TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 25 -- Families in Crisis

[Staph]

This morning is more of Star of the Month Ginger Rogers; this evening features families in crisis. It's not as depressing as it sounds -- these are five Oscar-winning and -nominated films. Enjoy!


5:15am -- Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934)
A promoter neglects his wife to make a singer a radio star.
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, The Four Mills Bros.
Dir: Ray Enright
BW-90 mins, TV-G

Featuring musical performances of "The Last Round-Up", "Fair and Warmer", "I'll String Along with You", "How'm I Doin'?", "The Flying Trapeze", "I Heard", "Out for No Good", "What Are Your Intentions?", "Carolina Moon", "Marta (Rambling Rose of the Wildwood)", "My Time Is Your Time", "Where the Blue of the Night (Meets the Gold of the Day)", "Jingle Bells", "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms", and "From Me to You"


7:00am -- Upper World (1934)
A wealthy man escapes his wife's social pretensions in the arms of a burlesque queen.
Cast: Warren William, Mary Astor, Ginger Rogers, Andy Devine
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
BW-73 mins, TV-G

Warren William was big in series films -- he played Perry Mason, Philo Vance, and Michael Lanyard/The Lone Wolf.


8:15am -- Romance In Manhattan (1935)
A New York chorus girl helps an illegal immigrant build a new life in the big city.
Cast: Francis Lederer, Ginger Rogers, Arthur Hohl, Jimmy Butler
Dir: Stephen Roberts
BW-77 mins, TV-G

Tucked away in the role of a police sergeant is Sidney Toler, the second white man to play Charlie Chan.


9:45am -- Star Of Midnight (1935)
A New York lawyer tries to track down a kidnapped actress.
Cast: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart
Dir: Stephen Roberts
BW-90 mins, TV-PG

Early in the film, William Powell's character says that people consider him "Charlie Chan, Philo Vance and the Saint all rolled into one." Powell previously played Philo Vance on four occasions.


11:30am -- Perfect Strangers (1950)
A divorcee finds love with a married man while they both sit on a jury.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, Thelma Ritter, Margalo Gillmore
Dir: Bretaigne Windust
BW-88 mins, TV-G

Based on a play by Hungarian playwright, Leslie Bush-Fekete.


1:00pm -- Pygmalion (1938)
A linguistics professor bets he can turn a flower girl into a lady by teaching her to speak properly.
Cast: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr
Dir: Anthony Asquith
BW-96 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Bernard Shaw, Ian Dalrymple, Cecil Lewis and W.P. Lipscomb

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Leslie Howard, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Wendy Hiller, and Best Picture

George Bernard Shaw was not present at the ceremony. When presenter Lloyd C. Douglas announced that Pygmalion has won the Oscar he joked "Mr. Shaw's story now is as original as it was three thousand years ago". Shaw's reaction to the award was not enthusiastic as he is quoted as saying "It's an insult for them to offer me any honour, as if they had never heard of me before - and it's very likely they never have. They might as well send some honour to George for being King of England". Although popular legend says Shaw never received the Oscar, when Mary Pickford visited him she reported that he was on his mantle. When Shaw died in 1950 his home at Ayot St Lawrence became a museum. By this time his Oscar statuette was so tarnished, the curator believed it had no value and used it as a door stop. It has since been repaired and is now on displayed at the museum.


2:45pm -- Hobson's Choice (1954)
A widower father fights to control the lives of his three strong-willed daughters.
Cast: Charles Laughton, John Mills, Brenda De Banzie, Daphne Anderson
Dir: David Lean
BW-108 mins, TV-G

Charles Laughton had already played the role of Hobson when he was a teenager on stage in his native town of Scarborough.


4:45pm -- Madeleine (1950)
A beautiful young woman stands trial for poisoning her lover.
Cast: Ann Todd, Norman Woland, Ivan Desny, Leslie Banks
Dir: David Lean
BW-115 mins, TV-PG

Ann Todd had portrayed the title character in theatrical productions of the play this film was based on, and had always wanted to play her in a film adaptation. Shortly after she married director David Lean, he agreed to make this film and cast her as the lead as a "wedding present" of sorts.


6:45pm -- Indiscretion Of An American Wife (1954)
An American woman tries to break it off with her Italian lover.
Cast: Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, Gino Cervi, Dick Beymer
Dir: Vittorio De Sica
BW-63 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Christian Dior (Dior's only Oscar nomination)

Also known as Stazione Termini.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: FAMILIES IN CRISIS


8:00pm -- Interiors (1978)
Three sisters fight to adjust to their parents' divorce and their father's re-marriage.
Cast: Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, E. G. Marshall, Maureen Stapleton
Dir: Woody Allen
C-92 mins, TV-MA

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Geraldine Page, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maureen Stapleton, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert, Best Director -- Woody Allen, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Woody Allen

The character of Eve (The Mother) was created by Woody Allen with 'Ingrid Bergman' in mind. He offered her the role, but she regretfully declined, as she was already committed to shoot Höstsonaten (1978) in Norway with Ingmar Bergman. The part went to Geraldine Page instead, and then both she and Bergman were nominated for those films for Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Both lost out to Jane Fonda (who won for Coming Home (1978))


9:40pm -- One Reel Wonders: 2010: The Odyssey Continues (1984)
C-20 mins

This promotional short for 2010 (1984) shows moviegoers how some of the film's visual effects were created. This includes makeup for Keir Dullea's character, how the astronauts float in space, and the construction of the spaceship in which the astronauts carry out their mission.


10:00pm -- Ordinary People (1980)
When a young man drowns, his family fights to recover from the trauma.
Cast: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, Judd Hirsch
Dir: Robert Redford
C-124 mins, TV-MA

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Timothy Hutton, Best Director -- Robert Redford, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Alvin Sargent, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Judd Hirsch, and Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Mary Tyler Moore

The final scene in the dining room between Calvin and Beth was originally shot with both Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore on location. However, during editing, Sutherland thought that he had Calvin crying too much, ruining the scene. So, he and director Robert Redford reshot his scenes on a partial set recreated to look like the dining room. Since Moore, who was doing theater work in New York, was unable to return for the reshoot, Redford read her lines off camera for Sutherland to respond to


12:15am -- I Never Sang for My Father (1970)
When his mother dies, a grieving son is torn between his demanding father and his need to live his own life.
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman, Dorothy Stickney, Estelle Parsons
Dir: Gilbert Cates
C-92 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Melvyn Douglas, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Hackman, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Anderson

Remade for TV in 1988, with Daniel J. Travanti and Harold Gould in the Hackman and Douglas roles, respectively.


2:00am -- The Happy Ending (1969)
A middle-aged woman leaves her husband and children in search of herself.
Cast: Jean Simmons, John Forsythe, Shirley Jones, Lloyd Bridges
Dir: Richard Brooks
C-112 mins

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jean Simmons, and Best Music, Original Song -- Michel Legrand (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) for the song "What Are You Doing for the Rest of Your Life?"

Includes scenes from Susan Lenox -- Her Fall and Rise (1931), Smilin' Through (1932), Casablanca (1942) and Father of the Bride (1950)


4:00am -- The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
A woman drifts through multiple marriages in search of stability.
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason, Janine Gray
Dir: Jack Clayton
BW-110 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Bancroft

Patricia Neal was offered the lead, but it was not 100% confirmed she would get the role. She then opted, to her later regret, to make Psyche 59 (1964) instead, since it was an official offer.

[Staph]

1. Pygmalion (1938)

"There’s a saying that goes: A definition of an intellectual is someone who can listen to Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” without thinking of “The Lone Ranger.” Were that notion expanded to include anyone who can experience Shaw’s Pygmalion without humming the melodies of “I Could Have Danced All Night” or “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” millions would fail the test. But it’s a tribute to this 1938 non-musical adaptation of Shaw’s play that we aren’t likely to think of its musical version too much."
- Film critic David Ehrenstein

Decades before the 1964 musical My Fair Lady swept the Academy Awards®, the author of Pygmalion, the play on which it was based, became a most unlikely Oscar® winner for the original's 1938 screen adaptation. Possibly the most intelligent person to win the award (he might have claimed to be the only intelligent man to do so), Shaw holds the distinction of being the only individual to win both an Academy Award® and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Given his disdain for the movies, particularly those adapted from his own plays, it's a minor miracle the film even got made and turned out to be a brilliant adaptation.

Pygmalion had been one of Shaw's most popular plays since its English-language premiere in 1914 (it actually premiered in Germany a year earlier; the English premiere had been pushed back so leading lady Mrs. Patrick Campbell could recover from an automobile accident). The story of a phonetics professor (modeled on real-life phonetician Henry Sweet) who turns a Cockney flower girl into a lady by teaching her to speak properly touched a chord with audiences, who viewed it as one of the writer's most romantic plays. It had already been filmed twice, in Germany in 1935 and in the Netherlands in 1937. Shaw had disliked those versions so much that when producer Gabriel Pascal first approached him about filming an English version, the writer turned him down. Only when Pascal promised not to change a word and agreed to cast Wendy Hiller, whom Shaw had admired in stage productions of Pygmalion and St. Joan, did the great writer accede. Although she had already made one film, the low-budget 1937 comedy Lancashire Luck, Pascal gave her introductory billing in Pygmalion at Shaw's request.

The author did not get his way in casting the male lead, however. His first choice for Henry Higgins was Charles Laughton, but Pascal convinced him that Leslie Howard would make the film more marketable in the U.S. That choice may not have been based solely on the stars' box-office appeal. In the mid-'30s, Laughton was riding high on a series of popular films, including Ruggles of Red Gap and Mutiny on the Bounty (both 1935). Rather, Pascal may have been appealing to the popular notion that the leading characters eventually married. Shaw had resisted the notion and even wrote a 1916 essay describing Eliza's life after parting ways with Higgins and decrying the more sentimental interpretations as "lazy dependence on the ready-mades and reach-me-downs of the ragshop in which Romance keeps its stock of 'happy endings' to misfit all stories." With the more romantic Howard cast as Higgins, however, Pascal may have hoped to weight the story towards a more romantic interpretation that would have sold more tickets.

One way Pascal got around Shaw's insistence on a word-for-word filming of the play was by hiring him to write the screenplay. That gave the author a chance to incorporate scenes cut from most stage productions because they would have added too many sets (Shaw even had said such scenes were best suited to a film version). The writer also got to expand the scene at the Embassy Ball, where Higgins wins his bet to pass Eliza off as a lady. As a result, Shaw agreed to cut some of the play's more philosophical speeches, including several of the longer speeches delivered by Eliza's father. He also grudgingly agreed to include a final scene in which Eliza returns to Higgins, who, unable to express his love for her, demands "Where the devil are my slippers, Eliza?" Shaw would later disavow this ending, insisting that Eliza instead married her high society admirer, Freddie Eynsford-Hill.

Nonetheless, Shaw was delighted with the film version of Pygmalion and made arrangements for Pascal to film all of his plays (the only ones completed were Major Barbara in 1941, Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945 and Androcles and the Lion in 1952). The film proved a hit in both Great Britain and the U.S. (where Henry Higgins' "damns" had to be replaced with "hangs"). At year's end, it was nominated for four Academy Awards® -- including Best Picture, Best Actor (Howard) and Best Actress (Hiller) -- years before foreign films were regularly honored at the Oscars®. It won for Shaw's screenplay, but the author was hardly grateful. Instead, he announced, "It's an insult for them to offer me any honor, as if they had never heard of me -- and it's very likely they never have. They might as well send an honor to George for being King of England." His private views may have been more appreciative. Mary Pickford would later report that when she visited Shaw the award was prominently displayed on his mantelpiece.

When novelist Lloyd C. Douglas announced Pygmalion had won Best Screenplay, he quipped, "Mr. Shaw's story now is as original as it was three thousand years ago." But though Shaw had, indeed, been inspired by the Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with his female statue, his version of the story became as much a part of popular culture as the original legend. In addition to inspiring the hit stage and screen musical My Fair Lady (stage, 1956; film, 1964), Pygmalion has inspired dozens of imitations, including the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), the porn film The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) and the Bollywood film Santu Rangili (1976). It also inspired episodes of such TV series as The Beverly Hillbillies, The Family Guy and The Simpsons.

Producer: Gabriel Pascal
Director: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard
Screenplay: George Bernard Shaw, W.P. Lipscomb, Cecil Lewis, Ian Dalrymple, Anthony Asquith
Based on the play by Shaw
Cinematography: Harry Stradling
Art Director: John Bryan
Score: Arthur Honegger
Cast: Leslie Howard (Prof. Henry Higgins), Wendy Hiller (Eliza Doolittle), Wilfrid Lawson (Alfred Doolittle), Marie Lohr (Mrs. Higgins), Scott Sunderland (Col. Pickering), Jean Cadell (Mrs. Pearce), David Tree (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Everley Gregg (Mrs. Eynsford-Hill), Leueen MacGrath (Clara Eynsford-Hill), Esme Percy (Count Aristid Karpathy), Viola Tree (Perfide), Irene Browne (Duchess), Cathleen Nesbitt, Leo Genn (Guests at Embassy Ball), Anthony Quayle (French Hairdresser).
BW-96m.

by Frank Miller

SOURCES: Sequel: What Happened Afterwards by George Bernard Shaw
Inside Oscar® by Mason Wiley and Damien Bona