TCM Schedule for Friday, December 11, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Films on Film

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, the theme is Marsha Hunt, a very good actress who never seemed to make that break into the top tier of "stars". From IMDB:

One reason she may not have been able to make that jump: She was a very active member of both the Hollywood Democratic Committee and The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and donated her time and money to many liberal causes (such as the creation of the United Nations and the Civil Rights Movement) and political candidates (including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama). By the way, Hunt is still alive at 103!

Then in prime time, we get a bunch of documentaries about the movies, beginning with one about Marsha Hunt herself. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Bride by Mistake (1944)
1h 21m | Comedy | TV-G
An heiress poses as her own secretary to screen out fortune-hunting suitors.
Director: Richard Wallace
Cast: Alan Marshal, Laraine Day, Marsha Hunt

Screenwriters Henry and Phoebe Ephron were the parents of famed writer and filmmaker Nora Ephron.


7:30 AM -- Smash Up--The Story of a Woman (1947)
1h 43m | Drama | TV-PG
A singer's wife turns to the bottle when she fears she's lost her husband to success.
Director: Stuart Heisler
Cast: Susan Hayward, Lee Bowman, Marsha Hunt

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Susan Hayward, and Best Writing, Original Story -- Dorothy Parker and Frank Cavett

According to Marsha Hunt in a November 1989 article for Films in Review, "I had a big fight onscreen with Susan Hayward in a powder room, and we went right at it... no retakes. The bruises were showing. It was a hard movie to make. Miss Susan Hayward never talked to her co-workers when waiting for a take. She took no interest in the rest of us. It was extremely strange -- as if we did not exist."


9:30 AM -- Flight Command (1940)
1h 50m | Romance | TV-PG
A cocky cadet tries to prove himself during flight training.
Director: Frank Borzage
Cast: Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey, Walter Pidgeon

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound)

While Robert Taylor plays a rookie pilot in this film, in real life he was indeed pilot and the only one in the cast. When the U.S. entered WWII he became a Navy pilot, served as a flight instructor, and appeared in instructional films.


11:30 AM -- The Human Comedy (1943)
1h 58m | Comedy | TV-PG
A small-town telegraph boy deals with the strains of growing up during World War II.
Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- William Saroyan

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Mickey Rooney, Best Director -- Clarence Brown, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr., and Best Picture

Tom Spangler (James Craig) drives a 1942 Mercury convertible; Diana Steed (Marsha Hunt) drives a 1942 Lincoln Continental. Both of them were the last models to roll off the assembly line before the World War II shutdown, after which only military vehicles were produced for the next four years.


1:45 PM -- The Valley of Decision (1945)
1h 51m | Romance | TV-PG
An Irish housemaid's romance with the boss's son is complicated by labor disputes in the Pittsburgh mills.
Director: Tay Garnett
Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Herbert Stothart

Feature film debut of Dean Stockwell.


3:45 PM -- Bombers B-52 (1957)
1h 46m | Romance | TV-PG
A hard-nosed Air Force sergeant tries to keep his daughter from dating a hotshot flyer.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Marsha Hunt

This was apparently the first film in which the US Air Force's new B-52 Stratofortress bomber was featured. It appeared in a number of films afterward, notably A Gathering of Eagles (1963), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and By Dawn's Early Light (1990).


5:45 PM -- Pride and Prejudice (1940)
1h 57m | Drama | TV-PG
Jane Austen's comic classic about five sisters out to nab husbands in 19th-century England.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland

Winner
Oscar Best Art Direction, Black-and-White
Cedric Gibbons
Paul Groesse

Marsha Hunt noted that the gowns were difficult to maneuver in the narrow restroom stalls of the studio soundstage during brief bathroom breaks. (As a former Civil War reenactor, I strongly agree. I always tried to find handicapped stalls!)



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FILMS ON FILM



8:00 PM -- Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity (2015)
1h 37m | Biography
After Marsha Hunt's successful acting career was destroyed when she was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, she became an agent of change for good all over the world.
Director: Roger C. Memos
Cast: Harry Belafonte, Walter Bernstein, Steven Carr Reuben

In 1935, 17 year old aspiring actress Marsha Hunt was discovered in Hollywood. She signed with Paramount Pictures and went on to a flourishing career at MGM. She made 54 films in 17 years before a series of unfortunate events led to her being unfairly blacklisted. After the blacklist, she championed humanitarian causes, forging a career as one of Hollywood's first celebrity activists. She was the FIRST Angelina Jolie. As far back as 1955, Eleanor Roosevelt was a mentor of hers as they both worked tirelessly to support the work that the United Nations Association was accomplishing in this country.


10:00 PM -- Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace (2019)
1h 24m | Documentary
The evolution of the movie business over the past century.
Director: April Wright
Cast: Richard L. Fosbrink, Matt Lambros, Leonard Maltin

From penny arcades and nickelodeons, to the grand movie palaces built by the studios, and what happened over the years as they were challenged by television, decaying downtowns, multiplexes and cell-phone cinema.


11:30 PM -- What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (2018)
1h 38m | Biography
The life and work of the controversial film critic.
Director: Rob Garver
Cast: Woody Allen, Lili Anolik, Alec Baldwin

Pauline Kael, the New Yorker film critic for 25 years until the early 1990s, was a lightning rod of American culture. She waged a battle to be recognized and her opinions made her readers hate or love her. Her distinctive voice pioneered the art form, and was largely a result of stubborn determination, huge confidence, and a deep love of the arts. The movie also shows 20th-century movies through Pauline's eye, and shows Pauline's own life through moments of other movies. The filmmakers had complete access to the subject -- through Gina James, Pauline's only child and the executor of her estate; friends and colleagues; and Pauline's personal archives. With over 30 new interviews, including David O. Russell, Quentin Tarantino, Camille Paglia, Molly Haskell, Alec Baldwin, Greil Marcus, Paul Schrader, John Guare and Joe Morgenstern. Sarah Jessica Parker voices Pauline through her writing and letters.


1:15 AM -- For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism (2009)
1h 21m | Documentary
About the rich history of American film criticism, while providing an insider's view of the critics' profession.
Director: Gerald Peary
Cast: Scott Weinberg, Penelope Spheeris, Andrew Sarris

Relied upon by some moviegoers and reviled by others, film critics for over 100 years have represented a form of journalism that sought to find and judge film as an art in a way others might want to heed. This film presents a comprehensive history of this form of writing as it developed with the film medium itself. With historical profiles on major contributors like Pauline Kael along with interview with contemporary figures like Roger Ebert, the nature of the profession is explored both for its illustrious past and its uncertain future.


2:45 AM -- Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971)
1h 31m | Crime
A semi-documentary featuring real addicts re-living their lives on-screen: junkies dealing, shooting up, overdosing, and squealing.
Director: Floyd Mutrux
Cast: Tip, Nancy, Beverly

In July, 1998, Billy Gray settled a libel suit he brought against noted film critic and historian Leonard Maltin, known for his annual guides on available movies and videos. In all guides from 1974 to 1998, Maltin mistakenly listed Mr. Gray as a real-life drug addict and pusher in the critique of this film. Billy appeared in the film only as an actor. Part of the suit brought against Leonard Maltin required that he publicly apologize for the 27-year long defamation of character. He did so, during a press conference, on the morning of July 18, 1998.


4:30 AM -- The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
1h 50m | Romance | TV-MA
A boyfriend from hell, who happens to be a small-time crook, leads his decent girlfriend on the downhill path to heroin.
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint

After the film screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, asked director Jerry Schatzberg if he was into the hard stuff. When Schatzberg told him he wasn't, Richards asked how he could have made a film about it. Schazberg told Richards that he could probably make a film about a woman having a baby, but, he couldn't do that either.