TCM Schedule for Friday, April 16, 2021 -- TCM Spotlight: Oscars From A to Z

TCM continues their salute to the Oscars, beginning today with WWI British troops fighting in the desert in The Lost Patrol (1934) and finishing up with Robert Altman's anti-western McCabe & Mrs.Miller (1971). Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- The Lost Patrol (1934)
1h 5m | Drama | TV-PG
A British army troop fights off Arab snipers while holed up in an oasis.
Director: John Ford
Cast: Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Score -- Max Steiner

Hale shows a picture of his baby and says he's two months old. Brown and Morelli both furrow their brows, obviously counting the time they've been in Mesopotamia. By their expressions, they don't think the baby is really Hale's.


8:00 AM -- Love Affair (1939)
1h 27m | Romance | TV-G
Near-tragic misunderstandings threaten a shipboard romance.
Director: Leo McCarey
Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maria Ouspenskaya, Best Writing, Original Story -- Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey, Best Art Direction -- Van Nest Polglase and Alfred Herman, Best Music, Original Song -- Buddy G. DeSylva for the song "Wishing", and Best Picture

In 1957, director Leo McCarey remade the movie as An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne had previously co-starred in The Awful Truth (1937), which was also directed by McCarey.) The movie was remade a second time as Love Affair (1994), starring Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, and Katharine Hepburn, directed by Glenn Gordon Caron.


9:45 AM -- Love Me or Leave Me (1955)
2h 2m | Romance | TV-PG
True story of torch singer Ruth Etting's struggle to escape the gangster who made her a star.
Director: Charles Vidor
Cast: Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Daniel Fuchs

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Cagney, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart, Best Sound, Recording -- Wesley C. Miller (M-G-M), Best Music, Original Song -- Nicholas Brodszky (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "I'll Never Stop Loving You", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Percy Faith and George Stoll

James Cagney had been impressed with Doris Day's vocal talents and dramatic chops when they worked together while both were under contract to Warner Brothers, and often expressed his personal disappointment when he became an Oscar nominee for this film, but the Acadeny overlooked Day. It is generally conceded that this was Day's finest dramatic performance, and among those who agreed was Alfred Hitchcock. Based on this film, Sir Alfred cast Day opposite James Stewart as the female lead in his 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much.


12:00 PM -- Lover Come Back (1961)
1h 47m | Comedy | TV-G
An ad exec in disguise courts his pretty female competitor.
Director: Delbert Mann
Cast: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Shapiro and Paul Henning

Two conventioneers observe Jerry Webster's continuing antics with multiple women. When later they see him return to the hotel wearing only a full-length mink coat one comments: "He's the last one I would have suspected". This echos much of the world's reaction years later when Rock Hudson's homosexuality became more common knowledge.


2:00 PM -- Lust for Life (1956)
2h 2m | Drama | TV-PG
Passionate biography of painter Vincent van Gogh, whose genius drove him mad.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Anthony Quinn

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Kirk Douglas, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Norman Corwin, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, E. Preston Ames, Edwin B. Willis and F. Keogh Gleason

Parts of the film were shot in Auvers-sur-Oise, where Vincent van Gogh lived and died. Kirk Douglas had his hair cut specially in the style of the artist and had it dyed to a similar reddish tint. This was enough to make some of the older inhabitants of the town believe that Van Gogh had returned.


4:15 PM -- The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
1h 28m | Drama | TV-PG
A possessive son's efforts to keep his mother from remarrying threaten to destroy his family.
Director: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Stanley Cortez, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, and Best Picture

The set for the Ambersons' mansion was one of the most elaborate and expensive sets ever built at the time. RKO would utilize the standing set for other films.


6:00 PM -- The Maltese Falcon (1941)
1h 40m | Crime | TV-PG
Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the murderous search for a priceless statue.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sydney Greenstreet, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston, and Best Picture

The trick Sam Spade used to lose the man tailing him, ringing several door buzzers in an attempt to gain entry to a building, was earlier seen in the 1937 Popeye cartoon, Morning Noon and Night Club. In that instance, Bluto's character rings all the doorbells of an apartment building in order to gain entry and deface a billboard next door that featured the dancers Popita and Olivita. But unlike Spade's clandestine transit, Bluto's presence is noticed by all the tenants as he leaves.



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



8:00 PM -- A Man for All Seasons (1966)
2h | Drama | TV-PG
Sir Thomas Moore opposes Henry VIII's divorce, and events lead inexorably to his execution.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Scofield (Paul Scofield was not present at the awards ceremony. His co-star Wendy Hiller accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Director -- Fred Zinnemann, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt, Best Cinematography, Color -- Ted Moore, Best Costume Design, Color -- Elizabeth Haffenden and Joan Bridge, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Shaw, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Wendy Hiller

Sir Thomas More was portrayed as being beheaded over his refusal to sign the Oath of Allegiance proclaiming the King as head of the Church in England because it violated his religious principles. What is not portrayed is that while he was Chancellor of England More had multiple persons with whom he disagreed on religion declared heretics and burned them at the stake.


10:15 PM -- The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
1h 59m | Mystery | TV-PG
International spies kidnap a doctor's son when he stumbles on their assassination plot.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda De Banzie

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the song "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)"

It was during the making of this movie, when she saw how camels, goats and other "animal extras" in a marketplace scene were being treated, that Doris Day began her lifelong commitment to preventing animal abuse. She was so appalled at the conditions the animals were in that she refused to work unless they were properly fed and cared for. The production company actually had to set up "feeding stations" for the various goats, sheep, camels, et cetera, and feed them every day before Day would agree to go back to work.


12:30 AM -- The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
2h 6m | Drama | TV-PG
A Korean War hero doesn't realize he's been programmed to kill by the enemy.
Director: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, and Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

The assassination sequence was filmed first over a period of four days in an empty Madison Square Garden in New York City with Laurence Harvey walking between vast rows of vacant seats and arriving at the booth high up in the arena. The rest of the sequence was filmed in the far smaller Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California with tight shots of crowds at the fictional convention, edited together to give the impression that the original location was now filled with thousands of people.


2:45 AM -- Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
1h 33m | Drama | TV-G
Boyhood friends grow up on opposite sides of the law.
Director: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Arthur Caesar

This was the movie that bank robber John Dillinger had just seen before he was gunned down in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. He had been set up by Anna Sage, the madam of a brothel, who knew Dillinger's girlfriend, Polly Hamilton. Sage was facing deportation and thought the tip might get her off. She told FBI agent Melvin Purvis that she would be wearing orange which appeared red, leading her to be dubbed "The Woman in Red". Dillinger was shot three times when he tried to escape, and Sage wound up being sent back to Romania.


4:20 AM -- McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
2h 1m | Drama | TV-MA
An itinerant gambler and a madame become business partners in this off-beat western.
Director: Robert Altman
Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Julie Christie

For a distinctive look, Robert Altman and Vilmos Zsigmond chose to "flash" (pre-fog) the film negative before its eventual exposure, as well as use a number of filters on the cameras, rather than manipulate the film in post-production; in this way the studio could not force him to change the film's look to something less distinctive. However, this was not done for the final 20 minutes of the picture, as Altman wanted the danger to McCabe to be as realistic as possible. Note the change when McCabe wakes up, grabs a shotgun, and starts off to the church.