TCM Schedule for Friday, April 8 -- Annabella

[Staph]

The morning is a salute to Mary Pickford, born this day in 1892 in Toronto. In primetime, the featured star is French star Annabella, who came to Hollywood in the same era as Garbo, Dietrich and Bergman, but never had the luck or decent scripts that the others enjoyed. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)
A neglected rich girl's health crisis shows her and her parents some bitter truths.
Cast: Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley.
Dir: Maurice Tourneur.
78 min, TV-PG

Remade in 1936 starring Shirley Temple.


7:15 AM -- Sparrows (1926)
In this silent film, the oldest of a band of orphans watches over them while they are being used as slaves.
Cast: Mary Pickford, Roy Stewart, Mary Louise Miller.
Dir: William Beaudine.
95 min, TV-PG

Although William Beaudine received critical acclaim both inside and outside the film industry for his direction of this film, for many years a story circulated that star Mary Pickford felt that he was too cavalier about the safety of the actors, especially in a scene where she had to carry a baby across some water filled with alligators (Pickford wanted to use a doll, but Beaudine insisted on using a real baby), and even though the alligators' jaws were bound shut, Pickford swore that he would never work for her or her company as long as she lived. However, cameraman Hal Mohr, who shot this picture, said in an interview that the "alligator incident" never happened. He said that there "wasn't an alligator within ten miles" of Pickford, and that both the alligators and the baby in the film were all dummies because the studio would never have let a star of Pickford's magnitude endanger herself by working with real alligators, let alone allow a baby to go near them. In any case, Beaudine and Pickford did clash on the picture. Beaudine eventually walked off the set and turned the direction over to his assistant, and he and Pickford never worked together again.


8:45 AM -- Coquette (1929)
A Southern belle's flirtation with a working man leads to tragedy.
Cast: Mary Pickford, Johnny Mack Brown, Matt Moore.
Dir: Sam Taylor.
76 min, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford's first sound film.


10:15 AM -- Now Playing April (2011)
19 min, TV-PG


10:45 AM -- Hullabaloo (1940)
A radio star creates a national panic when he announces a Martian invasion.
Cast: Frank Morgan, Virginia Grey, Dan Dailey, Jr.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin.
78 min, TV-G

Frank Morgan supposedly does voice imitations of Al Jolson, Ted Lewis, Wallace Beery, Robert Taylor, Mickey Rooney and Hedy Lamarr. However, Rooney's and Lamarr's voices were dubbed by other actors, and Taylor's voice was so perfect it was probably from the soundtrack of one of his films or the actor himself. Morgan also impersonates Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert and Spencer Tracy in a scene from Boom Town (1940) which opened 3 months earlier. Again, the voices were so perfect they undoubtedly came from the soundtrack of that movie.


12:15 PM -- Ship Ahoy (1942)
A dancer sailing to Puerto Rico hides government messages in her tap routines.
Cast: Eleanor Powell, Red Skelton, Bert Lahr.
Dir: Edward Buzzell.
95 min, TV-G

The title was changed from "I'll Take Manila" to "Ship Ahoy" because the Philippines had already fallen to the Japanese in the war. The ship destination was changed from Manila to Puerto Rico, and the song "I'll Take Manila" was changed to "I'll Take Tallulah".


2:00 PM -- Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
A night club employee dreams he's Louis XV, and the star he idolizes is his lady love.
Cast: Red Skelton, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth.
C-101 min, TV-G

Near the end of the movie when Red Skelton, as Louis, has an arrow stuck in his rear-end, as he pleads for it to be removed he cracks: "Hurry up, this thing is starting to pick up several radio stations already". Coincidentally, three decades later his co-star Lucille Ball went public claiming she could hear radio programs directly in her head when driving near radio transmission towers. She explained that the metal fillings in her teeth detected strong radio signals making them audible to her.


3:45 PM -- Meet the People (1944)
A fading stage star tries to revive her career by taking a job in a shipyard.
Cast: Lucille Ball, Dick Powell, Virginia O'Brien.
Dir: Charles Reisner.
100 min, TV-G

Daws Butler, the voice actor for Hanna Barbera cartoon characters, patterned the voice of the lion Snagglepuss after Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Butler took Snagglepuss's catchphrase "Heavens to Mergatroid" from Bert Lahr's having said it in the movie Meet the People.


5:30 PM -- The Great Morgan (1946)
An actor's attempt to produce a movie results in a collection of random musical numbers.
Cast: Frank Morgan, Leon Ames, Eleanor Powell.
Dir: Nat Perrin.
57 min, TV-G

Much of the movie consisted of cutting room floor footage and sequences from other films. For example, Eleanor Powell's dance number came from her film Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937).


6:30 PM -- Merton of the Movies (1947)
A star-struck hick goes to Hollywood to become a star.
Cast: Red Skelton, Virginia O'Brien, Gloria Grahame.
Dir: Robert Alton.
82 min, TV-G

This was Virginia O'Brien's final starring role and the last film she made for MGM. After this she had small roles in two later films but otherwise retired from the screen.


WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: ANNABELLA



8:00 PM -- Wings of the Morning (1937)
When a young horse trainer falls for a Gypsy girl, it reignites an old family feud.
Cast: Annabella, Henry Fonda, Leslie Banks.
Dir: Harold D. Schuster.
C-87 min, TV-G

The first Three-strip Technicolor movie shot in Europe.


9:36 PM -- Maid For A Day (1936)
A fading Broadway entertainer takes a job as a domestic to get background for a part in a new musical.
Cast: Grace Hayes, Peter Lind Hayes, Don Lee
Dir: Joseph Henabery
21 min

Grace Hayes is Peter Lind Hayes' mother.


10:00 PM -- The Baroness And The Butler (1938)
When he takes a seat in the Hungarian parliament, a butler battles the aristocracy.
Cast: William Powell, Annabella, Helen Westley. Dir: Walter Lang.
79 min, TV-G

The end credits proudly says "This picture has presented the popular young French actress Annabella in her first American picture". However, she starred in Caravane (1934), the French language version of Caravan (1934/I), also made in Hollywood by Fox.


11:30 PM -- Le Million (1931)
A winning lottery ticket wreaks havoc on the lives of all who come near it.
Cast: Annabella, René Lefèvre, Jean-Louis Allibert.
Dir: Rene Clair.
81 min, TV-G

At age 16, Annabella was chosen by Abel Gance to appear in Napoleon (1927). In the 30s, she became a star of French movies. She made movies in numerous other countries, before being called to Hollywood in 1938, where she met and married Tyrone Power. She remained in the USA until 1947. Then she attempted a comeback in France. She retired from show business in 1954.


1:00 AM -- Bridal Suite (1939)
A playboy's fiancee sets out to reform her future husband and his flighty mother.
Cast: Robert Young, Annabella, Billie Burke.
Dir: William Thiele.
70 min, TV-G

Billie Burke broke her ankle during filming, causing the film to be 9 days behind schedule. She finished her subsequent scenes from a wheelchair.



2:15 AM -- Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Members of a space mission are attacked by their deepest fears.
Cast: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Ray Walston.
Dir: Bruce D. Clark.
C-82 min, TV-MA

Unit director James Cameron got maggots to wriggle on a severed arm by passing an electric current through it, impressing a couple of producers and earning him his next job. And so a career was born.


3:50 AM -- The Rock (1967)
A promotional short for the MGM feature Point Blank.
C-9 min


5:36 AM -- The Boy Friend Featurette (1971)
A promotional short for the feature The Boy Friend, starring Twiggy.
C-9 min


5:45 AM -- RFD Greenwich Village (1969)
A couple tours around New York in this promotional short for corduroy clothing.
11 min, TV-G