TCM Schedule for Saturday, June 27, 2015 -- The Essentials: Directed by Albert Lewin

[Staph]

Tonight's Essentials features a trio of films written and directed by Albert Lewin. He only directed six films, but I think you'll agree that he was one of the good ones! Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Mission To Moscow (1943)
True story of U.S. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies' attempts to forge a wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Oscar Homolka
BW-123 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Carl Jules Weyl and George James Hopkins

This film was often mentioned during the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in its investigation of alleged Communist "infiltration" of the motion picture industry and was chiefly responsible for the blacklisting of screenwriter Howard Koch. Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner defended the picture as being "made when our country was fighting for its existence, with Russia as one of our allies . . . The picture was made only to help a desperate war effort and not for posterity."


8:15 AM -- The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954)
A shipwrecked Englishman fights to survive on a desert island.
Dir: Luis Buñuel
Cast: Daniel O'Herlihy, Jaime Fernández, Felipe de Alba
C-89 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Dan O'Herlihy

Luis Buñuel's first all-English film; the script was also written in English, but according to Dan O'Herlihy Bunuel only directed him in Spanish.


9:50 AM -- Did'Ja Know? (1950)
This short film asks the question, "have you ever wondered" about certain situations.
Dir: Dave O'Brien
Cast: Don Brodie, Dave O'Brien, Charles King
BW-8 mins,


10:00 AM -- Batman and Robin: Batman Takes Over (1949)
Episode One of the Batman and Robin serial.
BW-28 mins,


10:30 AM -- Safari Drums (1953)
A group of movie makers arrive in Africa to make a film about jungle wildlife.
Dir: Ford Beebe
Cast: John[ny] Sheffield, Douglas Kennedy, Barbara Bestar
BW-71 mins,

The ninth of the twelve Bomba the Jungle Boy films.


11:46 AM -- Strictly G.I. (1943)
This patriotic short film features a filmed broadcast of the Command Performance radio program, featuring such Hollywood stars as Betty Hutton and Lana Turner.
BW-13 mins,


12:00 PM -- The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)
The Three Musketeers rescue the king's unjustly imprisoned twin.
Dir: James Whale
Cast: Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Warren William
BW-112 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score -- Lud Gluskin and Lucien Moraweck

Peter Cushing did double duty on this film. In additional to his own role, he would feed Louis Hayward the lines for the split screen shots. Director 'James Whale' initially cast him only to play opposite Hayward in the sequences where both twins appear together, but was impressed enough with the newcomer that he offered Cushing a small part on horseback. This was Peter Cushing's film debut, and he had the unique opportunity to view his own rushes and improve his own performance, especially since none of it would be used in the finished feature. As 'Second Officer,' he can be seen 17 minutes in, with two lines of dialogue ("I've been here before&quot .


2:00 PM -- Judgment At Nuremberg (1961)
An aging American judge presides over the trial of Nazi war criminals.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark
BW-179 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Maximilian Schell, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Abby Mann

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Montgomery Clift, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Judy Garland, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Laszlo, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Rudolph Sternad and George Milo, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Picture

Montgomery Clift had difficulty with his lines, cues, and timing. He told Stanley Kramer he didn't know if he could actually get through the scene. Kramer did his best to reassure him, but it was Spencer Tracy who eventually helped Clift through it. Perhaps drawing on his own years of alcoholism, Tracy spoke to the younger actor with sympathy but with firmness, even relaxing his own dictum about sticking strictly to the script: "Just look into my eyes and do it. You're a great actor and you understand this guy. Stanley doesn't care if you throw aside the precise lines. Just do it into my eyes and you'll be magnificent." Clift spent four days getting through the seven-minute sequence, stumbling through and performing each take differently. At the end of his last take, the set broke out into spontaneous applause. "Monty's condition gave the performance an aura as though it were being shot through muslin, the way the words tumbled out and the disjointed, sudden bursts of lucidity out of a mumble," Kramer said later. "It was classic! It was one of the best moments in the film!" Some film historians and critics have since suggested that Kramer knew exactly what he was doing by casting such broken and erratic performers as Judy Garland and Clift in roles that called for expressions of pain, embarrassment, and terror.


5:15 PM -- Bound For Glory (1976)
True story of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who rose to the top while fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers.
Dir: Hal Ashby
Cast: David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon
C-148 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Haskell Wexler, and Best Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score -- Leonard Rosenman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Getchell, Best Costume Design -- William Ware Theiss, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones and Pembroke J. Herring, and Best Picture

The pivotal Steadicam sequence that first captivated industry insiders involved David Carradine's amble through a migrant camp. The Steadicam operator, Garrett Brown, descends into the scene on a Chapman crane and follows Woody Guthrie (Carradine) as he gets off a pickup truck and walks past some 900 extras. The sequence, which looks quite simple on film, posed a challenge to operator and crew in that, just as Brown stepped off the crane platform laden with his weighty armature, grips had to simultaneously counterbalance the crane arm to prevent it from becoming a human catapult.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: DIRECTED BY ALBERT LEWIN



8:00 PM -- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
A man remains young and handsome while his portrait shows the ravages of age and sin.
Dir: Albert Lewin
Cast: George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed
BW-110 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr.

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, Edwin B. Willis, John Bonar and Hugh Hunt

Years later, a friend of Hurd Hatfield's bought the Henrique Medina painting of young Dorian Gray that was used in the movie at the MGM auction, and gave it to Hatfield. On March 21, 2015 the portrait was put up for auction at Christie's in New York (from the Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth) with a pre-auction estimate of between $5,000 to $8.000. It sold for $149,000.


10:00 PM -- The Moon and Sixpence (1942)
Loosely inspired by the life of Gauguin, a man abandons his middle-classed life to start painting.
Dir: Albert Lewin
Cast: George Sanders, Herbert Marshall, Doris Dudley
C-89 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin

Herbert Marshall plays the writer Geoffrey Wolfe, a fictional alter ego of author W. Somerset Maugham. Marshall played Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge (1946), and appeared in several adaptations of Maugham's works, including The Painted Veil (1934) and both the 1929 and 1940 versions of The Letter (1940).


11:45 PM -- Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)
A Spanish temptress falls for a haunted ship's captain.
Dir: Albert Lewin
Cast: James Mason, Ava Gardner, Nigel Patrick
C-124 mins, CC,

The first feature film in color for Ava Gardner.


2:00 AM -- Twice Upon A Time (1983)
A despot tries to turn the world into a non-stop nightmare.
Dir: John Korty
Cast: Lorenzo Music, Marshall Efron, Judith Kaham Kampmann
C-74 mins, CC,

The credits sequence features a photo of voice actor Lorenzo Music, who was notorious for not allowing pictures of himself to be seen. You may remember his voice as Carlton the Doorman in the television series Rhoda (1974-1978).


3:15 AM -- Zotz! (1962)
A college professor finds a mystical coin that gives him super powers.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Tom Poston, Julia Meade, Jim Backus
BW-86 mins,

Upon its initial theatrical release, "Zotz" plastic coins were given to ticket buyers.


4:45 AM -- Gang Boy (1959)
In this short film, a police officer tries to prevent a gang war by bringing the rival groups together over dinner.
Dir: Arthur Swerdloff
Cast: Curly Riviera,
C-27 mins,


4:45 AM -- A Day in the Death of Donny B. (1969)
A heroin addict desperately tries to raise the money for a fix in this short film.
Dir: Carl Fick
BW-14 mins,


4:45 AM -- Age 13 (1955)
In this short film, a troubled teen deals with the death of his mother and ill treatment by his stepfather.
Dir: Arthur Swerdloff
Cast: Michael Keslin,
C-27 mins,