Looking for 31 Days of Oscar? Well since the Oscars are postponed until April so is TCM’s annual festival.
STAR OF THE MONTH: JOHN GARFIELD (TUESDAYS)
Before there was Brando, there was John Garfield, the original Method actor. This is Garfield’s third time as TCM’s Star of the Month and the majority of Garfield’s films will air this month.
John Garfield was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle on March 4, 1913 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to Russian Jewish immigrants. Sometime during his childhood, Garfield contracted scarlet fever which weakened his heart forever (shades of Beth from Little Women). Nicknamed “Julie” Garfield was on his way to taking a wrong path when a teacher encouraged him to memorize speeches and deliver them in class which led to winning a statewide oratory contest. Julie became interested in acting and boxing and later won a scholarship to the Maria Ouspenskya Drama School.
Garfield made his Broadway debut in 1932 and later met the playwright Clifford Odets who invited the actor to join the Group Theater. Odets wrote his play Golden Boy with the intention for Garfield to play the leading role but both were dismayed when Garfield was cast in a supporting role. John Garfield’s dream of starring in Golden Boy wouldn’t come to fruition until the early 1950s.
John Garfield instead signed a contract with Warner Bros. making his film debut in Four Daughters (February 16 @ 12:15AM/11:15PM) as a cynical and depressed composer. Garfield was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The film was such a success that Warner Bros. greenlit a sequel, Four Wives (February 17 @ 2AM/1AM) which included footage of Garfield from the previous film and reunited nearly the entire cast for the similar Daughters Courageous (February 17 @ 3:45AM/2:45AM). Garfield secured top billing for the first time with Blackwell’s Island (February 3 @ 6:15AM/5:15AM) then played an important supporting role in Juarez (February 10 @ 3:30AM/2:30AM). He got to co-star with such heavyweights as Edward G. Robinson in The Sea Wolf (February 9 @ 8PM/7PM), Spencer Tracy in Tortilla Flat (February 17 @ 5:45AM/4:45AM) and Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (February 2 @ 8PM/7PM).
The aforementioned heart issues kept Garfield out of World War II so he fought on the big screen in the Air Force (February 23 @ 12:45AM/11:45PM), under the sea in Destination: Tokyo (February 23 @ 10:15PM/9:15PM) and on the ground in The Fallen Sparrow (February 24 @ 3AM/2AM) and The Pride of the Marines (February 23 @ 8PM/7PM). John Garfield and Bette Davis co-founded the Hollywood Canteen (February 24 @ 10AM/9AM), an integrated club that provided entertainment, food and dancing for servicemen.
After John Garfield’s contract with Warner Bros. ended in 1947, he created his own production company, The Enterprise Studios. Their first film was the boxing drama Body and Soul (February 9 @ 9:45PM/8:45PM). Garfield was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. The company’s next picture was Force of Evil (February 2 @ 10PM/9PM) with Garfield playing a crooked lawyer. John Garfield’s final three films were John Huston’s We Were Strangers (February 9 @ 11:45PM/10:45PM), Michael Curtiz’s The Breaking Point (February 10 @ 1:45AM/12:45AM) and the film noir He Ran All the Way (February 2 @ 11:45PM/10:45PM).
It was during the late 1940s and the early 1950s that John Garfield became a victim of the House on Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The witch hunt led to Garfield getting less and less work and the strain eventually caused a fatal heart attack on May 21, 1952. John Garfield was 39 years old and the public was robbed of future John Garfield performances. A tragic case of what might have been.
TCM SPOTLIGHT: KISS CONNECTION (THURSDAYS)
TCM does a “Six Degress of Separation” connecting stars by their kissing partners. The festival beings and ends with Irene Dunne. So this is how it goes: Irene Dunne kisses Cary Grant in My Favorite Wife (February 4 @ 8PM/7PM) then Cary Grant kisses Audrey Hepburn in Charade (February 4 @ 9:45PM/8:45PM) then Audrey Hepburn kisses Gary Cooper in Love in the Afternoon (February 4 @midnight/11PM) then Gary Cooper kisses Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire (February 5 @ 2:30AM/1:30AM) and so on and so on…Then it closes out with Irene Dunne in Theodora Goes Wild (February 26 @ 8:30AM/7:30AM). Other stars featured include-in order-Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Rock Hudson, Doris Day, James Garner, Kim Novak, Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable (who also has a daytime birthday tribute on February 1), Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, Greta Garbo, and Melvyn Douglas.
TCM SPECIAL THEME: NOTEWORTHY AFRICAN-AMERICAN PERFORMANCES (WEDNESDAYS)
I had a photo of Canada Lee to represent TCM’s celebration of African-American film performances but then Cicely Tyson freakin’ DIED and I felt she should be honored. Ben Mankiewicz and film historian Donald Bogle look at 16 groundbreaking performances starting with a quartet of films starring February birthday boy Sidney Poitier. First is Cry, the Beloved Country (February 3 @ 8PM/7PM), also starring Canada Lee in his final film. The duo play two ministers fighting apartheid in South Africa. Sidney’s other three films include his breakthrough as a troubled teen in Blackboard Jungle (February 3 @ 12:30AM/11:30PM), playing the restless Walter Lee Younger in the film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s ground breaking play A Raisin in the Sun (February 3 @ 10PM/9PM) and bitch-slapping a racist white guy in 1967s Best Picture In the Heat of the Night (February 4 @ 2:30AM/1:30AM). Cicely Tyson gets her due co-starring along with Sammy Davis Jr. in the drama A Man Called Adam (February 11 @ 2AM/1AM) and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (February 10 @ 11:45PM/10:45PM) . Other performers include Rex Ingram in Moonrise (February 10 @ 8PM/7PM), and in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (February 10 @ 10PM/9PM), Juano Hernandez in Stars in My Crown (February 17 @ 8PM/7PM), Brock Peters and making his film debut, Morgan Freeman in The Pawnbroker (February 17 @ 9:45PM/8:45PM), Hattie McDaniel and Ernest Anderson (who should have had a bigger career) in In This Our Life (February 17 @ midnight/11PM), Ron O’Neal is Super Fly (February 18 @ 2AM/1AM), Ruby Dee and Beah Richards in Take a Giant Step (February 24 @ 8PM/7PM), Adolph Caesar, whose career was cut short by his untimely death in A Soldier’s Story (February 24 @ 10PM/9PM), Irene Cara and Lonette McKee in Sparkle (February 24 @ midnight/11PM) and Clarence Muse in Broken Strings (February 25 @ 2AM/1AM).
NOIR ALLEY
Guess what Noiristas? There’s no 31 Days of Oscar this month so here’s February’s lineup
- 1950’s The Killer That Stalked New York (February 6 & 7) starring Evelyn Keyes as a diamond thief/jilted wife and Patient Zero of a smallpox outbreak. Based off a month-long smallpox outbreak in 1947 New York City.
- No noir on Valentine’s Day weekend
- The TCM premiere of 1951’s Sangre Negra aka Native Son (February 20 & 21). Author Richard Wright played his own creation, Bigger Thomas.
- 1959’s Odds Against Tomorrow (February 27 & 28) starring Henry Belafonte, Robert Ryan and Ed Begley, Sr. as three amateur robbers who may make off with $50,000 dollars if they don’t kill each other first.
THE BEST OF THE WORST AKA GOLDEN TURKEYS (FEBRUARY 1)
Join TCM for a night of the best of the worst as determined by Harry and Michael Medved’s 1980 book The Golden Turkey Awards: The Worst Achievements in Hollywood History. There are six films starring some of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest stars including Bela Lugosi, Ida Lupino, John Wayne, Susan Hayward. Elvis, and Paul Newman. So without further ado here is a summary of each “film”:
- Plan 9 From Outer Space (8PM/7PM)-THE WORST FILM OF ALL TIME
Ed Wood’s masterpiece?
- The Swarm (9:30PM/8:30PM)-MOST “BADLY BUMBLED BEE” MOVIE
GIANT KILLER BEES!! This was Fred MacMurray’s final film appearance. He should have done another Disney movie. That would have been a better way to go out. Here is a variety of “highlights.”
- The Conqueror (11:45PM/10:45PM)-WORST CASTING
John Wayne plays Genghis Khan. WTF were they thinking?!!!! Wayne later admitted that he did this film in order to complete his contract with RKO. Oh yeah, it’s the movie that allegedly gave half the cast and crew CANCER!!! This was allegedly due to shooting near a NUCLEAR TESTING SITE!!!
- TCM premiere of Change of Habit ()-WORST PERFORMANCE AS A CLERGYMAN OR NUN
Elvis is a doctor who falls for Mary Tyler Moore unaware that she is a nun. It’s Elvis’s last dramatic film and Moore didn’t appear in another movie until eleven years later; it’s a much better film called Ordinary People.
- The Food of the Gods (3:30AM/2:30AM)-WORST RODENT MOVIE
GIANT KILLER RATS!! AND GIANT KILLER WASPS!! Oh, and giant chickens. The film is loosely based off of a H.G. Wells novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (and I mean loosely!). One of Ida Lupino’s final film roles. Wish she got a better send-out.
- The Silver Chalice (5:15AM/4:15AM)-MOST EMBARRASSING MOVIE DEBUT
No wonder Paul Newman took out an ad begging people not to watch this film. He did that in 1966; if he did it before the movie came out in 1954, we wouldn’t have the privilege of viewing good Newman performances. Well, Jack Palance looks like he’s having fun.
MEL BROOKS & GENE WILDER (FEBRUARY 6)
Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder collaborated on three of the funniest films ever made. TCM airs two of them starting with 1968’s The Producers (8PM/7PM) where Gene is a mild-mannered account who schemes with a Broadway producer to create a major flop in order to make a ton of money. Next is the movie that couldn’t get made today, 1974’s Blazing Saddles (10PM/9PM) where Gene is the Waco Kid who has a bit of a drinking problem.
LANA TURNER CENTENNIAL (FEBRUARY 8)
TCM celebrates the 100th anniversary of Lana Turner’s birth with 24 hours of her films. This ultimate movie star was born on February 8, 1921 in Wallace, Idaho as Julia Jean Turner to miner John Virgil Turner and Mildred Frances Cowan. Judy, as Lana was called in her childhood, was the couple’s only child. The Turners separated in 1930 after relocating to San Francisco. On December 14, 1930, John was found bludgeoned to death after winning some money at a craps game. His murder was never solved. Judy and Mildred moved to Los Angeles in 1936 due to Mildred’s health issues.
In 1937, a chance encounter changed Judy’s life forever. She had skipped class and was drinking a Coca-Cola at a local soda shop when the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter asked Judy if she wanted to be in the movies. Judy replied: “I’ll have to ask my mother first.” Mildred gave her permission and Judy was referred to agent Zeppo Marx, aka “the fourth Marx brother.” Marx introduced Judy to producer/director Mervyn LeRoy who signed the teen to a personal contract. It was LeRoy who suggested the first name Lana, which the actress legally changed her name several years later. Lana’s debut film was a murder victim in Warner Bros. They Won’t Forget. Audiences didn’t forget Lana in her few scenes and she earned the nickname “Sweater Girl” due to wearing a tight sweater in her final scenes. Mervyn LeRoy took a job with MGM in late 1937 and asked to take Lana with him to his new workplace. Jack L. Warner agreed, thinking Lana wouldn’t amount to anything. Lana Turner was put in an Andy Hardy film called Love Finds Andy Hardy and MGM head Louis B. Mayer took notice. She eventually got top billing in Dancing Co-Ed (8AM/7AM) and bandleader Artie Shaw. Their tempestuous marriage lasted four months. Lana scored positive reviews for her role as a self-destructive chorus girl in Ziegfeld Girl (5:30PM/4:30PM). Next she starred with The King, Clark Gable in Honky Tonk (4AM/3AM). Turner’s next project was the noir Johnny Eager (9:30AM/8:30AM) where she shared steamy love scenes (on and off) with co-star Robert Taylor. Lana then married husband number two, actor Stephen Crane, who was not yet fully divorced from his previous wife. The couple remarried in Mexico when Lana was several months pregnant. She made Slightly Dangerous (1:30PM/12:30PM) before daughter was born and her first movie back was Marriage is a Private Affair (midnight/11PM). Not long after Turner split with Crane. She starred in the comedy Keep Your Powder Dry (10:15PM/9:15PM).
In 1946, Lana Turner starred in the film she is best known for, the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (11:30AM/10:30AM) with SOTM John Garfield. More dramatic roles came like A Life of Her Own (3:30PM/2:30PM) and The Bad and the Beautiful (8PM7PM).
There is more about Lana Turner’s life but writing it would take days so here’s the short story: she married five more times, was involved in a major scandal when her boyfriend was accidentally stabbed by her then 14-year-old daughter, received her only Best Actress nomination for Peyton Place, had her biggest hit with 1959’s Imitation of Life and then she died of cancer in 1995.
VALENTINE’S DAY WEEKEND (FEBRUARY 12-14)
Depending on the weather and oh yeah, the freakin’ pandemic, many lovebirds will be staying home on Valentine’s Day weekend since the actual Valentine’s Day falls on a Sunday this year. So TCM has programmed 2.5 days of some of the most romantic movies ever produced. Sit back and watch Bogie and Bergman by the airplane in Casablanca (February 12 @ 8PM/7PM), lonely Ernest Borgnine finding love in Marty (February 12 @ 12:45AM/11:45PM), Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan falling love through their pen pal letters in The Shop Around the Corner (February 13 @ 8AM/7AM), when Tracy met Hepburn in Woman of the Year (February 14 @ 4:15AM/3:15AM), Barbara Stanwyck teasing nerdy Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve (February 14 @ 3:30PM/2:30PM) and Charlie Chaplin lighting up in City Lights (February 14 @ 12:45AM/11:45PM).
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RICHARD BROOKS (FEBRUARY 15)
TCM takes a look at films written and directed by Richard Brooks who started directing in 1950. Tonight’s lineup starts with the pinnacle of Brooks’ career when he adapted and directed Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (8PM/7PM). Brooks won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and directed Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones to Oscar glory in Elmer Gantry (10:30PM/9:30PM). Next Brooks adapted Tennessee Williams Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1:15AM/12:15AM). Finally Brooks directs Peter O’ Toole and James Mason in Lord Jim (3:15AM/2:15AM).
SIDNEY POITIER’S 94TH BIRTHDAY (FEBRUARY 20)
TCM celebrates the 94th birthday of the last living male AFI star with a double feature of his best films. First up is Poitier’s Oscar-winning role in Lilies of the Field (8PM/7PM) and then Sidney co-stars with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (10PM/9PM).
Mariah's Musings 