TCM Schedule for Friday, January 8, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: What a Character: Pat Hingle

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has a birthday tribute to Elvis Aron Presley, born January 8, 1935. Then in prime time, we get a salute to character actor, Pat Hingle. From the TCM website:

A sturdily built performer with a large square head and a rustic voice, Pat Hingle has been a solid character player on stage, screen and TV for over four decades. He began acting as a student at the University of Texas and made the move to NYC in the late 1940s. There, Hingle studied at the American Theater Wing and became a protege of director Elia Kazan at the Actor's Studio. He was soon working regularly on the NY stage, where he would appear in four Pulitzer Prize-winning plays ("Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" 1955, "J.B." 1958, "Strange Interlude" 1963 and "That Championship Season" 1973). Hingle performed initially on TV in an adaptation of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1950) for CBS' "Suspense," and his feature acting debut came in a small part as a bartender in Kazan's "On the Waterfront" (1954). He shone in a breakthrough supporting role in Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass" (1961), as the brusque father of Warren Beatty, but the greatest part of his career would have been the one that got away. Offered the title role in "Elmer Gantry" (1960), Hingle nearly died from a fall down an elevator shaft, preventing him from playing the role that would win Burt Lancaster a Best Actor Oscar.

Hingle spent much of his film and TV career playing ambiguous fathers, sympathetic community leaders, veteran cops, crafty judges and other law enforcement personnel. Younger audiences may know him best as Police Commissioner Gordon in the feature "Batman" series, but some may recognize him as the conflicted police chief father of a catatonic rapist in Clint Eastwood's "Sudden Impact" (1983) or as mob boss Bobo Justice, who comes west to teach a painful lesson to Anjelica Huston about skimming mob money at the track, in "The Grifters" (1990). Equally comfortable in the Old West, he unjustly sentenced Eastwood to death in Ted Post's "Hang 'Em High" (1968), strode the prairie in such oaters as "Nevada Smith" (1966) and "Invitation to a Gunfighter" (1964) and even lent some iconic authority to his small role as a bartender in Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" (1995). In addition to his feature work, Hingle worked frequently on TV and in regional theater during the 90s, most notably as Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," before returning to Broadway as Benjamin Franklin in the revival of "1776" (1997).

Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Double Trouble (1967)
1h 30m | Musical | TV-PG
A teen heiress falls for an American rock singer in London.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Elvis Presley, Annette Day, John Williams

Elvis Presley later said about the film: "I wasn't exactly a James Bond in this movie. But then, no one ever asked Sean Connery to sing a song while dodging bullets".


8:00 AM -- Stay Away, Joe (1968)
1h 41m | Musical | TV-PG
A young Indian tries to save his failing reservation by selling grazing rights to a corrupt tycoon.
Director: Peter Tewksbury
Cast: Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith, Joan Blondell

During the fight scene at the party, Elvis Presley goes outside to tell the band to play something slow. He and his friend Charlie Hodge, who has a bit role in the film as a guitar player in the band, start cracking up during Elvis' line. Charlie later said the reason for the laughter was that it was cold outside and Elvis' nose was running.


9:45 AM -- Charro! (1969)
1h 38m | Western | TV-PG
A reformed outlaw takes on his former cohorts to defend a Western town.
Director: Charles Marquis Warren
Cast: Elvis Presley, Ina Balin, Victor French

This is the only movie in which Elvis Presley doesn't sing. The only song is the one during the titles. This is the only movie in which Elvis Presley wears a beard.


11:30 AM -- The Trouble with Girls (1969)
1h 44m | Comedy | TV-PG
A traveling show's star gets involved in a small-town murder case.
Director: Peter Tewksbury
Cast: Elvis Presley, Marlyn Mason, Nicole Jaffe

Publicity stills for the movie featured Elvis and Marilyn Mason posing with guns a la Bonnie and Clyde in front of cars. Including 1960s Cadillacs. Despite the fact that neither use guns in the movie and that it's set in 1927.


1:15 PM -- Girl Happy (1965)
1h 36m | Musical | TV-PG
A rock singer is hired to chaperone a gangster's daughter in Fort Lauderdale.
Director: Boris Sagal
Cast: Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, Harold J. Stone

For reasons unknown, several of Elvis Presley's songs are slightly sped up, making his voice sound higher than usual. This is most noticeable on the title track. This error appears to have originated in the recording studio, as the RCA soundtrack album retains the sped up versions of the songs. A recording of "Girl Happy", mastered at the proper speed, would not be released until the 1990s. The explanation came afterwards that it was intentional and that it was supposed to give the title track an upbeat feeling that it lacked apparently in the original version. It has to be reminded that this soundtrack was recorded at the height of Beatlemania in June 1964 and that the record company tried to give some "extra-youth" to Elvis by speeding up the tape. Also, 1964 is the first year Elvis did not reach the TOP 10 with any of the six singles he released that year.


3:00 PM -- Jailhouse Rock (1957)
1h 36m | Musical | TV-G
After learning to play the guitar in prison, a young man becomes a rock 'n' roll sensation..
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Elvis Presley, Judy Tyler, Mickey Shaughnessy

Elvis Presley refused to watch this movie because of Judy Tyler's tragic accidental death in a car wreck on July 3, 1957, three days after filming was completed.


4:45 PM -- Viva Las Vegas (1964)
1h 26m | Musical | TV-14
A race-car driver falls for a pretty swimming instructor who wants him to slow down his career.
Director: George Sidney
Cast: Elvis Presley, Cesare Danova, William Demarest

In the wake of this film's success, both Elvis and Ann-Margaret would regularly appear as headliners in various Las Vegas venues, and were always among the biggest draws whenever they performed there.


6:15 PM -- Spinout (1966)
1h 35m | Musical | TV-PG
A singing race-car driver has to choose among three amorous females.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Elvis Presley, Shelley Fabares, Diane McBain

Riffing on the similarity of every Elvis movie to every other Elvis movie, a studio executive once quipped: "Why do we bother to give his movies titles - couldn't they just be numbered?"



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- WHAT A CHARACTER PAT HINGLE



8:00 PM -- Hang 'Em High (1968)
1h 54m | Western | TV-14
A cowboy drifter survives a hanging by a band of thugs and then swears vengeance.
Director: Ted Post
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley

First of three theatrical movies that Pat Hingle made with Clint Eastwood. The others being The Gauntlet (1977) and Sudden Impact (1983). Each movie was made in a different decade, one in the 60s, one in the 70s and one in the 80s. The pair also collaborated on the television episode, Rawhide (1959) season seven, episode fourteen, "The Book". This movie and Sudden Impact (1983) featured Eastwood as a tough guy lawman who borderlines on vigilantism and Hingle as his superior who has a heavy disdain for the way he does things.


10:15 PM -- The Strange One (1957)
1h 40m | Drama | TV-PG
A military school student develops a destructive power over his fellow cadets.
Director: Jack Garfein
Cast: Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Mark Richman

Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (as Mark Richman), Arthur Storch, and Paul E. Richards played the same roles on stage. The play "End of a Man" opened on Broadway in October 1953 and ran for 105 performances.


12:15 AM -- Splendor in the Grass (1961)
2h 4m | Drama | TV-14
Sexual repression drives a small-town Kansas girl mad during the roaring twenties.
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- William Inge

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Natalie Wood

Right before shooting was set to begin, Pat Hingle suffered devastating injuries when he accidentally fell 54 feet down an elevator shaft in his apartment building. It would take Hingle over a year to fully recover from the accident. In the meantime, however, he decided to go ahead and do the film - he would simply incorporate his limp into the character. "I broke everything," Hingle said later. "I landed upright, so I broke hips and knees and ankles and ribs, and that sort of thing. That lurching walk that Ace Stamper has - that was as good as I could walk."


2:30 AM -- Games (1967)
1h 40m | Drama | TV-14
Manhattan socialites with an interest in kinky "mind games" get more than expected when an amateur medium comes into their lives.
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Simone Signoret, James Caan, Katharine Ross

According to Writer and Director Curtis Harrington, the credited Set Decorator, provided by the studio, proved unusable, so he was given a paid vacation during the production. Costume Designer Morton Haack did the set decoration, but because this was against union rules, he was not credited for his work.


4:15 AM -- Fragment of Seeking (1946)
14 m | Drama
A man seeks to find himself by exploring his sexuality.
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Curtis Harrington


4:35 AM -- Picnic (1949)
22m | Drama
Beginning in the reality of American middle-class life, this film portrays the idealistic dream-quest of the protagonist, from which he is finally cast back, no longer living, into that same reality.
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Isabel Harrington, Raymond S. Harrington

Shot in the summer of 1948, it was not scored and fully edited until summer-fall of 1949.


4:55 AM -- On the Edge (1949)
6m | Drama
A woman sits knitting on the porch of her home when a man appears and takes the knitting from her.
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Isabel Harrington, Raymond S Harrington

Writer-director Curtis Harrington specifically edited the film to play with the classical composition "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" by Charles Ives.


5:15 AM -- Assignation (1953)
8m | Drama
Follows a masked figure through the labyrinthine canals of the city, building to a spectacular climax.
Director: Curtis Harrington

Long considered lost, THE ASSIGNATION was Curtis Harrington's first color film. It was shot in Venice, Italy.


5:35 AM -- Wormwood Star (1956)
10m | Documentary
A short film about the actress and artist Cameron (who used just her surname).
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Marjorie Cameron

The film features paintings by Marjorie Cameron that were later ritually destroyed by her. This film is the only record of some of them.


5:55 AM -- Usher (2000)
40m | Adaptation
Truman Jones, a novice writer, comes into the home of an aging poet, Roderick Usher, and his cataleptic sister, Madeline.
Director: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Curtis Harrington, Sean M Nepita, Fabrice Uzan

Curtis Harrington planned to adapt Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Man in the Crowd" as a short film and pair it with "Usher" for a home video release called "Two by Poe." Harrington's script for "The Man in the Crowd" also incorporated element of Poe's stories "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" and "William Wilson," but he never got the opportunity to produce it.