TCM Schedule for Thursday, September 24, 2020 -- TCM Spotlight: Honoring Our Medical Heroes

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In the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films about scandal and class conflicts. Then TCM finishes the last night of their pandemic-appropriate medical theme. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
A married noblewoman fights her lifelong attraction to a charismatic gypsy.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven
BW-104 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Best Art Direction -- James Basevi, Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

David Niven remembered the filming of Merle Oberon's deathbed scenes (recorded in his bestselling book, The Moon's a Balloon) as less than romantic. After telling William Wyler he didn't know how to "sob", he had been given a menthol mist substance to help it appear as if he were crying, which instead had the effect of making "green goo" come out of his nose. Oberon immediately exited the bed after witnessing it.


8:15 AM -- KITTY FOYLE (1940)
A girl from the wrong side of the tracks endures scandal and heartbreak when she falls for a high-society boy.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig
BW-108 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ginger Rogers

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Dalton Trumbo, Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD), and Best Picture

Among the many letters that Ginger Rogers received for her work in the film, this was the one that she treasured the most: "Hello Cutie - Saw "Kitty" last night and must write this note to say "That's it!" Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! You were superb Ginge - it was such a solid performance - the kind one seldom sees on stage or screen and it should bring you the highest honors anyone can win!! Hope to see you soon, As ever your, Fred."


10:15 AM -- CASS TIMBERLANE (1947)
An aging judge creates a scandal when he marries a younger woman from the wrong side of the tracks.
Dir: George Sidney
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Lana Turner, Zachary Scott
BW-119 mins, CC,

The poem that Cass Timberlane recites at the picnic with Virginia is "First Fig" by Edna St. Vincent Millay and goes "My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends / It gives a lovely light!"


12:15 PM -- THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952)
An unscrupulous movie producer uses everyone around him in his climb to the top.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon
BW-118 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Gloria Grahame, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Schnee, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Edward C. Carfagno, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Kirk Douglas

The character of Shields (Kirk Douglas) is regarded as a mixture of producer David O. Selznick, Orson Welles and producer Val Lewton. Georgia (Lana Turner), the alcoholic daughter of an iconic actor, is very clearly based on Diana Barrymore. Bartlow (Dick Powell), the college professor turned best-selling author turned screenwriter, is thought to be based on Paul Green, a UNC professor who followed a similar career track. Gilbert Roland's appearance as "Gaucho" is seen as a self-parody; the Mexican-born actor, once a star in silent dramas, had just appeared as "The Cisco Kid" in a string of "B" westerns.


2:30 PM -- MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954)
A playboy becomes a doctor to right the wrong he's done to a sightless widow.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead
C-108 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Jane Wyman

Magnificent Obsession was an early starring role for Hudson, and, according to Wyman, he was very nervous. Some of his scenes had to be re-shot thirty or forty times, but Wyman never said a word. Reportedly, years later at a party, Hudson ran into Wyman and said, "You were nice to me when you didn't have to be, and I want you to know that I thank you and love you for it."


4:30 PM -- ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955)
A lonely widow defies small-town gossip when she falls for a younger man.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead
C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The house Jane Wyman's character lives in (on Universal's "Colonial Street" backlot) was built on rented Universal property by Paramount Pictures for 1955's "Desperate Hours"; Universal left it standing after filming, altering its appearance for "All That Heaven Allows." Four years later, it was altered again, for use as the house of the Cleaver family in TV's "Leave it to Beaver," beginning with the show's move from CBS to ABC for the 1959 season. The house continued as the Cleaver house until the end of the series in 1962, but was known at Universal as the "Paramount House," not the "Cleaver House."


6:15 PM -- WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1957)
A young woman marries into a corrupt oil family then falls for her husband's best friend.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Dorothy Malone

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Stack, and Best Music, Original Song -- Victor Young (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Written on the Wind". Victor Young's nomination was posthumous.

All the cast members had compliments for Rock Hudson. He made a particular impression on Robert Stack, who definitely had the flashier part, while, as Hudson himself noted about his own role, "as usual, I am so pure I am impossible." Hudson, of course, was the star, and one of the top actors at the studio, while Stack was a lesser name on loan to Universal for the picture. "Almost any other actor I know in the business...would have gone up to the head of the studio and said, 'Hey, look, man, I'm the star - you cut this guy down or something,'" Stack said. "But he never did. I never forgot that."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: HONORING OUR MEDICAL HEROES




8:00 PM -- YOUNG DR. KILDARE (1938)
A medical school graduate must choose between a small-town practice and a big-city internship.
Dir: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Lew Ayres, Lynne Carver
BW-82 mins, CC,

This was the first film in which Lionel Barrymore played gruff-voiced but soft-hearted Dr. Gillespie. One of MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer's favorite actors, the irascible Barrymore was cast in this role after he had played Judge Hardy in the first of the studio's Andy Hardy movies, A Family Affair. Mayer was determined that, as long as he lived, Barrymore would be employed by the studio and when Lionel's health confined him to a wheelchair, the part of Gillespie was re-written to accommodate Barrymore's condition. He would go on to play Gillespie in 14 more films.


9:30 PM -- THE YOUNG DOCTORS (1961)
An aging doctor's resentment of his young assistant could lead to tragedy.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: Fredric March, Ben Gazzara, Dick Clark
BW-103 mins, CC,

Filmed in Poughkeepsie NY at Vassar Hospital and within the city.


11:30 PM -- THE HOSPITAL (1971)
A harried hospital administrator copes with rising costs, a seductive young woman and a serial killer.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: George C Scott, Diana Rigg, Barnard Hughes
C-102 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Paddy Chayefsky

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- George C. Scott

American/Hollywood movie debut of British actress Dame Diana Rigg (Barbara Drummond) - post The Avengers (1965-1968) and On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), so she was well known to American audiences.


1:30 AM -- NO WAY OUT (1950)
A racist gangster forces a black doctor to tend to his injuries.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally
BW-107 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Lesser Samuels

Richard Widmark was apparently very uncomfortable with some of the racist comments his character, Ray Biddle, made, especially given his friendship with Sidney Poitier. As a result, after some of the takes involving particularly venomous remarks, Widmark actually apologized to Poitier for the remarks his character had made.


3:30 AM -- THE GIRL IN WHITE (1952)
Biography of Emily Dunning, the first woman doctor to practice in a New York hospital.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: June Allyson, Arthur Kennedy, Gary Merrill
BW-93 mins, CC,

Based on the life of Emily Dunning Barringer (1876-1961). She graduated from Cornell University School of Medicine in 1901. Her surgical residency was at Gouverneur Hospital in Lower Manhattan, New York City.


5:04 AM -- HER HONOR, THE NURSE (1956)
This short film looks at the duties of the modern nurse.
Dir: Harry W. Smith
BW-8 mins,


5:30 AM -- EMERGENCY HOSPITAL (1956)
Patients and staff face life-or-death situations during 12 hours in an ER.
Dir: Lee Sholem
Cast: Walter Reed, Margaret Lindsay, John Archer
BW-63 mins, CC,

This film has no music, not even "source" music from a radio. The main titles are accompanied by sirens and other street sounds.