TCM Schedule for Thurs, June 5, 2025: Costume Designer Walter Plunkett/Composer Ennio Morricone

[Auggie]

Walter Plunkett was a prolific costume designer who worked on more than 150 projects throughout his career in the Hollywood film industry.

Plunkett's best-known work is featured in two films, Gone with the Wind (1939) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), in which he lampooned his initial style of the Roaring Twenties.

In 1951, Plunkett shared an Academy Award for Best Costume Design with Orry-Kelly and Irene Sharaff for An American in Paris.

Plunkett retired in 1966, after having worked in films, on Broadway, and for the Metropolitan Opera. He spent the last years of his life with his long-term partner, Lee, whom he formally adopted so that he could inherit his estate. He died at age 79 in Santa Monica, California.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Plunkett

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Ennio Morricone was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, trumpeter, and pianist who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classical works, Morricone is widely considered one of the most prolific and greatest film composers of all time.

He received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Golden Globes, six BAFTAs, ten David di Donatello, eleven Nastro d'Argento, two European Film Awards, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and the Polar Music Prize in 2010.

His filmography includes more than 70 award-winning films, all of Sergio Leone's films since A Fistful of Dollars, all of Giuseppe Tornatore's films since Cinema Paradiso, Dario Argento's Animal Trilogy, as well as The Battle of Algiers (1966), 1900 (1976), La Cage aux Folles (1978), Le Professionnel (1981), The Thing (1982), The Key (1983) by Tinto Brass and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989).

He received Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Days of Heaven (1978), The Mission (1986), The Untouchables (1987), Bugsy (1991), Malèna (2000) and The Hateful Eight (2015), winning for the last. He won the Academy Honorary Award in 2007. His score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) is regarded as one of the most recognizable and influential soundtracks in history. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone

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EARLY MORNING (EST)

Continued from June 4, early morning: Gary Cooper, Star of the Month

4:45 AM | The Fountainhead (1949)
An idealistic architect battles corrupt business interests and his love for a married woman.
Dir: King Vidor | Cast: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey

7:00 AM | Gary Cooper: American Life, American Legend (1991)
A retrospective on the life and career of actor Gary Cooper.
Dir: Richard Schickel | Cast: Clint Eastwood (narrator), Gary Cooper, James Stewart


DAYTIME (costumes by Walter Plunkett)

8:00 AM | The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
A deformed bell ringer rescues a gypsy girl falsely accused of witchcraft and murder.
Dir: William Dieterle | Cast: Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Thomas Mitchell

10:00 AM | The Secret Garden (1949)
An orphaned girl changes the lives of those she encounters at a remote estate.
Dir: Fred M. Wilcox | Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Herbert Marshall, Dean Stockwell

11:45 AM | Home from the Hill (1960)
A southern landowner's family is torn apart by the revelation that he has an illegitimate son.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli | Cast: Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard

2:30 PM | The Scarlet Coat (1955)
During the American War of Independence, an American officer deserts to the British to unmask a traitor.
Dir: John Sturges | Cast: Cornel Wilde, Michael Wilding, George Sanders

4:30 PM | Merry Andrew (1958)
An archaeologist's search for Roman treasure gets him mixed up with a circus troupe.
Dir: Michael Kidd | Cast: Danny Kaye, Pier Angeli, Baccaloni

6:15 PM | Forbidden Planet (1956)
A futuristic version of Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
Dir: Fred McLeod Wilcox | Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen


PRIME TIME, LATE NIGHT & EARLY MORNING (score by Ennio Morricone)

8:00 PM | Cinema Paradiso (1988)
A boy coming of age in WWII Italy develops a lifelong love affair with movies.
Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore | Cast: Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Antonella Attili

10:15 PM | Ennio (2021)
A documentary on the legendary film composer Ennio Morricone.
Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore | Cast: Ennio Morricone, Silvano Agosti, Alessandro Alessandroni

1:00 AM | The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
A hidden cashbox containing $200,000 is the focus of three men: two criminals and a stranger.
Dir: Sergio Leone | Cast: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

4:15 AM | A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
A drifter hires himself out as a mercenary, taking no sides between two feuding families.
Dir: Sergio Leone | Cast: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volontè