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TCM Schedule for Friday, November 6, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Spotlight: Under the Big Top
In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating birthday boy Joel McCrea, born November 5, 1905, in South Pasadena, California. From IMDB's mini biography:One of the great stars of American Westerns, and a very popular leading man in non-Westerns as well. He was born and raised in the surroundings of Hollywood and as a boy became interested in the movies that were being made all around. He studied acting at Pomona College and got some stage experience at the Pasadena Community Playhouse, where other future stars such as Randolph Scott, Robert Young, and Victor Mature would also get their first experience. He worked as an extra after graduation from the University of Southern California in 1928 and did some stunt work. In a rare case of an extra being chosen from the crowd to play a major role, McCrea was given a part in The Jazz Age. A contract at MGM followed, and then a better contract at RKO. Will Rogers took a liking to the young man (they shared a love of ranching and roping) and did much to elevate McCrea's career. His wholesome good looks and quiet manner were soon in demand, primarily in romantic dramas and comedies, and he became an increasingly popular leading man. He hoped to concentrate on Westerns, but several years passed before he could convince the studio heads to cast him in one. When he proved successful in that genre, more and more Westerns came his way. But he continued to make a mark in other kinds of pictures, and proved himself particularly adept at the light comedy of Preston Sturges, for whom he made several films. By the late Forties, his concentration focused on Westerns, and he made few non-Westerns thereafter. He was immensely popular in them, and most of them still hold up well today. He and Randolph Scott, whose career strongly resembles McCrea's, came out of retirement to make a classic of the genre, Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962). Scott stayed retired thereafter; McCrea made a couple of appearances in small films afterwards, but was primarily content to maintain his life as a gentleman rancher. He was married for fifty-seven years to actress Frances Dee, who survived him.
In prime time, TCM is beginning a month-long look at the circus. Take it away, Roger!
Under the Big Top - Fridays in November
By Roger Fristoe
“The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know,” wrote children’s author E.B. White. “In a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.” Since the earliest days of cinema, moviemakers have agreed, celebrating this colorful and far-reaching form of entertainment by turning out dozens of films about the Big Top. TCM’s tribute spans four decades and a baker’s dozen of films set amid the spectacle of the circus. Below is some detail about a film from each decade covered.
The Circus (1928) finds Charlie Chaplin at the peak of his form as the Little Tramp when he inadvertently becomes a Big Top star after blundering into a circus tent to escape police who think he’s a pickpocket. Chaplin not only stars but produces, writes, directs and edits. (For a 1967 reissue, he also contributed music including a theme song which he sang over the credits.) Merna Kennedy plays the circus owner’s daughter, a bareback rider adored by Charlie; and Harry Crocker is the tightrope walker she loves in turn. The slapstick comedy is capped by a poignant ending.
The film brought Chaplin his first Academy Award, bestowed for “versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing.” The production itself had been a harrowing one for the great comic, occurring as he was in the midst of a difficult and highly publicized divorce from Lita Grey, whose lawyers sought to seize Chaplin’s studio assets. The circus tent itself was destroyed by storms, and a studio fire wiped out sets and props. It was such a troubled period for Chaplin that, despite the film’s merits, he doesn’t mention it in his autobiography.
Writing for Slant magazine, critic Christian Blauvelt describes The Circus as “a great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.”
At the Circus (1939) continues the theme of classic Big Top comedy, as the Marx Brothers try to save a circus from bankruptcy in this, the third of five films they made for MGM. Groucho shines in his delivery of “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” one of the songs written for the film by Harold Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg; and in his scenes with his great foil, the befuddled Margaret Dumont. Another highlight is a scene where Chico and Harpo search for stolen money in the room of sleeping strong man Nat Pendleton. A nice bonus is the casting of caustic Eve Arden as aerialist “Peerless Pauline.” Plus, there are the spectacles of Dumont being shot out of a cannon and Harpo riding an ostrich! Edward Buzzell directed.
The influence of MGM producer Irving Thalberg on the Marx Brothers continued after his death in 1936. Unlike earlier freewheeling films made at Paramount, their MGM vehicles had more structure and storyline, and the brothers worked out the timing of their routines with live audiences before filming them. Former comedy legend Buster Keaton was reduced to working as a gag man on At the Circus. Harburg wrote special lyrics for “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” that were used exclusively in screenings of the film for Allied service in European war zones. One example: “When she stands the world grows littler; when she sits, she sits on Hitler.”
At the time of its original release, the movie was not a big critical success, with some reviewers complaining that it wasn’t up to the brothers’ best work. In a 2005 review, critic Dennis Schwartz noted that, although this film marked “the beginning of the Marx Brothers’ slide from their peak comedies,” it “still has enough madcap comedy to be a decent representative of their zany slapstick.”
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) is Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar-winning spectacle built around the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In colorful turns as circus performers are Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Gloria Grahame, James Stewart and Dorothy Lamour. Charlton Heston plays the circus manager, and some 85 acts from the real circus are featured including clowns Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs. John Ringling North plays himself as the circus owner. Paramount Pictures spared no expense on the movie, which utilized the real circus’s company of some 1,400 people and hundreds of animals, along with 60 railroad cars of equipment and tents. The film takes a documentary-like look at the logistics of moving this army of circus workers from one location to the next and includes a spectacularly staged climax built around a train crash.
Hutton and Wilde, as competing aerialists, had to learn the basics of trapeze work for their roles. Because of a fear of heights, Wilde did not adapt well – but Hutton became so proficient that she later included a trapeze act in some of her concerts. James Stewart, as a clown with a dark secret, never appeared without his clown makeup. The movie won the Best Picture Academy Award, along with a second Oscar for Best Story and was nominated for DeMille’s direction, costume design by Edith Head and company and film editing. It also picked up Golden Globes for best dramatic film, direction and cinematography.
There have been many complaints over the years about The Greatest Show on Earth being unworthy of its Best Picture Oscar in competition with such films as High Noon and The Quiet Man. But anyone who saw it as a youngster probably thought that award went exactly where it should have. Among those enthralled by the movie was a five-year-old Steven Spielberg, who later said that this circus epic was the first film he ever saw and that it was a major influence in his desire to become a filmmaker.
Billy Rose’s Jumbo (1962) is significant in Hollywood history because it was Doris Day’s last film musical and one of the last big musicals produced by MGM. The movie was based on a stage musical with a circus theme produced by Billy Rose at the New York Hippodrome in 1935. At the time, Rose specified that any future film adaptation would have to bear his name in the title.
Like the stage show, the movie boasts a beautiful score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and a performance from Jimmy Durante as the owner of the circus and Jumbo the lovable elephant. The movie retains Durante’s famous line from the original production when he’s leading Jumbo about and is asked by a police officer: “What are you doing with that elephant?” Durante’s deadpan response: “What elephant?”
In addition to Durante as Day’s irresponsible father, the cast includes Stephen Boyd (fresh from his Ben-Hur, [1959] triumph) as the mysterious circus hand who pursues her, and Martha Raye as Durante’s long-time fiancée. Charles Walters directed. Day performs such standards as “My Romance,” “This Can’t Be Love” and an exquisite “Little Girl Blue.” Durante and a dubbed Boyd also sing, and Martha Raye joins Day on a lovely duet, “Why Can’t I?”
Although the movie is spectacularly produced and Day was the No. 1 box-office attraction at the time, Billy Rose’s Jumbo had two major problems in attaining commercial success. A newspaper strike meant limited reviews, and there was growing apathy toward musicals among movie audiences. A reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune called the movie “a great big blubbery amiable polka-dotted elephant of a show.” Variety wrote that “Doris Day may never have sung better… While the story is no challenge to her thespic talents, her return to the thing she does so well could (and should) persuade her to make more musicals.” Alas, it was not to be.
Other movies portraying life Under the Big Top include He Who Gets Slapped (1924) starring Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer; Freaks (1932) directed by Tod Browning; Man on a Tightrope (1953) starring Fredric March and Gloria Grahame; Carnival Story (1954) starring Anne Baxter and Steve Cochran; La Strada (1954) starring Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn; Merry Andrew (1958) starring Danny Kaye and Pier Angeli; The Big Circus (1959) starring Victor Mature and Rhonda Fleming; 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) starring Tony Randall; and Berserk (1967) starring Joan Crawford.
By Roger Fristoe
“The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know,” wrote children’s author E.B. White. “In a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.” Since the earliest days of cinema, moviemakers have agreed, celebrating this colorful and far-reaching form of entertainment by turning out dozens of films about the Big Top. TCM’s tribute spans four decades and a baker’s dozen of films set amid the spectacle of the circus. Below is some detail about a film from each decade covered.
The Circus (1928) finds Charlie Chaplin at the peak of his form as the Little Tramp when he inadvertently becomes a Big Top star after blundering into a circus tent to escape police who think he’s a pickpocket. Chaplin not only stars but produces, writes, directs and edits. (For a 1967 reissue, he also contributed music including a theme song which he sang over the credits.) Merna Kennedy plays the circus owner’s daughter, a bareback rider adored by Charlie; and Harry Crocker is the tightrope walker she loves in turn. The slapstick comedy is capped by a poignant ending.
The film brought Chaplin his first Academy Award, bestowed for “versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing.” The production itself had been a harrowing one for the great comic, occurring as he was in the midst of a difficult and highly publicized divorce from Lita Grey, whose lawyers sought to seize Chaplin’s studio assets. The circus tent itself was destroyed by storms, and a studio fire wiped out sets and props. It was such a troubled period for Chaplin that, despite the film’s merits, he doesn’t mention it in his autobiography.
Writing for Slant magazine, critic Christian Blauvelt describes The Circus as “a great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.”
At the Circus (1939) continues the theme of classic Big Top comedy, as the Marx Brothers try to save a circus from bankruptcy in this, the third of five films they made for MGM. Groucho shines in his delivery of “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” one of the songs written for the film by Harold Arlen and lyricist Yip Harburg; and in his scenes with his great foil, the befuddled Margaret Dumont. Another highlight is a scene where Chico and Harpo search for stolen money in the room of sleeping strong man Nat Pendleton. A nice bonus is the casting of caustic Eve Arden as aerialist “Peerless Pauline.” Plus, there are the spectacles of Dumont being shot out of a cannon and Harpo riding an ostrich! Edward Buzzell directed.
The influence of MGM producer Irving Thalberg on the Marx Brothers continued after his death in 1936. Unlike earlier freewheeling films made at Paramount, their MGM vehicles had more structure and storyline, and the brothers worked out the timing of their routines with live audiences before filming them. Former comedy legend Buster Keaton was reduced to working as a gag man on At the Circus. Harburg wrote special lyrics for “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” that were used exclusively in screenings of the film for Allied service in European war zones. One example: “When she stands the world grows littler; when she sits, she sits on Hitler.”
At the time of its original release, the movie was not a big critical success, with some reviewers complaining that it wasn’t up to the brothers’ best work. In a 2005 review, critic Dennis Schwartz noted that, although this film marked “the beginning of the Marx Brothers’ slide from their peak comedies,” it “still has enough madcap comedy to be a decent representative of their zany slapstick.”
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) is Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar-winning spectacle built around the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In colorful turns as circus performers are Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Gloria Grahame, James Stewart and Dorothy Lamour. Charlton Heston plays the circus manager, and some 85 acts from the real circus are featured including clowns Emmett Kelly and Lou Jacobs. John Ringling North plays himself as the circus owner. Paramount Pictures spared no expense on the movie, which utilized the real circus’s company of some 1,400 people and hundreds of animals, along with 60 railroad cars of equipment and tents. The film takes a documentary-like look at the logistics of moving this army of circus workers from one location to the next and includes a spectacularly staged climax built around a train crash.
Hutton and Wilde, as competing aerialists, had to learn the basics of trapeze work for their roles. Because of a fear of heights, Wilde did not adapt well – but Hutton became so proficient that she later included a trapeze act in some of her concerts. James Stewart, as a clown with a dark secret, never appeared without his clown makeup. The movie won the Best Picture Academy Award, along with a second Oscar for Best Story and was nominated for DeMille’s direction, costume design by Edith Head and company and film editing. It also picked up Golden Globes for best dramatic film, direction and cinematography.
There have been many complaints over the years about The Greatest Show on Earth being unworthy of its Best Picture Oscar in competition with such films as High Noon and The Quiet Man. But anyone who saw it as a youngster probably thought that award went exactly where it should have. Among those enthralled by the movie was a five-year-old Steven Spielberg, who later said that this circus epic was the first film he ever saw and that it was a major influence in his desire to become a filmmaker.
Billy Rose’s Jumbo (1962) is significant in Hollywood history because it was Doris Day’s last film musical and one of the last big musicals produced by MGM. The movie was based on a stage musical with a circus theme produced by Billy Rose at the New York Hippodrome in 1935. At the time, Rose specified that any future film adaptation would have to bear his name in the title.
Like the stage show, the movie boasts a beautiful score by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart and a performance from Jimmy Durante as the owner of the circus and Jumbo the lovable elephant. The movie retains Durante’s famous line from the original production when he’s leading Jumbo about and is asked by a police officer: “What are you doing with that elephant?” Durante’s deadpan response: “What elephant?”
In addition to Durante as Day’s irresponsible father, the cast includes Stephen Boyd (fresh from his Ben-Hur, [1959] triumph) as the mysterious circus hand who pursues her, and Martha Raye as Durante’s long-time fiancée. Charles Walters directed. Day performs such standards as “My Romance,” “This Can’t Be Love” and an exquisite “Little Girl Blue.” Durante and a dubbed Boyd also sing, and Martha Raye joins Day on a lovely duet, “Why Can’t I?”
Although the movie is spectacularly produced and Day was the No. 1 box-office attraction at the time, Billy Rose’s Jumbo had two major problems in attaining commercial success. A newspaper strike meant limited reviews, and there was growing apathy toward musicals among movie audiences. A reviewer for the New York Herald Tribune called the movie “a great big blubbery amiable polka-dotted elephant of a show.” Variety wrote that “Doris Day may never have sung better… While the story is no challenge to her thespic talents, her return to the thing she does so well could (and should) persuade her to make more musicals.” Alas, it was not to be.
Other movies portraying life Under the Big Top include He Who Gets Slapped (1924) starring Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer; Freaks (1932) directed by Tod Browning; Man on a Tightrope (1953) starring Fredric March and Gloria Grahame; Carnival Story (1954) starring Anne Baxter and Steve Cochran; La Strada (1954) starring Giulietta Masina and Anthony Quinn; Merry Andrew (1958) starring Danny Kaye and Pier Angeli; The Big Circus (1959) starring Victor Mature and Rhonda Fleming; 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) starring Tony Randall; and Berserk (1967) starring Joan Crawford.
Enjoy!
6:00 AM -- The Silver Horde (1930)
1h 16m | Drama | TV-G
An Alaskan fisherman is dogged by a ruthless competitor and an ambitious dance hall girl.
Director: George Archainbaud
Cast: Evelyn Brent, Louis Wolheim, Joel McCrea
During the salmon migration a screen appears that states; "From the depths of the sea moves the vast, heroic tribe of salmon - The Silver Horde." The Silver Horde (1930) is also the film's title derived from this statement.
7:30 AM -- Kept Husbands (1931)
1h 16m | Drama | TV-G
A steel worker marries the boss's daughter, then has to teach her about life on a budget.
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, Ned Sparks
Mr. Parker says he will nominate Dick (Joel McCrea) for the "Carnegie Medal". This is a real award established by the American industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1904 to recognize persons who perform extraordinary acts of heroism in civilian life.
9:00 AM -- The Lost Squadron (1932)
1h 12m | Drama | TV-G
Veteran flyers from World War I find work as movie stuntmen.
Director: George Archainbaud
Cast: Richard Dix, Mary Astor, Robert Armstrong
"The Lost Squadron" was begun when William LeBaron was still production chief at RKO. When he was fired, his replacement, David O. Selznick, took over the project as a personal production, fired director Paul Sloane and replaced him with George Archainbaud, and increased the film's budget to include more spectacular action sequences.
10:30 AM -- The Sport Parade (1932)
1h 3m | Sports | TV-G
College team mates follow different paths after they graduate.
Director: Dudley Murphy
Cast: Joel McCrea, Marian Marsh, William Gargan
From a story by Jerry Horwin
11:45 AM -- Woman Wanted (1935)
1h 10m | Comedy | TV-G
An innocent woman is chased by both gangsters and the police.
Director: George B. Seitz
Cast: Maureen O'sullivan, Joel McCrea, Lewis Stone
According to contemporary articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Franchot Tone and Wallace Beery were considered for the male lead.
1:00 PM -- Espionage Agent (1939)
1h 23m | Spy | TV-G
American spies try to steal Nazi secrets from a moving train.
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Joel McCrea, Brenda Marshall, Jeffrey Lynn
Second anti-Nazi film from Warner Bros. in 1939 - the first one being Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939). This was before America's involvement in WWII, when other studios were reluctant to antagonize the Germans.
2:30 PM -- Primrose Path (1940)
1h 33m | Comedy | TV-PG
The youngest child in a family of prostitutes tries to go straight with a working man.
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau
Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Marjorie Rambeau
The movie missed out on well-deserved Oscar nominations because of its risqué material, such as the clear themes of alcoholism and prostitution. It ran into trouble with the Hollywood censor boards in many scenes, which is why Ginger Rogers did not receive an Oscar nomination (which she should have done in many people's opinion). Nonetheless, Rogers did win the Oscar that year for a different film, Kitty Foyle (1940).
4:15 PM -- Stars in My Crown (1950)
1h 29m | Drama | TV-G
A parson uses six-guns and the Bible to bring peace to a Tennessee town.
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Joel McCrea, Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell
Cast includes a young James Arness and Amanda Blake. They appeared together for 19 (of 20) seasons on the television series Gunsmoke (1955) as Matt Dillon and Kitty Russell.
6:00 PM -- Ride the High Country (1962)
1h 34m | Drama | TV-PG
Two aging ex-lawmen, who've lived high and powerful, are reduced to guarding a gold shipment.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Mariette Hartley
Joel McCrea was originally cast as Westrum and Randolph Scott was Judd. However, early in the production each actor went to the producer on his own, dissatisfied and ready to quit, so the roles were reversed.
8:00 PM -- The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
2h 33m | Drama | TV-PG
A circus ringmaster and an egotistical trapeze artist vie for the love of a pretty acrobat.
Director: Cecil B. Demille
Cast: Charlton Heston, Cornel Wilde, James Stewart
Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Fredric M. Frank, Theodore St. John and Frank Cavett, and Best Picture
Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Cecil B. DeMille, Best Costume Design, Color -- Edith Head, Dorothy Jeakins and Miles White, and Best Film Editing -- Anne Bauchens
Cecil B. DeMille was always demanding of his actors and actresses. He insisted that everyone truly learn to perform the circus stunts they were supposed to be performing. This meant that Betty Hutton really learned the trapeze and Gloria Grahame had to let an elephant rest its foot an inch from her face. Cornel Wilde probably had it the worst, since he was portraying a high-wire artist. He was seriously afraid of heights.
10:45 PM -- The Circus (1928)
1h 11m | Comedy | TV-G
In this silent film, the Little Tramp joins a circus to hide from the police.
Director: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Merna Kennedy, Betty Morrissey
Charles Chaplin practiced tightrope walking for weeks before filming. He actually performed on a rope 40 feet in the air. However, the footage was lost when the negative was scratched during processing. The scene had to be reshot, and the footage included in the film was not as good, in Chaplin's estimation, as that which had been lost.
12:15 AM -- The Big Circus (1959)
1h 49m | Drama | TV-PG
A ringleader tries to keep his circus on the road despite the efforts of a saboteur.
Director: Joseph M. Newman
Cast: Victor Mature, Red Buttons, Rhonda Fleming
Irwin Allen initially intended to have parts for 40 stars, similar to how he made The Story of Mankind in 1957.
2:15 AM -- Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
1h 24m | Horror
Someone with a power drill shows up uninvited to Trish's high-school pajama party.
Director: Amy Holden Jones
Cast: Michelle Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villela
Rita Mae Brown wrote a screenplay for a parody of teen/slasher flicks, and titled it "Sleepless Nights". However, when she submitted it to the producers, they filmed it as if it weren't a parody, and retitled it "Slumber Party Massacre". As a result, the movie displays a lot more humor, both intended and unintended, than others of this genre.
3:45 AM -- Near Dark (1987)
1h 35m | Horror | TV-MA
A young man reluctantly joins a traveling family of evil vampires because the girl he had seduced is a part of the group.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
According to Lance Henriksen, he prepared for his role of Jesse by coming up with a background for his character and acting it out. The origin story he came up with was that Jesse was in the Confederate navy when he became a vampire. Henriksen painted his hair black with tar, since that was an actual thing seamen did in the 1800's. He then added broken fake nails to make his fingers look like the extensions of his finger bones and went to town at night like that while in character. He managed to scare a waitress in Denny's and a hitchhiker twice his size he picked up on the road one night. The hitchhiker quickly asked to leave the car as soon as they drove up to the first inhabited area, so Henriksen, without revealing that he was just an actor messing with the guy, gave the man all 80 dollars he had on him for being a good sport. Henriksen always jokingly adds that he was lucky, since the hitchhiker could have easily overpowered him in a fight and "make him cry like a baby."
5:30 AM -- Narcotics Pit of Despair (Part 1) (1967)
28m | Drama | TV-14
A drug dealer seduces a high school student into drug addiction.
Director: Mel Marshall
Cast: Kevin Tighe, Gerald Leroy, Julie Conners
Film debut of Kevin Tighe.