TCM Schedule for Friday, July 26, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: 1939: Hollywood's Golden Year

[Staph]

TCM finishes the last of their month-long celebration of what is arguably Hollywood's best year, 1939. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- PRIVATE DETECTIVE (1939)
Rival detectives fall in love when they're forced to work together.
Dir: Noel Smith
Cast: Jane Wyman, Dick Foran, Gloria Dickson
BW-56 mins, CC,

When Myrna arrives at the Montequito Apartments, she sees the name "Mr. Donald Norton" on the row of doorbell buttons and mailboxes. To the left is the name "Lucian Croy" - which happens to be the name of a character played by Gordon Oliver in the second "Torchy Blane" film "Fly Away Baby" in 1937.


7:15 AM -- TELL NO TALES (1939)
In search of a big scoop for his failing paper, an editor tries to solve a kidnapping case that's turned into murder.
Dir: Leslie Fenton
Cast: Melvyn Douglas, Louise Platt, Gene Lockhart
BW-69 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Pauline London and Alfred Taylor.


8:30 AM -- JAMAICA INN (1939)
A young woman on the British coast stumbles onto a ring of bloodthirsty scavengers.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Charles Laughton, Horace Hodges, Hay Petrie
BW-99 mins, CC,

Maureen O'Hara (Mary) was "Introduced" in the opening credits. She made Little Miss Molly (1938) before this, but that movie wasn't released until 1940. This officially marked her theatrical movie debut.


10:15 AM -- YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH MURDER (1939)
A young tough takes the rap for a hardened gangster.
Dir: Lewis Seiler
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Billy Halop
BW-79 mins, CC,

The author of the play "Chalked Out", upon which this film is based is Lewis E. Lawes (1883-1947) who was the warden at Sing Sing prison from 1920 to 1941. Lawes wrote two books that were also turned into the films 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) (remade as Castle on the Hudson (1940) ) and Invisible Stripes (1939).


11:45 AM -- THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL (1939)
A young boxer flees to farming country when he thinks he's killed an opponent in the ring.
Dir: Busby Berkeley
Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson
BW-92 mins, CC,

Director Busby Berkeley first made a name for himself with musical spectaculars like Footlight Parade (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and 42nd Street (1933). He persuaded Warner Brothers executives to let him do a dramatic picture, and they assigned him to this film. He didn't shed his musical association entirely, however; the film contains an "in-joke". When "Dippy" (Huntz Hall) operates the controls of a makeshift shower, he serenades the bathing "Jack/Johnnie" with "By The Waterfall", a song from Berkeley's hit "Footlight Parade".


1:30 PM -- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1939)
Mark Twain's classic troublemaker helps a runaway slave escape to the North.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Walter Connolly, William Frawley
BW-91 mins, CC,

The real life prototype for Tom Sawyer was Clemens himself; the book is largely autobiographical (with some embellishments, of course). Huck was based on a boy Clemens befriended in Hannibal, MO named Tom Blankenship, the son of a local vagrant who Clemens said "had the greatest heart of anyone he knew". Becky was based on a girl Clemens was seeing for awhile in Hannibal named Laura Hawkins. And Injun Joe was based on a local vagrant named Joe Douglas who spent half his time in jail, and who was very sweet to the local kids (when drunk) but could be scary when he sobered up.


3:15 PM -- IN NAME ONLY (1939)
A wealthy man falls for a widow but can't get his wife to divorce him.
Dir: John Cromwell
Cast: Carole Lombard, Cary Grant, Kay Francis
BW-95 mins, CC,

This movie was intended to be a reunion for Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, but following the failure of Bringing Up Baby (1938) at the box office from the previous year, Hepburn left RKO being after deemed "Box Office Poison". Carole Lombard was subsequently brought in as her replacement.


5:00 PM -- THE ICE FOLLIES OF 1939 (1939)
An ice-skating team breaks up when both partners fall for the same girl.
Dir: Reinhold Schunzel
Cast: Joan Crawford, James Stewart, Lew Ayres
BW-82 mins, CC,

None of the three main stars could skate; the screenplay was written with this in mind.


6:30 PM -- AT THE CIRCUS (1939)
The Marx Bros. team up to keep a circus from going bankrupt.
Dir: Edward Buzzell
Cast: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx
BW-87 mins, CC,

For Groucho Marx' performance of "'Lydia, the Tattooed Lady", additional lyrics were written by lyricist E.Y. Harburg exclusively for screenings of the film for Allied servicemen in European war zones. The special lyrics included the line "When she stands the world grows littler; When she sits, she sits on Hitler.' The version of the song featuring the special lyrics was filmed, and included in prints of the film distributed in Great Britain and France. The version of the song containing the special lyrics was greeted with marked enthusiasm during screenings in those countries.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GOLDEN YEAR



8:00 PM -- THE WOMEN (1939)
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell
BW-133 mins, CC,

Joan Fontaine recorded her impressions of each of the actresses in her 1978 autobiography "No Bed of Roses". About Norma Shearer she said, "Hers was a dignified, delightfully warm demeanor." Joan Crawford, she said, "had the democratic touch, knowing every grip and electrician by name". Rosalind Russell, she said, "was a tomboy, hearty, frolicsome, highly popular with the cast and crew . . . But best of all was our director, George Cukor. He handled all the women in the star-studded cast with tact and gallantry, so that what might have been a highly charged assignment for any other director turned out to be a happy association all around. We adored George, as do all actresses who work with him."


10:30 PM -- WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939)
A married noblewoman fights her lifelong attraction to a charismatic gypsy.
Dir: William Wyler
Cast: Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven
BW-104 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Laurence Olivier, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Geraldine Fitzgerald, Best Director -- William Wyler, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Best Art Direction -- James Basevi, Best Music, Original Score -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

Sir Laurence Olivier found himself becoming increasingly annoyed with director William Wyler's exhausting style of filmmaking. After yet another take, he is said to have exclaimed, "For God's sake, I did it sitting down. I did it with a smile. I did it with a smirk. I did it scratching my ear. I did it with my back to the camera. How do you want me to do it?" Wyler's retort was, "I want it better." However, Olivier later said these multiple takes helped him learn to succeed as a movie actor.


12:30 AM -- LOVE AFFAIR (1939)
Near-tragic misunderstandings threaten a shipboard romance.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya
BW-88 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Irene Dunne, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Maria Ouspenskaya, Best Writing, Original Story -- Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey, Best Art Direction -- Van Nest Polglase and Alfred Herman, Best Music, Original Song -- Buddy G. DeSylva for the song "Wishing", and Best Picture

In 1957, director Leo McCarey remade the movie as An Affair to Remember (1957), starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. (Cary Grant and Irene Dunne had previously co-starred in The Awful Truth (1937), which was also directed by McCarey.) The movie was remade a second time as Love Affair (1994), starring Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, and Katharine Hepburn, directed by Glenn Gordon Caron. The 1994 version is wretched!


2:15 AM -- FINAL EXAM (1981)
A killer wreaks havoc on a college campus.
Dir: Jimmy Huston
Cast: Cecile Bagdadi, Joel S. Rice, Ralph Brown
C-90 mins, CC,

During an interview with Hysteria-Lives.com actor Timothy L. Raynor, who plays the killer, said he got the role because director Jimmy Huston was impressed with his martial arts skills and his ability to handle a weapon. Raynor said that the knife he wields in the movie wasn't a prop but an actual butcher's knife.


4:00 AM -- NIGHT SCHOOL (1981)
A police investigator attempts to solve the murders of two women from a local night school.
Dir: Ken Hughes
Cast: Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, Drew Snyder
C-89 mins, CC,

Writer Ruth Avergon was inspired by an article she had read about the real-life headhunters of Papua New Guinea. The idea of headhunting became the basis for this film.


5:30 AM -- DUCK AND COVER (1951)
In this short film, a monkey's prank on a turtle demonstrates how to survive a nuclear attack.
Dir: Anthony Rizzo
Cast: Leo M. Langlois III, Ray J. Mauer, Robert Middleton
BW-9 mins,


5:30 AM -- THE DROP OUT (1962)
A young man drops out of high school and struggles to find a job in this short "scare" film.
BW-11 mins,