TCM Schedule for Saturday, February 15, 2020 -- 31 Days of Oscar: 360 Degrees of Oscar

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 06:41 PM - Edit history (1)

More of 31 Days of Oscar, with the actors or actresses that connect the films added after a break at the end, in case you want to guess. Enjoy!


7:45 AM -- CHEYENNE AUTUMN (1964)
A reluctant Calvary Captain must track a defiant tribe of migrating Cheyennes.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden
C-155 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Clothier

John Ford would not allow Sal Mineo to speak any English dialog in the movie due to the actor's Bronx accent.


10:20 AM -- GIANT (1956)
A Texas ranching family fights to survive changing times.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean
BW-201 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Director -- George Stevens

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Dean (This was James Dean's second consecutive posthumous nomination.), Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rock Hudson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mercedes McCambridge, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Boris Leven and Ralph S. Hurst, Best Costume Design, Color -- Moss Mabry and Marjorie Best, Best Film Editing -- William Hornbeck, Philip W. Anderson and Fred Bohanan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin, and Best Picture

During this production shoot James Dean appeared in an informal black & white TV commercial in which he responded to questions posed by actor Gig Young. Ironically, Dean was promoting safe driving and informed viewers, "People say racing is dangerous, but I'd rather take my chances on the track any day than on the highway." Before he left the studio he added one piece of advice: "Drive safely, because the life you save may be mine." Dean was wearing the very hat and clothing he wore for this movie throughout the commercial. He died a few weeks later in a car crash.


1:45 PM -- THE V.I.P.S (1963)
Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials.
Dir: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

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.)

Based on a true story, the movie was a thinly disguised account of Screenwriter Terence Rattigan's real-life friend Vivien Leigh and her attempt to leave her husband Sir Laurence Olivier for Australian actor Peter Finch. Leigh and Finch made it to London's Heathrow Airport, but their plane was delayed by incoming fog, giving Olivier time to confront the two and bring Leigh home. She abandoned the plan after several hours of fog delay.


4:00 PM -- THE THIRD MAN (1949)
A man's investigation of a friend's death uncovers corruption in post-World War II Vienna.
Dir: Carol Reed
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles
BW-105 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Krasker

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Carol Reed, and Best Film Editing -- Oswald Hafenrichter

When the film was initially distributed in America, David O. Selznick replaced the narration at the beginning (a necessity to explain the very unusual status of Vienna in the aftermath of World War II, when the film was set), originally done by Carol Reed himself, with a narration read by Joseph Cotten, in character as Holly Martins. Nearly eleven minutes of film was cut out in Selznick's version, including all references in the original cut to Cotten's Holly Martins being an implied alcoholic and anything else that portrayed him as a less than heroic figure.


6:00 PM -- GASLIGHT (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

Ingrid Bergman found the beginning love scene with Charles Boyer so uncomfortable, because the two had just met prior to filming the scene, that she refused to do any other such love scene with someone she had just met for the rest of her career. When a similar situation arose with Anthony Perkins while she was filming Goodbye Again (1961), she asked Perkins to kiss her privately in her dressing room to prepare for the scene, so she would not be embarrassed and flustered while kissing him on screen.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: 360 DEGREES OF OSCAR



8:00 PM -- CASABLANCA (1942)
An American saloon owner in North Africa is drawn into World War II when his lost love turns up.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid
BW-103 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Arthur Edeson, Best Film Editing -- Owen Marks, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

Humphrey Bogart's wife Mayo Methot continually accused him of having an affair with Ingrid Bergman, often confronting him in his dressing room before a shot. Bogart would come onto the set in a rage. In fact, despite the undeniable on-screen chemistry between Bogart and Bergman, they hardly spoke, and the only time they bonded was when the two had lunch with Geraldine Fitzgerald. According to Fitzgerald, "The whole subject at lunch was how they could get out of that movie. They thought the dialogue was ridiculous and the situations were unbelievable . . . I knew Bogart very well, and I think he wanted to join forces with Bergman, to make sure they both said the same things." For whatever reasons, Bogart and Bergman rarely spoke after that.


10:00 PM -- KEY LARGO (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
BW-100 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

Fourth and final film pairing of Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall. A fifth film was planned several years later, but Bogart died before it could be made.


12:00 AM -- WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1957)
A young woman marries into a corrupt oil family then falls for her husband's best friend.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Dorothy Malone

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Stack, and Best Music, Original Song -- Victor Young (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Written on the Wind" (Victor Young's nomination was posthumous.)

All the cast members had compliments for Rock Hudson. He made a particular impression on Robert Stack, who definitely had the flashier part, while, as Hudson himself noted about his own role, "as usual, I am so pure I am impossible." Hudson, of course, was the star, and one of the top actors at the studio, while Stack was a lesser name on loan to Universal for the picture. "Almost any other actor I know in the business...would have gone up to the head of the studio and said, 'Hey, look, man, I'm the star - you cut this guy down or something,'" Stack said. "But he never did. I never forgot that."


2:00 AM -- ICE STATION ZEBRA (1968)
A sub commander on a perilous mission must ferret out a Soviet agent on his ship.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, Patrick McGoohan
C-149 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Daniel L. Fapp, and Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Hal Millar and J. McMillan Johnson

Patrick McGoohan was in the midst of filming his iconic TV series The Prisoner (1967) at the time he appeared in this movie. In order to allow him to take time off from his TV series, the episode The Prisoner (1967) was inserted. It's a hastily re-written Secret Agent (1964) episode, in which McGoohan's character, Number Six, has his mind transferred into the body of another man. Another episode, The Prisoner: The Girl Who Was Death (1968) was also an altered episode of Secret Agent (Danger Man), which enabled Pat to finish up on Zebra', as Nº. 6 wore a Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat, mustache and pipe, so his double Frank Maher could film most of the scenes.


4:45 AM -- BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)
A one-armed veteran uncovers small-town secrets when he tries to visit an Asian-American war hero's family.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis
C-81 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Director -- John Sturges, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

According to one biographer of Spencer Tracy, the script did not originally call for the lead character to be a one-armed man. The producers were keen to get Tracy but didn't think he'd be interested, so they gave the character this disability with the idea that no actor can resist playing a character with a physical impairment.




















Don't scroll any farther if you don't want to know who the connecting actors and actresses are!




















Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
Sal Mineo
Giant (1956)
Rod Taylor
The V.I.P.s (1963)
Orson Welles
The Third Man (1949)
Joseph Cotten
Gaslight (1944)
Ingrid Bergman
Casablanca (1942)
Humphrey Bogart
Key Largo (1948)
Lauren Bacall
Written on the Wind (1957)
Rock Hudson
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Ernest Borgnine
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Spencer Tracy
A Guy Named Joe (1944)