Airing tonight on TCM
TCM will be premiering The Way to the Stars tonight at 12:00 midnight.
Taped and watched it. Very touching, excellent performance by Douglass Montgomery as the doomed American B-17 pilot (he played "Laurie" in the Katharine Hepburn version of LITTLE WOMEN). Jean Simmons was adorable in her all-too-brief musical number, and Trevor Howard made a strong impression in his small role, his film debut.
Playwright Terence Ratigan did the screenplay, and I could not help noticing that he seemed to be setting the stage for his later play (and film) SEPARATE TABLES at the seaside restaurant scenes with its quiet setting and individual tables. The hostess/innkeeper played by Rosamund John seemed similar to the Oscared Wendy Hiller in the film version, and the duo of the formidable Miss Winterton and her shy niece Iris are remarkably like Gladys Cooper and Deborah Kerr. Either Basil Radford or Stanley Holloway could have portrayed the Major played by David Niven in his Oscared role.
"I think it would be fun to run a newspaper"
Actually, some of the setting taking place at the "Golden Lion" hotel in Shepley was originally developed in Rattigan's wartime play, "Flare Path".
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