TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 12 -- What's On Tonight: Bob's Picks

[Staph]

TCM is showing the films of director Vincent Sherman today. During the early 1950s, his thriving career foundered as he was dropped without explanation by Warner Bros., after a federal agent had told the studio Sherman was suspected of communist ties. He said he wasn't a communist, but he knew people like John Garfield who'd been blacklisted, and he stood beside them. His film career was seriously damaged by Hollywood's communist "red scare," but he later rebounded as a successful director of such television series as 77 Sunset Strip (1958), The Waltons (1972), Doctors' Hospital (1975), Baretta (1975), and Trapper John, M.D. (1979). In prime time, we've got an evening of Robert Osborne's favorite films. Enjoy!


6:45 AM -- Old Acquaintance (1943)
110 min, TV-PG
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young

This is the film with the often shown, camp classic scene of Bette Davis calmly grabbing Miriam Hopkins by the shoulders, vigorously shaking her, throwing her down into a chair, and then calmly saying with a clipped, sarcastic edge: "Sorry". Bette Davis later admitted she immensely enjoyed playing that scene.


8:45 AM -- Nora Prentiss (1947)
112 min, TV-PG
An ambitious singer ruins a doctor's life.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett

In 2002, at the age of 96, legendary director Vincent Sherman appeared at the Hollywood Collectors Show in North Hollywood, California. There he greeted well-wishers and signed vintage stills, in which he was pictured with legends such as Joan Crawford, Errol Flynn, John Barrymore and others.


10:45 AM -- Harriet Craig (1950)
94 min, TV-PG
A woman's devotion to her home drives away friends and family.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, Lucile Watson

In this film, Harriet recounts to several people her negative experiences having to work in a laundry in her youth. In her own life, Joan Crawford also had to work in a laundry in her youth because of her family's poverty, and hated it. Crawford's adopted daughter Christina theorized that this hatred led to the famous "wire hangers" incident described by her in Mommie Dearest.


12:30 PM -- The Damned Don't Cry (1950)
103 min, TV-PG
Fed up with her small-town marriage, a woman goes after the big time and gets mixed up with the mob.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, David Brian, Steve Cochran

The title comes from Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning becomes Electra", in which a brother tells his sister: "Don't cry... the damned don't cry."


2:30 PM -- Goodbye, My Fancy (1951)
108 min, TV-G
When she returns to her alma mater to pick up an honorary degree, a congresswoman re-ignites an old flame.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Young, Frank Lovejoy

According to Ida Lupino biographer William Donati, director Vincent Sherman was summoned to the office of Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner--to whom he was under contract at the time--and accused of having an affair with Warners star Joan Crawford. Sherman, who had been at the studio since 1937, replied that what he did on his own tome was none of Warner's business. Warner ordered the director to stop making so many close-ups of the actress, an order Sherman disobeyed. Warners used that pretext to end its relationship with him. The director eventually found out that the studio exec had purposely provoked the confrontation with him because he thought Sherman was a Communist. When that turned out not to be true, Sherman was hired by the studio eight years later to do The Young Philadelphians.


4:30 PM -- The Garment Jungle (1957)
88 min, TV-PG
A dress manufacturer brings in the mob to fight unionization.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Lee J. Cobb, Kerwin Mathews, Gia Scala

Robert Aldrich was fired as director and replaced by Vincent Sherman with two weeks left before completion. Sherman received sole screen credit.


6:00 PM -- A Fever in the Blood (1961)
117 min, TV-PG
A former governor is murdered and his killer's trial is sensationalized in the media.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Angie Dickinson, Jack Kelly

Carroll O'Connor's film debut.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: BOB'S PICKS


8:00 PM -- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
C-91 min, TV-G
Two singers work their way to Paris, enjoying the company of eligible men they meet along the way.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn

The story was based on an ocean voyage to Europe that Anita Loos took on the same boat taking the US Olympic Team. Whichever ship she actually took, the liner that is mentioned in this film was the SS Ile de France. The famous liner was actually used in the film The Last Voyage, but it has a more heroic place in history. It was the SS Ile de France that played a major role in the rescue of the passengers from the Italian liner Andrea Dorea in 1956, after the latter ship collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The SS Ile de France was decommissioned shortly before the filming of "The Last Voyage," in which she was partially sunk for several key scenes. When filming was completed, she was towed to the scrap docks.


9:45 PM -- Stormy Weather (1943)
78 min, TV-G
A relationship blossoms between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress.
Dir: Andrew Stone
Cast: Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway

Final film of Bill Robinson, who died of heart failure at age 71 on November 25, 1949 in New York City.


11:15 PM -- Oscar Wilde (1960)
98 min, TV-PG
A biographical look at the tumultuous life of the legendary playwright, poet, and wit.

Robert Morley made his name on the stage playing Oscar Wilde at the London Gate Theatre in 1936. The play was a success despite being banned from major London theatres because of its theme of homosexuality, and was later produced in America with Morely making his Broadway debut in the part on October 10, 1938. The play was a hit in New York and ran 247 performances, a substantial run at the time for a straight play.


1:00 AM -- My Reputation (1946)
94 min, TV-PG
A widow generates small-town gossip when she falls in love too soon after her husband's death.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Warner Anderson

Originally George Brent was to have appeared with equal billing, but by the time the movie was actually prepared to be released he had switched studios. So the Barbara Stanwyck's name appears alone.


2:45 AM -- Autumn Leaves (1956)
106 min, TV-PG
A woman falls for a younger man with severe mental problems.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Joan Crawford, Vera Miles, Lorne Greene

In an interview for a much later documentary on Joan Crawford, Cliff Robertson recounts his first meeting with her, at her home. Already somewhat intimidated by working with the legendary Crawford, he is let in, then hears her call from poolside, where she's sunning, "Come on out, dear boy. We've been waiting for you." Robertson has nothing but admiration for Crawford's talent and incredible technical disciple. At one point, director Bob Aldrich wanted Crawford to cry, but only slightly. A tear or two. "Which eye?" Robertson recalls Crawford asking. Then repeats the anecdote, amazed, "'Which EYE?'"


4:45 AM -- This Modern Age (1931)
68 min, TV-PG
A child of divorce raises eyebrows when she goes to Paris to live with her estranged mother.
Dir: Nicholas Grinde
Cast: Joan Crawford, Pauline Frederick, Neil Hamilton

Marjorie Rambeau fell ill during production and was replaced by Pauline Frederick.

[Graybeard]

1. Not the same Pauline Frederick.

The Pauline Frederick in This Modern Age (1931) is NOT the actress who went on to be the first female reporter on radio and TV news shows. Same name different person.