TCM Schedule for Friday, February 15 -- 31 Days of Oscar -- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

[Staph]

It's the first of five days featuring the films of MGM - "the studio with more stars than there are in heaven". Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Broadway Melody (1929)
Love and success break up a vaudeville sister act.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Anita Page, Bessie Love, Charles King
BW-100 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bessie Love (No official nominees had been announced this year.), and Best Director -- Harry Beaumont (No official nominees had been announced this year.)

The number "Wedding of the Painted Doll" was filmed in two-color Technicolor, but survived only in black and white except for a 16-second Technicolor fragment with the beginning of the number preserved at George Eastman House. The original choreography was rejected and had to be filmed again. Rather than have a live orchestra perform the music again, the new choreography was filmed during a playback of the music, making this to be the first film sequence filmed during a playback of pre-recorded music.


8:00 AM -- Min And Bill (1930)
Two crusty waterfront characters try to protect their daughter from a terrible secret.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, Dorothy Jordan
BW-66 mins, TV-G,

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler was a star on Broadway and in vaudeville, but by the 1920s she was out of work and nearly broke. But it was sound that made her a star again. Anna Christie (1930) was the movie where Garbo talks, but everyone noticed Marie as Marthy. In an era of Harlow, Garbo and Crawford, it was homely old Marie Dressler that won the coveted exhibitor's poll as the most popular actress for three consecutive years. In another film from the same year, Min and Bill (1930) she received a best actress Oscar for her dramatic performance.


9:15 AM -- When Ladies Meet (1933)
A female novelist doesn't realize her new friend is the wife whose husband she's trying to steal.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy
BW-85 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons

Remade in 1941 with Joan Crawford as Mary (the Myrna Loy role in this version of the film), Greer Garson as Claire (the Ann Harding role), and Robert Taylor as Jimmy (played in this film by the Patron Saint of the Classics Film Group, Robert Montgomery).


10:45 AM -- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Classic adventure about the sadistic Captain Bligh, who drove his men to revolt during a South Seas expedition.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone
BW-133 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Franchot Tone, Best Director -- Frank Lloyd, Best Film Editing -- Margaret Booth, Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of the M-G-M Studio Music Department) with score by Herbert Stothart, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings and Carey Wilson

The only film in Oscar history that had three nominees for Best Actor: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone. Because of this, the Academy introduced a Best Supporting Actor Oscar shortly afterward to ensure this situation would not be repeated. They all lost to Victor McLaglen for The Informer, the only nominee not in this film.


1:00 PM -- The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer
C-176 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer, Best Dance Direction -- Seymour Felix for "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody", and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons, Eddie Imazu and Edwin B. Willis, Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Film Editing -- William S. Gray, and Best Writing, Original Story -- William Anthony McGuire

Universal Pictures bought the film rights to Ziefeld's life story from his widow Billie Burke in late 1933. William Powell was to play Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Billie Burke was to play herself, and it would feature specialties by Fanny Brice, Judy Garland (and her sisters), Eddie Cantor and Ray Bolger. When Universal decided to make a faithful film version of the Kern-Hammerstein musical "Show Boat", which Ziegfeld himself had originally produced onstage, the studio heads sold "The Great Ziegfeld" to MGM in March 1935 while still in pre-production. Only Powell, Brice and Bolger survived to the final picture. Ironically, MGM would buy the rights to "Show Boat" from Universal in 1942, and remake the musical, in Technicolor, in 1951.


4:15 PM -- Boys Town (1938)
True story of Father Flanagan's fight to build a home for orphaned boys.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull
BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (Spencer Tracy was not present at the awards ceremony. His wife Louise Treadwell accepted the award on his behalf.), and Best Writing, Original Story -- Eleanore Griffin and Dore Schary

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Taurog, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Meehan and Dore Schary, and Best Picture

The day after Spencer Tracy won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in this film, an MGM publicist released a statement - without consulting Tracy first - that the actor would donate his Oscar to the real Boys Town in Nebraska. Tracy agreed to make the donation if the Academy would send him a replacement Oscar. When the replacement arrived, the engraving on the award read: "Best Actor - Dick Tracy."


6:00 PM -- Ninotchka (1939)
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire
BW-110 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

Greta Garbo did not wear any makeup for her scenes where she is the stern envoy.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER



8:00 PM -- The Champ (1931)
A broken-down prizefighter battles to keep custody of his son.
Dir: King Vidor
Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich
BW-86 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery (Tied with Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931).), and Best Writing, Original Story -- Frances Marion

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- King Vidor, and Best Picture

Wallace Beery actually got one less vote than Fredric March in the 1931/1932 Academy Awards voting for best actor, but the rules at the time considered anyone with one or two votes less than the leader as being in a tie. So both got Academy Awards.


9:45 PM -- Grand Hotel (1932)
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford
BW-113 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Picture

Originally conceived by MGM production chief as one of the first All-Star vehicles. Conventional wisdom of the time was that you put no more than one or two of your biggest stars in a picture so as to lower production cost and to maximize profits. Grand Hotel featured 5 of MGM's top tiered stars and was one of the highest grossing pictures in studio history.


12:00 AM -- Mrs. Miniver (1942)
A British family struggles to survive the first days of World War II.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright
BW-134 mins, TV-G, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Teresa Wright, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Walter Pidgeon, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Henry Travers, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Dame May Whitty, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic), Warren Newcombe (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound), Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD)

Winston Churchill once said that this film had done more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.


2:30 AM -- Woman of the Year (1942)
Opposites distract when a sophisticated political columnist falls for a sportswriter.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Fay Bainter
BW-114 mins, TV-PG, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner Jr.

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

As Katharine Hepburn's close friend and frequent director, George Cukor was a natural choice to direct, but for her first film with Spencer Tracy, Hepburn wanted Tracy to be as comfortable as possible, so as a quasi-producer, she hired George Stevens, who had directed her in Alice Adams. As Hepburn said, "I just thought he (Tracy) should have a big, manly man on his team - someone who could talk about baseball." Cukor (who was openly gay and known for his friendships with actresses) would later become a good friend of Tracy and would direct both actors in Keeper of the Flame, Adam's Rib and Pat and Mike.


4:30 AM -- Thousands Cheer (1943)
An egotistical acrobat joins the Army and falls in love with his commander's daughter.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Mary Astor
C-125 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Daniel B. Cathcart, Edwin B. Willis and Jacques Mersereau, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Herbert Stothart

Eleanor Powell's first color film and last MGM film.