TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 22, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Oscar From A to Z

It's the start of the fourth week of 31 Days of Oscar. Today's schedule begins with a somewhat offbeat Pride and Prejudice (1940) set in the 1830s rather than the usual 1790s or 1810s, and finishes with the epic Quo Vadis (1951), based on the novel of the same name by Henryk Sienkiewicz. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Pride and Prejudice (1940)
1h 57m | Drama | TV-PG
Jane Austen's comic classic about five sisters out to nab husbands in 19th-century England.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland

Winner of an Oscar for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons and Paul Groesse

Although Jane Austen's novel was set in Regency England (late eighteenth to early nineteenth century), the period was set at a later time. This anachronism has been explained in a couple of ways. Those more favorably disposed to the studio system claim the styles of the Regency Period (when women's dresses resembled nightgowns) were thought too plain for public taste, so new gowns were created in the voluminous Victorian style of the 1830s to give it a more romantic flair. Others have pointed out that because MGM wasn't willing to put a huge budget behind the risky venture, costumes left over from Gone with the Wind (1939) were altered slightly and placed on background players to save money. New gowns in the same flouncy style were designed for the female leads.


8:15 AM -- Pride of the Marines (1945)
1h 59m | Drama | TV-G
A blinded Marine tries to adjust to civilian life.
Director: Delmer Daves
Cast: John Garfield, Eleanor Parker, Dane Clark

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Albert Maltz

On the train to Philadelphia, Al (John Garfield) talks to Lee (Dane Clark) about the difficulty he anticipates in getting a job for a blind man. Lee responds that because he, Lee, is Jewish, he has trouble finding a job as well and then waxes philosophic about a day when people aren't discriminated against for any reason. Both Garfield (born Jacob Julius Garfinkel) and Clark (born Bernard Elliot Zanville) were New York-born sons of Russian Jewish immigrants.


10:30 AM -- Primrose Path (1940)
1h 33m | Comedy | TV-PG
The youngest child in a family of prostitutes tries to go straight with a working man.
Director: Gregory La Cava
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Marjorie Rambeau

The movie missed out on well-deserved Oscar nominations because of its risqué material, such as the clear themes of alcoholism and prostitution. It ran into trouble with the Hollywood censor boards in many scenes, which is why Ginger Rogers did not receive an Oscar nomination (which she should have done in many people's opinion). Nonetheless, Rogers did win the Oscar that year for a different film, Kitty Foyle (1940).


12:15 PM -- Princess O'Rourke (1943)
1h 34m | Comedy | TV-G
A flying ace's romance with a princess creates diplomatic problems.
Director: Norman Krasna
Cast: Olivia De Havilland, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Norman Krasna

The White House set used in the final scenes of the movie is the same set used in the final scenes of 1942's Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), including the long, wide staircase which George M. Cohan ( James Cagney ) tap-danced down after receiving his Congressional Gold Medal from President Roosevelt.


2:00 PM -- The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)
1h 41m | Drama | TV-PG
An Englishman who resembles the king of a small European nation gets mixed up in palace intrigue.
Director: John Cromwell
Cast: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, C. Aubrey Smith

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction -- Lyle R. Wheeler, and Best Music, Score -- Alfred Newman

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. initially wanted the double role of Rudolf Rassendyll and the Prisoner of Zenda for himself and actually tested for it. He was devastated when it was awarded to Ronald Colman. Instead he was offered the part of "Rupert of Hentzau" and, according to David O. Selznick, "Nobody else stood a chance!" His father, Douglas Fairbanks convinced his son that it was a blessing in disguise, as it was the best part in the piece, and advised him on billing and costume.


4:00 PM -- The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)
1h 33m | Drama | TV-PG
The famed English monarch suffers through five of his six disastrous marriages.
Director: Alexander Korda
Cast: Charles Laughton, Merle Oberon, Wendy Barrie

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton (Charles Laughton was not present at the awards ceremony. Fellow nominee Leslie Howard accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture

Had the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories been established by 1933, it is all but assured that Elsa Lanchester would have copped the award for her riotous, eccentric portrayal of Anne of Cleves. But the supporting Oscars were not initiated until 1936.


6:00 PM -- The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
1h 46m | Romance | TV-G
Elizabeth I's love for the Earl of Essex threatens to destroy her kingdom.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Sol Polito and W. Howard Greene, Best Art Direction -- Anton Grot, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Effects, Special Effects -- Byron Haskin (photographic) and Nathan Levinson (sound), and Best Music, Scoring -- Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Charles Laughton, whom Bette Davis greatly admired, visited her on the set. Seeing him she greeted him with, "Hi, Pop!" referencing his Oscar-winning portrayal Elizabeth's father Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933). While talking together in a corner of the set, the thirty-one year old actress confessed to him that she felt she had bitten off more than she could chew in playing an older Elizabeth. According to the Davis biography 'Fasten Your Seat Belts', he replied, "Never stop daring to hang yourself, Bette!"



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



8:00 PM -- The Producers (1967)
1h 28m | Comedy | TV-14
A Broadway producer decides to get rich by creating the biggest flop of his career.
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Mel Brooks

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Wilder

Roger Ebert recounted how he was in an elevator with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft in New York City after the film premiered. A woman got onto the elevator, recognized him and said, "I have to tell you, Mr. Brooks, that your movie is vulgar." Brooks replied, "Lady", he said, "it rose below vulgarity."


9:45 PM -- Psycho (1960)
1h 49m | Horror | TV-PG
A woman on the run gets mixed up with a repressed young man and his violent mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Janet Leigh, Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John L. Russell, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Joseph Hurley, Robert Clatworthy and George Milo

According to Stephen Rebello, the Hays Office censors requested changes to the shower scene. Some believed they had caught a brief glimpse of one of Janet Leigh's breasts. (Rebello confirms that "there are definitely a couple of frames showing a bare breast and nipple." ) Sir Alfred Hitchcock waited several days and sent the movie back unedited. This time, it passed the censors' inspection.


11:45 PM -- The Public Enemy (1931)
1h 14m | Drama | TV-PG
An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime.
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- John Bright and Kubec Glasmon

Several versions exist of the origin of the notorious grapefruit scene, but the most plausible is the one on which both James Cagney and Mae Clarke agree: The scene, they explained, was actually staged as a practical joke at the expense of the film crew, just to see their stunned reactions. There was never any intention of ever using the shot in the completed film. Director William A. Wellman, however, eventually decided to keep the shot, and use it in the film's final release print.


1:30 AM -- The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
1h 58m | Drama | TV-PG
A woman drifts through multiple marriages in search of stability.
Director: Jack Clayton
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Peter Finch, James Mason

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Bancroft

This movie never explains its title, which refers to a traditional children's rhyme: "Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater/Had a wife, but couldn't keep her;/So he put her in a shell/And there he kept her very well." This serves as the epigraph of Penelope Mortimer's original novel.


3:30 AM -- Pygmalion (1938)
1h 34m | Comedy | TV-G
A linguistics professor bets he can turn a flower girl into a lady by teaching her to speak like a lady.
Director: Anthony Asquith
Cast: Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Wilfrid Lawson

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay -- George Bernard Shaw, Ian Dalrymple, Cecil Lewis and W.P. Lipscomb (George Bernard Shaw was not present at the ceremony. When presenter Lloyd C. Douglas announced that Pygmalion has won the Oscar he joked "Mr. Shaw's story now is as original as it was three thousand years ago". Shaw's reaction to the award was not enthusiastic, as he is quoted as saying "It's an insult for them to offer me any honour, as if they had never heard of me before - and it's very likely they never have. They might as well send some honour to George for being King of England". Although popular legend says Shaw never received the Oscar, when Mary Pickford visited him she reported that it was on his mantle. When Shaw died in 1950 his home at Ayot St Lawrence became a museum. By this time his Oscar statuette was so tarnished, the curator believed it had no value and used it as a door stop. It has since been repaired and is now on displayed at the museum.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Leslie Howard, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Wendy Hiller, and Best Picture

The scene in which Eliza accidentally swallows a marble while having an elocution lesson does not appear in the original play. During rehearsals for this scene, a pained expression came over Wendy Hiller's face. When she spat out the marbles she had in her mouth she said, "Leslie, I've swallowed one!", to which Leslie Howard replied: "Never mind there are plenty more." This caused such amusement among the watching crew that it was added to the movie, and to its musical version, "My Fair Lady."


5:15 AM -- Quo Vadis (1951)
2h 51m | Drama | TV-PG
A Roman commander falls for a Christian slave girl as Nero intensifies persecution of the new religion.
Director: Mervyn Leroy
Cast: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Leo Genn, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Peter Ustinov, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Surtees and William V. Skall, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Cedric Gibbons, Edward C. Carfagno and Hugh Hunt, Best Costume Design, Color -- Herschel McCoy, Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, and Best Picture

During the parade, a slave holds a golden crown of olive leaves above Marcus Vinicius' (Robert Taylor's) head and reminds him that he is only a man. This is an accurate portrayal of what was done during such triumphal marches. This scene was parodied in Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part I (1981), in which Court Spokesman - The Roman Empire (Howard Morris) said, "Remember, thou art mortal" into the ear of Marcus Vindictus (Shecky Greene), to which Vindictus replied, "Blow it out your ass." Marcus Vindictus' name was a direct parody of Marcus Vinicius' name.