TCM Schedule for Friday, November 14 -- Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence

[Staph]

Today is a mix of films, including a couple of Alfred Hitchcock's best, his only screwball comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and delightfully terrifying Rear Window. This evening Elvis Mitchell talks to Joan Allen about the films and performers that influenced her. Enjoy!


4:21am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Impact (1933)
A lesson from golf champion Bobby Jones' series "How To Break 90".
Cast: Bobby Jones, Harvey Hicks, Regis Toomey.
Dir: George Marshall.
BW-9 mins

I think this is the right description -- IMDB has only one short film from 1933 that contains the word "impact" in its title.


4:30am -- The Masquerader (1933)
An unemployed reporter impersonates his look-alike cousin and falls for the man's wife.
Cast: Ronald Colman, Elissa Landi, Juliette Compton.
Dir: Richard Wallace.
BW-77 mins

Based on the 1904 political thriller John Chilcote by Irish-born novelist Katherine Cecil Thurston.


6:00am -- Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
A ghost tries to smooth the way for two young lovers he knew during his lifetime.
Cast: Charles Winninger, Richard Carlson, Jean Parker.
Dir: A. Edward Sutherland.
BW-84 mins, TV-G

Based on a story by Mildred Cram (Love Affair (1939) which became An Affair To Remember (1957) which become the horrible Love Affair (1994)) and Adele Comandini (Christmas in Connecticut (1945 and 1992)).


7:30am -- Pot O' Gold (1941)
A young man is caught between his music-hating uncle and a pretty girl from a family of musicians.
Cast: James Stewart, Paulette Goddard, Charles Winninger.
Dir: George Marshall.
BW-86 mins, TV-G

Jerry Adler, younger brother of Larry Adler, taught James Stewart how to hold the harmonica and mime the playing for the movie, and was the person who did the actual playing of the harmonica music supposedly done by Stewart, who continued playing the instrument after the movie.


9:00am -- Monsoon (1943)
A team of pearl fishers clashes over the discovery of a sunken treasure.
Cast: John Carradine, Gale Sondergaard, Sidney Toler.
Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer.
BW-74 mins, TV-G

The villain is played by Sidney "Charlie Chan" Toler.


10:30am -- Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
A quarrelsome couple discovers their marriage isn't legal.
Cast: Carole Lombard, Robert Montgomery, Gene Raymond.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock.
BW-95 mins, TV-G

Director Alfred Hitchcock's cameo comes about halfway through the movie passing David Smith in front of his building. Carole Lombard directed the cameo, making him do repeated retakes.


12:08pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Freddie Rich And His Orchestra (1938)
Bandleader Freddie Rich conducts three musical numbers in this short film.
Cast: Freddie Rich and His Orchestra, Nan Wynn, Joe Sodja.
Dir: Lloyd French.
BW-11 mins

The three musical numbers are 'You're An Education', 'The Volga Boatman', 'The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond', and 'Chinatown, My Chinatown'. Apparently Freddie couldn't count.


12:30pm -- The Hairy Ape (1944)
A ship's stoker becomes obsessed with a society beauty who finds him repulsive.
Cast: William Bendix, Susan Hayward, John Loder.
Dir: Alfred Santell.
BW-91 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Michel Michelet and Edward Paul

Co-star Roman Bohnen died in 1949 in style: in the intermission of a play, backstage... just days before he was being forced to testify for the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.


2:15pm -- The Strange Woman (1946)
An unscrupulous 19th-century woman will stop at nothing to control the men in her life.
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward.
Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer.
BW-99 mins, TV-PG

Hedy Lamarr is credited with inventing a radio guiding system for torpedoes which was used in WWII. She supposedly gained the knowledge from her first husband, Fritz Mandl, a Viennese munitions dealer who sided with the Nazis. Hedy drugged her maid to escape her husband and homeland.


4:00pm -- Rear Window (1954)
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock.
C-114 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Burks, Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Sound, Recording -- Loren L. Ryder (Paramount), and Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Michael Hayes

All of the sound in the film is diegetic, meaning that all the music, speech and other sounds all come from within the world of the film.


6:00pm -- The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
A bored tycoon turns to bank robbery and courts the insurance investigator assigned to bring him in.
Cast: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke.
Dir: Norman Jewison.
C-102 mins, TV-14

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Michel Legrand (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics), and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind". Sung in the film by Noel Harrison, son of Rex Harrison (Noel was a much better singer than dear old Dad!

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Michel Legrand

After watching a five hour rough cut of the film, composer Michel Legrand took a six week vacation during which he wrote 90 minutes of music. The film was then reedited to the music, instead of the other way around. If this experiment had failed, Legrand would have written a second score in the traditional way free of charge.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: ELVIS MITCHELL: UNDER THE INFLUENCE


8:00pm -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Joan Allen (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-27 mins, TV-PG

Joan Allen has been nominated for three Oscars, for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Contender (2000), for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Crucible (1996), and for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Nixon (1995).


8:30pm -- A Trip To Bountiful (1985)
An aging woman escapes her controlling family to visit her childhood home.
Cast: Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn.
Dir: Peter Masterson.
C-107 mins, TV-14

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Geraldine Page

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Horton Foote

A Trip to Bountiful opened on Broadway in 1953, and was filmed for television that year, starring Lillian Gish. Horton Foote would at first not allow another film version of his play, because he didn't want anybody to play Carrie except Lillian Gish. He later agreed, but only if either Geraldine Page or Kim Stanley played Carrie.


10:30pm -- TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell Under the Influence: Joan Allen (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film
critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C-27 mins, TV-PG

Joan Allen has won many stage awards and won a Tony in 1989 for her debut Broadway performance in Burn This.


11:00pm -- Long Day's Journey into Night (1962)
A young writer tries to find himself while his family falls apart.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, Jr.
Dir: Sidney Lumet.
BW-170 mins, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn

Filmed entirely in sequence after three weeks of rehearsal.


2:00am -- Suspiria (1977)
A dancing school is haunted by mysterious murders.
Cast: Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett, Alida Valli.
Dir: Dario Argento.
C-93 mins

Director Dario Argento's original idea was the ballet school would accommodate young girls not older 12. However the studio and producer (his father) denied his request because a film this violent involving children would be surely banned. Dario Argento raised the age limit of the girls to 20 but didn't rewrite the script, hence the naivety of the characters and occasionally childlike dialogue. He also put all the doorknobs at about the same height as the actress' heads, so they will have to raise their arms in order to open the doors, just like children.


3:45am -- The Haunting (1963)
A team of psychic investigators moves into a haunted house that destroys all who live there.
Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn.
Dir: Robert Wise.
BW-112 mins, TV-PG

Based on the novel The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson, who wrote the scariest story you were ever required to read in high school, The Lottery.

[Staph]

1. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)

A curio from the waning days of Hollywood's screwball comedy cycle, the RKO production Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) is pleasant enough on its own merits, but piques the interest of contemporary film fans for two primary reasons. For one, the film features the penultimate performance of legendary leading lady Carole Lombard, the gifted comic actress most associated with the screwball genre. Further, the project provided cinema's Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, with his one and only career opportunity to direct a light romantic comedy.

When interviewed in his latter years by Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock was by and large dismissive of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, declaring that he only came to the assignment at Lombard's behest. In crafting the film, Hitch stated, "I more or less followed Norman Krasna's screenplay. Since I didn't really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written." Donald Spoto's biography The Dark Side of Genius, however, offered up a contrary portrait of the director's outlook during production, where Hitchcock declared, "I want to direct a typical American comedy about Typical Americans."

Lombard and Hitchcock were introduced socially by David O. Selznick after he brought the filmmaker to Hollywood in 1940; she had long been a fan of Hitchcock's British works, and noted his propensity for leavening the suspense with moments of humor. After agreeing to collaborate, both wanted Cary Grant for the male lead; with Grant booked solid, they were successful in landing an alternate male lead with a light comedic touch, Robert Montgomery. "Hitchcock thought it remarkable that Lombard and Montgomery could both have been in Hollywood so long without having worked together," Larry Swindell wrote in his biography, Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. "He suspected that they might have been one of the all-time great teams, at the Tracy-Hepburn level."

The script, a pleasant confection from ace comedy scribe Krasna (The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941; Bachelor Mother, 1939; Princess O'Rourke, 1943), opens in the Manhattan apartment of prosperous lawyer David Smith (Montgomery) and his wife of three years Ann (Lombard). The three-day impasse in their latest quarrel has just lovingly broken; when she asks over breakfast if he would marry her all over again given the opportunity, he teasingly expresses his doubts. Arriving at his office, David is greeted by a Mr. Deever (Charles Halton), a functionary from Ann's hometown, who's the uncomfortable bearer of some embarrassing news. It seems that the town's redistricting to another state voided certain marriages that took place therein, including the Smiths'.

Although David gets a bemused kick out of the situation's possibilities, he is unaware of Deever's subsequent social call on Ann, who's now been apprised of what has happened. Neither lets on during a disastrous evening out, and once bedtime approaches without a marriage proposal forthcoming, a furious Ann throws David out of the apartment. The balance of the film follows David's efforts to win her back, with a primary obstacle being his law partner Jeff (Gene Raymond), who's looking to make the most of his flirtation with the now-emancipated Ann.

At the time of its release, Mr. and Mrs. Smith enjoyed great popular success, and gave Lombard's career a much needed boost. Reviews were middling, with some critics accusing Hitchcock of slumming. The film is certainly the most atypical in his body of work, but it's an enjoyable entertainment nonetheless. It also proved that Lombard's instincts about Hitchcock had been right all along; his wry, often quirky sense of humor emerges throughout the narrative. Bits of business such as where Jeff attempts to explain the convoluted goings-on to his stuffy parents while huddled in the firm's lavatory reflect the director's stamp.

Tales from the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith revealed an earthy and unpretentious playfulness under Lombard's elegant facade, one of the qualities that endeared her to co-workers and audiences alike. She made a daily ritual of heading to the studio parking lot and festooning the fender of her archly Republican leading man's car with Roosevelt bumper stickers. Hitchcock, already famous for his regard of actors as "cattle," arrived on set one day to find a makeshift corral erected, in which were penned a trio of heifers bearing nameplates for Lombard, Montgomery and Raymond.

Moreover, the sequence containing Hitchcock's obligatory cameo--as a man trying to bum the price of a drink off of Montgomery--was actually directed by Lombard. To the delight of the crew, she gleefully hectored Hitch and demanded multiple retakes until it was shot to her satisfaction. Lombard would only complete one more film, To Be or Not to Be (1942), before meeting her untimely and tragic end at age 33. The queen of screwball was fervently patriotic, and she was in the course of a January 1942 War Bond drive when her plane went down in the California mountains.

Producer: Harry E. Edington
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay: Norman Krasna
Cinematography: Harry Stradling
Film Editing: William Hamilton
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase, Albert S. D'Agostino
Music: Edward Ward
Cast: Carole Lombard (Ann Krausheimer Smith), Robert Montgomery (David Smith), Gene Raymond (Jeff Custer), Jack Carson (Chuck Benson), Philip Merivale (Mr. Custer), Lucile Watson (Mrs. Custer).
BW-95m. Closed captioning.

by Jay S. Steinberg