Actor Fredric March on TCM: Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind, John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May
Turner Classic Movies’ Fredric March tribute ends tonight with the presentation of six movies: Inherit the Wind (1960), There Goes My Heart (1938), Seven Days in May (1964), The Young Doctors (1961), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), and Anthony Adverse (1936).
Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized account of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial – creationism vs. evolution – is one of Kramer’s many Message Movies. However, unlike the slow-going The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind succeeds in making its sociopolitical point in a dramatically persuasive manner, even more so than the more audience-friendly Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Helping things out are Oscar nominee Spencer Tracy in one of his relatively rare unselfconsciously low-key performances as Clarence Darrow (“Henry Drummond” in the film) and a heavily made-up Fredric March in a wildly theatrical but curiously affecting star turn as William Jennings Bryan (“Matthew Harrison Brady”).
What’s most disturbing about Inherit the Wind as a sociopolitical allegory is that it remains as relevant today as – if not even more so than – half a century ago. (They should release it on Blu-ray with the tagline “The Movie Tea Party Republicans Don’t Want You to See!”)
Mervyn LeRoy’s period drama Anthony Adverse only comes to life when either Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard or Claude Rains is on screen, but John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May, a thriller about the “unthinkable” – a military coup in the United States – remains gripping. Fredric March shines as the U.S. president, and so does Ava Gardner in a cameo.
Fredric March TCM schedule (PT)
5:00 PM Inherit the Wind (1960)
Director: Stanley Kramer.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Florence Eldridge, Dick York, Donna Anderson, Harry Morgan, Claude Akins, Elliott Reid.
128m7:15 PM There Goes My Heart (1938)
Director: Norman Z. McLeod.
Cast: Fredric March, Virginia Bruce, Patsy Kelly, Alan Mowbray.
83m9:00 PM Seven Days in May (1964)
Director: John Frankenheimer.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Martin Balsam, Andrew Duggan, Hugh Marlowe, Whit Bissell, Helen Kleeb, George Macready, Richard Anderson, John Houseman.
118m11:15 PM Anthony Adverse (1936)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy.
Cast: Fredric March, Olivia de Havilland, Claude Rains, Donald Woods, Gale Sondergaard, Edmund Gwenn, Louis Hayward, Anita Louise, Rollo Lloyd, Steffi Duna, Billy Mauch, Akim Tamiroff, Ralph Morgan, Henry O’Neill, Pedro de Cordoba, Marilyn Knowlden.
141m1:45 AM The Young Doctors (1961)
Director: Phil Karlson.
Cast: Fredric March, Ben Gazzara, Dick Clark, Ina Balin.
103m3:30 AM The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)
Director: Irving Rapper.
Cast: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp, Alan Hale.
130m
“Actor Fredric March on TCM” notes
Fredric March movie schedule via the TCM website.