TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 30 -- Denzel Washington

[Staph]

Happy Birthday, Eve Arden! She was born 101 days ago today. Tonight, we're celebrating the films of the delicious Denzel Washington. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Manpower (1941)
Power linemen feud over the love of a sultry nightclub singer.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft.
Dir: Raoul Walsh.
BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC

Humphrey Bogart was originally cast in this film, but George Raft refused to work with him.


8:00 AM -- She Couldn't Say No (1941)
Opposing lawyers face off in court over a land deal only to wind up in each other's arms.
Cast: Roger Pryor, Eve Arden, Cliff Edwards.
Dir: William Clemens.
BW-62 mins, TV-G

Though the dialog tells us the film takes place in 1925 (a year before Benjamin Kaye wrote the play on which it is based), the cars, clothes and settings are those of 1940, when it was made.


9:15 AM -- Whistling In The Dark (1941)
A radio detective is kidnapped and forced to plan the perfect murder.
Cast: Red Skelton, Ann Rutherford, Conrad Veidt.
Dir: S. Sylvan Simon.
BW-78 mins, TV-G, CC

The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 19 January 1932 and had 265 performances. The opening night cast included Edward Arnold, Claire Trevor, Ernest Truex and Arthur Vinton.


10:45 AM -- The Doughgirls (1944)
Honeymooners in Washington get caught up in wartime crowding, with disastrous results.
Cast: Alexis Smith, Jane Wyman, Eve Arden.
Dir: James V. Kern.
BW-101 mins, TV-G

Signed by Warner Brothers after being seen in a college drama production, Alexis Smith was subsequently billed as "The Dynamite Girl" and "The Flame Girl" in promotional articles.


12:30 PM -- Mildred Pierce (1945)
A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-111 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford (Joan Crawford was not present at the awards ceremony and feigned ill that night. Meanwhile she listened to the show on the radio. When she won, she ushered the press into her bedroom, where she finally accepted her Oscar.)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eve Arden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ann Blyth, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ranald MacDougall, and Best Picture

Bette Davis and Rosalind Russell turned down the title role, and Barbara Stanwyck was very keen to take it, but Joan Crawford got in first and it earned her an Academy Award.


2:22 PM -- Short Film: Joan Crawford Biography (1962)
BW-4 mins

She taught director Steven Spielberg how to belch while filming their episode of "Night Gallery" (1970). After Spielberg hit it big, Joan sent him periodic notes of congratulations. The last one came two weeks before her death.


2:30 PM -- Pan-Americana (1945)
A New York magazine sends its editors to South America to find beautiful girls.
Cast: Audrey Long, Phillip Terry, Robert Benchley.
Dir: John H. Auer.
BW-84 mins, TV-G

Audrey Long was the fourth (and last) wife of Leslie Charteris, author of the novels that introduced the world to The Saint.


4:00 PM -- My Reputation (1946)
A widow generates small-town gossip when she falls in love too soon after her husband's death.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lucile Watson.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt.
BW-94 mins, TV-PG, CC

The Nissen Hut where the movie "My Reputation" had its world premiere was located in the base cinema on the 467th Bomb Group airbase in Rackheath, England.


5:45 PM -- Night And Day (1946)
Fanciful biography of songwriter Cole Porter, who rose from high society to find success on Tin Pan Alley.
Cast: Cary Grant, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
C-128 mins, TV-G, CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Ray Heindorf and Max Steiner

In the "You're the Top", Mel Tormé is the blond drummer on the bandstand.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: DENZEL WASHINGTON


8:00 PM -- Glory (1989)
A green officer is assigned to lead an all-black unit in the Civil War.
Cast: Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington.
Dir: Edward Zwick.
C-122 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Denzel Washington, Best Cinematography -- Freddie Francis, and Best Sound -- Donald O. Mitchell, Gregg Rudloff, Elliot Tyson and Russell Williams II

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Norman Garwood and Garrett Lewis, and Best Film Editing -- Steven Rosenblum

The scenes for the party were filmed in Jim Williams' house in Savannah. This house and its owner were the basis for the film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997).


10:15 PM -- Philadelphia (1993)
A lawyer sues his firm for firing him because he has AIDS.
Cast: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas.
Dir: Jonathan Demme.
C-125 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Tom Hanks, and Best Music, Original Song -- Bruce Springsteen for the song "Streets of Philadelphia".

Nominated for Oscars for Best Makeup -- Carl Fullerton and Alan D'Angerio, Best Music, Original Song -- Neil Young for the song "Philadelphia", and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Ron Nyswaner

Originally, director Jonathan Demme was going to cast a comedic actor in role of Joe Miller as he felt it would be a good counter balance for Tom Hanks who had already been cast and to give an audience the "it's OK" to watch a film about a gay man dying of AIDS. Demme had considered casting either Bill Murray or Robin Williams but when Denzel Washington showed interested in the part, he gave the role to him instead because Demme had wanted to work with Washington for the past few years.


12:30 AM -- A Soldier's Story (1984)
During World War II, an African-American officer investigates a murder that may have been racially motivated.
Cast: Howard E. Rollins, Jr., Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington.
Dir: Norman Jewison.
C-101 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Adolph Caesar, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Charles Fuller, and Best Picture

Samuel L. Jackson originated the role of Pvt. Henson in "A Soldier's Play", which was played by William Allen Young in the film version.


2:30 AM -- The Mighty Quinn (1989)
A Caribbean police officer must decide if a childhood friend is a crook or an innocent victim.
Cast: Denzel Washington, Robert Townsend, Mimi Rogers.
Dir: Carl Schenkel.
C-99 mins, TV-MA

Originally entitled "Finding Maubee", the title of the novel by AHZ Carr on which it was based, the title is derived from a Bob Dylan song of the same name.


4:21 AM -- Short Film: Island Windjammers (1956)
BW-8 mins

Island Windjammers was one of the last in the series of specialized sports newsreels to be distributed as short subjects, produced to take advantage of the calypso music graze sweeping the nation at the time, popularized by Harry Belafonte and others.


4:30 AM -- Lost Lagoon (1958)
A man tries to start a new life on a Pacific island, but is haunted by memories of the family he left behind.
Cast: Jeffrey Lynn, Peter Donat, Leila Barry.
Dir: John Rawlins.
BW-80 mins, TV-G, Letterbox Format

Jeffrey Lynn tested (with Paulette Goddard) for the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) but didn't get it.

[Staph]

1. Glory (1989)

Edward Zwick’s Glory (1989), a Civil War historical drama starring Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, and Morgan Freeman, is especially memorable for its attention to physical detail— the cinematography and production design are both breathtaking. But Zwick’s story, which is based on real events, also deals with the plight of African-American troops during the War Between the States, a topic that, quite shamefully, is barely touched upon in this country’s history books. For that reason, the film is more challenging than your average Civil War picture. Many of the narrative’s key battles are fought between men who are supposed to be comrades in arms.

Broderick is Union Gen. Robert Gould Shaw, a baby-faced Bostonian who’s assigned to lead the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Army, the first Black fighting regiment in the war. The men of the 54th are a scruffy collection of former and escaped slaves. We follow the men - including a rebellious, deeply embittered escaped slave named Trip (Washington), and a wise, emotionally-measured gravedigger named Rawlins (Freeman) – as they’re turned into soldiers. But first, they have to be accepted as human beings by the often brutal military officers that are training them. The men’s inner and outward battles will finally come to a head during a horrific suicide mission at Carolina’s Fort Wagner.

Zwick was careful when filming Glory not to turn it into a Black story with a more commercially convenient white hero. “We didn’t want this film to fall under that shadow,” Freeman said. “This is a picture about the 54th Regiment, not Colonel Shaw, but at the same time the two are inseparable.” In order to assure accuracy, Zwick hired Shelby Foote, who would later become a semi-household name courtesy of Ken Burns’ popular 1990 PBS nine episode documentary The Civil War, as a technical advisor.

It’s interesting to note that Washington was reluctant to take on his role in Glory. “I had a lot of reservations about doing something like ,” he said in a 1990 issue of Ebony magazine. “My father-in-law was a principal at one of the top Black high schools in North Carolina and he always told me the worst thing that ever happened was integration. In a lot of ways I agree with him, because we have gotten further and further away from (Black) culture.” But he finally recognized that Glory gave him a shot at “an honest portrayal, a fully realized character.” He accepted the role, of course, and won an Oscar® as a result.

In 1995, when he was promoting Courage Under Fire (1996), Zwick said he was unhappy about having to go to the Department of Defense to get help with his Gulf War picture. The generals wanted him to change a few scenes to their liking, and this infuriated him. He said he was convinced that this sort of government interference arises when bureaucrats with no writing experience try to shape a narrative that they’re incapable of judging. And he used his experience on Glory to prove his point.

“ is shown today in Officer Candidate School as an example of the tribulations of leadership and as inspiration to the rank and file,” he said. “Had I originally shown that script – which describes racism, a whipping by a junior officer, incidents of all sorts of insubordination and questionable treatment – to the Department of Defense, I do not think at that time they would have been able to support it.”

Zwick’s stance was that fact-based motion pictures such as Glory and Courage Under Fire require conflict, or they simply don’t work. “Without conflict,” he continued, “without a more textured portrait, you would have a recruiting film. That’s fine when someone is making ‘Be all that you can be commercials,’ but that’s not drama.”

Glory received widespread critical praise upon release with Variety proclaiming that it "has the sweep and magnificence of a Tolstoy battle tale or a John Ford saga of American history." Vincent Canby, The New York Times film critic, concurred, writing "Glory is the first serious American movie about the Civil War to be made in years. There haven't been that many anyway - D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915), Buster Keaton's The General (1927), David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind (1939) and John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage (1951). Almost everything else has been balderdash...Although Glory employs the devices of fiction and sometimes is as brightly colored as a recruiting poster, it seems as severe as a documentary alongside those earlier films...Glory is celebratory, but it celebrates in a manner that insists on acknowledging the sorrow. This is a good, moving, complicated film." In addition to Denzel Washington's Best Supporting Actor Oscar®, Glory was nominated for four other Academy Awards including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Film Editing, Best Sound and Best
Cinematography (by Freddie Francis); it won in the latter two categories.

Director: Edward Zwick
Producer: Freddie Fields
Screenplay: Kevin Jarre (based on the books Lay This Laurel by Lincoln Kirstein, One Gallant Rush by Peter Burchard, and the letters of Robert Gould Shaw)
Editor: Steven Rosenblum
Cinematographer: Freddie Francis
Music: James Horner
Production Design: Norman Garwood
Art Design: Keith Pain, Dan Webster
Special Effects: Kevin Yagher, Carl Fullerton
Set Design: Garrett Lewis
Costume Design: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck
Cast: Matthew Broderick (Col. Robert Gould Shaw), Denzel Washington (Trip), Cary Elwes (Cabot Forbes), Morgan Freeman (John Rawlins), Jihmi Kennedy (Sharts), Andre Braugher (Searles), John Finn (Sgt. Mulcahy), Donovan Leitch (Morse), John David Cullum (Russell), Alan North (Gov. Andrew).
C-122m.

by Paul Tatara