TCM Schedule for Friday, November 23 -- What's On Tonight: Lerner & Loewe Musicals

[Staph]

If you've ODed on football and turkey, it's time for a day with the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. And in the evening, there is the spectacle of two of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's great musicals, My Fair Lady (1964) and Camelot (1967). Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- The Dick Cavett Show: Alfred Hitchcock (1972)
Alfred Hitchcock appears in an episode of The Dick Cavett Show that originally aired June 8, 1972.
C-65 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Hitchcock had a hard time devising one of his signature walk-ons for Lifeboat (1944), a film about a small group of people trying to survive on a small boat. What he eventually came up with was to have his picture in a newspaper advertisement for weight loss that floated among some debris around the boat. He had happened to have lost a considerable amount of weight from dieting around that time, so he was seen in both the "Before" and the "After" pictures.


8:00 AM -- Under Capricorn (1949)
Newly arrived in Australia, a man discovers his childhood love is now an alcoholic.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, Michael Wilding
C-117 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Director Cameo: about five minutes into the movie in the town square wearing a coat and a brown hat. Ten minutes later he is one of three men on the steps of government house.


10:00 AM -- Strangers On A Train (1951)
A man's joking suggestion that he and a chance acquaintance trade murders turns deadly.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Burks

Director Cameo: early in the film boarding a train carrying a double bass fiddle as Guy gets off the train (see also his cameo in The Paradine Case).


11:45 AM -- The Wrong Man (1956)
A musician is mistaken for a vicious thief, with devastating results.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle
BW-105 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Director Cameo: narrating the film's prologue. The only time he actually spoke in any of his films.


1:45 PM -- North By Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason
C-136 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

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

Director Cameo: Hitchcock arrives at a bus stop (during the opening credits) but gets there a second too late and the door is closed in his face. He misses the bus.


4:15 PM -- Suspicion (1941)
A wealthy wallflower suspects her penniless playboy husband of murder.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Sir Cedric Hardwicke
BW-100 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Fontaine

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Franz Waxman, and Best Picture

Director Cameo: about 45 minutes in, mailing a letter at the village post office.


6:00 PM -- Dial M For Murder (1954)
A straying husband frames his wife for the murder of the man he'd hired to kill her.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings
C-105 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Director Cameo: about 13 minutes into the film, on the left side of the reunion photograph.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: LERNER & LOEWE MUSICALS



8:00 PM -- My Fair Lady (1964)
A phonetics instructor bets that he can pass a street urchin off as a lady.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway
C-172 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rex Harrison, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Gene Allen, Cecil Beaton and George James Hopkins, Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Color -- Cecil Beaton, Best Director -- George Cukor, Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- André Previn, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Stanley Holloway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gladys Cooper, Best Film Editing -- William H. Ziegler, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Alan Jay Lerner

"My Fair Lady" is the only Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe stage musical to have been filmed totally complete, with no omission of any songs from the stage version (or dialogue, for that matter). There are even some added lyrics to the song "You Did It", in which Higgins goes more into detail about the speech "expert" Zoltan Karpathy's evaluation of Eliza at the ball, that were not in the stage version. My Fair Lady, West Side Story, and South Pacific may be the most complete film adaptations of Broadway musicals ever made.


11:00 PM -- Camelot (1967)
The romance between Guinevere and Lancelot destroys King Arthur's dream kingdom.
Dir: Joshua Logan
Cast: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero
C-180 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- John Truscott, Edward Carrere and John Brown, Best Costume Design -- John Truscott, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Alfred Newman and Ken Darby

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Richard H. Kline, and Best Sound -- (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts SSD).

Richard Burton, who had played the role of King Arthur on Broadway in the original 1960 production, was offered the role in the film. Burton had had a huge success with Lerner & Lowe's show, winning a 1961 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, but he turned the film down. Burton subsequently played King Arthur in the 1980's Broadway revival of "Camelot".


2:15 AM -- The Tempest (1979)
Adaptation of Shakespeare's play about the machinations of an exiled magician.
Dir: Derek Jarman
Cast: Heathcote Williams, Karl Johnson, Jack Birkett
C-95 mins, TV-MA,

The role of Prospero was originally intended for an older actor and John Gielgud was approached but declined. It was then offered to Terry-Thomas but his failing health caused him to turn it down. The character was then rewritten as a younger Prospero and Heathcote Williams was cast.


4:00 AM -- Derek (2008)
A cinematic journey that illuminates the work and enduring importance of the late director Derek Jarman.
Dir: Isaac Julien
Narrator: Tilda Swinton
C-76 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format

Keep watching: there is an extra scene after the end credits.


5:30 AM -- Perversion For Profit (1965)
This anti-porn documentary shows a floodtide of filth engulfing the country in the form of newsstand obscenity
Host: George Putnam
C-31 mins, TV-MA,

A long-time staple on Los Angeles TV news, Putnam was in the reporting business for over 60 years. During the 70s, George had a short-lived nightly talk show with co-host, actor Mort Sahl. The show ended abruptly one night when George, the conservative, and Mort, the liberal, became too heated during a political debate.