TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 17, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month Miriam Hopkins

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, we're getting a selection of films based on Russian literature. Most of it is high drama, but to wrap it up we get Danny Kaye in The Inspector General (1949). Then in prime time, it's week two with star of the month Miriam Hopkins. Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- White Nights (1957)
1h 39m | Romance | TV-PG
An office worker falls for a woman who's pining for the man who deserted her.
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Maria Schell, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean Marais

In order to have misty backgrounds by night but a clear view on actors, director Luchino Visconti and director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno could not use mist filters on camera lenses. Instead they used large rolls of tulle hanging from ceiling to the ground on the sets of Cinecitta studios. Putting street lamps just behind, it worked perfectly for the desired effect.


8:15 AM -- The Great Sinner (1949)
1h 50m | Drama | TV-PG
A young man succumbs to gambling fever.
Director: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Melvyn Douglas

Deborah Kerr was initially scheduled to co-star with Peck. Then Lana Turner was slotted for the role, and then withdrawn from the production due to her extended European honeymoon with Henry J. Tipping. Finally, Ava Gardner was cast.

Based on the 1866 short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.


10:15 AM -- Anna Karenina (1948)
2h 19m | Romance | TV-14
Adaptation of Tolstoy's classic tale of a woman who deserts her family for an illicit lover.
Director: Julien Duvivier
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore

Vivien Leigh's costumes were made in Paris by Barbara Karinska to Cecil Beaton's designs. She was in such pain wearing them that she even went to her doctor fearing she had broken her ribs. It was subsequently discovered that the dresser had been putting the corsets on upside down.

Based on the 1878 novel by Leo Tolstoy.


12:15 PM -- Doctor Zhivago (1965)
3h 17m | Epic | TV-PG
Illicit lovers fight to stay together during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, Terence Marsh and Dario Simoni, Best Costume Design, Color -- Phyllis Dalton, and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Courtenay, Best Director -- David Lean, Best Sound -- A.W. Watkins (M-G-M British SSD) and Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), Best Film Editing -- Norman Savage, and Best Picture

This movie was shot in Spain during the regime of General Francisco Franco. One day, while filming the scene with the crowd chanting the Marxist theme (at 3:00 a.m.), police showed up on set thinking a real revolution was taking place, and insisted on staying until the scene was finished. Apparently, people who lived nearby had awoken to the sound of revolutionary singing, and mistakenly believed that Franco had been overthrown. The secret police surveyed the crowd as the extras sang the Internationale for a protest scene, so many extras pretended they didn't know the words.

Based on the 1957 novel by Boris Pasternak.


3:45 PM -- The Brothers Karamazov (1958)
2h 26m | Drama | TV-PG
Four brothers fight to adjust to the death of their domineering father.
Director: Richard Brooks
Cast: Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, Claire Bloom

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee J. Cobb

1950's blonde bombshell Gloria Pall has a small part in the beginning of the movie playing a peasant girl being held down on the couch as Fyodor Karamazov tickles her feet with a feather. She was cast after an audition that consisted entirely of being tickled on her feet by an assistant. She beat out 11 other actresses who were tested the same way because she was the most ticklish.

Based on the 1880 novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky.


6:15 PM -- The Inspector General (1949)
1h 42m | Musical | TV-G
A perpetual student is mistaken for a government official in a small Eastern European village.
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Danny Kaye, Walter Slezak, Barbara Bates

Near the beginning of the movie Leza (Barbara Bates) is tightening the corset of Maria (Elsa Lanchester). Maria demands that Leza tighten the corset more and Leza explains that it's already tight. After Maria leaves, another character comments that Leza was correct and the corset was too tight: "it makes her eyes bug out." This was an inside joke, since Elsa Lanchester's eyes were somewhat protuberant.

Based on the 1836 play by Nikolay Gogol.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- STAR OF THE MONTH MIRIAM HOPKINS



8:00 PM -- The Old Maid (1939)
1h 35m | Drama | TV-PG
An unmarried mother gives her illegitimate child to her cousin.
Director: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent

On her first day on the set, Hopkins wore an exact duplicate of the dress Davis had worn in Jezebel. Davis reflected on this time with Hopkins in her autobiography with the following observations "Miriam used and, I must give her credit, knew every trick in the book. I became fascinated watching them appear one by one. When she was supposed to be listening to me, her eyes would wander off into some other world in which she was the sweetest of them all. Her restless little spirit was impatiently awaiting her next line, her golden curls quivering with expectancy."


9:45 PM -- Old Acquaintance (1943)
1h 50m | Drama | TV-PG
Two writers, friends since childhood, fight over their books and lives.
Director: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Gig Young

This is the film with the often shown, camp classic scene of Bette Davis calmly grabbing Miriam Hopkins by the shoulders, vigorously shaking her, throwing her down into a chair, and then calmly saying with a clipped, sarcastic edge: "Sorry". Bette Davis later admitted she immensely enjoyed playing that scene.


11:45 PM -- Wise Girl (1937)
1h 10m | Comedy | TV-G
A rich girl plays poor to win over a Greenwich Village artist.
Director: Leigh Jason
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Ray Milland, Walter Abel

The only teaming of Miriam Hopkins and Ray Milland in a feature film.


1:00 AM -- Lady with Red Hair (1940)
1h 21m | Drama | TV-G
An actress hopes to regain her lost son by making it to the top.
Director: Kurt Bernhardt
Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Claude Rains, Richard Ainley

Miriam Hopkins played the lead role in "Becky Sharpe" (1935), in which the real Mrs Leslie Carter had an uncredited role of "Woman."


2:30 AM -- Madame X (1937)
1h 12m | Drama | TV-G
When she kills a blackmailer, a woman is defended by the son she abandoned years earlier.
Director: Sam Wood
Cast: Gladys George, John Beal, Warren William

The play originally opened in Paris, France, on 15 December 1908. An English translation of the play by John Raphael opened in New York City, New York, USA on 2 January 1910 and had 125 performances.


4:00 AM -- Mister Buddwing (1966)
1h 39m | Drama | TV-14
A man suffering from amnesia confronts a series of women in his search for his memory.
Director: Delbert Mann
Cast: James Garner, Jean Simmons, Suzanne Pleshette

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- George W. Davis, Paul Groesse, Henry Grace and Hugh Hunt, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Helen Rose

In his memoirs "The Garner Files" (2011), James Garner rated this as his worst movie. His comment about it: "I'd summarize the plot, but to this day, I have no clue what it is. Worst picture I ever made. What where they thinking? What was I thinking?".