TCM Schedule for Friday, March 20 -- Barbara Bel Geddes

[Staph]

Today is full of romances and marriages, including a couple of my favorites -- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967). In prime time we'll see some of the best films of Barbara Bel Geddes. Enjoy!


5:39am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Desert Regatta (1932)
In this Sports Champions entry, power boat racers use specially designed outboard motor boats in a race on California's Salton Sea.
Narrator: Pete Smith
Dir: Jules White
BW-9 mins

The Salton Sea is saltier than the ocean, but less than the Great Salt Lake; its salinity is increasing at about 1% annually. The sea's rising salinity threatens to eliminate the habitat value for fish-eating birds, such as pelicans. Without restoration actions, the sea will also eventually fail to support the microorganisms necessary to support the many shorebirds that depend on the Salton Sea.


6:00am -- Storm Over the Nile (1955)
After being branded a coward, a man travels to Africa to rescue his friends.
Cast: Laurence Harvey, Anthony Steele, James Robertson Justice, Geoffrey Keen
Dir: Terence Young
C-108 mins, TV-G

Terence Young and Zoltan Korda used, verbatim, R.C. Sherriff's script for The Four Feathers (1939) in this remake, as well as some footage from the that earlier film, which Korda had directed.


7:49am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Egypt Speaks (1951)
This People On Parade series entry visits with the people of Alexandria, Egypt.
Narrator and director: James A. Fitzpatrick
C-8 mins

In this short We hear the band of the University of Alexandria, talk with some of the first females to study at the university's law school, and watch a soccer game. The influence of the British Empire is stressed.


8:00am -- Number Seventeen (1932)
A detective sets out to recover a necklace lifted by jewel thieves.
Cast: Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, Donald Calthrop, John Stuart
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-61 mins, TV-PG

Alfred Hitchcock did not want to make this film. He had wanted to direct a prestige production of John Van Druten's play "London Wall," but to punish Hitchcock for the financial failure of his previous film Rich and Strange (1931), British International Pictures head John Maxwell took him off "London Wall" and put him on "Number Seventeen" instead.


9:05am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: MGM Jubilee Overture (1954)
The M-G-M Symphony Orchestra, led by Johnny Green, plays a medley of eleven well-known songs used in some of the studio's best-known musicals.
Dir: George Sidney
C-10 mins

The songs include:
Singin' In The Rain
I've Got You Under My Skin
Broadway Rhythm
The Last Time I Saw Paris
Temptation
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Be My Love
The Trolley Song
On the Atchison, Topeka And the Santa Fe
The Donkey Serenade
Over the Rainbow"


9:15am -- Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954)
When their older brother marries, six lumberjacks decide it's time to go courting for themselves.
Cast: Howard Keel, Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn, Tommy Rall
Dir: Stanley Donen
C-102 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch and Saul Chaplin

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich and Dorothy Kingsley, and Best Picture

The censors weren't too happy about the line in the song "Lonesome Polecat" where the brothers lament "A man can't sleep when he sleeps with sheep". By not showing any sheep in the same shot as the brothers, the film-makers were able to get away with it.


11:00am -- The Millionairess (1961)
When the world's richest woman falls for an ascetic Indian doctor, they plan a test to decide whose dreams will come true.
Cast: Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Alastair Sim, Vittorio De Sica
Dir: Anthony Asquith
C-86 mins, TV-PG

Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren recorded the novelty song "Goodness Gracious Me!" in order to promote the movie. The song became a big worldwide hit.


12:30pm -- Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963)
A lecherous landlord tries to steal a woman from her fiance.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Carol Lynley, Dean Jones, Edie Adams
Dir: David Swift
C-110 mins, TV-PG

In order to help his friend Edie Adams out financially, after the sudden death of her husband (Ernie Kovacs) left her debt-ridden, star/co-producer Jack Lemmon not only insisted upon hiring her for this film, but further insisted that her part be expanded considerably from the original stage play to give her more work.


2:30pm -- Girl Happy (1965)
A rock singer is hired to chaperone a gangster's daughter in Fort Lauderdale.
Cast: Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, Harold J. Stone, Gary Crosby
Dir: Boris Sagal
C-95 mins, TV-PG

For reasons unknown, several of Elvis' songs are slightly sped up, making his voice sound higher than usual. This is most noticeable on the title track. This error appears to have originated in the recording studio, as the RCA soundtrack album retains the sped up versions of the songs. A recording of "Girl Happy", mastered at the proper speed, would not be released until the 1990s. The explanation came afterwards that it was intentional and that it was supposed to give the title track an upbeat feeling that it lacked apparently in the original version. You must remember that this soundtrack was recorded at the height of the Beatlemania in June 1964 and that the record company tried to give some "extra-youth" to Elvis by speeding up the tape. 1964 is the first year Elvis Presley did not reach the TOP 10 with any of the six singles he released that year.


4:15pm -- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
An aging couple's liberal principles are tested when their daughter announces her engagement to a black doctor.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Dir: Stanley Kramer
C-108 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn (Katharine Hepburn was not present at the awards ceremony. George Cukor accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Rose

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (posthumously), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Cecil Kellaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beah Richards, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Robert Clatworthy and Frank Tuttle, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones, Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank De Vol, and Best Picture

When the movie was conceived and launched by producer-director Stanley Kramer, one of Hollywood's greatest liberal movie-makers, intermarriage between African Americans and Caucasians was still illegal in 14 states. Towards the end of production, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loving v. Virginia. The Loving decision was made on June 12, 1967, two days after the death of star Spencer Tracy, who had played a "phony" white liberal who grudgingly accepts his daughter's marriage to a black man.

Interestingly, Kramer kept in the line of the African American father played by Roy Glenn, who tells his son played by Sidney Poitier, "In 16 or 17 states you'll be breaking the law. You'll be criminals." This was probably because Kramer realized that, despite the change in the law, the couple would still be facing a great deal of prejudice requiring a stalwart love for their marriage to survive, which was the message Tracy's character gives in an eight-minute scene that is the climax of the movie. The scene summing up the theme of the movie was the last one the dying Tracy filmed for the movie, and it was the last time he would ever appear on film. It took a week to shoot the scene and at the end, he was given a standing ovation by the crew. He died a little over a fortnight after walking off of a sound-stage for the last time.

Ironically, a 1913 anti-miscegenation law was used in 2005 by then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to block out-of-state residents from taking advantage of the Commonwealth's gay marriage law.


6:15pm -- Freaky Friday (1976)
A mother and daughter switch bodies for one strange day.
Cast: Barbara Harris, Jodie Foster, John Astin, Patsy Kelly
Dir: Gary Nelson
C-98 mins, TV-PG

The title song "I'd Like to be You for a Day" is sung by Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: BARBARA BEL GEDDES


8:00pm -- The Long Night (1947)
A veteran tries to free his former love from a sadistic lover.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Barbara Bel Geddes, Vincent Price, Ann Dvorak
Dir: Anatole Litvak
BW-97 mins

Barbara Bel Geddes' film debut.


9:41pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: The Woman In The House (1942)
A John Nesbitt short exploring the human condition of anthropophobia, fear of people. In 1901, Catherine Starr has an argument with her fiancee, who then leaves her to go and fight in the Boer War in South Africa, where he is killed. She blames herself for his death and never leaves her house for forty years until it is bombed in 1941 during the Battle of Britain.
Dir: John Nesbitt
BW-11 mins

Peter Cushing appears in archival footage from the previously filmed Dreams (1940).


10:00pm -- Fourteen Hours (1951)
A policeman tries to talk a desperate young man off the ledge of a New York skyscraper.
Cast: Paul Douglas, Richard Basehart, Barbara Bel Geddes, Debra Paget
Dir: Henry Hathaway
BW-92 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Thomas Little and Fred J. Rode

As was typical of other big studio films of the time, the exterior action of this 1951 film was photographed on location on the streets of New York City, but the dialogue scenes were shot on a copy of the building and on studio sets at the Fox studio in Hollywood. The film is notable in that a number of actors just beginning their careers who were soon to go on to major roles in theater and film were cast in bit parts or as extras, among them: Joyce Van Patten, Janice Rule, John Randolph, Harvey Lembeck, Brian Keith, Richard Beymer, David Burns, Ossie Davis, John Cassavetes and Grace Kelly, in her first on-screen appearance.


11:50pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Why Daddy? (1944)
When Joe Doakes listens to a quiz show on the radio and knows all the answers, his wife encourages him to go on a quiz show himself.
Cast: Robert Benchley, Fred Brady, Richard Hall
Dir: Will Jason
BW-9 mins

This was Robert Benchley's last short film for MGM.


12:00am -- I Remember Mama (1948)
Norwegian immigrants face the trials of family life in turn-of-the-century San Francisco.
Cast: Irene Dunne, Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Philip Dorn
Dir: George Stevens
BW-134 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Oskar Homolka, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Barbara Bel Geddes, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ellen Corby, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Nicholas Musuraca

Greta Garbo turned down the role of Martha around the same time she also rejected the lead in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). She is reputed to have commented, "No murderesses, no mamas."


2:30am -- Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Two drifters race a middle-aged man across America.
Cast: James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, Dennis Wilson
Dir: Monte Hellman
C-102 mins, TV-MA

A drummer for the rock band The Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson gave his only acting performance in this film. This is the only time that "Sweet Baby James" Taylor ever acted in a movie. He is the only one of the main actors in the film still alive today (2009).


4:15am -- The Pace That Thrills (1952)
A reckless motorcycle racer and his designer vie for the same beautiful blonde.
Cast: Bill Williams, Carla Balenda, Robert Armstrong, Frank McHugh
Dir: Leon Barsha
BW-63 mins

Chris Rhodes' room is the same set as occupied by 'Joseph Cotten' in RKO's Walk Softly, Stranger (1950).

[Staph]

1. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Saul Chaplin and Adolph Deutsch won Oscars® for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture for the sprightly score of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954). This MGM musical is based on the Stephen Vincent Benet story about a family of Oregon backwoodsmen who abduct a collection of not-entirely-unwilling maidens for purposes of marriage. Chaplin and Deutsch, who remained faithful to the movie's frontier spirit by favoring banjos, accordions and harmonicas in their orchestrations, had some great source material in the collection of witty and rousing songs created by composer Gene de Paul and lyricist Johnny Mercer. Among the outstanding numbers are "Goin' Courtin'," in which Jane Powell, as the wife of the eldest brother (Howard Keel), instructs her brothers-in-law in the ways of wooing; "Lament (I'm a Lonesome Polecat)," in which the boys give voice to their lovesickness; and "Sobbin' Women," in which Keel gets his brothers fired up for the kidnapping by relating the story of the rape of Sabine women by Roman soldiers.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was nominated in four other categories: Best Picture, Color Cinematography, Film Editing and Screenplay. Although they lost in the latter category, Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Dorothy Kingsley did share a Writers Guild of America award for Best Written American Musical. The movie proved a box-office smash (later becoming a perennial hit in revivals and on television, and spawning a stage version that also starred Powell and Keel). It won glowing critical notices, including Time magazine's claim that "It's the liltingest bit of tunesome lolly-gagging to hit the screen since An American in Paris," and appeared on almost every major "10 Best" list of its year. Director Stanley Donen's concept, with musical numbers developing from and
advancing the plot, won favorable comparisons to the groundbreaking stage musical Oklahoma! (which would be filmed the following year). Michael Kidd's spirited and inventive choreography was singled out for special praise.

The attention and adulation heaped upon Seven Brides for Seven Brothers came as a major shock to MGM, which had relegated this film to a relatively low budget and back-lot shooting while lavishing a great deal more time, effort and expense that year on such other musicals as Rose Marie, Brigadoon and Jupiter's Darling. The Best Picture Oscar nomination was a particular distinction. During the 1940s and 1950s, generally considered the Golden Age of the Movie Musical, only three others of that genre from MGM earned such recognition: Anchors Aweigh (nominee, 1945), An American in Paris (winner, 1951) and Gigi (winner, 1958).

Director: Stanley Donen
Producer: Jack Cummings
Screenwriter: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Dorothy Kingsley
Cinematogapher: George Folsey
Composer: Saul Chaplin
Editor: Ralph Winters
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons, Urie McCleary
Songwriter: Gene de Paul, Johnny Mercer
Costume Designer: Walter Plunkett
Cast: Howard Keel (Adam Pontipee), Jane Powell (Milly Pontipee), Jeff Richards (Benjamin Pontipee), Russ Tamblyn (Gideon Pontipee), Tommy Rall (Frank Pontipee), Marc Platt (Daniel Pontipee), Julie Newmar (Dorcas), Ruta Lee (Ruth Jackson), Virginia Gibson (Liza).
C-103m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video.

by Roger Fristoe