A HATFUL OF RAIN (1957) SATURDAY @ 10:30 PM (ET)

Some serious drama on TCM tonight. A Hatful of Rain is the first Hollywood movie dealing seriously with drug addiction to be released under the Hollywood production code. Ah! But what about The Man With the Golden Arm, released in 1955, you ask. In fact the earlier film was released without the seal of approval from the Production Code Administration, gatekeepers of America’s chastity. The controversy led to the 1956 revisions to the code, which allowed for the topic, but within tight parameters: can not  “tend in any manner to encourage, stimulate, or justify the use of such drugs.” And tonight’s film certainly does not. It is a hard-hitting look at the black vortex created by an addict, sucking in anyone who cares. Twelve years earlier The Lost Weekend broke new ground with Ray Milland’s drunkard, who totally dominated his brother’s and his girlfriend’s lives, bringing nothing but pain and disappointment.

This time it’s narcotics (the particular drug is not made explicit, but it’s presumed to be heroin.) Tonight’s TCM Star Eva Marie Saint is Celia Pope, the long-suffering wife of Johnny (Don Murray), a Korean War vet whose harrowing war time experiences left him suffering PTSD. His recovery, such as it is, left him addicted to drugs They share an apartment with Johnnie’s brother Polo (best actor

nominee Anthony Franciosa). The film starts with the arrival of their father  “Pop” (Lloyd Nolan) who’s arrived from Florida. Polo has promised Pop $2,500, which he now needs for an investment. But the money is “gone.” Polo is evasive about where it actually went. Pop flies into a rage; apparently it’s a familiar theme: Johnny is the hero, Polo the bum. It quickly becomes clear, to the viewer, if not to Celia and Pop, that it’s gone up Johnny’s arm. In fact, Celia is convinced that another woman is the reason Johnny keeps slipping out at night. Johnny’s growing allegiance to his habit has resulted in what’s called “alienation of affections” in divorce court. Celia begins to think she’s falling in love with Polo.

Complicating matters is “Mother,” (Henry Silva) the less than maternal dope dealer who has come around to collect Johnnie’s outstanding debt. With a deadline looming, Polo is frantic to come up with $500.

This is one those films that can spark a heated debate over whether “it is or is not considered film-noir.” Much of it is shot at night, outdoors on location in some of the shadier parts of the city. The rain-slicked streets reflecting the street lights, the gritty urban landscape and the subject matter definitely, say noir to me. 

A Hatful of Rain was adapted for the screen by Michael V. Gazzo and Alfred Hayes from Gazzo’s original stage play. Michael V. Gazzo is certainly better known to classic film fans as an actor. He portrayed the ill-fated Frank Pentangeli in The Godfather: Part II (1974).

Each Dawn I Die (1939) – Monday Night @ 10:00 PM (ET)

The Frame-up

Each Dawn I Die (1939) is a Warner Bros. prison film starring James Cagney and Star of the Night George Raft. It’s the only time these two ever co-starred, which is too bad, because there’s some real chemistry here. Cagney is Frank Ross, a crusading reporter who gets who gets too close to a scandal, and ends up going to prison on a phony drunk driving/vehicular homicide rap. Raft is Stacey. Just Stacey. He’s the Warner Bos. archetypal gangster-with-a-heart-of-gold. Also in Warner Bros. tradition, they’re both “kids from the slums.” whose lives followed very different arcs. But still end up cellmates.

The film revolves around a group of six or so inmates, with Stacey as the leader. Ross mixes it up with Stacey on the train to Sing Sing, but gains entry into the group by tripping a stoolie who’s trying to stick a shiv into Stacey. There’s a strong bond of friendship and trust among the group, and we never learn what any of them are in for.

In fact, for a group of felons, they’re a right likeable group of guys. (White guys, of course. There’s nary a black face in the joint.) They’re united in part by their hatred for vicious guard Pete Cassock and his slimy stoolies Limpy Julian and Polecat Carlisle–seemingly the only danger they face. Things take a turn when Stacey and Ross hatch a plot: Ross will report to the warden that he saw Stacey commit a murder, making his daring escape rom the courthouse possible. And hopefully Ross will be rewarded with the parole he’s been seeking. But he’s (rightly) suspected of having been complicit and gets tossed in “the hole”- solitary confinement. Meanwhile, Stacey is on the outside having no luck finding the rat that framed Ross. As the plot unfolds, it becomes increasingly improbable, but who cares? This film is driven by the pace and by the acting. Raft’s Stacey is charismatic and ironic. Cagney’s Ross transition from earnestly naive citizen to hardened con is effectively accomplished.

The supporting cast is tops: Jane Bryant as Ross’s long suffering girlfriend, Maxie Rosenbloom, Stanley Ridges and the rest of the inmates, John Wray as the brutal Pete Cassock, George Bancroft as the warden. Joe Downing is especially creepy as Limpy Julian. And if you look quickly, you can spot young John Ridgely, who would become a mainstay at Warner’s in the  40s in films like Air Force and The Big Sleep (he’s a reporter in the courtroom scene).

FAILURE OF INSTITUTONS

Each Dawn I Die is one of those WB social problem films. The depression of the 30s had left a widespread lack of faith in social institutions, and it’s reflected in WB films like  Dead End (1937) Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). It’s an Inverted universe: Frank Ross is framed and convicted by a corrupt district attorney. He’s exonerated by the combined efforts of criminals of honest criminals. The prisoners are a tight-knit group united by trust, the bad guys are the prison guards and their complicit inmates. the Department of “Corrections” takes confused young men and makes them hardened criminals. In 1938’s angels with dirty faces two slum kids break into a boxcar and are chased by the cops. One gets away and one is nabbed. It’s the one who goes to “reform” school that becomes a gangster. The other becomes a priest.

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Princess O’Rourke (1943) – Sunday Morning @ 08:00 AM (ET)

Princess O’Rourke is a modern-day sleeping beauty tale. In this feel-good war-time comedy, the Princess, Maria, (today’s TCM featured star Olivia de Havilland, credited as Olivia DeHavilland) is traveling alone and under the assumed name Mary Williams. To take the edge off her night flight, she inadvertently takes too many sleeping pills, and her Prince Charming, pilot Eddie O’Rourke (Robert Cummings) just can’t rouse her. What else can he and his co-pilot Dave (Jack Carson) do but take her home to Dave’s wife Jean (Jane Wyman). When the princess finally regains some measure of sobriety, this uncaged bird decides to fly for a while. She concocts a cover story of poverty and servitude and temporarily abdicates her throne. And meanwhile she and Eddie are falling in love.

The movie starts with the question “when does he find out who she is?” But her identity is revealed relatively early, and the question then becomes “how can a princess marry a commoner? The big obstacle? The Ambassador, a.k.a. “Uncle” (the dyspeptic Charles

Coburn). Unbeknownst to her, Uncle has done some research. It seems the kingdom is in need of a male heir. And it seems that Eddie is one of nine brothers and that his father one of 11. Suddenly, the idea of strengthening the ties between nations makes a lot of sense. The marriage is condoned, and Eddie begins his training to assume the role of prince consort. Which seems to be another word for stooge. He grows increasingly resentful, but is willing to endure the slights to American Manhood. But when he’s asked to renounce his American citizenship, he finally objects. Uncle informs him that “it’s customary in our family.” Eddie replies that “it’s not  customary my family.” Uncle condescendingly chuckles “heh, heh,  your family.” Eddie erupts into a patriotic speech and is summarily ejected. He tells The Princess she has to choose. She slinks back into captivity. He walks. Of course it can’t end this way. Tune in and find out.

The theme of royalty escaping the gilded cage to observe daily life incognito goes back at least to Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, and was also played out on the screen in the 1953 Gregory Peck/Audrey Hepburn romance Roman Holiday. Of course, one of the dangers of these flights of fancy is the possibility of a romantic encounter with a commoner. The specter of a mixed marriage was a drama that had played out less than ten years earlier in England with the abdication of Edward VIII, who chose true love over the throne of the British Empire in 1936, and was certainly still fresh in the minds of American movie audiences

Norman Krasna won the 1944 Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) for Princess O’Rourke. Krasna, who had been a successful screenwriter and producer, as well a playwright for the Broadway stage since the early thirties,  decided to take the director’s chair for this film-his first of only three such efforts.

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Libeled Lady (1935)-Thursday Evening @ 6:00 PM (ET)

Sitting Pretty (1948)-MONDAY NIGHT @ 02:00 AM (ET)

Fans of the 80s sitcom Mr. Belvedere may be surprised to learn that the role was originated on the screen by Clifton Webb in the 1948 comedy Sitting Pretty. Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara, THE TCM Star of the Day, are Harry and Tacey King, parents of three rowdy children and an enormous great dane. When their nanny abruptly resigns, Tacey puts an ad in the newspaper for a replacement. She hires “Lynn Belvedere” sight-unseen. Imagine her surprise when “she” turns out to be Clifton Webb.

Mr. Belvedere is aloof, condescending and maddeningly self-assured. He’s also quite the renaissance man. He disciplines the children, trains the dog, fixes the refrigerator and instructs would-be sculptor Tacey in the anatomy of the human jaw. And he provides a dash of pepper to what would otherwise be kind of a syrupy concoction. He’s an amusing, sardonic Greek Chorus to the silly domestic drama which is the product of small-town gossip and Harry’s idiot male ego. It all builds to a crazy climax, which I won’t reveal here. Mr. Belevedere adds the needed element of satire to Sitting Pretty.

Sitting Pretty was a perfect template for the family-based television situation comedies of the 1950s. It functions as a 2-hour screen test for Robert Young’s Jim Anderson on the iconic Father Knows Best series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and ran for 5 years until moving to TV in 1954 for another six years. Interestingly, the lead character in Sitting Pretty didn’t emerge as television’s Mr. Belvedere until the mid-80s.

Sitting Pretty earned one Academy Award nomination: Best Actor in a Leading Role for
Clifton Webb.

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 15 @ 6:00 PM (ET)

Executive Suite is a corporate boardroom drama starring William Holden, with an extraordinary ensemble cast. When Avery Bullard, President of the Tredway Corporation, succumbs to a sudden stroke, the various members of the executive board connive and conspire as they attempt to choose a new president.

Don Walling (Holden) is the head of the research division-and as such is a visionary. Initially he has no interest in the presidency; when he decides to pursue it, it’s not as an end in itself, but as a means to realize his vision. He’s opposed by comptroller Loren Shaw (Frederic March, in an unusually unsympathetic role). He’s strictly a bean-counter – laser focused on the bottom line – and dedicated to the dividend. He’s also an amoral schemer. For him, the presidency is an end for which he’s willing to blackmail one philandering board member and exploit the financial desperation of another.

As this drama of individuals plays out, it underscores a debate about corporate philosophy. Walling and Shaw aren’t simply ambitious executives fighting a high-stakes a joust for superiority. They represent opposing views of the responsibilities of the corporation in a burgeoning global economy. Shaw sees the board’s responsibility as solely to the stockholders. The corporate raison d’être is purely the creation of profits. Walling makes an impassioned pitch for his vision of a more socially responsible entity.  He’s dedicated to developing a quality line of  affordable furniture that consumers can enjoy, and workers are proud to produce.

Executive Suite is also about the cost to the individual of success in the corporate world. Bullard drove himself to an early death at 56, leaving behind the Tredway Corporation, and the unrequited love of Julia Tredway (Barbara Stanwyck), heir to the founder. She has spent much of her life in a losing competition with her father’s creation. It’s a cautionary tale for

Don and his wife Mary (June Allyson). who has serious misgivings about his ambitions, and the effect on their family life and Don’s relationship with their son.

The other members of the board include Fred Alderson (Walter Pidgeon), Walt Dudley (Paul Douglas) Jesse Grimm (Dean Jagger) and George Caswell (Louis Calhern). Other notable cast members include Shelley Winters as Eva Bardeman, secretary and mistress to Walt Dudley, Nina Foch as Erica Martin, secretary to Avery Bullard and Tim Considine as Don Walling’s son Mike.

Executive Suite was awarded four Oscar Nominations: Nina Foch for best supporting, George J. Folsey for best black-and-white cinematography, and for best art direction/set decoration, and best costume design, black-and-white.

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 @ 08:00 PM (ET)

TCM’s Summer Under the Stars in August will feature 24 hours of a single artist, and they couldn’t have picked a better lead off. 1941 was  a very good year for Barbara Stanwyck. She starred in four films, giving Oscar-worthy performances in three of them: The Lady Eve, Meet John Doe (which also co-stars Gary Cooper), and tonight’s feature, for which she received the nomination, but lost out to Joan Fontaine in Suspicion.

Ball of Fire is a Howard Hawks screwball comedy from a Billy Wilder-Charles Brackett script. Gary Cooper is professor Bertram Potts, one of eight bachelor-professors sequestered away in a large mansion, laboring to create an encyclopedia. When trash collector Allan Jenkins shows up to ask for help with some quiz show questions, Potts realizes just how the world has passed them by in the nine years they’ve labored in solitude, rendering his piece on American slang hopelessly outdated. He makes the bold decision to venture out into the actual world: riding the subway, going to a pool hall, to a baseball game, to times square, all the time jotting down the lingo he overhears. And naturally, he ends up at a nightclub. There, Potts is dazzled by singer Sugarpuss O’Shea, (Barbara Stanwyck). When he tries to enlist her for a research session, she shows him the egress. But when she’s forced to take it on the lam to avoid the DA’s men she shows up on his doorstep. Seems the DA wants her as a witness against her boyfriend Joe Lilac

(Dana Andrews), and she needs to stay out of sight.She uses her considerable charms, physical and otherwise, to endear herself to the fraternity and resorts to seducing Potts to avoid eviction. Joe then cooks up a scheme to spiri  her away to his hideout. Potts proposes marriage, and the nine of them pile into a jalopy and head for to New Jersey. But as is frequently the case in the movies, love rarely follows a predictable course