TCM Schedule for Friday, May 6, 2016 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month - Robert Ryan

[Staph]

Today begins TCM's look at Star of the Month Robert Ryan. As IMDB says, "Primarily a man of pacifist beliefs, Ryan often found it a challenge playing sadistic and racist characters who very much were at odds with his own personal ideals. Additionally, Ryan actively campaigned for improved civil rights, restricting the growth of nuclear weapons, and he strongly opposed McCarthyism and its abuse of people who many believed were innocent. A gifted, intelligent and powerful actor, Robert Ryan passed away on July 11th, 1973 of lung cancer." Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- MGM Parade Show #21 (1955)
Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper perform in a clip from "The Champ"; Russ Tamblyn introduces a clip from "The Last Hunt." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins,


6:30 AM -- Seven Days in May (1964)
An American military officer discovers his superiors are planning a military coup.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March
BW-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Edmond O'Brien, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cary Odell and Edward G. Boyle

For security reasons, the Pentagon forbids camera crews near the entrances to the complex. John Frankenheimer wanted a shot of Kirk Douglas entering the building. So they rigged up a station wagon with a camera to film Douglas, in a full Marine colonel's uniform, walking up the steps of the Pentagon. The salutes Douglas received in that scene were real, as the guards had no reason to believe it was for a movie!


8:45 AM -- Maytime (1937)
An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore
BW-132 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD), and Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of department) with score by Herbert Stothart

When filming began in 1936 (in color), the original opera finale was also recorded, staged and shot. This was to have been Act II of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca", one of the few operatic works with major roles for baritone (Scarpia) and soprano as equals (Tosca). It also allowed Jeanette MacDonald to sing the famous aria "Vissi D'arte". By the time shooting recommenced in black and white (after Irving Thalberg's death), this idea was scrapped and replaced with an elaborate fake Russian opera "Czaritza" created by Herbert Stothart to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, presumably to allow for a big Duet (in "Tosca", she murders Scarpia by stabbing him through the heart!). The rewritten story of "Maytime" presumably demanded it. Sadly, the Technicolor "Tosca" sequence does not appear to have survived, which is a pity as it would have been fascinating to see MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a major operatic sequence and in color.


11:00 AM -- The Woman on the Beach (1947)
A coast guardsman begins to think his mistress's blind husband can really see.
Dir: Jean Renoir
Cast: Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan, Charles Bickford
BW-71 mins, CC,

Based on the novel None So Blind by Mitchell Wilson.


12:15 PM -- The Woman On Pier 13 (1950)
Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
Dir: Robert Stevenson
Cast: Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, John Agar
BW-73 mins, CC,

According to Daniel Mainwaring, author of the beloved noir "Out of the Past," RKO head Howard Hughes used the film "I Married a Communist" (that's the pre-release name of this film) to get rid of a lot of writers, directors and actors. If you refused to work in this project, you got fired from the studio.


1:30 PM -- Clash by Night (1952)
An embittered woman seeks escape in marriage, only to fall for her husband's best friend.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan
BW-105 mins, CC,

As this was one of Marilyn Monroe's first starring roles, she was still under an acting coach and wanted her on the set to help her in scenes. She would stand behind director Fritz Lang and tell her when a scene was good enough, as opposed to listening to Lang, and when the director saw what was going on he got furious and demanded she leave the set (at the time this coach also worked for 20th Century Fox). After Monroe complained and wouldn't act without her, Lang allowed the coach to return to the set, on the condition that she not direct Monroe.


3:15 PM -- The Racket (1951)
A tough cop has to fight his superiors in order to battle the mob.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Ryan
BW-89 mins, CC,

Remake of a 1928 silent movie. Both movies were produced by Howard Hughes.


4:45 PM -- Berlin Express (1948)
Allied agents fight an underground Nazi group in post-war Europe.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Merle Oberon, Robert Ryan, Charles Korvin
BW-87 mins, CC,

The picture's crew was the first to receive permission to film in Berlin's Russian zone. (At the time of this production, Berlin was divided into three separate sectors, which were controlled by the English, Russian and American armed forces.)


6:15 PM -- Born to be Bad (1950)
An ambitious girl steals a rich husband but keeps her lover on the side.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott
BW-90 mins, CC,

RKO had originally scheduled this film to be filmed twice previously: in 1946 with Joan Fontaine, Henry Fonda, John Sutton and Marsha Hunt. It was canceled. In 1948 RKO put the film on its schedule under the title of BED OF ROSES, with Barbara Bel Geddes in the role of Christabel. However, Howard Hughes decided he did not care for Bel Geddes and postponed it.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: ROBERT RYAN



8:00 PM -- Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
A one-armed veteran uncovers small-town secrets when he tries to visit an Asian-American war hero's family.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis
C-81 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Director -- John Sturges, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

The sign behind the hotel desk is a quote from English evangelist John Wesley:
"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."


9:30 PM -- Crossfire (1947)
A crusading district attorney investigates the murder of a Jewish man.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan
BW-86 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Ryan, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gloria Grahame, Best Director -- Edward Dmytryk, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Paxton, and Best Picture

Despite receiving an Academy Award nomination, Robert Ryan rarely talked about his breakthrough role, because he wasn't too happy about the negative aspects of his character, who was a murderous, anti-Semitic psychopath. In real life, Ryan was a committed liberal progressive who detested any forms of bigotry.


11:15 PM -- Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Desperate losers plan a bank robbery with unexpected results.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters
BW-96 mins, CC,

Harry Belafonte starred in this, the first film-noir with a black protagonist. Belafonte selected Abraham Polonsky, who had written and directed a famous noir, Force of Evil (1948), to write the script. As a blacklisted writer Polonsky used a front, John O. Killens, a black novelist and friend of Belafonte's. (In 1997, the Writers Guild of America officially restored Polonsky's credit.)


1:00 AM -- On Dangerous Ground (1952)
A tough cop sent to help in a mountain manhunt falls for the quarry's blind sister.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond
BW-82 mins, CC,

A hand-held camera was used in many scenes to give a "live action" feel to those sequences. This was extremely rare in feature films of the time.


2:30 AM -- Beware, My Lovely (1952)
A widow discovers her handyman is an escaped mental patient.
Dir: Harry Horner
Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Taylor Holmes
BW-77 mins, CC,

The head of RKO Pictures, Howard Hughes, withheld the film from release for a year. Robert Ryan felt Hughes tried to 'bury' the film because Ryan was publicly active in left-wing politics.


4:00 AM -- The Set-Up (1949)
An aging boxer defies the gangsters who've ordered him to throw his last fight.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias
BW-72 mins, CC,

In the original poem, the boxer is called Pansy Jones (he goes by the name of Stoker Thompson in the film), he's black not white and, instead of being devotedly married as he is depicted in the movie, he was a bigamist. The main reason for the change of race was because RKO had no Afro-American leading men on contract at the time. James Edwards, who appears in the cast, would have fitted the bill, but was not deemed as being well-known enough to carry the movie.


5:15 AM -- Act Of Violence (1948)
An embittered veteran tracks down a POW camp informer.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh
BW-82 mins, CC,

All the credits except for the title are at the end of the movie, highly unusual for that time.

[Galileo126]

1. Glad to see Robert Ryan being featured

One of my favorite movies is "Inferno" w/ Robert Ryan. The ending was cathartic.

"Bad Day at Blackrock" was also a good movie. Looks like I'll watch it again this week...

However - "Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)" - never seen it! Cool !!!

[Staph]

2. According to the records kept by White House projectionists,

Bad Day at Black Rock is one of the most requested film shown there. I'm looking forward to seeing it for the first time!