TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 29, 2015 -- TCM Spotlight: Trailblazing Women

[Staph]

Today is the last day of TCM celebrating women behind the camera, in their series called Trailblazing Women. Tonight's feature is Women Film Pioneers -- A New Generation. Enjoy!


6:45 AM -- Hollywood Without Make-Up (1966)
In this special, Ken Murray hosts his own behind-the-scenes home movies of some of Hollywood's greatest stars.
BW-50 mins, CC,


7:45 AM -- Freaks (1932)
A lady trapeze artist violates the code of the side show when she plots to murder her midget husband.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova
BW-62 mins, CC,

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a member of the MGM writing department at the time the movie was in production. It is said, one day as he came into the studio commissary for lunch and saw the Hilton sisters (conjoined twins), one reading the menu and the other seemingly understanding it, he was horrified, became nauseous and left the lunchroom. He would later go on to write of a studio filming a "circus" picture.


9:05 AM -- On Ice (1935)
Mickey shows off his ice-skating skills to Minnie while Goofy does some unconventional ice fishing.
Dir: Ben Sharpsteen
C-8 mins, CC,


9:15 AM -- The Devil-Doll (1936)
A Devil's Island escapee shrinks murderous slaves and sells them to his victims as dolls.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton
BW-78 mins, CC,

Madame Mandilip's special dolls are costumed as members of vicious street gangs known as the Apache (pronounced ah-PAHSH), who were involved in theft, prostitution, and the occasional murder in pre-World War I Paris. The dolls even perform the Apache dance popularized by the gangs, in which extremely close steps alternate with seemingly brutal punches, kicks, hair-pulling, spins, and throws; it was usually danced to the Valse des rayons (aka Valse chaloupée) composed by Jacques Offenbach. In the 1930s and 1940s, this dance was still performed by professional dancers and can be seen in several films and even cartoons of the period.


10:45 AM -- House on Haunted Hill (1958)
A millionaire offers total strangers a fortune to spend the night in a haunted house.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Richard Long, Alan Marshal
BW-75 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

William Castle had related the story of meeting Vincent Price on a day when Price had learned that he had been passed over for a part. Over coffee, Castle described the premise of this picture. Price liked the idea and it led to a two-picture collaboration, this and The Tingler (1959), on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 Eastern time.


12:15 PM -- Macabre (1958)
A doctor's daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: William Prince, Jim Backus, Christine White
BW-71 mins, CC,

The first of William Castle's "gimmick" films. In this one, admission included a $1000 insurance policy against "death by fright" issued by Lloyds of London.


1:28 PM -- Salar Leaper (1957)
This short film focuses on Atlantic salmon fly-fishing in New Brunswick, Canada.
Dir: Douglas Sinclair
BW-8 mins,


1:45 PM -- Suspicion (1941)
A wealthy wallflower suspects her penniless playboy husband of murder.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke
BW-100 mins, 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

In interviews, Alfred Hitchcock said that an RKO executive ordered that all scenes in which Cary Grant appeared menacing be excised from the film. When the cutting was completed, the film ran only fifty-five minutes. The scenes were later restored, Hitchcock said, because he shot each piece of film so that there was only one way to edit them together properly.


3:30 PM -- Stage Fright (1950)
An acting student goes undercover to prove a singing star killed her husband.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd
BW-110 mins, CC,

Alfred Hitchcock gave his daughter Patricia Hitchcock's character the decidedly unflattering name "Chubby Bannister." In addition to the joke, the name was a term of endearment according to the director. Alfred said that he liked calling Patricia "Chubby Bannister" because she was "a girl you could always lean on."


5:30 PM -- A Bucket of Blood (1959)
A jealous Bohemian wannabe resorts to murder to perpetuate his new-found success as a sculptor.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone
BW-65 mins, CC,

The sets for this film would be re-used for Roger Corman's next production The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).


6:45 PM -- Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
A clumsy young man nurtures a bloodthirsty plant that forces him to kill to feed it.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Jonathan Haze, Jackie Joseph, Mel Welles
BW-72 mins,

When asked where Seymour got the plant, he replies that the seeds were obtained by a Japanese gardener who found the bulb in a "plantation next to a cranberry farm." This joke is lost on modern audiences. In 1959, it was announced that cranberry crops were tainted with traces of the herbicide aminotriazole, and as a result, cranberry sales plummeted.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: TRAILBLAZING WOMEN



8:00 PM -- Away From Her (2006)
An aging couple faces the wife's Alzheimer's.
Dir: Sarah Polley
Cast: Julie Christie, Michael Murphy, Gordon Pinsent
C-110 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role -- Julie Christie, and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay -- Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley first came across Alice Munro's story when she read it on a flight back from Iceland where she'd been filming Hal Hartley's No Such Thing (2001). Having just worked with Julie Christie, Polley couldn't help but envision the main part of Fiona with Christie playing her.


10:00 PM -- Walking & Talking (1996)
A young woman copes with her best friend's approaching marriage.
Dir: Nicole Holofcener
Cast: Catherine Keener, Anne Heche, Amy Braverman
C-85 mins, CC,

Allison Janney has a cameo appearance as Amelia's neighbor, and Harold Ramis has a cameo appearance as one of the men in the play that Laura goes to see.


11:45 PM -- The Hurt Locker (2008)
A munitions expert finds defusing bombs in Iraq almost addicting.
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty
C-131 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Achievement in Directing -- Kathryn Bigelow (Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director.), Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Mark Boal, Best Achievement in Film Editing -- Bob Murawski and Chris Innis, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing -- Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett, Best Achievement in Sound Editing -- Paul N.J. Ottosson, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role -- Jeremy Renner, Best Achievement in Cinematography -- Barry Ackroyd, and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score -- Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders

It was James Cameron who convinced his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow to direct this film. She originally had planned on doing another project and wasn't sure about doing this film. Cameron read it and told her to do this film, and it ended up earning her an Oscar nomination and award for Best Director - in fact, the film was nominated in nine categories against Cameron's Avatar (2009), and won six awards, including Best Picture. Cameron himself had said, "I wouldn't bet against her."


2:00 AM -- The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Five daughters with strict parents fascinate the boys at their high school.
Dir: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, James Woods
C-97 mins, CC,

After she had written the script, Sofia Coppola was heartbroken to discover that another company was already producing an adaptation of the book themselves. However, they were not happy with their script, so she showed them hers and they ended up using it instead.


3:45 AM -- Frida (2001)
A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.
Dir: Julie Taymor
Cast: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush
BW-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Music, Original Score -- Elliot Goldenthal, and Best Makeup -- John E. Jackson and Beatrice De Alba

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Salma Hayek, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Felipe Fernández del Paso (art director) and Hania Robledo (set decorator), Best Costume Design -- Julie Weiss, and Best Music, Original Song -- Elliot Goldenthal (music) and Julie Taymor (lyrics) for the song "Burn It Blue"

Frida Kahlo's niece was so impressed with the film that she gave Salma Hayek one of Kahlo's necklaces.