TCM Schedule for Friday, February 28, 2020 -- 31 Days of Oscar: 360 Degrees of Oscar

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 06:38 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 and have a happy Valentine's day!


6:00 AM -- THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (1936)
Lavish biography of Flo Ziegfeld, the producer who became Broadway's biggest starmaker.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Luise Rainer
C-176 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Luise Rainer, Best Dance Direction -- Seymour Felix for "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody", and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Robert Z. Leonard, Best Writing, Original Story -- William Anthony McGuire, Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons, Eddie Imazu and Edwin B. Willis, and Best Film Editing -- William S. Gray

Eugen Sandow is portrayed as a typically "dumb strongman". In real life, however, Sandow was highly intelligent and a superb businessman. Because he was among the first men to display his muscular body as a "work of art", he was considered to be "The Father of Bodybuilding", and this is what his gravestone reads today. Among his friends were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas A. Edison (who filmed him at the Black Maria Studios) and even King Edward VII. Sandow's career became bigger than ever after his association with Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. He became very wealthy and famous because of his mail-order businesses, gyms, souvenir photographs, books and personal appearances. There is a mountain in Alaska, a railroad and a small town in Texas (near Austin) named after him. Unfortunately, the town no longer exists per the Texas Historical Society--the Alcoa Aluminum factory near Rockdale is named after the town, as it sits where the town once was.


9:00 AM -- MRS. MINIVER (1942)
A British family struggles to survive the first days of World War II.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright
BW-134 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Teresa Wright, Best Director -- William Wyler (William Wyler was not present at the awards ceremony because he was overseas shooting for the Army Air Force. His wife Margaret Tallichet on his behalf.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West and Arthur Wimperis, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Walter Pidgeon, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Henry Travers, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- May Whitty, Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD), Best Film Editing -- Harold F. Kress, and Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (photographic), Warren Newcombe (photographic) and Douglas Shearer (sound)

The Vicar's final rousing speech was printed in magazines like "Time" and "Look". President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that it be broadcast on the Voice of America, and copies of it were dropped over Europe as propaganda. This speech has come to be known as The Wilcoxon Speech, in tribute to actor Henry Wilcoxon's stirring delivery of it.


11:18 AM -- STORY OF A DOG (1945)
In this short film, dogs train for the battle field and become a crucial part of the army. Vitaphone Release 1402A.
BW-10 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-reel -- Gordon Hollingshead

In the version presently shown on TCM, this short is not identified on-screen as part of any particular series. However, in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's (AMPAS) on-line database, as well as its set of looseleaf pages listing all nominees and winners, and in "Box Office" magazine, this short is identified as an entry in Warner Bros.' "Vitaphone Varieties" series.


11:30 AM -- THE ACTRESS (1953)
True story of Ruth Gordon's early struggles on the road to stage stardom.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Jean Simmons, Teresa Wright
BW-91 mins, CC,

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

On a January 1, 1980 Dick Cavett interview, Anthony Perkins revealed that he had played this role in summer stock in Delaware. He got himself to Hollywood and tried to get a screen test for the role, on the basis that he had played it. The studio rejected him, but he used to hang around, and when they needed someone to feed lines to an actress they were testing, they tapped him. George Cukor, who was filming the tests, asked Perkins, who was facing away from the camera, to move to the side, so the camera had an unimpeded view of the actress being tested. Perkins pretended not to understand and swung his head around, so the camera would capture his face full on, and when the producers were watching the tests later, they decided against hiring the actress, but gave Perkins the role he had played in stock.


1:15 PM -- THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (1972)
A self-appointed judge cleans up a corrupt western town twice.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Paul Newman, Roy Jenson, Gary Combs
C-123 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Maurice Jarre (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman for the song "Marmalade, Molasses & Honey"

John Milius wrote the screenplay with Lee Marvin in mind as Judge Roy Bean. He brought the script to Marvin when he was filming Pocket Money (1972), but Marvin fell asleep after one drink too many. His co-star Paul Newman found the screenplay, read it, loved it and petitioned for the part.


3:30 PM -- CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958)
A dying plantation owner tries to help his alcoholic son solve his problems.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives
C-108 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Newman, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor, Best Director -- Richard Brooks, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Richard Brooks and James Poe, Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Daniels, and Best Picture

This movie was originally to be filmed in black-and-white, as was the standard practice with "artistic" movies in the 1950s. (Virtually all movie adaptations of the plays of Tennessee Williams had been in black-and-white up to that time.) However, once Paul Newman and Dame Elizabeth Taylor were cast in the leads, Writer and Director Richard Brooks insisted on shooting in color, in deference to the public's well-known enthusiasm for Taylor's violet and Newman's strikingly blue eyes.


5:22 PM -- GOING TO BLAZES! (1947)
This short film emphasizes fire safety and fire prevention.
Dir: Gunther von Fritsch
BW-21 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel -- Herbert Morgan

The fire station in the film is the old Los Angeles Fire Department No. 27, which has since been converted to the department's museum and memorial.


5:45 PM -- EAST OF EDEN (1955)
Two brothers compete for their father's approval and a woman's love.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey
C-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jo Van Fleet

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Dean (This was the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.), Best Director -- Elia Kazan, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Paul Osborn

Elia Kazan later called Julie Harris "one of the most beautiful people I've known in my life" and credited her with getting James Dean through the picture. Kazan appreciated her voice, her lack of pretension, her intensity, and what he saw as the perfect combination of purity and sexual awareness the role demanded.



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



8:00 PM -- REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955)
An alienated teenager tries to handle life's troubles and an apron-wearing dad.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sal Mineo, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Natalie Wood, and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Nicholas Ray

All three lead actors--James Dean, Sal Mineo--and Natalie Wood, died prematurely under tragic circumstances; Dean died in an automobile accident in September 1955, Mineo was stabbed to death on February 12, 1976, and Wood drowned in the late autumn of 1981. In addition, Edward Platt died by suicide in 1974 and Dennis Hopper fell ill suddenly in the fall of 2009 and died five months later.


10:00 PM -- SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS (1961)
Sexual repression drives a small-town Kansas girl mad during the roaring twenties.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle
C-124 mins, CC,

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

The film's title comes from the poem, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth:
"Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
we will grieve not,
rather find strength in what remains behind."


12:15 AM -- SHAMPOO (1975)
A hairdresser expresses his fear of commitment by seducing his female clients.
Dir: Hal Ashby
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Lee Grant
C-110 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lee Grant

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Warden, Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Robert Towne and Warren Beatty, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Richard Sylbert, W. Stewart Campbell and George Gaines

Carrie Fisher said she was cast in the role mainly through family connections. She said when Warren Beatty ran lines with her, he did it whilst eating. She said the whole thing for her was a lark. She also admitted years later in an article she wrote for Rolling Stone magazine that star Beatty unsuccessfully propositioned her.


2:15 AM -- BEST FRIENDS (1982)
Longtime roommates and professional partners find they aren't prepared to make it legal.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Burt Reynolds, Goldie Hawn, Jessica Tandy
C-109 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Michel Legrand (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) for the song "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?"

Burt Reynolds once said of his co-star Goldie Hawn in this movie: "Goldie Hawn and I had been talking for five years about doing a movie together. She's someone who makes me laugh. Really laugh. I knew her when she was a dumb blonde and even then she was one of the smartest people I knew" and "We'd meet for dinner and compare notes on the scripts we'd read and liked, but we always ran up against the same problem. The male role always dominated the female character or vice versa. They didn't seem to be writing the kind of give-and-take comedies that Tracy and Hepburn or Cary Grant and Jean Arthur used to do."


4:15 AM -- THE SEVENTH CROSS (1944)
Seven men escape from a concentration camp and fight their way to freedom.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Signe Hasso, Hume Cronyn
BW-112 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Hume Cronyn

There was no concentration camp at Westhofen at the time this film depicts, but there was one in the nearby town of Osthofen that was in existence from 1933 to 1934 when concentrations camps in Germany were reorganized and transferred from SA to SS control. The site in Ostofen is now a museum.






















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



















Herman Bing
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
Reginald Owen
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Teresa Wright
The Actress (1953)
Anthony Perkins
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)
Paul Newman
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Burl Ives
East of Eden (1955)
James Dean
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Natalie Wood
Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Warren Beatty
Shampoo (1975)
Goldie Hawn
Best Friends (1982)
Jessica Tandy
The Seventh Cross (1944)
Herbert Rudley