TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 5, 2021 -- Summer Under the Stars: Margaret Rutherford

[Staph]

It's that wonderful time of the year again - TCM's Summer Under the Stars. As their tagline says, "A different star every day, all month". And TCM has done a good job of mixing big names and character actors and folks I've never heard of but would like to know more about (Setsuko Hara, anyone?).

Today's star definitely fits in the character actor category -- Margaret Rutherford. From her mini-bio on IMDB:

Rare is the reference to Margaret Rutherford that doesn't characterize her as either jut-chinned, eccentric, or both. The combination of those most mundane of attributes has led some to suggest that she was made for the role of Agatha Christie's indomitable sleuth, Jane Marple, whom Rutherford portrayed in four films between 1961 and 1964 plus in an uncredited film cameo in The Alphabet Murders (1965). Rutherford began her acting career first as a student at London's Old Vic, debuting on stage in 1925. In 1933, she first appeared in the West End at the not-so-tender age of 41. She had made her screen debut in 1936 portraying Miss Butterby in the Twickenham-Wardour production of Hideout in the Alps (1936).

In summer 1941, Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit opened on the London stage, with Coward himself directing. Appearing as Madame Arcati, the genuine psychic, was Rutherford, in a role in which Coward had earlier envisaged her and which he then especially shaped for her. She would carry her portrayal of Madame Arcati to the screen adaptation, David Lean's Blithe Spirit (1945). Not only would this become one of Rutherford's most memorable screen performances - with her bicycling about the Kentish countryside, cape fluttering behind her - but it would establish the model for portraying that pseudo-soothsayer forever thereafter. Despite Rutherford's appearances in more than 40 films, it is as Madame Arcati and Miss Jane Marple that she will best be remembered.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Yellow Canary (1943)
1h 24m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A socialite poses as a Nazi spy to mask her activities as a British agent.
Director: Herbert Wilcox
Cast: Anna Neagle, Richard Greene, Nova Pilbeam

"Put her into Brixton jail with all the other 18Bs", says an annoyed lady diner on seeing Sally (Anna Neagle). This references Regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939, which allowed for those suspected of being Nazi sympathizers to be interned; some indeed being housed in H.M.P. Brixton.


7:30 AM -- Demi-Paradise (1943)
1h 55m | Comedy | TV-PG
A Russian inventor tries to cope with British life while helping the country prepare for war.
Director: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Penelope Dudley Ward, Margaret Rutherford

Also known as Adventure for Two.


9:30 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)

As with most of Noël Coward's work, this movie is renowned for its dialogue. During an argument with Ruth (Constance Cummings), Charles (Sir Rex Harrison) declares, "If you're trying to compile an inventory of my sex life, I feel it only fair to warn you that you've omitted several episodes. I shall consult my diary and give you a complete list after lunch." The line, considered extremely risqué by censors, was deleted from the U.S. release.


11:15 AM -- The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952)
1h 35m | Comedy | TV-G
A proper Englishman gets caught leading a double life.
Director: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Edith Evans, Michael Redgrave, Richard Wattis

Edith Evans (Lady Bracknell) had problems adjusting to movie acting, particularly when it came to hitting her marks on the floor. She finally told writer and director Anthony Asquith, "I always feel the camera should come to me instead of me go to the camera."


1:00 PM -- Chimes at Midnight (1967)
1h 55m | Comedy | TV-PG
Prince Hal becomes King Henry V and rejects his old friend Falstaff.
Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford

Despite portraying Falstaff as a grossly obese man, Orson Welles actually had to diet to slim down for the role.


3:00 PM -- The V.I.P.s (1963)
1h 59m | Drama | TV-PG
A group of elite British citizens leaving the country find themselves stranded at London Airport.
Director: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Margaret Rutherford (Margaret Rutherford was not present at the awards ceremony.Peter Ustinov accepted the award on her behalf.)

The hotel waiter (played by Rutherford's real-life husband, Stringer Davis) offers the Duchess a stay-awake tablet called a No-Dorm, but the tin he takes it out of is an Altoids tin. This isn't necessarily an error, as he could well have taken several from a larger container and put it in the tin to carry around for guests.


5:00 PM -- The Runaway Bus (1954)
1h 18m | Comedy | TV-G
A London motor coach gets lost in the fog with a cache of stolen gold aboard.
Director: Val Guest
Cast: Frankie Howerd, Margaret Rutherford, Petula Clark

At the time, for a U.K. cinema release to be classed as a main feature, it had to be at least one hour and fifteen minutes long. On the last day of filming, with only thirty minutes of studio time left, the crew realized that they only had enough footage and script to stretch to one hour and twelve minutes. This would have meant that this movie could only be used as a supporting feature, which would have meant a financial disaster for the backers. Frankie Howerd spotted a phone box prop and, with the clock counting down, improvised, on the spot, a three-minute scene of him calling his old grandmother. With no time for a run-through, the entire sequence was used unedited in the final movie.


6:30 PM -- The Mouse on the Moon (1963)
1h 25m | Comedy | TV-G
A small European nation launches a space program using the local wine as rocket fuel.
Director: Richard Lester
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Bernard Cribbins

In Margaret Rutherford's first scene, she appears on horseback, in military garb and wearing several medals. Close inspection shows that the medals are actually U.S. half-dollar coins, including a Ben Franklin (minted from 1948 through 1963, which was the year the movie was released), a Walking-Liberty (minted from 1916 through 1947), as well as two older half-dollars. Furthermore, the orientation of Franklin's face shows that the shot is actually inverted horizontally: Franklin's profile faces left, while on the actual coins, he faces right.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS -- MARGARET RUTHERFORD



8:00 PM -- Murder She Said (1961)
1h 26m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
When nobody will believe she witnessed a murder, elderly sleuth Miss Marple takes a job as a maid to ferret out clues.
Director: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Arthur Kennedy, Muriel Pavlow

The name of the manor house where Miss Jane Marple conducts her inquiries was called Rutherford Hall in Dame Agatha Christie's novel. This was changed to Ackenthorpe in this movie to avoid comparison with the surname of Dame Margaret Rutherford (Miss Jane Marple).


9:45 PM -- Murder at the Gallop (1963)
1h 21m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple suspects foul play when an old friend is supposedly scared to death by a cat.
Director: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Robert Morley, Flora Robson

Like Murder Most Foul (1964), this movie was adapted from an Hercule Poirot novel, not a Miss Jane Marple novel.


11:15 PM -- Murder Most Foul (1964)
1h 30m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple joins a small-town theatre to investigate a murder.
Director: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Charles Tingwell

Miss Jane Marple's audition piece for the Cosgood Players is her dramatic rendering of "The Shooting of Dan McGrew", a 1907 poem by Robert W. Service. Dame Margaret Rutherford was especially fond of the piece and reportedly once intended to give a reading of it at a women's prison to cheer up the inmates.


1:00 AM -- Murder Ahoy (1964)
1h 33m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple takes to the seas to investigate murder on a naval training ship.
Director: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Lionel Jeffries, Charles Tingwell

At the age of 72, Dame Margaret Rutherford undertook a month of fencing practice for this movie's denouement.


2:45 AM -- Just My Luck (1957)
1h 26m | Comedy | TV-G
A jeweler's assistant tries to pick a series of winning horses so he can afford to improve his love life.
Director: John Paddy Carstairs
Cast: Norman Wisdom, Margaret Rutherford, Stringer Davis

Based on an anecdote from Peter Cusick.


4:30 AM -- English Without Tears (1944)
1h 27m | Romance | TV-G
A butler sets out to prove himself and win the love of the family's daughter.
Director: Harold French
Cast: Michael Wilding, Margaret Rutherford, Penelope Dudley-Ward

This is the only movie for Primula Rollo (A Second A.T.). She was married to David Niven and had two children. She died aged twenty-eight after falling during a game of Hide-and-Seek at Tyrone Power's house. Mistaking a cellar entrance for a closet. David was heartbroken for many years to come.

[CBHagman]

1. Wow. I had never heard about Primula Rollo Niven.

I'll admit I know relatively little about David Niven other than the names of his memoirs and the fact that he died of ALS, but what a tragedy for him and for his young children.

This is one of the online accounts of his marriage to Primula Rollo and the incident at Tyrone Power's house.

https://zestyz.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/the-unusual-and-tragic-death-of-primmie-niven/