TCM Schedule for Friday, December 16, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: Starring Anton Walbrook

[Staph]

In the daylight hours today, TCM's theme is Dead and Loving It. Not the 1995 Dracula film starring Leslie Nielsen, but a selection of films about those who've returned from the dead for a variety of reasons.

Then in prime time, we get a trio of films starring Anton Walbrook. Who is Anton Walbrook? Here's his IMDB mini-bio:

This dark, debonair, dashing and extremely distinguished Austrian actor was christened Adolf Wohlbrück in Vienna, the scion of a family of circus clowns. He broke away easily from generations of tradition as the circus life had no appeal whatsoever to Walbrook.

Trained by the legendary director Max Reinhardt, Walbrook's reputation grew on both the Austrian and German stages. In between he managed a couple of undistinguished roles in silent films. Billed as Adolf Wohlbrück, the youthfully handsome actor graced a number of romantic films come the advent of sound beginning in 1931. Among them Waltz War (1933) and the gender-bending comedy Victor and Victoria (1933), which later served as the inspiration and basis for Blake Edwards' own Victor/Victoria (1982) starring wife Julie Andrews. Hollywood beckoned in the late 30s for Walbrook to re-shoot dialog for an upcoming international picture The Soldier and the Lady (1937) again playing Michael Strogoff, a role he had played impeccably in both previous French and German adaptations. With the rise of oppression in Nazi Germany he moved to Great Britain and took his trademark mustache and dark, handsome features to English language films where he went on to appear to great effect.

Portraying a host of imperious kings, bon vivants and and foreign dignitaries over the course of his career, he played everything from composer Johann Strauss to the Bavarian King Ludwig I. With a tendency for grand, intense, over-the-top acting, he was nevertheless quite impressive in a number of portrayals. Such included the sympathetic German officer in the landmark Powell and Pressburger satire The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and gentle pacifist in another of their collaborations 49th Parallel (1941); as Prince Albert in the black-and-white glossy costumer Victoria the Great (1937) immediately followed by its color remake Queen of Destiny (1938) both opposite Anna Neagle's Queen Victoria; and, most notably, as the obsessively demanding impresario opposite ballerina Moira Shearer in the romantic melodrama The Red Shoes (1948). His stiff and stern military officers were just as notable which included sterling work in The Queen of Spades (1949) and last-speaking English film I Accuse! (1958).

He retired from films at the end of the 1950s, and in later years returned to the European stage and included television roles to his resume. He died in Germany in 1967 of a heart attack.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Topper (1937)
1h 37m | Comedy | TV-G
A fun-loving couple returns from the dead to help a henpecked husband.
Director: Norman Z. Mcleod
Cast: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Roland Young, and Best Sound, Recording -- Elmer Raguse (Hal Roach SSD)

The easiest part of the shoot for Cary Grant and Constance Bennett was the many special effects scenes, which only required them to record their lines while special effects artists made the various items they moved, from fountain pens to a pair of frilly lace panties, appear to move on their own.


7:45 AM -- Blithe Spirit (1945)
1h 36m | Comedy | TV-G
A man and his second wife are haunted by the ghost of his first wife.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Tom Howard (visual)

Writer and director Sir David Lean and cinematographer Ronald Neame decided not to use double exposure to create Elvira's ghostly appearances. Instead, Lean created an enormous set that allowed Kay Hammond to move freely in each shot. Hammond wore fluorescent green clothes, make-up, and a wig, with bright red lipstick and fingernail polish. Each time she moved, a special light would be directed on her, allowing her figure to glow even in dimly-lit scenes and giving her an otherworldly appearance.


9:30 AM -- Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
1h 33m | Comedy | TV-G
A prizefighter who died before his time is reincarnated as a tycoon with a murderous wife.
Director: Alexander Hall
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Harry Segall, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Montgomery, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- James Gleason, Best Director -- Alexander Hall, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Walker, and Best Picture

Final film for Classic Films Group Patron Saint Robert Montgomery before he enlisted in the U.S. Navy where he served four years rising to the rank of Commander. (Unfinished Business (1941) was filmed before this picture, but released after.)




11:15 AM -- The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
1h 30m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A small town noble uses zombies to work his tin mine and kill his enemies.
Director: John Gilling
Cast: Andre Morell, Diane Clare, Brook Williams

Filmed back-to-back with "The Reptile (1966)," using many of the same sets, most noticeably the main village set on the back lot at Bray Studios.


1:00 PM -- Frankenstein--1970 (1958)
1h 22m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Needing money, the last of the Frankensteins leases his castle out to a film company as he tries to complete his ancestor's gruesome experiments at creating life.
Director: Howard W. Koch
Cast: Boris Karloff, Tom Duggin, Jana Lund

This film was originally going to be entitled "Frankenstein 1960", but it did not sound futuristic enough. It was also thought to be too far-fetched that an independent researcher could obtain his own atomic reactor in 1960.


2:30 PM -- Isle of the Dead (1945)
1h 12m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
The inhabitants of a Balkans island under quarantine fear that one of their number is a vampire.
Director: Mark Robson
Cast: Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer

Rose Hobart was cast in the film, but Boris Karloff became ill and the production had to be shut down until he recovered. By the time he returned, she was already working on another film and was replaced. However, Hobart said in a 1984 interview that she can still recognize herself in long shots.


3:45 PM -- The Body Snatcher (1945)
1h 17m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
To continue his medical experiments, a doctor must buy corpses from a grave robber.
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell

This film featured the 8th and last on-screen teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Filming took place October 25-November 17 1944, delaying the completion of Karloff's Isle of the Dead (1945).


5:15 PM -- Frankenstein (1931)
1h 11m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A crazed scientist creates a living being from body parts, not realizing it has a madman's brain.
Director: James Whale
Cast: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff

While preparing to film the scene where the monster attacks Elizabeth, Mae Clarke admitted to Boris Karloff that she was worried that when she saw him in full makeup coming towards her, she might really be frightened. Karloff told her that throughout the scene he would wiggle his pinkie finger out of sight of the camera so that, despite the horrific makeup, she could always see her friend Boris waving at her and letting her know that she was safe.


6:30 PM -- Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
1h 15m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Dr. Frankenstein creates a female mate for his monster.
Director: James Whale
Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Gilbert Kurland (sound director)

Marilyn Harris, who played Maria, the girl The Monster accidentally kills in the original Frankenstein (1931), appears uncredited as another young girl. She is the leader of the group of young schoolgirls who encounter the Monster as he runs away from the blind man's burning house. Director James Whale deliberately gave her a one-word line (Look!), so she would be paid more by the studio as an actor with a speaking role, instead of as an extra.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- STARRING ANTON WALBROOK



8:00 PM -- The Red Shoes (1948)
2h 14m | Romance | TV-G
Tale of a famous ballerina who must choose between art and love.
Director: Michael Powell
Cast: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer

Winner of Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Hein Heckroth and Arthur Lawson, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Brian Easdale

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Emeric Pressburger, Best Film Editing -- Reginald Mills, and Best Picture

Anton Walbrook's character of Lermontov was generally thought to be based on ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the man behind Vaslav Nijinsky. In 1913, after learning that Nijinsky had married his prima ballerina, Romola de Pulszky, Diaghilev fired them both from the Ballet Russes. In the film, Lermontov's constant firing of dancers who fall in love is a parallel of this. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, however, were more inclined to say that Lermentov was a representation of their first main mentor, Alexander Korda.


10:30 PM -- Gaslight (1940)
1h 24m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A turn-of-the-century bride moves into the house where her aunt was murdered and begins to fear she's going mad.
Director: Thorold Dickinson
Cast: Anton Walbrook, Diana Wynyard, Frank Pettingell

When MGM remade the film with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, the studio attempted to have all prints of this earlier version destroyed. Fortunately, several prints escaped the fire (in fact, it is believed that director Thorold Dickinson surreptitiously struck a print himself before the negative was lost).


12:15 AM -- La Ronde (1950)
1h 32m | Comedy | TV-14
A series of inter-related affairs link lovers from all levels of society.
Director: Max Ophüls
Cast: Anton Walbrook, Danielle Darrieux, Simone Signoret

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Jacques Natanson and Max Ophüls, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Jean d'Eaubonne

Max Ophüls and his co-scenarist, Jacques Natanson, added one more character to the ten in Arthur Schnitzler's play--an unnamed, godlike figure, played by Anton Walbrook.


2:00 AM -- Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)
1h 19m | Horror | TV-MA
An orphan raised by nuns grows up to be a killer toy-store Santa Claus.
Director: Charles E Sellier
Cast: Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer Mccormick, Toni Nero

In an interview from the documentary Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006), Lilyan Chauvin (Mother Superior) admitted it was a mistake to center the film's publicity campaign on Santa Claus, and believed it would have generated far less controversy if the studio instead focused on Billy's psychological plight. Also, in a story by People Magazine from November, 1984, Robert Brian Wilson (Billy age 18) said he felt so ashamed by the controversy, he told his friends and family to avoid seeing the film. However, Wilson reversed his stance, years later, after attending a 30th anniversary screening and meeting with fans. Wilson has since made appearances at horror conventions and given interviews on his work the film.


3:45 AM -- The Oracle (1987)
1h 34m | Horror
A spirit reaches out from beyond the grave in an attempt to contact a young woman to help it avenge its murder.
Director: Roberta Findlay
Cast: Roger Neil, Chris Maria Dekoron, Stacey Graves

Parker Brothers wouldn't let the filmmakers use their Ouija board in the movie, so director Roberta Findlay had to come up with the stone spirit hand instead.


5:30 AM -- MGM Parade Show #1 (1955)
25m | Documentary | TV-G
Judy Garland sings "You Made Me Love You" in a clip from "Broadway Melody of 1938"; Cyd Ch...