For 50 years, the CLIO Awards have stood tall as one of the most coveted honors in the world of advertising. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will celebrate the prestigious honor’s golden anniversary with a special four-film salute Monday, May 11. TCM host Robert Osborne will be joined for the evening by New York Times advertising writer Stuart Elliott, who will provide his insight into the CLIO Awards’ long history, as well as his thoughts on the power of advertising to affect change, create trends and, of course, sell products. Films featured in the evening’s celebration will be the searing drama The Hucksters (1947), the pop-culture spoof Callaway Went Thataway (1951), the musical It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) and the cautionary tale A Face in the Crowd (1957).
The CLIO Awards are one of the world’s most recognized awards competition for advertising, design and interactive. For 50 years, the CLIO Awards have maintained a commitment to celebrate and reward creative excellence, honoring a powerful form of communication and its impact on modern culture. At the same time, the CLIO Awards remain focused on evolving with the industry in order to acknowledge the most current, breakthrough work. To this day, the iconic CLIO statue is among the most widely recognized and coveted symbols of the industry’s creative accomplishments.
The following is the complete schedule for TCM’s celebration of the 50th Anniversary CLIO Awards:
8 p.m. The Hucksters (1947) – Clark Gable stars as an ad exec who returns from World War II only to find himself in a new war against a tyrannical soap mogul. Deborah Kerr, in her first American film, co-stars along with Sydney Greenstreet, Adolphe Menjou, Ava Gardner, Keenan Wynn and Edward Arnold.
10:15 p.m. Callaway Went Thataway (1951) – Fred MacMurray and Dorothy McGuire star in this riff on the Hopalong Cassidy craze that took America by storm. Howard Keel co-stars as a look-alike who impersonates a legendary cowboy star for promotional purposes.
Midnight It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) – Gene Kelly plays a fight promoter and Dan Dailey an advertising artist in this satirical Comden-Green musical about hopes and dreams coming face-to-face with reality. Cyd Charisse and Michael Kidd co-star.
2 a.m. A Face in the Crowd (1957) – Andy Griffith and Lee Remick made their film debuts in Elia Kazan’s hard-biting film about a country bumpkin turned into a big television star. Patricia Neal co-stars, along with Anthony Fanciosa and Walter Matthau.