Award Winners

© Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Lassie Come Home (1943)

You’ll be surprised at which cast member earned the biggest bucks on this set.
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2. Red River (1948)

Two of this film’s principal stars almost weren’t cast due to fears they wouldn’t get along—which turned out to be true!
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3. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

One of the most popular Westerns ever made—and it could have happened without John Wayne!
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4. The Quiet Man (1952)

A famous actress broke her hand while slapping away her co-star’s advances during the production of this film.
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5. Lili (1953)

Though it predates the age of email, this movie is credited with the first use of a popular emoticon.
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6. The Sand Pebbles (1966)

You’ll never guess what famous movie this director was working on at the same time he made Sand Pebbles.
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7. Death on the Nile (1978)

Sometimes filming on location is a treat … and sometimes, it’s a cramped, sweltering ordeal.
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8. Fail Safe (1964, 2000)

This movie might have been more successful if it hadn’t been for a poorly timed satire with a strikingly similar plot.
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9. True Grit (1969, 2010)

Two famous actresses turned down the role of Mattie Ross in the 1969 adaptation.
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Popular Films

1. Call of the Wild (1935)

You’d never know this story was supposed to be about the dog, thanks to this wildly popular debonair male lead.
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2. And Then There Were None (1945)

Perhaps one of the most copied plot lines of all time, you’d be surprised at which popular TV shows have retold the tale.
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Oscar Winners Inspired by the Post The Saturday Evening Post

© RKO

“Command” by James Warner Bellah was fist published by the Post in June of 1948 and tells the story of Capt. Nathan Brittles, who is forced to evacuate the commanding officer’s wife and their niece, Olivia Dandridge, from the fort after the fall of Custer and the 7th Cavalry. Olivia catches the eyes of two young officers, and when she starts to wear a yellow ribbon in her hair—a sign that she has a beau in the Cavalry—but refuses to reveal who she’s wearing it for, trouble ensues.

The story was adapted for the big screen in 1949 under the name She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. Directed by John Ford, the film starred Joanne Dru, John Agar, Harry Carey Jr., and John Wayne as Captain Nathan Brittles. It has become one of the most popular westerns ever made, and on a $1.6 million budget, one of the most expensive. TCM’s Leonard Maltin rated it 3 and a half out of four stars.

It’s also one of Wayne’s most popular westerns, although ironically, Ford only cast John Wayne in the lead after seeing his performance in another western—and another Post original—1948’s Red River. Ribbon won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1950.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) The Saturday Evening Post

© Paramount Pictures

Written by author Charles Portis, “True Grit” appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1968 as a three-part serial, was published as a novel in 1969, and then adapted to film in the same year. Starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn, Robert Duvall as “Lucky” Ned Pepper, Glen Campbell as La Boeuf, and Kim Darby as heroine Mattie Ross, the film garnered a Golden Globe win for Best Motion Picture, two Oscar noms, and one Best Actor win for John Wayne—his only Academy Award.

Sallie Field and Mia Farrow were both considered for the role of Mattie Ross but turned it down, a decision Farrow later called the worst mistake she ever made.

In 2010, the Cohen brothers’ remake, starring Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Matt Damon, and newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, grossed more than $100 million and earned ten Academy Award nominations, but failed to take home an Oscar.

True Grit (1969, 2010) The Saturday Evening Post

© Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Widely considered one of Agatha Christie’s best who-dunnits, “The Ten Little Indians” first appeared in the Post on May 20, 1939, and ran as a six-part serial before it was published in book form in 1940.

The murder-mystery tale featuring ten strangers who are slowly picked off, one by one, by a mysterious killer made a gripping story for the big screen. Starring Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, and Louis Hayward, the film adheres to the ending of the Ten Little Indians play rather than the novel, which had a considerably darker ending that audiences disliked, and which Christie re-wrote herself to include a romance and a happier resolution. In fact, only the 1987 Soviet film version kept the novel’s original ending.

The 1945 incarnation is the most true to the book, however, and is typically the most popular film adaptation, earning a four-star rating from Leonard Maltin and Turner Classic Movies.

While none of the seven film versions has ever attracted Academy attention, the story’s plotline has been referenced more than fifteen times in popular media, including episodes of Gilligan’s Island, Golden Girls, Supernatural, and in horror flick Friday the 13th.

And Then There Were None (1945) The Saturday Evening Post

© Distributed by Paramount Pictures

The Post first ran Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile” on May 13, 1937, and completed the series in eight parts. In 1978, John Guillermin directed the highly successful film adaptation starring Mia Farrow, Lois Chiles, Bette Davis, Angela Lansbury, Maggie Smith, and Peter Ustinov in the first of his six appearances as the deductive hero, Hercule Poirot. Cybill Shepherd was originally offered the role of the ill-fated Linnet Ridgeway but she turned it down.

To ensue the film’s authenticity and adherence to Christie’s storyline, it was shot on location in Egypt for seven weeks, four weeks entirely on a riverboat steamer. The mid-day heat often rose to more than 130 degrees, halting production until temperatures cooled off. Due to the size of the boat, no one was allowed to have their own dressing room, so all five leading actresses had to share a single room (how that went over, one can only speculate.)

The film was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film (England), one BAFTA for Best Actor (Ustinov) and two for Best Supporting Actress (Lansbury and Smith), and it won an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Costume Design.

Death on the Nile (1978) The Saturday Evening Post

© Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Drawing on his own experience aboard a Yangtze gunboat in the 1960s, author Richard McKenna set the time of his oriental tale a decade earlier, during the Northern Expedition in China. The three-part story first appeared in the Post in November 1962 and made its film debut in 1966.

Pat Boone had campaigned hard for the role of protagonist Jake Holman, but director Robert Wise’s first choice was Paul Newman. In the end, the role went to Steve McQueen.

Initially slotted for nine weeks of filming, the production took seven months to complete thanks to a series of unfortunate delays, including a capsized camera boat which ruined the soundboard, monsoons in Taipei, an abscessed molar that caused McQueen to fall ill, and rumored “hostage taking” of several cast member passports by the Chinese government until additional taxes were paid from filming. At the studio’s insistence, Wise reluctantly occupied the downtime with a “fill in” project he had originally rejected for being “too saccharine”—1965’s The Sound of Music.

For its troubles, Sand Pebbles was nominated for eight Golden Globes, including a win for Richard Attenborough for Best Supporting Actor, and eight Oscar nods, including Best Supporting Actor, Best Picture, and Best Actor—the only Academy Award nomination of Steve McQueen’s career. Wise was said to be so proud of the film that he held annual parties with surviving cast members to commemorate its completion.

The Sand Pebbles (1966) The Saturday Evening Post

© Columbia Pictures

The first film adaptation of Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler’s “Fail-Safe,” which was serialized in the Post in October 1962, was released in 1964 and starred Walter Matthau, Frits Weaver, and Henry Fonda as the American president. While it failed to gain much critical acclaim, the 2000 made-for-TV remake lured several award nominations, including a Golden Globe for Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV, three Emmy nods, and two Emmy wins.

Set during the Cold War, the remake stared Walter Cronkite, Noah Wyle, Brian Dennehy, George Clooney, and Richard Dreyfuss as the president scrambling to avert World War III when the United States accidentally drops a nuclear bomb on Moscow. Filmed in black and white, the mini series was actually broadcast live to television audiences, a feat since the set took up two sound stages on the Warner Brothers lot. Harvey Keitel was often running between the two stages just to make his cue.

Despite its positive critical reception, the mini series didn’t do so well with audiences, who had seen Columbia Pictures’ Cold War satire, Dr. Strangelove, earlier the same year. With its strikingly similar plot, audiences assumed Fail Safe was equally ridiculous and stayed away.

Fail Safe (1964, 2000) The Saturday Evening Post

© Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

Hailed as “one of the all-time great family films” by Turner Classic Movie’s Leonard Maltin, Lassie Come Home was the first film adaptation of Eric Knight’s story by the same name, which ran in the Post on December 17, 1938.

The first of seven Lassie movies produced by MGM, the film starred Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Dame May Whitty, and a young Elizabeth Taylor, who replaced Maria Flynn in the role of Priscilla. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1944, though it failed to win a statue.

Fans may know that while the Lassie of Knight’s stories was in fact female, the dogs who played her on screen were always male, the first being Pal. For his debut film, Pal earned a salary of $250 a week—more than any of his two-legged cast mates. Every collie that has since been used in a Lassie movie has been a direct descendant of Pal.

Lassie Come Home (1943) The Saturday Evening Post

Starring Mel Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jean-Pierre Aumont, and Leslie Caron as “Lili,” this admittedly strange musical—about a man who can only express himself through his puppets and a runaway French girl who sees nothing abnormal about talking to them as if they’re real people—was based on Paul Gallico’s short story “The Man Who Hated People,” published by the Post on October 28, 1950.

The movie was nominated for a Golden Globe, two BAFTAs, and six Oscars, including an Academy win for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. It earned a four-star rating from TCM’s Leonard Maltin, and in 2004 The New York Times included Lili in their Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made.

Perhaps more accomplished is the fact that the first known appearance of the “smiley” emoticon occurred on March 10, 1953 in an ad for the movie that was placed in the New York Herald Tribune. It read: “Today You’ll laugh :-) You’ll cry :-( You’ll love <3 ‘Lili’.”

Lili (1953) The Saturday Evening Post

© Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All rights reserved.

Bordon Chase’s “The Chislom Trail” was a six part series that first ran in the Post in December 1946. Brought to the silver screen in 1948 under the name Red River, the movie starred John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, and Harry Carey. Director Howard Hawks had initially offered the role of Thomas Dunson to Gary Cooper, who turned it down for fear that the character’s ruthless nature would damage his screen image.

The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Writing, and was officially preserved by the National Film Registry and the Library of Congress in 1990 for its cultural, historical, and aesthetical significance. In 2008, it ranked fifth on the American Film Institute’s list of the 10 greatest films in the “Western” genre.

Despite its moderate success, fans might never guess at the behind-the-scenes tension between Wayne and Clift that almost prevented the actors from being cast together. The two were polar opposites politically, and despite a rumored pact to avoid all discussion of politics on set, the actors eventually disliked each other so much that they avoided one another when not filming. Co-star Walter Brennan didn’t mesh well with Clift either—so much so that Clift later turned down the role of “Dude” in Rio Bravo to avoid the two actors. The role eventually went to Dean Martin.

Red River (1948) The Saturday Evening Post

©Republic Pictures

“The Quiet Man” originally appeared in the Post on February 11, 1933, and was written by Maurice Walsh.

Director John Ford tapped “River” castmate John Wayne to play Sean Thornton, an Irishman returned home to escape his past who falls in love with Mary Kate Danaher, played by Maureen O’Hara, earning the ire of her ill-tempered brother Will, whose antics to keep the lovers apart form the main plot.

Earning four stars from Leonard Maltin and TCM, it’s a fan favorite for its sweeping shots of the Irish countryside and an intense—although comical—fist fight between two principal characters. Little known is that O’Hara filmed most of the movie with a broken hand. During the wind-swept cottage scene, an indignant Mary Kate slaps Thornton for a brazen kiss, but O’Hara’s hand landed incorrectly against Wayne’s open palm, breaking a bone. Unlike most movies today, Quiet Man was being filmed in sequential order, and O’Hara was unable to wear a cast until after filming had finished.

The film grossed $3.8 million in its first year, and garnered two Golden Globe nominations and seven Oscar nods, including two Academy wins for Best Cinematography and Best Director. It’s even referenced in the 1982 movie E.T., when the eponymous alien discovers the television.

The Quiet Man (1952) The Saturday Evening Post

© United Artists

Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” was first serialized in the Post in 1908. Later published as a novel, it’s now an American classic that has been adapted to film no less than seven times since 1908.

The 1935 adaptation, starring Clark Gable as Jack Thornton, Loretta Young, and Frank Conroy, is widely considered the best adaptation thus far, despite its broad interpretation of London’s original story, and earns a 3.5 out of 4 stars from Turner Classic Movie’s Leonard Maltin. Gable is portrayed as the story’s protagonist, relegating Buck, the sled-dog-turned-St. Bernard, to a minor character who does little more than help Jack win a lucrative bet and serve as the catalyst for a romance between Gable and Young’s characters. Despite its popularity, the movie was never nominated for a single award.

In an ironic twist of life imitating art, Gable and Young had an affair on set, resulting in a hidden pregnancy and the birth of their much-speculated about love child, Judy Lewis, who confirmed the long-standing rumor in a 2004 memoir.

Call of the Wild (1935) The Saturday Evening Post

In 1937, Walt Disney took the biggest chance of his career, making the first feature picture in which no human actors appeared.

Seventy-five years ago this month, Walt Disney released his first full-length animated movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to rave reviews.

Snow White was an unqualified success. According to a 1956 Post article profiling Disney from the perspective of his eldest daughter, Diane Disney Miller, the film earned $8 million its first time around the world, which enabled Disney to build a large studio to make even more ambitious movies like Fantasia and Pinocchio.

Today, Snow White ranks among the top 10 highest-grossing films, which makes it hard to see why it was so risky to create in 1937. But, even before anyone had seen it, Hollywood was calling it “Disney’s Folly.”

Had he known what it would take, Disney might never have attempted it. Walt and his brother Roy believed they could produce the animated feature for half a million dollars, but by the time of completion, they were more than 450 percent over budget.

He realized he’d exhaust his own money before he could complete the film. But before a bank would give him a loan, Disney would have to show someone the incomplete project.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs—still among the top 10 most successful movies.

So one afternoon, Joseph Rosenberg of Bank of America sat down in a projection room and watched the rough cuts of Snow White. Disney would show him snippets of animation, then flip through pages of pencil drawings while frantically trying to convey how beautiful it would look in final production. Rosenberg said nothing more than “Yes” and “Uh-huh.”

When they were done, Rosenberg rose from his chair, stretched, and made small talk with Disney. He walked toward his car, chatting about everything but the picture. Meanwhile, Disney was telling himself, Boy, this is bad. After climbing into his car, though, Rosenberg turned to Disney and said, “Good-bye. That thing is going to make a hatful of money,” and drove off.

With this additional financing, Disney and 570 artists continued drawing and hand-painting the movie’s 1.5 million animation cels. On December 21, 1937, the movie premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater, one of the famous movie palaces of Hollywood’s golden age, to an audience with every big-name star in Hollywood. Everyone agreed that Disney had done—if not the impossible—the highly improbable: he had enticed an adult audience into sitting through a 90-minute cartoon about a fairy tale. And they were completely charmed. A famous columnist, known for his skepticism, was seen with tears in his eyes. The movie was the happiest event since the end of the World War I. Within a week, Disney and his dwarfs were on the cover of Time magazine.

But Disney’s long road to success took more than imagination. It also took nerve.

75 Years Ago: Snow White’s Premiere The Saturday Evening Post

Robert Osborne. Photo courtesy Turner Classic Movies.

’Tis the season to gather round the flat-screen and enjoy classic Christmas movies. And who better to share his expert opinion on which holiday flicks endure as timeless gifts, and which are so much celluloid coal, than Robert Osborne, the primetime host and anchor of Turner Classic Movies? Since 1994, dapper, silver-haired Osborne has introduced viewers to the best that Hollywood—and the rest of the movie-making world—has produced. He’s also the author of 80 Years of the Oscar, the only official history of the Academy Awards. And, as we learned when we caught up with him at his New York City home, he has a thing for Barbara Stanwyck.

If you were stranded on a desert island—or at the North Pole—with only two Christmas DVDs to watch, what would they be?

Number one would be my favorite Christmas film, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner (1940), which always, automatically, puts me in a jolly Yuletime mood. It’s such a “feel-good” movie, and Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are so good in it, it would make me forget I was stranded in the wilderness when everyone else I know is gathering together somewhere for the holidays. My second pick would be Christmas in Connecticut (1945) with Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, and Sydney Greenstreet. I am a big Barbara Stanwyck fan, and from the time I saw the movie as a kid, I thought the ideal Christmas would be one spent in a house like the one in that movie, with someone like Stanwyck as the hostess.

It's a Wonderful Life. Photo courtesy doctormacro.com.

So, what are the necessary ingredients of a great Christmas movie?

A great Christmas movie needs warmth, as in Come to the Stable; an entertaining storyline as in It’s a Wonderful Life; holiday relevance as in Miracle on 34th Street; originality as in A Christmas Story; and a great cast as in The Bishop’s Wife.

Can you recall the first Christmas movie that inspired or delighted you?

Yes, that would be Since You Went Away (1944) with Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, and Joseph Cotton. It’s not a Christmas movie per se, instead it’s about life on the homefront in America during World War II, but it has a powerful finish that occurs on a Christmas Eve. I remember it had the entire audience in the movie theatre in my hometown sobbing (with joy, not sadness) when the credits rolled around. It was my first awareness of the powerful effect movies can have on one’s emotions.

Alastair Sim in Scrooge. Photo courtesy charlesdickensonscreen.com.

Who played your all-time favorite Ebenezer Scrooge?

Without question Britain’s Alastair Sim in Scrooge (1951). He was so Dickensian and frightening; no Hollywood glamour at all. But I always regretted that Lionel Barrymore, who was legendary in the ’30s and early 1940s for every year playing Scrooge on the radio, wasn’t able to star in MGM’s A Christmas Carol (1938) which had been designed for him to do—he was Scrooge and it’s a shame that famous performance of his was never recorded on film. Because of a severe hip injury he was confined to a wheelchair, and A Christmas Carol starred Reginald Owen instead.

Can you suggest a little-known or under-appreciated Christmas movie that everyone should see?

Remember the Night (1940) with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray is a very nice Christmas movie that nobody seems to know. It’s well worth watching, especially to see Stanwyck and MacMurray together in a warm, charming romance about a male prosecutor who befriends a female shoplifter at Christmas, leading to their falling in love. It couldn’t be more different from the Stanwyck-MacMurray classic Double Indemnity in which they play hard, cold killers. Its other great asset: The screenplay is by the great Preston Sturges just before he began directing films as well as writing them.

There’s been debate over which animated Christmas movie is best—A Charlie Brown Christmas or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. What’s your opinion?

I enjoyed them both, but I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of animated movies. You need someone 12 or under to answer this one.

What is possibly the worst Christmas movie ever made? What is so awful about it?

My vote here would have to go to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1992 TV movie remake of Christmas in Connecticut with Dyan Cannon. Arnie’s not in it; he directed it. Very bad, extremely unnecessary. You know you’re in trouble when a role once played by Sydney Greenstreet is done by Tony Curtis.

Is there a Christmas movie that you would like to show on TCM, but haven’t had the opportunity?

It would be great to be able to show It’s a Wonderful Life since it is such a definitive Christmas film, but it’s legally tied up elsewhere. I certainly can’t complain about the cornucopia of Christmas movies that we do have in the TCM library and are able to show every year when the holidays roll around.

Is Hollywood capable of making a great Christmas movie these days?

Absolutely. The question is whether or not anyone would even try to make one without at least 10 trucks exploding and a computerized Spider-Man walking up the side of a building.

Holiday Inn. Photo courtesy doctormacro.com.

OK, a last, tough one: White Christmas or Holiday Inn?

Actually, that’s easy: Holiday Inn (1942), because it’s Crosby and Astaire at their prime. (See also, “Call Me Lucky” by Bing Crosby as told to Pete Martin in 1953.) It’s full of sass and energy. The only advantage that White Christmas (1954) possesses is the fact it’s in Technicolor, which seems appropriate for a major musical. But Crosby at age 39 in Holiday Inn is tremendously appealing; you understand why he was such an enormous star. At age 51 in White Christmas, he seems tired and weary; he and Danny Kaye both seem too old to be trying to get a break in show biz.

Greatest Holiday Movies Ever! The Saturday Evening Post

Osborne replies, “Actually, that’s easy: Holiday Inn (1942). … Crosby at age 39 in Holiday Inn is tremendously appealing; you understand why he was such an enormous star.”

From our archives, here’s “Call Me Lucky” by that “enormous star” as told to Pete Martin in 1953.

Click here to download the full article, or read below.

‘Call Me Lucky’ by Bing Crosby The Saturday Evening Post