his stamp on another film musical. When he announced his acquisition of the rights, he also announced that he had hired the original Broadway creative team to adapt the show to the screen. This was news to director Peter Hunt, who had attended the press conference, but he was glad for the opportunity to make his film-directing debut on such a prestigious project. Also joining Hunt were Edwards, Stone and several members of the original cast, including Daniels, Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard, Holgate and Virginia Vestoff.

The film version of 1776 marked the first time Da Silva's vocals were recorded to disc. Just before the original Broadway cast album was recorded, he had suffered a heart attack, and his standby, Rex Everhart, had done the album instead. John Cullum, who had taken over the role of Edward Rutledge, also joined the film's cast, with Blythe Danner taking over from Broadway's Betty Buckley as Martha Jefferson. Danner's performance gives the film a footnote in Hollywood history. Twenty-three years later, her daughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, would play Martha Jefferson's daughter Patsy in the 1995 film Jefferson in Paris.

Although Warner had been drawn to the idea of producing a musical about the birth of the United States, however, he wasn't entirely sold on the play's political implications. During screenplay development, he would show up at meetings with Hunt and Stone with a script marked with paper clips at each passage he thought too liberal. For each one, the director and writer would explain the reason for the line, and he would back off. When Hunt asked him about this, he said, "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day," which really didn't make a lot of sense at the time.

Hunt had hoped to shoot in Independence Hall, but aside from some establishing shots, 1776 was made almost entirely in Hollywood. The only problem this posed was for the final shot. Hunt wanted the camera to draw back as the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, re-creating a tableau that had garnered acclaim during the show's Broadway run. The sound stage wasn't large enough to accommodate the move, but since it was slated for demolition, they decided to take the shot after the rest of the film was finished and simply take out a wall of the soundstage. After 1776 was completed, however, plans to tear down the soundstage were dropped, so the production had to pay to have the wall replaced.

Hunt wanted to preview 1776 in San Francisco, but Warner objected, saying the town had "too many Jews and too many gentiles." This didn't make much sense, either, until Hunt realized that what Warner wanted to avoid were experts on the subject who might throw too much light on the film's factual errors. In truth, the Declaration of Independence was signed over the course of several months, not in the one day shown in 1776. Moreover, a key obstacle to Thomas Jefferson's (Howard) writing of the Declaration in the film is his loneliness for his wife. Ben Franklin (Da Silva) arranges for her to visit, which ends his writers block. In truth, no such visit took place. In fact, Martha Jefferson was so ill following a miscarriage, that she couldn't have gone anywhere in the summer of 1776. Afraid of complaints about such inaccuracies, Warner previewed the film in Phoenix, where it met with strong approval. Convinced he had a hit on his hands, Hunt took off on vacation with his wife, leaving the rest of the picture in Warner's hands.

When he got back, however, he learned that Warner had re-cut the film, eliminating most of the lines he had objected to earlier and two musical numbers, "Cool, Considerate Men" and "Mama, Look Sharp." When Hunt complained, Warner simply said, "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day," which suddenly made more sense. According to Hollywood legend, Warner had screened the film for his good friend, President Nixon, and cut the numbers at his request. Other sources debate that version, suggesting that Warner cut "Cool, Considerate Men" for fear that a number featuring older, heavier actors dancing together would generate the wrong kind of laughter. "Mama, Look Sharp" was restored before the film's release, but "Cool, Considerate Men" would not be a part of the film until its 1992 laserdisc release.

1776 was the Thanksgiving attraction at New York's Radio City Music Hall, where it played to capacity crowds. When it went into national release, however, it bombed. That failure turned out to be the end for Warner. Although he continued looking for material for films, he never found another project that interested him. He passed away in 1978, with 1776 as his final credit.

Some historians have blamed the picture's failure on the times. The film musical was going through major changes in the early '70s. Bob Fosse's version of Cabaret the same year had made more traditional musicals like 1776 seem like dinosaurs. Politically, the film failed to unite audiences. Liberals were turned off by the reverential treatment of the founding fathers and the rationalization of their decision to strike any criticism of slavery from the Declaration of Independence. Conservatives found the contemporary humor, including jokes about irritable bowels and Jefferson's sexual relationship with his wife, in bad taste (as recently as 2004, the G-rated film was banned for showing at Fairfax County, Virginia, because there was too much "sexual innuendo"). And although critics were mixed, the negative reviews were so vehement they far outweighed anything positive written about 1776. In The New Yorker, Pauline Kael kicked off a review titled "Foundering Fathers," with the question "What could be more soul-curdling than a Broadway folk operetta featuring the founding fathers, and double-entendres, and national tragedy?" Her answer: "The movie version."

Yet the film also maintains a fervent group of supporters. Vincent Canby's original review in The New York Times may suggest its continuing appeal: "…1776…insists on being so entertaining and, at times, even moving, that you might as well stop resisting it. This reaction, I suspect, represents a clear triumph of emotional associations over material." Fans continue to buy new versions on DVD, watch the television airings of it and debate the film's historical accuracy on-line. The original show remains popular in local theatres and even schools, despite the objections of the Fairfax County school board. A 1997 Broadway revival, staring Brent Spiner of Star Trek: The Next Generation ran for almost a year (with Rex Everhart once again serving as standby for Benjamin Franklin).

Producer: Jack L. Warner
Director: Peter H. Hunt
Screenplay: Peter Stone Based on the musical by Stone and Sherman Edwards
Cinematography: Harry Stradling, Jr.
Art Direction: George Jenkins
Music: Sherman Edwards
Principal Cast: William Daniels (John Adams), Howard Da Silva (Benjamin Franklin), Ken Howard (Thomas Jefferson), Ronald Holgate (Richard Henry Lee), John Cullum (Edward Rutledge), Ray Middleton (Thomas McKean), Blythe Danner (Martha Jefferson), Virginia Vestoff (Abigail Adams).
C-166m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.

by Frank Miller

[CBHagman]

2. O irony of ironies!

...as recently as 2004, the G-rated film was banned for showing at Fairfax County, Virginia, because there was too much "sexual innuendo."

Only in America can we view promotional spots for TV shows featuring dismembered murder victims and then hear that 1776 could be deemed too risque in Thomas Jefferson's home state of Virginia.

I didn't see 1776 till at some point in the '90s (I think TCM ran it as a 4th of July line-up), and then I found it utterly entertaining. Howard da Silva is a hoot as Ben Franklin, but my favorite performance belongs to Wiliam Daniels, as the irascible John Adams, who, like Jefferson, desperately misses his wife.

And special mention must be made of John Cullum, veteran of Broadway, TV, and film, who kicks you-know-what with his big solo. Cullum was not only on the cast album of the Broadway production of Camelot but eventually played the lead in another quintessentially American musical, Shenandoah.