TCM Schedule for Friday, May 1 -- Star of the Month -- Sean Connery

[Staph]

Tommorrow is the Kentucky Derby, so TCM is spending today showing movies about horse racing. And tonight is all about Connery. Sean Connery. Enjoy!


6:00am -- Sporting Blood (1931)
A horse passes through a series of owners on the road to the Kentucky Derby.
Cast: Clark Gable, Ernest Torrence, Madge Evans, Lew Cody
Dir: Charles Brabin
BW-82 mins, TV-G

Sporting Blood (1931) was inspired by a true-life story wherein Arnold Rothstein, the gambler racketeer infamous for the 1919 Black Sox Scandal (see Eight Men Out (1988)), entered his horse Sporting Blood in the 1921 Travers Stakes at Saratoga. Sporting Blood was initially the second favorite at 5-2 behind the filly Prudery, the 1-4 favorite. Then legendary trainer Sam Hildreth entered his best runner Grey Lag, who became the immediate favorite with Prudery the second favorite and Sporting Blood the third favorite at 3-1. Thirty minutes before the race Hildreth scratched Grey Lag with no explanation. The favorite money then switched to Prudery while Sporting Blood remained at 3-1. Sure enough, Sporting Blood won and Rothstein collected $500,000 in both prize money and, mostly, from the $150,000 he'd bet here and there. It seems that Rothstein had heard just before the race that Prudery was having "female problems." Both Rothstein and Hildreth were accused of colluding but nothing could be proved. In any event, Rothstein soon sold his horses and never owned another horse again. He was later shot dead in 1928 over a crooked poker game in which he'd lost $320,000 but refused to pay.


7:30am -- Racing Lady (1937)
A millionaire hires a lady trainer for his stables.
Cast: Ann Dvorak, Smith Ballew, Harry Carey, Berton Churchill
Dir: Wallace Fox
BW-59 mins, TV-G

RKO's Cord convertible gets quite a bit of exposure in this one, much to the delight of classic car
enthusiasts.


8:30am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Races To Remember (1956)
An RKO horse racing short showing highlights of some of the previous ten years' best thoroughbred horse races.
Cast: Harry Wismer
BW-8 mins

First lines -- Narrator: It's a mighty long way from being a few days old and full of romp and roister to immortality in the record books. Thousands of horses start the long journey every decade, and racing fans crowd the tracks, in hopes of once more seeing perfection in the form of horseflesh. Perfection called Zev, Man o' War, Exterminator, Whirlaway, and a baker's dozen of other names. Out of thousands of races, a few are really memorable. Here are some from the last ten years: races to remember.


8:45am -- Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937)
A young jockey goes crooked to land a valuable riding job.
Cast: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Ronald Sinclair, C. Aubrey Smith
Dir: Alfred E. Green
BW-80 mins, TV-G

This film, the first of 10 to feature both Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, is also the only one in which she is billed ahead of him.


10:15am -- Pride Of The Bluegrass (1939)
A jockey trains a blind horse for the Grand National.
Cast: Edith Fellows, James McCallion, Gantry The Blind Horse, Granville Bates
Dir: William McGann
BW-65 mins, TV-G

Based on the story of the steeplechase-winning blind jumping horse, Elmer Gantry aka Gantry the Great, owned by Eleanor Getzendaner. The horse plays himself.


11:30am -- Harrigan's Kid (1943)
A disgraced jockey teaches a boy to ride and cheat.
Cast: Bobby Readick, Frank Craven, William Gargan, J. Carrol Naish
Dir: Charles F. Reisner
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

Early in his career, between acting jobs, William Gargan got a job selling bootleg whiskey to New York City speakeasies. He was partnered, and began a lifelong friendship, with another aspring actor named Dave Chasen, who later became a famous restauranteur and opened up the famed Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood.


1:00pm -- The Story Of Seabiscuit (1949)
Fictionalized account of the legendary racehorse's training and triumphs.
Cast: Shirley Temple, Barry Fitzgerald, Lon McCallister, Rosemary De Camp
Dir: David Butler
C-93 mins, TV-G

In the close-ups, Seabiscuit was played by Sea Sovereign, his son.


2:45pm -- A Girl In Every Port (1952)
Two sailors invest in a racehorse.
Cast: Groucho Marx, Marie Wilson, William Bendix, Don DeFore
Dir: Chester Erskine
BW-87 mins, TV-G

One of Groucho's very few movies roles without his brothers.


4:19pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: So You Want To Play The Horses (1946)
Joe McDoakes is addicted to betting on horse races.
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Jane Harker
Dir: Richard L. Bare
BW-11 mins

One of more than sixty Joe McDoakes shorts, all with names beginning with So You Think... or So You Want... or So You're Going To....


4:30pm -- Fast Company (1953)
The heiress to a racing stable uncovers underhanded dealings.
Cast: Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Marjorie Main, Nina Foch
Dir: John Sturges
BW-68 mins, TV-G

Starring two notable singers, Howard Keel and Polly Bergen, this tuneless comedy did not pick up a contemporary New York Times review.


5:39pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: A Day At Santa Anita (1937)
A top thoroughbred race horse, Wonder Boy, responds well only to a child. After the girl's father is killed in an accident, she inherits Wonder Boy and becomes his owner, but child authorities threaten to take custody. A familiar story that still holds its sentimental value.
Cast: Marcia Ralston, Sybil Jason
Dir: Bobby Connolly
C-18 mins

Jack L. Warner hired South African native Sybil Jason as Warner Brothers' answer to Shirley Temple.


6:00pm -- Glory (1956)
A young woman's devotion to her racehorse creates romantic problems.
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Walter Brennan, Charlotte Greenwood, John Lupton
Dir: David Butler
C-100 mins, TV-G

The Kentucky Derby footage was the actual 1955 race, won by Swaps (Willie Shoemaker up) over over Nashua (Eddie Arcaro up).


7:41pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Stars On Horseback (1943)
Master blacksmith, George Garfield, makes house calls to Hollywood stars' homes to pamper their horse's hooves.
Cast: Bette Davis, Priscilla Lane, George Garfield, George Tobias
Dir: Myron J. Swartz
BW-7 mins

Features archival footage from Gold Is Where You Find It (1938) with Olivia de Havilland and Dark Victory (1939) with Bette Davis.


What's On Tonight: STAR OF THE MONTH: SEAN CONNERY


8:00pm -- Dr. No (1962)
James Bond uncovers a plot to end the U.S. space program.
Cast: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord
Dir: Terence Young
C-110 mins, TV-PG

According to Inside 'Dr. No' (2000) (V), the introduction of the James Bond character utilizes a technique which is a homage to the 1939 William Dieterle film, Juarez (1939) starring Paul Muni. This technique is performed using a series of close-ups of the character without revealing the face, cross-cutting with the other characters in the scene and the gambling table. Finally, the face of the person is revealed, stating his name, "Bond, James Bond." This classic introduction of the James Bond character to cinema audiences of the world was filmed on 2 March 1962.


10:00pm -- From Russia With Love (1963)
James Bond searches Istanbul for a stolen Russian decoding.
Cast: Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendariz, Lotte Lenya
Dir: Terence Young
C-115 mins, TV-PG

According to the book "Death of a President" (1964) by William Raymond Manchester, this was the last motion picture John F. Kennedy ever saw, on 20 November 1963, in the White House.


12:00am -- On the Fiddle (1961)
An unlicensed street peddler brings his conniving ways to the military.
Cast: Alfred Lynch, Sean Connery, Cecil Parker, Stanley Holloway
Dir: Cyril Frankel
BW-96 mins

In 1965, at the height of the James Bond craze, American-International Pictures released this movie in the US as "Operation Snafu". The title, as well as the advertising campaign, downplayed the comedic aspects of the film and, by highlighting Sean Connery's appearance (he was second-billed), suggested it was an espionage thriller in the tradition of the 007 films that were then breaking box-office records worldwide.


1:36am -- Short Film: From The Vaults: There'll Always Be An England (1945)
This travelog starts in London, then visits several towns and villages of historical interest.
Narrator: Tom Roddy
BW-20 mins

Among the places visited are Aylesbury, where Benjamin Disraeli got his start in politics; Abinger Hammer, site of the Church of St. John the Evangelist; and Chalfont, St. Giles, where the cottage in which poet John Milton finished his epic "Paradise Lost" still stands.


2:00am -- Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)
Lovers vacationing in the woods unwittingly unleash a horde of demons.
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Danny Hicks, Kassie Depaiva
Dir: Sam Raimi
C-84 mins, TV-MA

Most of the film was shot on a set built inside the gymnasium of the JR Faison Junior High School in Wadesboro, North Carolina.


3:30am -- Short Film: Social Seminar: Changing (1971)
A young family tries to cope with shifting social values.
Dir: Hubert Smith.
C-28 mins, TV-MA

A production of the UCLA Extension Media Center -- "Demonstrates the quality of life as its impact is felt by a young family trying to reorient themselves in a society of conflicting standards and values. Shows how the terms hippie, square, hardhat and straight become blurred when one just tries to find the lifestyle that suits him best. Puts the drug question in perspective as it relates to adults and the total society."


4:00am -- Blow-Up (1966)
A photographer discovers a murder in the background of a candid photo.
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, David Hemmings, John Castle
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni
C-111 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Michelangelo Antonioni, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Michelangelo Antonioni (screenplay/story), Tonino Guerra (screenplay) and Edward Bond (screenplay)

As a way of bypassing the Production Code (i.e. censors), MGM created "Premiere Productions". This was a dummy company which had no agreement or affiliation with the Production Code and, therefore, did not have to adhere to its standards. MGM did not have to cut the full frontal nudity or other sexually explicit scenes and maintained all rights to the film.

[Staph]

1. Dr. No

Dr. No (1962) was the first entry in the James Bond film franchise. But it came sixth in the book series by Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, and in some ways it’s a sequel, since two of the characters in the Jamaica scenes – Quarrel, a friend and helper of Agent 007, and John Strangways, who runs the country’s MI6 station – had already appeared in Live and Let Die, the second Bond novel. It was the gigantic box-office success of Dr. No film version that allowed other Bond novels to reach the screen as well, including Live and Let Die, which became film number eight in 1973. More important, decisions made in adapting Dr. No from page to screen established key aspects of the film series’ tone that lasted for years to come, starting with the title sequence, which screams entertaining fun with every device at its disposal: animated polka dots, words that bounce around and change color, silhouettes of dancers twisting the night away, and John Barry & Orchestra blaring the James Bond theme as 007 fires his pistol at the audience through the gun-barrel logo that’s been a Bond trademark ever since.

The plot also begins on a whimsical note, with three blind Jamaican beggars walking down a street while a Caribbean parody of “Three Blind Mice” jumps on the soundtrack. But the men aren’t as innocent, or as sightless, as they seem. Yanking guns from their pockets, they shoot down Strangways, stash his body in a getaway car, and then go after his assistant with similar results. They also make off with two files from the MI6 office – one labeled “Doctor No” and another labeled “Crab Key,” which is the private island where the mysterious doctor does his nasty work.

This is clearly a case for James Bond, whom we first see winning a fortune and charming a beautiful woman at a stylish gambling casino. Before long he’s bantering with the love-struck Miss Moneypenny and receiving his new assignment from M., who sends him to Jamaica after making him exchange his trusty Beretta for a larger and deadlier gun. Arriving on the Caribbean island, Bond evades an attack by unknown enemies, gets a briefing on Strangways’s disappearance, hooks up with Quarrel, and – several narrow escapes and amorous encounters later – sets off to Crab Key, where he meets the lithe and lovely Honey Ryder, an innocent shell collector who becomes his sidekick in the escapades that follow. Together they enter Dr. No’s domain, where they’re politely welcomed by the staff in scenes that amusingly resemble the 1937 classic Lost Horizon, when Shangri-La opens its doors to Ronald Colman and his friends. The welcome is only meant to throw Bond and Honey off guard, of course, and soon Dr. No enters the story in person, exuding evil vibes as his trap closes around them.

Of all the changes made to Fleming’s novel by the movie’s producers and screenwriters, perhaps the most important was to play up Bond’s imperviousness to injury and pain, making him closer to a superhero than a mere mortal like the rest of us. Early in the film we hear that he was hurt during his previous assignment when his Beretta jammed, but this is a mild scene compared with the vivid description of a horrific poisoning in the novel’s opening pages. The end of the story is an even better example. In the movie, Dr. No imprisons Bond in a cell, which 007 escapes from by kicking out a ventilation duct – not very clever of Dr. No to have overlooked such an obvious design flaw – and then crawls through airshafts until he reaches Dr. No’s control room, which he infiltrates and sabotages by
wearing a hazmat suit to hide his identity. In the novel, by contrast, Dr. No wantsBond to crawl through the airshafts, which are rigged with a series of ghastly dangers and tortures, from swarming tarantulas and red-hot metal to a giant squid that almost polishes 007 off. Fleming graphically describes Bond’s pain and suffering along with his courage and endurance; but in the movie Bond hardly gets his hair mussed, and instead of writhing in misery after his ordeal he’s smooching with Honey as carefree as can be. The film also eliminates a great deal of bird information – bird guano is a major ingredient in the novel – and on the screen Honey has a perfectly formed face without the badly broken nose she has in the book. Also gone is the Soviet Union as Dr. No’s employer; in the movie he works on rocket sabotage for SPECTRE, the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, a more outlandish opponent for Bond to defeat.

The instant success of the Bond movies owed something to the era in which Dr. No arrived, just when the swinging ‘60s were gathering steam and a handsome womanizer like Bond seemed as cool as a hero could get. Terence Young wasn’t a famous filmmaker at the time, but once he signed on to direct the first 007 picture (he also did the next three) he caught the spirit of the age in meticulous detail, even taking Sean Connery to his own London tailor so his clothes would be dapper and elegant. Connery, who wasn’t famous either, got the part after actors like Patrick McGoohan and Roger Moore either turned it down or got rejected. While this was the break of a lifetime for Connery, he wasn’t sure he should accept it, worrying that if Dr. No was a hit he’d be stuck in James Bond movies for the rest of his career. He ended up starring in the next five Bond pictures, becoming an international celebrity in the process, and then he surprised the movie world by leaving the series for other kinds of acting.
(He returned for one more Bond outing in 1983, and did voice work for the video-game version of From Russia with Love in 2005). Ursula Andress gained a more modest degree of star power by playing Honey, and Young’s snazzy, stylized directing set the pace for a long list of future Bond adventures.

I find Dr. No about twenty minutes too long, and Bond’s final defeat of the eponymous villain strikes me as silly and implausible, even by spy-movie standards. But complaints like these are beside the point, given the huge popularity of the franchise that grew out of the picture. To my mind, the biggest alteration in the series has been the darkening of its mood and of Bond’s own personality, especially since Daniel Craig took over the role (the sixth actor to do so) starting with Casino Royale in 2006. Then again, Bond has always had a dark side – in Dr. No he kills an unarmed adversary at one point – and in his best adventures he makes up for this with endless reserves of suavity and charisma. Connery remains the best of the Bonds, and Dr. No ranks with his most enjoyable enterprises, implausibilities and all.

Director: Terence Young
Producers: Harry Saltzman & Albert R. Broccoli
Screenplay: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Berkely Mather, based on the novel by Ian Fleming
Cinematographer: Ted Moore
Film Editing: Peter Hunt
Art Direction: Ken Adam
Music: Monty Norman
With: Sean Connery (James Bond), Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder), Joseph Wiseman (Dr. No), Jack Lord (Felix Leiter), Bernard Lee (M.), Anthony Dawson (Professor Dent), John Kitzmiller (Quarrel), Zena Marshall (Miss Taro), Eunice Gayson (Sylvia), Michel Mok (Sister Rose), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny), Peter Burton (Major Boothroyd), Yvonne Shima (Sister Lily), Louis Blaazer (Pleydell-Smith), Reginald Carter (Jones), Wm. Foster-Davis (Superintendent), Margaret LeWars (Photographer), Dolores Keator (Mary), Colonel Burton (General Potter).
C-110m. Letterboxed.

by David Sterritt