TCM Schedule for Friday, June 12, 2020 -- TCM Special Theme: Cinematic Pride: LGBTQ Critics' Choice

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In the daylight hours, TCM is showing films about women fighting for themselves, for others and for love. Then in prime time, TCM celebrates Pride Month with two days of specially chosen films. Take it away, Roger!

LGBTQ themes have been present in films since the early days of cinema, and this month TCM invites two special guest critics to discuss a series of films with these themes that have been meaningful in their personal journeys.

Alonso Duralde is co-host of the Linoleum Knife, Who Shot Ya?, and Breakfast All Day podcasts. Duralde is the author of two books, Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books), and is married to his Linoleum Knife co-host, film critic Dave White.

B. Ruby Rich is a film scholar and critic, the editor in chief of Film Quarterly, and a professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz. Among her many contributions to the world of film criticism, she is known for coining the term "New Queer Cinema."

Below are the movies that will be discussed by Duralde:

Our Betters (1933) is a sparkling pre-Code comedy/satire based on the play by W. Somerset Maugham, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Cukor. Constance Bennett stars as an American heiress who marries an English nobleman (Alan Mowbray) and becomes involved in scandalous goings-on among the British aristocracy. The cast also includes Gilbert Roland, Anita Louise and Charles Starrett.

Victim (1961), set in London during a time when anti-sodomy laws were still enforced in England, stars Dirk Bogarde as a married barrister who is secretly gay and risks his reputation by taking on a group of blackmailers who prey on homosexuals. Basil Dearden directs a cast that includes Sylvia Syms as the barrister's wife.

Word Is Out (1977), subtitled Stories of Some of Our Lives, is a documentary in which more than two dozen people talk about their lives and experiences as gay men and lesbians. The film is a collaboration among the Mariposa Film Group: Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Andrew Brown, Rob Epstein, Lucy Massie Phenix and Veronica Selver.

. . . .

By Roger Fristoe

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- NO MORE LADIES (1935)
A society girl tries to reform her playboy husband by making him jealous.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Charles Ruggles
BW-81 mins, CC,

Joan Crawford loaned her make-up man, hairdresser and an Adrian gown to Gail Patrick for her screen test. When Patrick got the role and tried to thank Crawford, she wouldn't hear of it, saying only, "People helped me when I started out."


7:30 AM -- STEPPING OUT (1931)
After catching their husbands with other women, two wives go on a girls-only vacation.
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
Cast: Charlotte Greenwood, Leila Hyams, Reginald Denny
BW-73 mins, CC,

According to MGM publicity releases for this film, Buster Keaton's Beverly Hills estate was used for exterior shots, as was a ranch owned by Reginald Denny, and John Gilbert's cactus garden.


9:00 AM -- KANSAS CITY PRINCESS (1934)
A pair of con women masquerade as girl scouts to escape to New York.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Robert Armstrong
BW-64 mins, CC,

The film was completed three months before its release, but Warner Bros. decided to delay the release of the film until after the birth of Joan Blondell's child. So that Blondell would not be off the screen for too long a period.


10:15 AM -- THREE ON A MATCH (1932)
A woman's childhood friends try to rescue her from gangsters.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Virginia Davis, Joan Blondell, Dawn O'Day
BW-63 mins, CC,

The title refers to the superstition that if three people light their cigarettes with the same match, the third person will soon die. While some attribute the superstition to World War I, where it was sometimes thought that lighting a match long enough to light three cigarettes would attract enemy gunfire, it is now known that a match company "created" the superstition to cut down on sharing of matches and thus increase sales.


11:30 AM -- WHEN LADIES MEET (1933)
A female novelist doesn't realize her new friend is the wife whose husband she's trying to steal.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy
BW-85 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Cedric Gibbons

Remade in 1941 with Joan Crawford as Mary (played here by Myrna Loy), Greer Garson as Claire (Ann Harding), and Robert Taylor as Jimmy (Robert Montgomery). Interestingly, Spring Byington, who created the role of Bridget Drake (Alice Brady) in the original Broadway production, did not appear in this initial film version but went on to reclaim the role in 1941, by which time she had arrived in Hollywood.


1:00 PM -- POLITICS (1931)
Two women take on small-town racketeers.
Dir: Charles F. Riesner
Cast: Marie Dressler, Polly Moran, Rosco Ates
BW-73 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Zelda Sears and Malcolm Stuart Boylan.


2:15 PM -- ANN VICKERS (1933)
A social worker's fight for reform is compromised by her love for a corrupt judge.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Irene Dunne, Walter Huston, Conrad Nagel
BW-76 mins, CC,

Some objections were made by the Hays Office concerning the plot of the first draft of the screenplay, where Ann marries Captain Resnick and then has an affair with Barney. The plot was changed to Ann being seduced by the Captain with the offense somehow deemed less if only one of the parties in the adulterous affair is married. No reference is made about any abortion in the trip to Havana, and in the released print the cause of death of Ann's baby girl is never mentioned. RKO applied for an "Approved" certificate in 1935, when the production code was more rigorously enforced, but they were informed that no certificate would be given because of the film's attitude towards adultery.


3:45 PM -- SEVEN WOMEN (1966)
The women staffing an isolated Chinese mission fight to survive a bandit attack.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Anne Bancroft, Sue Lyon, Margaret Leighton
C-87 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Anne Bancroft recalled Producer and Director John Ford's tearing pages out of the script and described him as "Marvelous but loony." This was the final theatrical film directed by Ford.


5:15 PM -- THE GROUP (1966)
Eight friends from a women's college fight for happiness during the Great Depression.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, Elizabeth Hartman
C-152 mins, CC,

First film of Candice Bergen, Hal Holbrook, Joan Hackett, Joanna Pettet, and George Gaynes.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPECIAL THEME: CINEMATIC PRIDE: LGBTQ CRITICS' CHOICE



8:00 PM -- OUR BETTERS (1933)
An American heiress marries into the British nobility.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Constance Bennett, Violet Kemble-Cooper, Phoebe Foster
BW-83 mins, CC,

Elsa Maxwell was brought in as technical advisor for this film because of her vast experience in hosting events for royalty and high society. She also assisted Hattie Carnegie in the designs for the evening gowns worn by the principle actresses.


9:45 PM -- VICTIM (1961)
A closeted lawyer risks his career to bring a blackmailer to justice.
Dir: Basil Dearden
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price
BW-100 mins, CC,

The famous scene where Melville Farr (Sir Dirk Bogarde) (having been confronted by his wife Laura (Sylvia Syms) about Barrett (Peter McEnery)) finally admits to her that he "wanted him", was added at Bogarde's request, and was partially written by him. Bogarde states in his autobiography that he felt the screenplay lacked credibility because it was too ambiguous and did not adequately explain Farr's involvement with Barrett, and skirted around the issue. It's worth noting that Bogarde was gay, and considered this movie an extremely personal project.


11:45 PM -- WORD IS OUT: STORIES OF SOME OF OUR LIVES (1977)
The stories of 26 gay men and lesbians create a mosaic of gay life in the U.S.
Dir: Robert Epstein
Cast: Cynthia Gair, Ann Samsell, Nadine Armijo
C-132 mins, CC,

Followed by Word Is Out: Then and Now, Thirty Years Later (2007).


2:15 AM -- MADE IN USA (1987)
Two misfit best friends leave their dying coal mining town with the goal of reaching sunny California and hooking up with some beach babes.
Dir: Ken Friedman
Cast: Adrian Pasdar, Christopher Penn, Lori Singer
BW-82 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

During production, director Ken Friedman and Hemdale's chairman John Daly suffered a major falling out over the way the film should be edited. Determined to have the film shown as he intended, Friedman showed the film uncut at Cannes in 1987. Daly threatened to have him arrested if he'd have shown his cut publically again. During the fall-out, New Line Cinema made an attempt to buy the film, but the deal fell apart. The Daly-approved cut was shelved for one year and a half, before finally dribbling out on VHS in November 1988. Friedman's cut of the film never surfaced.


3:45 AM -- MYSTERY TRAIN (1989)
Three stories are connected by a Memphis hotel and the spirit of Elvis Presley.
Dir: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin' Jay Hawkins
BW-111 mins, CC,

The hotel where the three stories converge is no longer standing, so many fans of the movie have made pilgrimages to the site only to find that it no longer exists. It can, however, be seen in the background of the scene in Great Balls of Fire! (1989), in the scene where Alec Baldwin is preaching from his broken-down car.