TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 17, 2021 -- TCM Spotlight: Oscars From A to Z

In today's edition of Oscars A to Z, TCM starts us off with the comedy musical Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) and ends with a comic vacation on another continent with Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953). Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956)
1h 52m | Comedy | TV-G
A ballerina becomes a gambler's lucky charm.
Director: Roy Rowland
Cast: Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Agnes Moorehead

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- George Stoll and Johnny Green

During a montage of 1950s Las Vegas Casinos, the following Casinos were advertised as featuring the following performers: Dunes presents Danny Thomas and Robert Merrill; Flamingo presents The Mills Brothers and Archie Robbins; Desert Inn presents Johnny Ray and Jack Durant; Sahara presents Donald O'Connor, Louis Prima and Keely Smith; Thunderbird Hotel present Raymond Chase and Peiro Bros; El Rancho Vegas presents Joe E. Lewis and Lili St. Cyr; and New Frontier presents Marge and Gower Champion.


8:30 AM -- Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
1h 53m | Comedy | TV-G
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family in St. Louis.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor

Winner of a Juvenile Oscar Award for Margaret O'Brien for outstanding child actress of 1944

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- George Stoll, and Best Music, Original Song -- Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin for the song "The Trolley Song"

The film served as an unofficial screen test for Lucille Bremer, a personal and professional protege of producer Arthur Freed. With no prior experience as a singer or actor -- she had been a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall and a chorus girl on Broadway in Cole Porter's "Panama Hattie" -- Bremer did not receive the customary star build-up so prevalent at the time, which would have consisted of lessons, bit parts, supporting roles and a likely name change. Like Mario Lanza after her, Bremer was introduced as a star minus any of the tools needed to maintain her position. She gave credible performances in three other high-profile assignments at MGM, co-starring opposite Fred Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (1944, though not released until 1946) and Yolanda and the Thief (1945) and as the female lead in the Jerome Kern biopic Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), after which Freed apparently soured on her. She would make only one more film at MGM, a non-dancing role in a B-level Dr. Kildare film called Dark Delusion (1947), before gradually retiring from show business in favor of marriage.


10:30 AM -- The Merry Widow (1934)
1h 39m | Romance | TV-PG
A prince from a small kingdom courts a wealthy widow to keep her money in the country.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton

Winner of an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons and Fredric Hope

During a recent showing on TCM, it was stated that Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier did not get along on this film. He called her a "prude" and she called him "a bottom pincher". Their relationship had been deteriorating for some time and this was the last film they appeared in together.


12:15 PM -- Midnight Lace (1960)
1h 48m | Thriller | TV-PG
A young woman can't get anyone to believe she's being stalked.
Director: David Miller
Cast: Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Irene

In her autobiography, Doris Day wrote that to prepare herself for one of the terror scenes, she recalled a time when her first husband, trombonist Al Jorden, dragged her out of bed when she was ill and pregnant and hurled her against a wall. Day related that in the scene she wasn't acting hysterical, she was hysterical, and at the end of the take, she collapsed in a real faint. She was carried to her dressing room, and Producer Ross Hunter shut down production for a few days while she recovered.


2:15 PM -- Mighty Joe Young (1949)
1h 34m | Drama | TV-G
Showmen try to exploit a giant ape raised by an orphan.
Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Cast: Terry Moore, Ben Johnson, Robert Armstrong

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects

Even though the language spoken by the natives at the beginning is generally thought to be Swahili, screenwriter Ruth Rose just made it up. However, the censorship board still required her to produce a translation so they could be assured there was no offensive "language" in the film. She had had to do the same for the native speeches in King Kong (1933) 16 years earlier.


4:00 PM -- Mildred Pierce (1945)
1h 53m | Drama | TV-PG
A woman's ambitions for her daughter drastically impact her life.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford (Joan Crawford was not present at the awards ceremony and feigned ill that night. Meanwhile she listened to the show on the radio. When she won, she ushered the press into her bedroom, where she finally accepted her Oscar.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Eve Arden, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Ann Blyth, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ranald MacDougall, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Picture

Shooting the early scenes, director Michael Curtiz accused Joan Crawford of needlessly glamorizing her working mother role. She insisted she was buying her character's clothes off the rack, but didn't mention that her own dressmaker was fitting the waists and padding out the shoulders.


6:00 PM -- Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)
1h 55m | Drama | TV-G
True story of Annette Kellerman, the world's first great swimming star.
Director: Mervyn Leroy
Cast: Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey

This film is considered the crown jewel of Esther Williams' career largely because, for once, MGM's writers were not called upon to find novel, far-fetched ways to get their star wet. Being the biography of a famous swimming star, the plot allowed Williams to organically spend nearly the entire running time in the water.



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



8:00 PM -- The Miracle Worker (1962)
1h 47m | Drama | TV-PG
True story of the determined teacher who helped Helen Keller overcome deafness and blindness to learn to communicate.
Director: Arthur Penn
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Bancroft (Anne Bancroft was not present at the awards ceremony. Joan Crawford accepted the award on her behalf.), and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Patty Duke

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Arthur Penn, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- William Gibson, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Ruth Morley

Although Patty Duke had been playing Helen Keller in the play for more than a year, she almost didn't get the part in the film adaptation. The studio felt that being a teenager, she looked too old to play a seven-year-old. However, they decided to use Duke after deciding to use Anne Bancroft, who played Duke's original Annie Sullivan in the play.


10:00 PM -- Mister Roberts (1955)
2h 3m | Comedy | TV-PG
A naval officer longing for active duty clashes with his vainglorious captain.
Director: John Ford
Cast: Henry Fonda, James Cagney, William Powell

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jack Lemmon

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- William A. Mueller (Warner Bros.), and Best Picture

Jack Lemmon started a long-time friendship with James Cagney which lasted until Cagney's death in 1986. Prior to his appearance in his first film, years before, he started in live television. In one particular performance, Lemmon decided to play his character differently. He decided to play the character left-handed, which is opposite to his own way of movement. With much practice, he pulled off the performance without anyone noticing the change. This change even fooled Lemmon's wife at the time. A few years went by and Jack met Cagney on their way to Midway Island to film this movie. They introduced themselves, and Cagney chimed in, "Are you still fooling people into believing you're left handed?" They had a great laugh and a strong friendship was born.


12:15 AM -- Mogambo (1953)
1h 55m | Romance | TV-PG
In this remake of Red Dust, an African hunter is torn between a lusty showgirl and a married woman.
Director: John Ford
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ava Gardner, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Grace Kelly

After each day's location shooting, Ava Gardner bathed in a canvas tub set up and filled by the native boy assigned to her. When the British colonial government complained about her appearing naked before the natives while bathing, she laughed, threw off her clothes and paraded naked through the camp.


2:30 AM -- Mona Lisa (1986)
1h 44m | Romance
A man recently released from prison manages to get a job driving a call girl from customer to customer.
Director: Neil Jordan
Cast: Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Bob Hoskins

The meaning and relevance of the title is, according to the synopsis publicity, "a film about a song, about a painting, about a woman; about men, and the images they make of women, the stories they need to tell themselves, to keep them mystic, unfathomable, anything but real."


4:30 AM -- Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953)
1h 31m | Comedy | TV-G
Vacationers in a French resort town almost kill themselves trying to relax.
Director: Jacques Tati
Cast: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Micheline Rolla

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Jacques Tati and Henri Marquet

Jacques Tati recounted later in life that he had been heavily criticized for perceived weak dialogue when this film came out. Tati claimed that his intention was to make the dialogue as realistic as possible (thus, simple or boring) to capture the banality of real vacationers.