TCM Schedule for Saturday, October 26, 2019 -- The Essentials: Ethel Waters

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, The Essentials is back! (or should that be The Essentials are back?), with trailblazing producer, director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who will join primetime host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films she has chosen. Tonight's theme is films starring the amazing Ethel Waters. Mini bio from IMDB:

The child of a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters grew up in the slums of Philadelphia and neighboring cities, seldom living anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time. "No one raised me, " she recollected, "I just ran wild." She excelled not only at looking after herself, but also at singing and dancing; she began performing at church functions, and as a teenager was locally renowned for her "hip shimmy shake". In 1917 she made her debut on the black vaudeville circuit; billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" for her tall, lithe build, she broke through with her rendition of "St. Louis Blues", which Waters performed in a softer and subtler style than her rivals, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Beginning with her appearances in Harlem nightclubs in the late 1920s, then on the lucrative "white time" vaudeville circuit, she became one of America's most celebrated and highest-paid entertainers. At the Cotton Club, she introduced "Stormy Weather", composed for her by Harold Arlen: she wrote of her performance, "I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted". Impressed by this performance, Irving Berlin wrote "Supper Time", a song about a lyncing, for Waters to perform in a Broadway revue. She later became the first African-American star of a national radio show. In middle age, first on Broadway and then in the movies, she successfully recast herself as a dramatic actress. Devoutly religious but famously difficult to get along with, Waters found few roles worthy of her talents in her later years.

Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- THE BIG HOUSE (1930)
An attempted prison break leads to a riot.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone
BW-87 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Achievement -- Frances Marion, and Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (sound director)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Wallace Beery, and Best Picture

In Frances Marion's original script, the characters played by Leila Hyams and Robert Montgomery were husband and wife. After the film flopped in a preview screening, MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg decided that the problem was that audiences, especially women, didn't want to see the Chester Morris character have an affair with a married woman. So the script was rewritten to make Montgomery and Hyams brother and sister. Scenes were reshot and the film, in its modified form, became a major hit.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: THE PUPS' PICNIC (1936)
Two little puppies, one black, one brown, are underfoot as a woman is laying out a picnic.
Dir: Rudolf Ising
BW-8 mins,


8:09 AM -- GOOFY MOVIES NUMBER FIVE (1934)
In this short film, Pete Smith provides comedic narration over such silent footage as a man trying to marry the woman he loves.
BW-8 mins,


8:18 AM -- PICTURESQUE UDAIPUR (1939)
This short film takes the viewer to one of India's oldest cities, Udaipur.
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 mins,


8:27 AM -- EXPERIMENT ALCATRAZ (1951)
A doctor testing drugs on convicts gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: John Howard, Joan Dixon, Walter Kingsford
BW-59 mins, CC,

RKO bought the rights to this film from Crystal Productions for $100,000.


9:30 AM -- JUNGLE QUEEN: DANGER SHIP (1945)
A young girl journeys to Africa to find her father, an explorer who vanished in the jungle.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins, Ray Taylor
Cast: Edward Norris, Eddie Quillan, Douglass Dumbrille

Episode six of thirteen.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: WOTTA NITEMARE (1939)
Popeye is having a dream: Bluto takes Olive on a picnic. And even though it's Popeye's dream, Bluto still has the upper hand until spinach time.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky (uncredited)
Cast: Pinto Colvig, Margie Hines, Jack Mercer
BW-7 mins,


10:08 AM -- BLONDE DYNAMITE (1950)
The Bowery Boys get into the escort service and get mixed up with crooks.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Adele Jergens
BW-66 mins, CC,

The 17th of 48 Bowery Boys movies.


11:30 AM -- THE TELL-TALE HEART (1941)
In this short film, a man commits a murder and is tormented by the victim's beating heart.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Joseph Schildkraut, Roman Bohnen, Oscar O'Shea
BW-20 mins,

Directorial debut of Jules Dassin, who had worked under Alfred Hitchcock and Garson Kanin. He would go on to receive two Oscar nominations for Never on Sunday (1960).


12:00 PM -- THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN (1976)
After driving his boss to insanity, Inspector Clouseau has to stop him from destroying the world.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Colin Blakely
C-103 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Don Black (lyrics) for the song "Come to Me"

The film doesn't mention the Pink Panther diamond. By the 1970s the name "Pink Panther" had become so synonymous with Inspector Clouseau and the animated panther featured in the opening credits that all future Clouseau films included "Pink Panther" in the title.


2:00 PM -- GASLIGHT (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

Angela Lansbury was only 17 when she made this, her film debut. She had been working at Bullocks Department Store in Los Angeles and when she told her boss that she was leaving, he offered to match the pay at her new job. Expecting it to be in the region of her Bullocks salary of the equivalent of $27 a week, he was somewhat taken aback when she told him she would be earning $500 a week.


4:00 PM -- THE WOMAN IN WHITE (1948)
Classic mystery about the adventures of a young tutor sent to a ghostly country estate.
Dir: Peter Godfrey
Cast: Alexis Smith, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet
BW-109 mins, CC,

Wilkie Collins' 'The Woman in White', published in 1860, is considered to be the first modern mystery employing a crime-detecting hero.


6:00 PM -- THE HAUNTING (1963)
A team of psychic investigators moves into a haunted house that destroys all who live there.
Dir: Robert Wise
Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson
BW-112 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Claire Bloom was intrigued to the play the role of a woman who was attracted to another woman. She said she got along with everyone on the set, except for Julie Harris, who tried everything to avoid her and not talk to her. At the end of the shoot, Harris went over to Bloom's house with a present and explained that the reason she had kept to herself was to stay in character, because Harris' role in the film was that of an outsider that none of the others understand or will listen to. Bloom was happy to hear the real reason behind Harris' behavior, since Bloom stated that she really liked Harris and could not understand what she herself had done wrong to be treated like that by her co-star.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: ETHEL WATERS



8:00 PM -- CABIN IN THE SKY (1943)
God and Satan battle for the soul of a wounded gambler.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne
BW-99 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Harold Arlen (music) and E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) for the song "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe"

During filming, the movie's black stars were told by the studio manager that they were not allowed to eat at the MGM commissary. When studio head Louis B. Mayer heard about this, he invited the black performers to join him instead in his private dining room. All the performers were allowed to eat in the commissary the following day.


10:00 PM -- THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING (1952)
When her brother marries, a 12-year-old girl faces the awkward pains of adolescence.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Ethel Waters, Julie Harris, Brandon de Wilde
BW-89 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Julie Harris

Julie Harris, Ethel Waters, and Brandon De Wilde all reprised their roles from the original Broadway production.


12:00 AM -- FORCE OF EVIL (1948)
A crooked lawyer tries to protect his numbers running brother from a ruthless crime boss.
Dir: Abraham Polonsky
Cast: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor
BW-79 mins, CC,

In order to show cinematographer George Barnes how he wanted the film to look, Abraham Polonsky gave him a book of Edward Hopper's Third Avenue paintings.


1:45 AM -- THE YOUNG IN HEART (1938)
A family of con artists saves the life of a wealthy old woman and plots to fleece her.
Dir: Richard Wallace
Cast: Minnie Dupree, Paulette Goddard, Richard Carlson
BW-91 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Leon Shamroy, Best Music, Scoring -- Franz Waxman, and Best Music, Original Score -- Franz Waxman

At the beginning of the film, a newspaper blurb describes Col. Carleton as a "Pukka Sahib". That is a British slang term - taken from the Hindi language - to refer mainly to British colonial administrators who were supposedly the ideal of the refined, aloof, and gentlemanly upper middle class types who populated such posts.


3:30 AM -- THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE (1958)
British parents try to prepare their Americanized daughter for her social debut.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Rex Harrison, Kay Kendall, John Saxon
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

For years, John Saxon said he had been bothered by something about Sandra Dee during filming that he just couldn't put his finger on. Decades later he figured out what it was: Sandra's mother had lied about her age to get her more adult roles. Sandra was only fourteen-years-old at the time of filming.