TCM Schedule for Saturday, February 22, 2020 -- 31 Days of Oscar: 360 Degrees of Oscar

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 06:39 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!


6:15 AM -- SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954)
When their older brother marries, six lumberjacks decide it's time to go courting for themselves.
Dir: Stanley Donen
Cast: Howard Keel, Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch and Saul Chaplin

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich and Dorothy Kingsley, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, and Best Picture

For the famous barn raising dance sequence, the cast rehearsed for three weeks in order to get the intricate choreography down. It was during one of these rehearsals that Russ Tamblyn wandered over to the set along with Jeff Richards to see how the scene was coming along. "Michael Kidd called me over and said, 'Rusty, somebody told me that you're a good tumbler, that you can do some flips'," said Tamblyn in a 2004 interview. "So I did a back flip for him. 'Fantastic!' he said. 'We'll put it in a number.' I told him I really wasn't a dancer, except for some tap dancing. But he said, 'Listen, this is just like square dancing. All you have to do is lift your legs high. You can do a lot of acrobatic stuff. It's perfect.' That's how I became a dancer in Seven Brides."


8:00 AM -- WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957)
A British lawyer gets caught up in a couple's tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder.
Dir: Billy Wilder
Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton
BW-116 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Elsa Lanchester, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell, and Best Picture

When Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) meets Mrs. French (Norma Varden) for the second time - in the movie theater - Vole tells Mrs. French that the movie is about Jesse James. Tyrone Power starred as the famous outlaw in Jesse James (1939).


10:00 AM -- THE GREEN YEARS (1946)
An orphaned Irish boy is taken in by his mother's Scottish relations.
Dir: Victor Saville
Cast: Charles Coburn, Tom Drake, Beverly Tyler
BW-125 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Charles Coburn, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- George J. Folsey

Jessica Tandy played Hume Cronyn's daughter in the film, although she was, in reality, two years older than him.


12:15 PM -- THE SOUTHERNER (1945)
A sharecropper fights the elements to start his own farm.
Dir: Jean Renoir
Cast: Zachary Scott, Betty Field, J. Carrol Naish
BW-93 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Jean Renoir, Best Sound, Recording -- Jack Whitney (Sound Services Inc.), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Werner Janssen

Based on the novel "Hold Autumn in your Hand", by George Sessions Perry, which won the first National Book Award in 1941.


2:00 PM -- THREE LITTLE WORDS (1950)
Musical biography of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, who surreptitiously helped each other out of jams.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Fred Astaire, Red Skelton, Vera-Ellen
C-102 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- André Previn

In an interview Arlene Dahl said that her solo "I Love You So Much" was difficult because she had to remember the song lyric while descending a stair case without tripping. She said that Fred Astaire used to stop by rehearsal almost every day and give her tips on how to do it.


4:00 PM -- KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT (1964)
The first female president has to deal with her husband's bruised ego.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen, Arlene Dahl
BW-113 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Howard Shoup

According to early publicity announced prior to JFK assassination, Polly Bergen's wardrobe for the role as first female president of the US was to have been designed by Oleg Cassini, favorite couturier of then-First Lady Jackie Kennedy. For whatever reason, costumes were ultimately designed by Howard Shoup, who received an Oscar nomination for his work.


6:00 PM -- BABY DOLL (1956)
A child bride holds her husband at bay while flirting with a sexy Italian farmer.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach
BW-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Carroll Baker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mildred Dunnock, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Tennessee Williams, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Boris Kaufman

The working titles of this film were "Twenty-Seven Wagon Loads of Cotton" and "Mississippi Woman". In her autobiography, Carroll Baker reports that on her last day of shooting, Elia Kazan offered to change the film's title from "Mississippi Woman" to "Baby Doll", her character's name, as a "present" to her.



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



8:00 PM -- HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962)
Three generations of pioneers take part in the forging of the American West.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Carroll Baker, Lee J. Cobb
C-165 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- James R. Webb, Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (M-G-M SSD), and Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Daniels, Milton R. Krasner, Charles Lang and Joseph LaShelle, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, William Ferrari, Addison Hehr, Henry Grace, Don Greenwood Jr. and Jack Mills, Best Costume Design, Color -- Walter Plunkett, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Alfred Newman and Ken Darby, and Best Picture

Due to the detail that would have been shown via the Cinerama process, the costumes had to be sewn by hand, rather than with a sewing machine, as they would have been during the time periods depicted in the movie.


11:00 PM -- THE GUNFIGHTER (1950)
The fastest gun in the West tries to escape his reputation.
Dir: Henry King
Cast: Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell
BW-85 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- William Bowers and André De Toth

The studio hated Gregory Peck's authentic period mustache. In fact, the head of production at Fox, Spyros P. Skouras, was out of town when production began. By the time he got back, so much of the film had been shot that it was too late to order Peck to shave it off and re-shoot. After the film did not do well at the box office, Skouras ran into Peck and he reportedly said, "That mustache cost us millions".


12:45 AM -- A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (1951)
A fading southern belle tries to build a new life with her sister in New Orleans.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
BW-125 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh (Vivien Leigh was not present at the awards ceremony. Greer Garson accepted on her behalf.), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Karl Malden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Kim Hunter (Kim Hunter was not present at the awards ceremony. Bette Davis accepted on her behalf.), and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Richard Day and George James Hopkins

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Director -- Elia Kazan, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Tennessee Williams, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Lucinda Ballard, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros.), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alex North, and Best Picture

In an interview many years later, Kim Hunter said that Marlon Brando claimed to have sought inspiration for his performance by thinking back to how his father tended to treat one and all at the family home during Brando's childhood.


3:00 AM -- PLANET OF THE APES (1968)
An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species.
Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter
C-112 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Honorary Oscar Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement in the movie.

Nominee for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- Morton Haack, and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Jerry Goldsmith

Three years earlier Charlton Heston starred with Maurice Evans in the medieval film, The War Lord (1965), where he describes his trials in previous battles as: "...sweating in that damned, dirty armor" with the same seething delivery that he does in this film.


5:00 AM -- KIND LADY (1951)
A con artist and his criminal cohorts hold an old lady hostage in her own home.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Ethel Barrymore, Maurice Evans, Angela Lansbury
BW-78 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Walter Plunkett and Gile Steele

Moyna MacGill (Mrs. Harkley) was Dame Angela Lansbury's mother in real-life.





















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




















Tommy Rall
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
Ruta Lee
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Norma Varden
The Green Years (1946)
Norman Lloyd
The Southerner (1945)
Paul Harvey
Three Little Words (1950)
Arlene Dahl
Kisses for My President (1964)
Eli Wallach
Baby Doll (1956)
Carroll Baker
How the West Was Won (1963)
Gregory Peck
The Gunfighter (1950)
Karl Malden
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Kim Hunter
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Maurice Evans
Kind Lady (1951)
Keenan Wynn