TCM Schedule for Friday, July 1, 2016 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month: Olivia De Havilland

[Staph]

Today is her 100th birthday, so TCM has decided to spend the entire month of July celebrating Olivia de Havilland. She was born Olivia Mary de Havilland, on July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. When her parents divorced, Olivia, her mother and sister Joan (Fontaine) moved to Saratoga, California. Tonight and tomorrow morning we get to see some of her early roles, including her first film, her first Oscar-nominated role, and several of her roles co-starring with Errol Flynn. Today is also the birthday of Leslie Caron (July 1, 1931, in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France), and TCM is showing a selection of her films during the daylight hours. Enjoy!



7:15 AM -- Mame (1974)
A wealthy eccentric takes in her orphaned nephew.
Dir: Gene Saks
Cast: Lucille Ball, Bea Arthur, Robert Preston
C-131, CC, Letterbox Format

Angela Lansbury recalled her time when she was playing Mame on Broadway and was visited by Lucille Ball who told her she was amazing in the part, deserved all the honors she was receiving and was a cert for the film version. Lansbury was very touched by this until she noticed Ball in the wings during her performance, taking notes. It was then that she realized that she was never going to play the part in the film.


9:30 AM -- Glory Alley (1952)
A boxer's drinking problem threatens his career and his love life.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Ralph Meeker, Leslie Caron, Kurt Kaszner
B/W-79, CC

This was the only black-and-white film in which Leslie Caron sang and danced.


11:00 AM -- The Doctor's Dilemma (1958)
A woman tries to convince the medical profession to save her husband despite his lack of character.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Leslie Caron, Dirk Bogarde, Alastair Sim
C-99, CC

It was once rumored, nearly two decades before, that a film version, produced by Gabriel Pascal would have had Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller (the stars of Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (1938)) playing the lead roles.


12:45 PM -- Guns of Darkness (1962)
A businessman and his wife are caught in the turmoil of a South American revolution.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Leslie Caron, David Niven, David Opatoshu
B/W-102, CC

Based on the novel An Act Of Mercy by Francis Clifford.


2:30 PM -- The L-Shaped Room (1962)
A single mother-to-be tries to build a new life in a low-rent London apartment house.
Dir: Bryan Forbes
Cast: Leslie Caron, Anthony Booth, Avis Bunnage
B/W-126, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Leslie Caron

Gerald Sim (Doctor in Hospital) was the brother-in-law of the producer Richard Attenborough.


4:45 PM -- Promise Her Anything (1966)
A single mother must choose between two suitors.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Warren Beatty, Leslie Caron, Bob Cummings
C-97, CC

By the time this movie premiered Leslie Caron's husband had divorced her, as she had been in a long term affair with Warren Beatty. Because Beatty had been determined the reason for the divorce, the British court ordered him to pay for all of the court costs.


6:30 PM -- Chandler (1971)
A former private eye lands in hot water when he agrees to protect a government witness.
Dir: Paul Magwood
Cast: Warren Oates, Leslie Caron, Alex Dreier
C-86, Letterbox Format

According to "Uprising at MGM," a Time Magazine article of Dec. 27, 1971, director Paul Magwood and producer Michael Laughlin placed a black-bordered ad in the Hollywood Reporter apologizing for the movie, claiming that MGM studio chief James T. Aubrey had severely re-cut Chandler (1971) and added previously deleted scenes, in Aubrey's judgment, to simplify the plot. Aubrey also allegedly changed the film score from 1940s-type music to something more contemporary. The producer and director also claimed that Magwood was denied entry to the editing room while Aubrey revised the film.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: OLIVIA De HAVILLAND



8:00 PM -- Raffles (1939)
A suave thief falls in love again with his high school sweetheart and finds temptation and a detective on his trail while visiting her family.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: David Niven, Olivia De Havilland, Dame May Whitty
B/W-72, CC

David Niven was due to join the British Army but was given a 21-day grace period to finish his scenes for the movie. The production crew worked double time and filmed Niven's scenes first to comply with his obligation to start his military service.


9:15 PM -- Gone With the Wind (1939)
Classic tale of Scarlett O'Hara's battle to save her beloved Tara and find love during the Civil War.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil, Vivien Leigh
C-233, CC

Won an Oscar Honorary Award for William Cameron Menzies for outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood in the production of Gone with the Wind (plaque).

Won an Oscar Technical Achievement Award for R.D. Musgrave for pioneering in the use of coordinated equipment in the production Gone with the Wind.

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Hattie McDaniel (Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Oscar.), Best Director -- Victor Fleming, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Howard (Posthumously. Sidney Howard became the first posthumous Oscar nominee and winner.), Best Cinematography, Color -- Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan, Best Art Direction -- Lyle R. Wheeler, Best Film Editing -- Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom, and Best Picture (David O. Selznick was the founder and owner of Selznick International Pictures, and therefore won and took home Gone With The Wind's Best Picture Oscar.)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Olivia de Havilland, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Effects, Special Effects -- Jack Cosgrove (photographic), Fred Albin (sound) and Arthur Johns (sound), and Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner

Olivia de Havilland always meticulously researched her roles. As she had not yet had a baby in real life, she visited a maternity hospital to study how various women coped with the stresses of childbirth for the scene where Melanie has her baby. Off-camera, the scene's director, George Cukor, would occasionally pinch her toes to make her feel pain.


1:15 AM -- The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The bandit king of Sherwood Forest leads his Merry Men in a battle against the corrupt Prince John.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Basil Rathbone
C-102, CC

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Carl Jules Weyl, Best Film Editing -- Ralph Dawson, and Best Music, Original Score -- Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was invited by Warner Brothers to come from his native Austria to Hollywood to see the film with a view to scoring it. He initially turned down the chance, as he felt that his musical style was ill-suited for adventure spectaculars. However, while in Hollywood he learned that Austria was going to be joined with Germany in the Anschluss and, feeling he had to secure a source of revenue in the United States and also get his family out of Austria before the invasion, he accepted the assignment. He would go on to win the Oscar. For the rest of his life, Korngold, grateful that this successful assignment allowed him to stay in America would playfully quip, "Robin Hood saved my life."


3:15 AM -- The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
Elizabeth I's love for the Earl of Essex threatens to destroy her kingdom.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland
B/W-106, CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Sol Polito and W. Howard Greene, Best Art Direction -- Anton Grot, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), and Best Effects, Special Effects -- Byron Haskin (photographic) and Nathan Levinson (sound), and Best Music, Scoring -- Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Bette Davis had originally wanted Laurence Olivier for the role of Lord Essex, claiming that Errol Flynn could not speak blank verse well. She remained extremely upset about this through the entire filming, and Flynn and Davis never worked again together in a film, but according to Olivia de Havilland, she and Davis screened the film again a short while before Davis's stroke. At film's end, Davis turned to de Havilland and declared that she had been wrong about Flynn, and that he gave a fine performance as Essex.


5:15 AM -- Captain Blood (1935)
After being unjustly sentenced to prison, a doctor escapes and becomes a notorious pirate.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Lionel Atwill
B/W-119, CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz (This was a write-in candidate, who came in second on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Casey Robinson (This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director), Best Music, Score -- Leo F. Forbstein (head of department) and score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), and Best Picture

In his biography, "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" Errol Flynn (an infamous prankster) states that he played many pranks on Olivia de Havilland. One of them was leaving a dead snake in her underwear, which she found when she went to put them on. After that she lived in terror of what prank he would pull on her next. This was the first of nine movies made together by de Havilland and Flynn.

[longship]

1. Ah! The Errol Flynn flicks!

Captain Blood is a lot of fun, as is Adventures of Robin Hood.

Well worth viewing. Look for Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck and Alan Hale Sr. in Robin Hood.

[CBHagman]

2. Yeah, I live for the supporting players!

There's Una O'Connor in The Adventures of Robin Hood, for instance, stealing a few scenes.

[longship]

3. Oh yes! Indeed.

I am always for thorough scene chewery.

Of course, one of my faves is Eugene Pallette whose choppers are very well used here.

I am a huge fan of character actors, cast into the background yet somehow rise to the foreground through some strange force of personality. They somehow make cinema worthwhile. An exemplar: the rather astounding Thelma Ritter in Hitchcock's Rear Window.

My best!

[CBHagman]

5. Yes, Thelma!

Last edited Sun Jul 24, 2016, 01:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I nominate her for Classic Film Group goddess!

[Auggie]

4. TCM starts July with a wallop