TCM Schedule for Friday, April 2, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Oscars from A to Z

TCM continues their salute to the Oscars, beginning today with the all-star extravaganza Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and ending with The Birds (1963). Brrrr! Enjoy!


6:45 AM -- Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
2h 50m | Adventure | TV-G
The fantastic adventures of Englishman Phileas Fogg who, to win a bet, journeyed around the world.
Director: Michael Anderson
Cast: Cantinflas, Finlay Currie, Robert Morley

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- James Poe, John Farrow and S.J. Perelman, Best Cinematography, Color -- Lionel Lindon, Best Film Editing -- Gene Ruggiero and Paul Weatherwax, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Victor Young (Posthumously.), and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Anderson, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- James W. Sullivan, Ken Adam and Ross Dowd, and Best Costume Design, Color -- Miles White

One might be puzzled by Cantinflas' oddly-shaped mustache. It is in the shape of a bull's horns because Cantinflas actually had been a bullfighter. He shot all of his bullfighting scenes without using a double, risking injury or even death, and the production having to be delayed if he were injured, but he insisted on doing the bullfighting.


10:00 AM -- Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987)
1h 44m | Drama | TV-14
A French boarding school harbors Jewish children during the Nazi occupation.
Director: Louis Malle
Cast: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto, Francine Racette

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Louis Malle, and Best Foreign Language Film -- France

The film is based on events in the childhood of the director, Louis Malle, who at age 11 was attending a Roman Catholic boarding school near Fontainebleau. One day, he witnessed a Gestapo raid in which three Jewish students and a Jewish teacher were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. The school's headmaster, Père Jacques, was arrested for harboring them and sent to the concentration camp at Mauthausen. He died shortly after the camp was liberated by the U.S. Army, having refused to leave until the last French prisoner was repatriated. Forty years later Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, granted Père Jacques the title of Righteous Among the Nations.


12:00 PM -- The Awful Truth (1937)
1h 30m | Comedy | TV-PG
A divorced couple experiences a series of adventures, which brings them closer together.
Director: Leo Mccarey
Cast: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy

Winner of an Oscar for Best Director -- Leo McCarey

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Ralph Bellamy, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Viña Delmar, Best Film Editing --
Al Clark, and Best Picture

The first four or five days on the set were deeply upsetting to Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, and Roland Young due to the lack of a script and Leo McCarey's working methods. McCarey had the cast sit around on the set and largely swap stories. The lack of rehearsal activity and script caused Dunne such emotional distress that she spontaneously burst into tears several times each day. Grant was so nervous that at times he became physically ill. When McCarey bowed to the cast's concerns and blocked a scene for Dunne and Grant, Grant refused to perform it. According to Roland Young, after the first five days, the three leads began to believe Leo McCarey was a comedy genius. Cary Grant began trusting the director once he realized that McCarey recognized Grant's strengths and welcomed Grant's ideas about blocking, dialogue, and comic bits.


1:45 PM -- Baby Doll (1956)
1h 54m | Drama | TV-14
A child bride holds her husband at bay while flirting with a sexy Italian farmer.
Director: Elia Kazan
Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach

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

According to Carroll Baker, she and everyone else who had worked on the film had "no idea" that the material would be perceived as controversial. It was believed that the main reasons behind the backlash regarded the seduction scene between Baker and Eli Wallach, in which his character successfully attempts to seduce and arouse her outside the farmhouse. There was also speculation that, during their scene together on a swinging chair, Wallach's character is reaching under Baby Doll's dress, since his hands are not visible in the close up. According to both Baker and Wallach, the scene was intentionally filmed that way because the weather was cold, and Kazan had put heaters all around them.


3:45 PM -- The Band Wagon (1953)
1h 52m | Comedy | TV-G
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star's comeback vehicle into an artsy flop.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Best Costume Design, Color -- Mary Ann Nyberg, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Adolph Deutsch

The characters reflect real life: Fred Astaire had already contemplated retirement, just like Tony. Lily and Lester, played by Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant, respectively, are based on the film's screenwriters, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Jeffrey (Jack Buchanan) is based on José Ferrer, who at the time was producing four Broadway shows and starring in a fifth.


5:45 PM -- Being There (1979)
2h 10m | Comedy | TV-14
Political pundits mistake an illiterate gardener for a media genius and turn him into a national hero.
Director: Hal Ashby
Cast: Peter Sellers, Shirley Maclaine, Melvyn Douglas

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Douglas was not present at the awards ceremony. Co-presenter Liza Minnelli accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter Sellers

Like the anonymity of Chance himself, Peter Sellers, who was British, incorporated an accent that was neither wholly British nor American, creating a distinct alien feel to his character. The same has been said over the years about the so-called "French" accent of his Inspector Clouseau.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAYTIME & PRIMETIME THEME -- OSCARS FROM A TO Z



8:00 PM -- Ben-Hur (1959)
3h 32m | Epic | TV-PG
While seeking revenge, a rebellious Israelite prince crosses paths with Jesus Christ.
Director: William Wyler
Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charlton Heston, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Hugh Griffith (Hugh Griffith was not present at the awards ceremony. Director William Wyler accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Edward C. Carfagno and Hugh Hunt (In case of Horning the Oscar win was posthumously.), Best Costume Design, Color -- Elizabeth Haffenden, Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer SSD), Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters and John D. Dunning, Best Effects, Special Effects -- A. Arnold Gillespie (visual), R.A. MacDonald (visual) and Milo B. Lory (audible), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, and Best Picture

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Karl Tunberg

Roger Ebert wrote, "One of the film's problems was that there was no plausible explanation for the hatred between the characters played by Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd. Vidal's suggestion: They were lovers when they were teenagers, but now Ben-Hur (Heston) denies that time, and Boyd is resentful. Wyler agreed that would provide the motivation for a key scene, but decided to tell only Boyd, not Heston, who "wouldn't be able to handle it." The film shows the scene, which plays with an amusing subtext."


12:00 AM -- The Best Man (1964)
1h 42m | Drama | TV-PG
Two presidential hopefuls get caught up in the dirty side of politics.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee Tracy

United Artists had originally selected Frank Capra to direct, which would have been his first film since Pocketful of Miracles (1961). Gore Vidal, from whose play the motion picture was adapted, was not happy with the selection of Capra, whose idealism and sentimentality Vidal thought were ill-suited to his cynical script. One idea that Capra proposed, for example, was to add a scene in which Henry Fonda's character would dress up as Abe Lincoln for an appearance before the convention delegates (as a nod to Fonda's role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)). Ultimately, Vidal succeeded in convincing United Artists to replace Capra with Franklin J. Schaffner. Although Capra lived another 27 years, dying at 94 in 1991, he never directed another film.


2:00 AM -- The Big Chill (1983)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-MA
Seven friends from college are reunited for a weekend and re-evaluate their lives and goals.
Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Cast: Glenn Close, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Glenn Close, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek, and Best Picture

As he fights off the bat, Harold Cooper (Kevin Kline) hums the theme from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a movie whose screenplay was written by Kasdan. Sam Weber (Tom Berenger)'s appearance, and career as a television actor, resemble Tom Selleck, who had to turn down the role of Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), due to his commitment to Magnum, P.I. (1980). (And a point of personal privilege - my sister went to high school with Lawrence Kasdan. She chatted with him at a reunion and admitted that she doesn't remember him from school.)


4:00 AM -- The Birds (1963)
2h | Horror | TV-14
In a California coastal area, flocks of birds unaccountably make deadly attacks on humans.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Ub Iwerks

In Northern Monterey Bay in Northern California in 1961, the region found itself inundated with crazed birds. They flew into buildings, seemed disoriented, and the ground was littered with their carcasses. Alfred Hitchcock heard of this "attack" when he was developing this movie, and incorporated much of this incident in his film. The same region experienced the same problem in 1991. Turns out that single celled algae will occasionally become toxic. It works its way up the food chain to the fish that the sea birds eat. None of the other animals are bothered by this toxin, but it has a devastating effect on birds. It causes disorientation, seizures and even death. The dead birds in 1961 weren't tested, but a lab had a sample of a small organism that fed on algae from 1961, so that specimen was tested. It was rife with the toxin.