TCM Schedule for Thursday, December 10 -- Primetime Feature -- Christmas Classics

[Staph]

It's a day full of adultery, with Brief Encounter, Intermezzo, Lonelyhearts, and Cactus Flower. Then in the evening, we have more Christmas classics, Enjoy!


3:30am -- Virginia City (1940)
A rebel spy poses as a wild West dance hall girl.
Cast: Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, Humphrey Bogart
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-121 mins, TV-G

Miriam Hopkins replaced Olivia de Havilland. I expect that Olivia wanted to act with someone else -- she had already been in seven films in six years with Errol Flynn.


6:00am -- Give Me Your Heart (1936)
A socialite has to give up the baby she bore to a married man.
Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Roland Young, Patric Knowles
Dir: Archie L. Mayo
BW-88 mins, TV-G

When Kay Francis passed away in 1968, she left most of her $1 million estate to train dogs at Seeing Eye, Inc.


7:30am -- If I Were Free (1934)
A man and a woman trapped in bad marriages try to make an adulterous affair work.
Cast: Irene Dunne, Clive Brook, Nils Asther, Henry Stephenson
Dir: Elliott Nugent
BW-67 mins, TV-G

Based on the play Behold We Live by John Van Druten, who also wrote I Remember Mama (1948), I Am A Camera (1955 -- which became the musical Caberet (1993)), and Bell, Book and Candle (1958).


9:00am -- Brief Encounter (1945)
Two married strangers meet in a train station and fall in love.
Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Cyril Raymond, Stanley Holloway
Dir: David Lean
BW-86 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Celia Johnson, Best Director -- David Lean, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean and Ronald Neame

Laura borrows books from the Boots Lending Library. Such Lending Libraries were an offshoot of Boots Pharmacies. Boots is a major pharmacy chain in the UK. It was founded in 1849 and still exists, although in a much different, more diversified form. The Lending Libraries were started in 1898.


10:30am -- Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939)
A married violinist deserts his family when he falls for his accompanist.
Cast: Leslie Howard, Ingrid Bergman, Edna Best, John Halliday
Dir: Gregory Ratoff
BW-70 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland, and Best Music, Scoring -- Louis Forbes

When Selznick fired the cinematographer Harry Stradling Sr. and hired the great Gregg Toland to take over the photography of Selznick's remake of the 1936 Swedish version of "Intermezzo", he asked Toland how it was possible that Bergman looked so beautiful in the original European production and so ghastly in his Hollywood version. Toland replied, "In Sweden they don't make her wear all that makeup." Selznick immediately ordered retakes with the "natural look" which so dazzled the world a year later when he loaned her out to Warner Bros. for their production "Casablanca".


12:00pm -- Lonelyhearts (1958)
A sensitive young reporter assigned to write an advice column gets caught up in his readers' lives.
Cast: Montgomery Clift, Robert Ryan, Myrna Loy, Dolores Hart
Dir: Vincent J. Donehue
BW-103 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maureen Stapleton

In 1963, Dolores Hart left Hollywood for good and became a nun. She entered the strictly cloistered Benedictine Regina Laudis Monastery, in Bethlehem, Connecticut, where today she is the Rev. Mother Dolores Hart of the Benedictine order, prioress.


2:00pm -- Cactus Flower (1969)
A philandering dentist asks his assistant to help him deal with his latest girlfriend.
Cast: Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, Goldie Hawn, Jack Weston
Dir: Gene Saks
C-104 mins, TV-14

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Goldie Hawn (Goldie Hawn was not present at the awards ceremony. Raquel Welch accepted the award on her behalf.)

Making this movie was the first time Ingrid Bergman had been on a Hollywood sound stage since the 1940s - all her subsequent films up to that point had been made in Europe, even those for American studios.


4:00pm -- Walk, Don't Run (1966)
Set during the Tokyo Olympics, one of three unlikely housemates plays matchmaker with the other two.
Cast: Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar, Jim Hutton, John Standing
Dir: Charles Walters
C-114 mins, TV-G

Cary Grant's last film. In some scenes, Grant whistles the theme music from Charade (1963) and An Affair to Remember (1957), two of his previous films.


6:00pm -- The More the Merrier (1943)
The World War II housing shortage brings three people together for an unlikely romance.
Cast: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines
Dir: George Stevens
BW-104 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jean Arthur, Best Director -- George Stevens, Best Writing, Original Story -- Frank Ross and Robert Russell, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Flournoy, Lewis R. Foster, Frank Ross and Robert Russell, and Best Picture

Remade as Walk Don't Run (1966).


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: CHRISTMAS CLASSICS


8:00pm -- It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)
Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.
Cast: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charlie Ruggles, Victor Moore
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
BW-115 mins

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani

The story was originally optioned by Frank Capra's Liberty Films in 1945, and announced as the company's first production. Later that year, producer-director Roy Del Ruth acquired the story.


10:00pm -- Fitzwilly (1967)
When an aging philanthropist goes broke, her butler robs from the rich so she can give to the poor.
Cast: Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Feldon, Edith Evans, John McGiver
Dir: Delbert Mann
C-102 mins, TV-PG

First movie appearance of Barbara Feldon.


12:00am -- Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
A small-town boy tries to juggle two girlfriends at once.
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden
Dir: George B. Seitz
BW-91 mins, TV-G

The fourth of sixteen Andy Hardy films starring Mickey Rooney, the first pairing of Mickey with Judy Garland.


2:00am -- Susan Slept Here (1954)
A Hollywood screenwriter takes in a runaway girl who's more woman than he can handle.
Cast: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis, Glenda Farrell
Dir: Frank Tashlin
C-98 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers for the song "Hold My Hand", and Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio)

This picture marked the last of Dick Powell's 58 feature-film appearances (plus one voice over) between 1932 and 1954. A recording artist since 1927, Dick's final two commercial sides on a Bell single were tunes from the movie score: the title song (music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence) and the Oscar-nominated "Hold My Hand" (music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers). Neither ditty was sung by Mr. Powell in the film. However, he danced a bit in a pantomime segment dreamed by Debbie Reynolds.


4:00am -- Little Women (1933)
The four March sisters fight to keep their family together and find love while their father is off fighting the Civil War.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver
Dir: George Cukor
BW-116 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- George Cukor. and Best Picture

Katharine Hepburn wrote in her autobiography, "This picture was heaven to do - George Cukor perfect. He really caught the atmosphere. It was to me my youth!"

[Staph]

1. Walk, Don't Run

The 1966 romantic comedy Walk, Don't Run is an updated remake of the Oscar-winning 1943 film The More the Merrier. Cary Grant stars as Sir William Rutland, a British industrialist visiting Tokyo during the 1964 Olympic games. Due to a severe housing shortage, Rutland bamboozles his way into sharing an apartment with a young single woman, Christine (Samantha Eggar), who wants to keep the arrangement secret. Soon Rutland invites an American Olympic athlete, Steve (Jim Hutton), to share the apartment with them. It isn't long before Rutland finds himself playing cupid to the young couple and the sparks start flying between Christine and Steve.

Walk, Don't Run is most notable because it was the last film Cary Grant ever made. Even though he was still considered at the top of his game in 1966 and plenty of roles were regularly offered to him, Grant felt it was time to quit for several reasons. First, at the age of 62, Grant believed he was too old to be romancing women half his age on screen as he had done with Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963) and Leslie Caron in Father Goose (1964). Second, Grant had felt for a long time that Hollywood was changing for the worse. He was not impressed with most of the scripts he was getting, and he felt that the studios were beginning to exploit rather than protect their stars. In addition, many of Grant's actor colleagues of the same age had already retired or left the business. The third and most significant reason for Grant's unofficial retirement after Walk, Don't Run was a personal and joyous one. For the first time in his life, Grant had become a father at age 62. Daughter and only child Jennifer Grant was born to Cary and his fourth wife, actress Dyan Cannon, in February 1965, five months before Walk, Don't Run was released in theaters. Cary Grant was ecstatic and was intent on devoting himself to being the best father possible to Jennifer, whom he called his "best production." "My life changed the day Jennifer was born," Grant later said. "I've come to think that the reason we're put on this earth is to procreate. To leave something behind. Not films, because you know that I don't think my films will last very long once I'm gone. But another human being. That's what's important."

While the critical reception of Walk, Don't Run was mixed, Cary Grant's performance was a big hit. Newsweek said that Grant "could not be unfunny if he tried," and The New Yorker said that Grant had "never looked handsomer or in finer fettle...if Walk, Don't Run proves anything it is that his attempted abdication as a screen dreamboat is premature and will have to be withdrawn: he is a good ten years away from playing anyone's jolly, knowing uncle."

Walk, Don't Run also features a buoyant musical score written by Quincy Jones. It was one of Jones' first big breaks, thanks to Cary Grant who had met Jones through singer Peggy Lee. The actor felt Jones' style would be perfect for the film and made sure he was hired. Jones went on to enormous success as the composer of numerous notable film scores such as In the Heat of the Night (1967) and The Color Purple (1985) and the producer of many successful pop recordings (like Michael Jackson's "Off the Wall" album).

Fans of Cary Grant will enjoy his cheeky humor coming through in Walk, Don't Run if they pay close attention: Grant occasionally hums the themes to An Affair to Remember (1957) and Charade, two of his best known films. Though he went on to live another twenty years, Cary Grant never did return to the movies despite the many attempts to lure him out of his self-imposed retirement. "I could have gone on acting and playing a grandfather or a bum," he commented later on, "but I discovered more important things in life."

Producer: Sol C. Siegel
Director: Charles Walters
Screenplay: Frank Ross (story), Robert Russell (story), Sol Saks
Cinematography: Harry Stradling, Sr.
Film Editing: Walter Thompson, James D. Wells
Art Direction: Joseph C. Wright
Music: Quincy Jones
Cast: Cary Grant (Sir William Rutland), Samantha Eggar (Christine Easton), Jim Hutton (Steve Davis), John Standing (Julius P. Haversack), Miiko Taka (Aiko Kurawa), Ted Hartley (Yuri Andreyovitch).
C-114m. Letterboxed.

by Andrea Passafiume

[Matilda]

2. I watched "Brief Encounter" again about a month ago on TCM.

Its attitudes are so dated it should be almost impossible to watch, but the direction is so tight, and the
performances so solid, I just get caught up in it every time I see it.

It has to be one of the all-time greats.