TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 28 -- TCM Prime Time Feature -- Atmospheric Thrillers

[Staph]

A day of Rosalind Russell, and a night of wonderful thrillers, including the original Rebecca (1940), with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Enjoy!


4:36am -- One Reel Wonders: And She Learned About Dames (1934)
A promotional short for "Dames" (1934), where a young girl wins a trip to hollywood and a chance to meet the cast and crew of the picture.
Cast: Lyle Talbot, Martha Merrill
BW-9 mins

In the movie Dames (1934), in the "Dames" number, Dick Powell as a Broadway producer doesn't want to see composer George Gershwin, but when asked by his secretary about seeing Miss Dubin, Miss Warren and Miss Kelly, he lets them enter his office. Al Dubin and 'Harry Warren' wrote the music, and Orry-Kelly was costume designer of this picture.


4:45am -- Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936)
A group of insurance salesmen try to get into show business.
Cast: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Victor Moore
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
BW-101 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Busby Berkeley for "Love and War".

The third of three Gold Diggers films starring Dick Powell.


6:30am -- The Velvet Touch (1948)
After accidentally killing her lecherous producer, a famous actress tries to hide her guilt.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Leo Genn, Claire Trevor, Sydney Greenstreet
Dir: John Gage
BW-97 mins, TV-PG

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on January 10, 1949 with Rosalind Russell and Sydney Greenstreet reprising their film roles.


8:15am -- Tell It to the Judge (1949)
To win back her husband, a divorcee pretends to be married to a loser.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, Gig Young, Marie McDonald
Dir: Norman Foster
BW-87 mins, TV-G

"In all those types of films I wore a tan suit, a grey suit, a beige suit and then a negligee for the seventh reel near the end when I would admit to my best friend on the telephone that what I really wanted was to become a little housewife." -- Rosalind Russell


9:45am -- A Woman of Distinction (1950)
A publicity hungry press agent creates a romance between an icy college dean and a visiting lecturer.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Ray Milland, Edmund Gwenn, Janis Carter
Dir: Edward Buzzell
BW-85 mins, TV-G

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on October 23, 1950 with Rosalind Russell reprising her film role.


11:15am -- Never Wave at a WAC (1952)
A divorced socialite joins the Army hoping it will improve her love life.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Paul Douglas, Marie Wilson, William Ching
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
BW-87 mins, TV-G

In 1972 Rosalind Russell received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for contributions to charity.


12:45pm -- Picnic (1955)
A handsome drifter ignites passions at a small-town Labor Day picnic.
Cast: William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg
Dir: Joshua Logan
C-113 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William Flannery, Jo Mielziner and Robert Priestley, and Best Film Editing -- Charles Nelson and William A. Lyon

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur O'Connell, Best Director -- Joshua Logan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- George Duning, and Best Picture

The house where Rosalind Russell lived with Kim Novak's family was located in Nickerson, Kansas, and was actually across the street from Reno Community High, where Russell's character taught school. Location shooting wrapped in nearby Sterling, Kansas, where the lake and bathhouse scenes were filmed. The movie's Labor Day festivities called for Sterling Lake to be filled with rowboats, which were in short supply since boating wasn't normally allowed. To make up the shortage, anyone who supplied a rowboat stood a good chance of being a movie extra. Sterling was also where William Holden hopped the Missouri Pacific freight train that was then tracked by cinematographer Haskell Wexler in a memorable closing aerial shot.


2:45pm -- Gypsy (1962)
A domineering mother pushes her two daughters to burlesque stardom.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Paul Wallace
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
C-143 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Color -- Orry-Kelly, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank Perkins

The stage team had hoped that Warner would cast Judy Garland as Mama Rose and Ann-Margret as Gypsy. The two stars had heavy scheduling conflicts, so the production team passed on both.


5:15pm -- Mrs. Pollifax--Spy (1971)
A society woman volunteers to root out enemy agents in Albania.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Darren McGavin, Nehemiah Persoff, Harold Gould
Dir: Leslie Martinson
C-110 mins, TV-G

Rosalind Russell's last movie.


7:21pm -- One Reel Wonders: Sean O'Casey: The Spirit Of Ireland (1965)
A promotional featurette about the making of "Young Cassidy" (1965) as well as the life of Sean O'Casey, whose autobiography "Mirror in My House" served as the basis for the movie.
Cast: Herschel Bernardi
C-8 mins

Young Cassidy (1965) was nominated for two BAFTA awards for Best British Actress -- Maggie Smith and Best British Costume (Colour) -- Margaret Furse


7:30pm -- Now Playing November (2010)


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: ATMOSPHERIC THRILLERS


8:00pm -- Dead of Night (1945)
Guests at a country estate share stories of the supernatural.
Cast: Mervyn Johns, Hartley Power, Roland Culver, Michael Redgrave
Dir: Cavalcanti
BW-103 mins, TV-14

Cosmolgists Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi, developed the Steady State theory of the universe, an alternative to the Big Bang, after seeing "Dead of Night". They said that the circular nature of the plot inspired the theory.


10:00pm -- Rebecca (1940)
A young bride is terrorized by the memories of her husband's glamorous first wife.
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-130 mins, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- George Barnes, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Fontaine, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Judith Anderson, Best Art Direction, Black-and-White -- Lyle R. Wheeler, Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Jack Cosgrove (photographic) and Arthur Johns (sound), Best Film Editing -- Hal C. Kern, Best Music, Original Score -- Franz Waxman, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison

Because Laurence Olivier wanted his then-girlfriend Vivien Leigh to play the lead role, he treated Joan Fontaine horribly. This shook Fontaine up quite a bit, so Alfred Hitchcock decided to capitalize on this by telling her EVERYONE on the set hated her, thus making her shy and uneasy - just what he wanted from her performance.


12:15am -- The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976)
A thirteen-year-old girl turns to murder after her father dies.
Cast: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman
Dir: Nicolas Gessner
C-92 mins, TV-MA

In interviews, Jodie Foster usually refrains from saying which of her films are her least favorites, but she has let it slip that this movie isn't one she is fond of, explaining, "When people are there to simply do a job they don't have any passion for, those are nearly always bad films."


2:00am -- The Other (1972)
A boy's evil twin leads him on the path to murder.
Cast: Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, Chris Udvarnoky, Martin Udvarnoky
Dir: Robert Mulligan
C-100 mins, TV-14

As the film needed to take place during summer, the small town of Murphys, California, was substituted for shooting instead of on location in Connecticut.


4:00am -- Dragonwyck (1946)
A farm girl signs on as governess in a gloomy mansion.
Cast: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Vincent Price, Glenn Langan
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
BW-103 mins, TV-14

Gregory Peck was the first choice to play Nicholas Van Ryn, but he bowed out when he learned Ernst Lubitsch was dropping out as director. When second choice Laird Cregar died, Vincent Price was assigned.

[Staph]

1. Rosalind Russell

AKA: C. A. Mcknight
Born: 1912-06-04
Birth place: Waterbury, Connecticut, USA
Death: 1976-11-28
Death cause: cancer
Nationality: United States
Profession: actor

Biography

Tall brunette leading lady who hit her stride in the 1940s playing wisecracking, no-nonsense career women in a string of breezy comedies. Entering films in 1935, she was briefly typecast as upper crust, sometimes British "other women", but quickly established herself in leading roles (especially with her performances in such fine films as Dorothy Arzner's "Craig's Wife" 1936 and King Vidor's "The Citadel" 1938). She really achieved full star status, though, with her memorable turn as the sly, bitchy girlfriend of Norma Shearer in the all-star, all-female catfight, "The Women" (1939), as ringmastered by George Cukor. A highly talented, charismatic and appealing actress, she excelled in Howard Hawks' rapid-fire "His Girl Friday" (1940), opposite Cary Grant, and in "My Sister Eileen" (1942), in a role she would later reprise on the musical stage. Her straight dramatic roles were generally less successful, though two of her four Oscar nominations were in very serious if not entirely successful "prestige" films for screenwriter-director Dudley Nichols: "Sister Kenny" (1946) and "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1947).

Russell made fewer films during the 1950s, but kept busy with her huge success in the musicalized "Eileen", renamed "Wonderful Town". Not really a singer, Russell nevertheless bowled audiences over by sheer force of personality, capturing practically every award the theater community had to offer. She later tried a variety of semi-character roles in film which generally relied on the aggressiveness and exuberance of her established star persona. In a number of leading ("Auntie Mame" 1958) and supporting ("Picnic" 1955) roles tinged with seriocomic eccentricity she was quite successful, but her turn as the domineering mother in "Gypsy" (1962) received a split verdict from critics. She continued making films into the early 70s and devoted much of her time to charity work, for which she was awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Russell was long married to producer Frederick Brisson, who helped manage her career.

Companion

HUSBAND: Frederick Brisson. Producer.


Milestone

1934: Film debut, "Evelyn Prentice"

Became typed by MGM in the mid and late 1930s as either classy Englishwomen ("Lady Mary" roles she would later call them) or as a rival to/substitute for Myrna Loy

Enjoyed good leading roles in notable films including "Craig's Wife" (1936), "Night Must Fall" (1937) and "The Citadel" (1938)

1939: Confirmed star status with her role in "The Women"

1941: Opted not to renew her seven-year contract when it came time for renegotiation; began free-lancing

1953: Enjoyed landmark stage success in the long-running musical version of her 1942 comedy "My Sister Eileen", "Wonderful Town"

1955: Returned to films after a three-year absence with roles in "The Girl Rush" and "Picnic"

1958: Played one of her most famous roles, the title heroine of "Auntie Mame"; received her fourth Oscar nomination for Best Actress

1970: Last feature film, "The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax"

1972: Last film, the TV-movie, "The Crooked Hearts"