TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 20 -- What's On Tonight: Zachary Scott

[Staph]

Another October Thursday of Oscar-nominated and -winning films, and an evening with Zachary Scott. Enjoy!



6:45 AM -- Way Out West (1938)
A pair of tenderfeet try to get the deed to a gold mine to its rightful owner.
Dir: James W. Horne
Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne.
65 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Score -- Marvin Hatley (head of department, Roach Studio Music Department), score by Marvin Hatley.

In an interview on Turner Classic Movies, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening said that Homer's famous "Doh!" came about because Dan Castellaneta knew that James Finlayson sometimes said that in his movies, including this one. One example: when Finlayson's character, Mickey Finn, accidentally fires his rifle in bed.


8:00 AM -- Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Fanciful musical biography of wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern.
C-107 min, TV-G , CC

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch and Roger Edens

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Richard Pefferle, Best Cinematography, Color -- Charles Rosher, and Best Film Editing -- James E. Newcom

Judy Garland and Frank Morgan, who appeared together in The Wizard of Oz, were scheduled to reappear together in this film. Garland was fired because of health problems, and Frank Morgan died shortly after filming began. As a result of this, Betty Hutton took over Judy Garland's role as Annie Oakley, and Louis Calhern succeeded Frank Morgan as Buffalo Bill.


10:00 AM -- State Fair (1945)
An Iowa family finds romance and adventure at the yearly state fair.
Dir: Walter Lang
Cast: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes.
C-101 min, TV-G , CC

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics) for the song "It Might as Well Be Spring"

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Charles Henderson and Alfred Newman

Dana Andrews was a trained opera singer but did not actually sing in the movie. Instead his voice was dubbed because the studio was unaware he was a trained singer. He later explained that he didn't correct their mistake because he felt the singer dubbing him probably needed the money and he didn't want to put anyone out of work.


11:43 AM -- One Reel Wonder: So You'Re Going On A Vacation (1946)
Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon) is going on vacation, he takes advantage of a vacation-planning service and gets much more than he bargained for.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: Jane Harker, Clifton Young, Ted Stanhope.
11 min,

The ninth of 60 Joe McDoakes shorts, all starring George O'Hanlon.


12:00 PM -- Picnic (1955)
A handsome drifter ignites passions at a small-town Labor Day picnic.
Dir: Joshua Logan
Cast: William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field.
C-113 min, TV-PG , CC

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

William Holden refused to do the dance sequence unless he was given an $8,000 "stuntman premium" and was allowed to do the scene while under the influence of alcohol. He didn't believe the studio would do either, but they wound up allowing both. In that scene he is actually intoxicated, and it still remains one of only four movies that he ever danced in (the others being Sabrina, Dear Ruth and Sunset Blvd.), and one of the most memorable scenes in the movie.


2:00 PM -- Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
An aging couple's liberal principles are tested when their daughter announces her engagement to a black doctor.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn.
C-108 min, TV-PG , CC

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn (Katharine Hepburn was not present at the awards ceremony. George Cukor accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Rose

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy (Posthumously), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Cecil Kellaway, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Beah Richards, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Robert Clatworthy and Frank Tuttle, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Robert C. Jones, Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Frank De Vol, and Best Picture

When the movie was conceived and launched by producer-director Stanley Kramer, one of Hollywood's greatest liberal movie-makers, intermarriage between African Americans and Caucasians was still illegal in 14 states. Towards the end of production, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loving v. Virginia. The Loving decision was made on June 12, 1967, two days after the death of star Spencer Tracy, who had played a "phony" white liberal who grudgingly accepts his daughter's marriage to a black man. In Loving, the High Court unanimously ruled that anti-miscegenation marriage laws were unconstitutional. In his opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, "Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State." Interestingly, Kramer kept in the line of the African American father played by Roy Glenn, who tells his son played by Sidney Poitier, "In 16 or 17 states you'll be breaking the law. You'll be criminals." This was probably because Kramer realized that, despite the change in the law, the couple would still be facing a great deal of prejudice requiring a stalwart love for their marriage to survive, which was the message Tracy's character gives in an eight-minute scene that is the climax of the movie. The scene summing up the theme of the movie was the last one the dying Tracy filmed for the movie, and it was the last time he would ever appear on film. It took a week to shoot the scene and at the end, he was given a standing ovation by the crew. He died a little over a fortnight after walking off of a sound-stage for the last time.


4:00 PM -- Dark Victory (1939)
A flighty heiress discovers inner strength when she develops a brain tumor.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart.
104 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture

During the filming of the emotionally-charged scene when Bette Davis' character needs to find her way upstairs to her room after the brain tumor has caused her blindness, the cast and crew and several visitors were watching as Davis grasped the banister and began to feel her way up the steps, one-by-one. Halfway to the top of the staircase, Davis paused, stopped the scene, briskly walked back downstairs, and addressed director Edmund Goulding. "Ed," Davis said, "is Max Steiner going to be composing the music score to this picture?" Goulding, surprised by the question, replied that he didn't know, and asked Davis why the matter was important enough to stop the filming of the scene. "Well, either I'm going to climb those stairs or Max Steiner is going to climb those stairs," Davis responded, "but I'll be God-DAMNED if Max Steiner and I are going to climb those stairs together!"


5:49 PM -- One Reel Wonder: San Sebastian 1746 In 1968 (1968)
A look behind the scenes during the filming of Guns for San Sebastian, in Durango, Mexico.
Dir: Floyd L. Peterson
Cast: Anthony Quinn, Henri Verneuil, Anjanette Comer
C-10 min,

Director Henri Verneuil was born in Turkey and was a naturalized French citizen of Armenian ancestry.


6:00 PM -- Guns For San Sebastian (1968)
A Mexican bandit masquerading as a priest gets roped into helping villagers defend against an Indian attack.
Dir: Henri Verneuil
Cast: Anthony Quinn, Anjanette Comer, Charles Bronson.
C-111 min, TV-14 , CC

Based on the novel A Wall for San Sebastian by Father William Barby Faherty.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: ZACHARY SCOTT



8:00 PM -- The Mask Of Dimitrios (1944)
A meek novelist investigates the mysterious death of a notorious scoundrel.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson.
96 min, TV-PG , CC

First film of Zachary Scott.


9:45 PM -- The Southerner (1945)
A sharecropper fights the elements to start his own farm.
Dir: Jean Renoir
Cast: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, J. Carrol Naish.
91 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Jean Renoir, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Werner Janssen, and Best Sound, Recording -- Jack Whitney (Sound Services Inc.)

Based on the novel "Hold Autumn in your Hand", by George Sessions Perry, which won the first National Book Award in 1941.


11:30 PM -- Colt .45 (1950)
A gun salesman tracks down the outlaws who stole his sample case.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: Randolph Scott, Ruth Roman, Zachary Scott.
C-74 min, TV-PG

Followed by a television series (1957-1960), starring Wayde Preston.


12:48 AM -- One Reel Wonder: So You Want To Be A Salesman (1947)
Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlon) is starting a new job as a vacuum cleaner salesman but cannot seem to make any sales, even his wife won't buy from him.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Jane Harker,
10 min,

The tenth in the Joe McDoakes series of shorts.


1:00 AM -- Danger Signal (1945)
A man suspected of murder charms a secretary into helping him.
Dir: Robert Florey
Cast: Faye Emerson, Zachary Scott, Dick Erdman.
78 min, TV-PG , CC

Zachary Scott's father was a direct descendant of George Washington's only surviving sister, Betty.


2:30 AM -- Flamingo Road (1949)
A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet.
94 min, TV-PG , CC

Originally intended as a vehicle for Ann Sheridan, who turned down role played by Joan Crawford.


4:15 AM -- Bandido (1956)
An American adventurer in Mexico joins a rebel band against a corrupt gun runner.
Dir: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ursula Thiess, Gilbert Roland.
C-92 min, TV-PG

The film was shot on many of the actual battle sites of the 1916 Mexican revolution, the period during which this film is set. Many of the older Mexicans hired as extras in the film were former soldiers of Pancho Villa and others were former government troops who fought them.