TCM Schedule for Friday, January 12, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Spotlight - Survival Movies

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, it's a celebration of Luise Rainer, born on January 12, 1910, in Düsseldorf, Germany. She holds the distinction of being the first actor or actress to win back-to-back Oscars (in her case, for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937)), and for quite possibly being the oldest surviving actress in Hollywood history -- she died two weeks short of her 105th birthday! In prime time, TCM continues their month of survival movies on Friday nights. Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- TOGETHER AGAIN (1944)
The female mayor of a small-town ignites local gossip when she falls for a sculptor.
Dir: Charles Vidor
Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Charles Coburn
BW-100 mins, CC,

The elevator operator was played by Carl Switzer, best known as Alfalfa of The Little Rascals "Our Gang" fame.


8:15 AM -- THE TOY WIFE (1938)
A Southern belle finds herself torn between two suitors.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Luise Rainer, Melvyn Douglas, Robert Young
BW-96 mins,

The play "Frou-frou" by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy opened in Paris, France on 30 October 1869. Its English adaptation, "Frou Frou," by Augustin Daly, opened in New York on 15 February 1870.


10:00 AM -- THE GREAT WALTZ (1938)
Composer Johann Strauss risks his marriage over his infatuation with a beautiful singer.
Dir: Julien Duvivier
Cast: Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet, Miliza Korjus
BW-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Cinematography -- Joseph Ruttenberg

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Miliza Korjus, and Best Film Editing -- Tom Held

Toscha Seidel, the Russian virtuoso violinist, was hired especially to dub the solos on the soundtrack for Johann Strauss (Fernand Gravey) and began a new career working as a concert master at MGM and other studios.


12:00 PM -- THE EMPEROR'S CANDLESTICKS (1937)
Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Dir: George Fitzmaurice
Cast: William Powell, Luise Rainer, Robert Young
BW-89 mins, CC,

Gloria Swanson was originally intended for the role eventually played by Luise Rainer.


1:31 PM -- DANCING ON THE CEILING (1937)
Dir: Murray Roth
BW-9 mins,


1:45 PM -- LUISE RAINER - LIVE FROM THE TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL (2011)
The legendary actress talks with TCM host Robert Osborne during the TCM Classic Film Festival.
Dir: Sean Cameron
C-29 mins, CC, Letterbox Format


2:15 PM -- THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer
C-176 mins, CC,

Won Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer, Best Dance Direction -- Seymour Felix for "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody", and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Writing, Original Story -- William Anthony McGuire, Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons, Eddie Imazu and Edwin B. Willis, and Best Film Editing -- William S. Gray

Eugen Sandow is portrayed as a typically "dumb strongman". In real life, however, Sandow was highly intelligent and a superb businessman. Because he was among the first men to display his muscular body as a "work of art", he was considered to be "The Father of Bodybuilding", and this is what his gravestone reads today. Among his friends were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas A. Edison (who filmed him at the Black Maria Studios) and even King Edward VII. Sandow's career became bigger than ever after his association with Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. He became very wealthy and famous because of his mail-order businesses, gyms, souvenir photographs, books and personal appearances. There is a mountain in Alaska, a railroad and a small town in Texas (near Austin) named after him. Unfortunately, the town no longer exists per the Texas Historical Society--the Alcoa Aluminum factory near Rockdale is named after the town, as it sits where the town once was.


5:15 PM -- THE GOOD EARTH (1937)
Epic adaptation of the Pearl Buck classic about Chinese farmers battling the elements.
Dir: Sidney Franklin
Cast: Paul Muni, Luise Rainer, Walter Connolly
BW-138 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer (Luise Rainer became the first actress and first performer to win consecutive awards for lead roles.), and Best Cinematography -- Karl Freund

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Sidney Franklin, Best Film Editing -- Basil Wrangell, and Best Picture

American-born Chinese actress Anna May Wong desperately wanted the role of O-Lan. Being a close friend of author Pearl S. Buck helped. She tested for the role, but producer Irving Thalberg was unsatisfied. Also, since Paul Muni, a Caucasian actor, had already been cast in the lead, Thalberg knew he couldn't cast Wong as Muni's wife. The Hays Code prohibited actors of different races from playing husband/wife couples on film (this was to avoid offending white audiences in the strictly segregated American South, where there were stringent laws against mixed-race marriages). Thalberg offered her the "vamp" role of Lotus, but a distraught Anna May turned it down.


7:48 PM -- OPERATION DIRTY DOZEN (1967)
This promotional short film provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "The Dirty Dozen" (1987).
C-9 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: SURVIVAL MOVIES



8:00 PM -- MAN IN THE WILDERNESS (1971)
Left for dead after a bear attack, a fur-trapper exacts revenge on his fellow companions who abandoned him in dangerous Indian territory.
Dir: Richard C. Sarafian
Cast: Richard Harris, John Huston, Henry Wilcoxon
BW-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Another version of this story, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead, called The Revenant (2015), which is based in part on the book by Michael Punke.


10:00 PM -- INFERNO (1953)
A tough, hard-driving business tycoon suffers a broken leg and is left to die in the desert by his scheming wife and her greedy lover.
Dir: Roy Baker
Cast: Robert Ryan, Rhonda Fleming, William Lundigan
BW-84 mins, CC,

When the cast and crew arrived at the Mojave Desert location it was covered in snow and Rhonda Fleming subsequently developed pneumonia.


11:28 PM -- DUCK AND COVER (1951)
In this short film, a monkey's prank on a turtle demonstrates how to survive a nuclear attack.
Dir: Anthony Rizzo
Cast: Leo M. Langlois III, Ray J. Mauer,
BW-9 mins,


11:45 PM -- 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.


1:30 AM -- INTO THE WILD (2007)
Based on the true story of 19 year-old Christopher McCandless who walked out of his privileged life and promising future to become a back-to-nature wanderer in the 1990s.
Dir: Sean Penn
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt
BW-148 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In 2013, Carine McCandless published her memoirs 'The Wild Truth' where she finally revealed her brother's true motivations for 'running away from it all'. She and Chris grew up with a volatile, viciously abusive father who made their weak-willed yet hyper-competent mother both his victim and his accomplice. Carine, who was a valuable source for both Krakauer's book and Sean Penn's movie adaptation, had shared this dark family history with Krakauer back in the early 1990s, though strictly off the record in order to protect her parents "from full exposure in case they could change for the better." (Not surprisingly, they didn't.) And even though it compromised his book, Krakauer honored Carine's restrictions. Instead, he hinted at the truth with repeated allusions to an "overbearing" father, which some readers caught, though many did not.


4:15 AM -- THE SECRET LAND (1948)
Documentary about Admiral Richard Byrd and his explorations of the Antarctic.
Cast: Comdr. Robert Montgomery U.S.N.R., Lt. Robert Taylor U.S.N.R., Lt. Van Heflin A.A.F.R.
C-71 mins,

Won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Features -- Orville O. Dull

This documentary, filmed entirely by military photographers, recounts the U.S. Navy's 1946-47 expedition to Antarctica, known as Operation High Jump. The expedition was under the overall command of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, no stranger to the Antarctic. This was a large undertaking involving 13 ships and over 4000 thousand men. The fleet departed from Norfolk, Virginia traveling through the Panama Canal and then southward to their final destination. The trip through the ice pack was fraught with danger and forced the submarine that was part of the fleet to withdraw. The trip was a success meeting all of its scientific goals. The film is narrated by three Hollywood stars, all of whom served in the US Navy: Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery and Van Heflin.


5:30 AM -- THE PLOW THAT BROKE THE PLAINS (1936)
Documentary cameras delve into the causes of the Depression's dust bowl.
Dir: Pare Lorentz
BW-26 mins,