TCM Schedule for Friday, August 5, 2016 -- Summer Under The Stars - Karl Malden

[Staph]

Today's Star is Karl Malden, born to a Czech mother and a Serbian father in Chicago as Mladen Sekulovich, on March 22, 1912. Malden did not speak English until he was in kindergarten. Malden and his wife Mona Greenberg married in 1938 and stayed married until his death in 2009, making theirs the third longest marriage in Hollywood history surpassing the 69 years of Bob Hope and Dolores Hope (1934 until his death in 2003) and just behind Art Linkletter and Lois Foerster (married 1935-2010) with 74 years, and Norman Lloyd and Peggy Lloyd, who hold the record with 75 years. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE (1954)
A mad scientist uses an ape to murder his enemies.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin, Patricia Medina
C-84 mins, CC,

The famous "gorilla performer" Charles Gemora, who plays the gorilla, also played the gorilla in the original Universal version Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932).


7:30 AM -- HOT MILLIONS (1968)
A computer whiz and his pregnant girlfriend set out to rob a massive corporation.
Dir: Eric Till
Cast: Peter Ustinov, Maggie Smith, Karl Malden
C-107 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ira Wallach and Peter Ustinov

In the film Maggie Smith takes Bob Newhart shopping where she is seen trying on clothes and buying an outfit for £20 at the Apple Boutique on Baker Street, London, a boutique owned and operated by The Beatles. The boutique, which was the first venture of their Apple Corps Ltd company, and featured a large psychedelic mural on the external wall, was only operated for several months in 1968 before being closed down and the contents given away to the public for free. Hot Millions provides one of the few rare filmed glimpses of the boutique's interior.


9:30 AM -- HOTEL (1967)
A New Orleans hotel owner fights off a corporate raider while his guests struggle through a variety of personal problems.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: Rod Taylor, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden
C-125 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In an odd twist of fate that could not be appreciated for at least a decade, Karl Malden plays a hotel thief who breaks into guest rooms and steals wallets; following one lowly heist that nets him him only a few dollars in actual cash, he bemoans that his livelihood is being snuffed out by rampant popularity of credit cards - which ironically later became his real-life late-career claim to fame as spokesman for American Express credit cards: "Don't leave home without it!"


11:45 AM -- TAKE THE HIGH GROUND! (1953)
A tough drill sergeant prepares green recruits for service in the Korean War.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Maurice Jara, Robert Arthur, William Hairston
C-101 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

At about 18 minutes into the film while Richard Widmark and Karl Malden's characters are shooting pool there is a sign on the wall that reads: Watch Your Language Single Men Present. A real "sign" of the times.


1:30 PM -- BOMBERS B-52 (1957)
A hard-nosed Air Force sergeant tries to keep his daughter from dating a hotshot flyer.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Marsha Hunt
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This was apparently the first film in which the US Air Force's new B-52 Stratofortress bomber was featured. It appeared in a number of films afterward, notably A Gathering of Eagles (1963), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and By Dawn's Early Light (1990).


3:30 PM -- CAT O' NINE TAILS (1971)
A blind man and a reporter investigate a break-in at a center for genetic research.
Dir: Dario Argento
Cast: James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak
C-112 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Although it's one of his most successful films, this is the least favorite of Dario Argento among his pictures.


5:30 PM -- GYPSY (1962)
A domineering mother pushes her two daughters to burlesque stardom.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden
C-143 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Color -- Orry-Kelly, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank Perkins

Before the decision was made to dub most of her vocals, Rosalind Russell attempted to do her own singing. The highly unsatisfactory results can be heard as an extra feature on the soundtrack CD. After Ethel Merman's death, a tape of the Russell recordings was found in a box in Merman's closet. Merman, who was infuriated that she had not been cast in the film, evidently had retained this copy of the Russell vocals as a strange and somewhat vengeful consolation prize.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: KARL MALDEN



8:00 PM -- ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
A young stevedore takes on the mobster who rules the docks.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb
BW-108 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eva Marie Saint, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Budd Schulberg, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Boris Kaufman, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day, Best Film Editing -- Gene Milford, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee J. Cobb, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Rod Steiger, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Leonard Bernstein

In his biography of Elia Kazan, Richard Schickel describes how Kazan used a ploy to entice Marlon Brando to do the movie. He had Karl Malden direct a scene from the film with an up-and-coming fellow actor from the Actors Studio playing the Terry Malloy lead role. They figured the competitive Brando would not be eager to see such a major role handed to some new screen heartthrob. The ploy worked, especially since the competition had come in the form of a guy named Paul Newman.


10:00 PM -- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
A fading southern belle tries to build a new life with her sister in New Orleans.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
BW-125 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh (Vivien Leigh was not present at the awards ceremony. Greer Garson accepted on her behalf.), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Kim Hunter (Kim Hunter was not present at the awards ceremony. Bette Davis accepted on her behalf.), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day and George James Hopkins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Tennessee Williams, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Lucinda Ballard, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros.), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alex North, and Best Picture

Mickey Kuhn, who plays the young sailor who helps Vivien Leigh onto the streetcar at the beginning of the film, had previously appeared with Leigh in Gone with the Wind (1939) as Beau Wilkes (the child of Olivia de Havilland's character Melanie), toward the end of that film when the character was age 5. When Mickey Kuhn mentioned this to someone else on the set of "A Streetcar Named Desire," word got back to Leigh and she called him into her dressing room for a half-hour chat. In an interview in his seventies, Kuhn stated that Leigh was extremely kind to him and was "one of the loveliest ladies he had ever met."


12:15 AM -- ALL FALL DOWN (1962)
A young drifter's romance with an older woman is threatened by his possessive mother.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Eva Marie Saint, Warren Beatty, Karl Malden
BW-110 mins, CC,

Eva Marie Saint's character (Echo O'Brien) is the "old maid daughter" of the best friend of Angela Lansbury's character (Annabell Willart), when in fact Eva Marie Saint was a year older than Angela Lansbury.


2:15 AM -- BABY DOLL (1956)
A child bride holds her husband at bay while flirting with a sexy Italian farmer.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach
BW-115 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Carroll Baker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mildred Dunnock, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Tennessee Williams, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Boris Kaufman

When the film was released in 1956, it was enormously controversial for its extremely risqué subject matter. The Legion of Decency condemned the film for its "carnal suggestiveness". Francis Cardinal Spellman condemned the film in a stunning attack from the pulpit of St. Patrick's Cathedral two days before the film opened, saying that the film had been "responsibly judged to be evil in concept" and was certain that it would "exert an immoral and corrupting influence on those who see it", and exhorted all Catholics to refrain from patronizing the film "under pain of sin". Cardinal Spellman's condemnation of the film led to the Legion of Decency's first-ever nationwide boycott of an American-made film produced by a major studio. All over the country, almost 20 million Catholics protested the film and picketed theaters that showed it. The Catholic boycott nearly killed the film; it was cancelled by 77% of theaters scheduled to show it, and it only made a meager $600,000 at the box office. The film was also condemned by Time Magazine, which called it the dirtiest American-made motion picture that had ever been legally exhibited. Surprisingly, despite the film's sordid elements, the Production Code Administration gave it a seal of approval, but only after nearly a year of arguments. This was one of many examples of how the lax attitude of new Code official Geoffrey Shurlock, the successor at the PCA to the strict Catholic militant Joseph I. Breen, would lead to a schism with the Legon of Decency and the PCA's own downfall over the next few years. After this film, the PCA drifted farther and farther away from its traditional guidelines until it was replaced by the MPAA ratings system in 1968.


4:15 AM -- TWILIGHT TIME (1983)
An immigrant returns to his native Yugoslavia to raise his grandchildren.
Dir: Goran Paskaljevic
Cast: Karl Malden, Jodi Thelen, Damien Nash
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Malden's character is named Marko Sekulovic, the same last name as Malden's birthname.