TCM Schedule for Saturday, September 14, 2019 -- The Essentials: Akira Kurosawa

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, The Essentials is back! (or should that be The Essentials are back?), with trailblazing producer, director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who will join primetime host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films she has chosen. Tonight's theme features a pair of films from Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- COURAGE OF LASSIE (1946)
A young girl tries to rehabilitate the famous collie after his return from combat service in World War II.
Dir: Fred M. Wilcox
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Morgan, Tom Drake
C-93 mins, CC,

Although the title of the film suggests it, there is no mention of the character Lassie anywhere in the movie.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: THE OLD PIONEER (1934)
An old man tells a newsboy about his adventures with Native Americans in the Old West.
Dir: Rudolf Ising
Cast: Carman Maxwell, Elmore Vincent
BW-8 mins, CC,

The first entry in MGM's Happy Harmonies series.


8:10 AM -- SCREEN ACTORS (1950)
This short film takes a look at the off-screen personas of screen actors.
BW-9 mins,


8:19 AM -- SEEING EL SALVADOR (1945)
This short film takes the viewer on a tour through El Salvador.
C-9 mins,


8:28 AM -- HI, GAUCHO! (1936)
The son and daughter of feuding ranchers defy their fathers in the name of love.
Dir: Tommy Atkins
Cast: John Carroll, Steffi Duna, Rod La Roque
BW-59 mins,


9:30 AM -- LOST CITY OF THE JUNGLE: ATOMIC VENGEANCE (1946)
Episode thirteen of thirteen.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins, Ray Taylor
Cast: Russell Hayden, Jane Adams, Lionel Atwill
BW-20 mins,


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: MUTINY AIN'T NICE (1933)
Captain Popeye must hide Olive Oyl, an accidental stowaway on a ship filled with sailors who believe women are a jinx.
Dir: Dave Fleischer
Cast: Jack Mercer, Mae Questel
BW-6 mins, CC,


10:07 AM -- HOLD THAT HYPNOTIST (1957)
Hypnotism sends the Bowery Boys to battle pirates in the 17th century.
Dir: Austen Jewell
Cast: Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Jane Nigh
BW-61 mins, CC,

The 44th of 48 Bowery Boys movies.


11:30 AM -- A THRILL FOR THELMA (1935)
In this short film, a young girl, wanting a life of luxury, takes the "easy" way and winds up in jail.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Charles Hamilton, Jack Chefe, Robert Warwick
BW-18 mins,

Number four in the Crime Does Not Pay series.


12:00 PM -- THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (1940)
A merchant ship's crew tries to survive the loneliness of the sea and the coming of war.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell, Ian Hunter
BW-106 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Dudley Nichols, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Gregg Toland, Best Film Editing -- Sherman Todd, Best Effects, Special Effects -- R.T. Layton (photographic), Ray Binger (photographic) and Thomas T. Moulton (sound), Best Music, Original Score -- Richard Hageman, and Best Picture

Eugene O'Neill's favorite film. John Ford gave him a print of it, which O'Neill wore out from repeated playing of the reel.


2:00 PM -- MOGAMBO (1953)
In this remake of Red Dust, an African hunter is torn between a lusty showgirl and a married woman.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly
C-116 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ava Gardner, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Grace Kelly

While Ava Gardner was shooting a scene with a baby elephant, the creature pushed her into a mud pool. She screamed for help, but John Ford motioned the crew to keep quiet and keep on filming. The scene proved to be one of the funniest in the movie.


4:15 PM -- RIDE LONESOME (1959)
A bounty hunter tries to bring a murderer to justice through perilous territory.
Dir: Budd Boetticher
Cast: Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts
C-73 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Film debut of James Coburn.


5:45 PM -- THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN (1972)
A self-appointed judge cleans up a corrupt western town twice.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Paul Newman, Roy Jenson, Gary Combs
C-123 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Maurice Jarre (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman for the song "Marmalade, Molasses & Honey"

When driving through Dublin in the early 90"s , Paul Newman asked his driver to stop. He had passed a restaurant called " Judge Roy Beans" , and told his driver that he had to go in and see what it was like. At six o clock in the evening, patrons were more than pleased, and surprised , to see this veteran Hollywood star coming into the bar. He pointed at the quad poster framed on the wall , and told everyone that he had played Judge Roy Bean. When the barman told him that next time he was in town, he should call into the nightclub above, called Lillies Bordello, Newman immediately pointed to the image of Ava Gardner on the poster, and shouted " And she played Lillie!".



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: AKIRA KUROSAWA



8:00 PM -- RASHOMON (1950)
In medieval Japan, four people offer conflicting accounts of a rape and murder.
Dir: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura
BW-89 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Takashi Matsuyama and H. Motsumoto

Even during high noon the parts of the forest that the crew needed to shoot in were still too dark. Rather than use a regular foil reflector, which did not bounce enough light, Akira Kurosawa and cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa opted to use a full-length mirror "borrowed" from Daiei's costume department. The crew bounced light from the mirror through leaves and trees to soften it and make it look more like natural sunlight. Miyagawa later called it the most successful lighting effect he had ever done.


9:45 PM -- THRONE OF BLOOD (1957)
Spurred by his wife and a witch's prediction, a samurai murders his lord to steal the throne.
Dir: Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Isuzu Yamada, Takashi Shimura
BW-110 mins,

Takeshi Katô (Guard killed by Washizu) was worried about the thrust of Toshirô Mifune's sword, so he placed a block of wood in his arm pit. Unfortunately Mifune's thrust split the block and wounded Katô. He bore the scar until his death in 2015.


12:00 AM -- NOCTURNE (1946)
A police detective refuses to believe a composer's death was suicide.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: George Raft, Lynn Bari, Virginia Huston
BW-87 mins, CC,

When Police Lt. Joe Warne says, "I like that alibi. It's round, it's firm, it's fully packed.", he is riffing on a phrase often used in advertising for Lucky Strike cigarettes at the time: "So round, so firm, so fully packed."


2:00 AM -- DUCK SOUP (1933)
When he's named dictator of Freedonia, a con artist declares war on the neighboring kingdom.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-69 mins, CC,

Groucho Marx offered the following explanation for the movie's title: "Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup the rest of your life."


3:30 AM -- THE COCOANUTS (1929)
While running a hotel in Florida, three clowns get caught up in the search for stolen jewels.
Dir: Joseph Santley
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-93 mins,

The first use of the overhead camera shot (from the roof of the sound stage looking down at the dancers forming kaleidoscopic patterns) is usually credited to Busby Berkeley, the Broadway dance director whom Samuel Goldwyn brought to Hollywood to stage numbers for Eddie Cantor comedies. But a year before Busby's appearance on the scene in Whoopee! (1930), the overhead shot is used for the first time in an American sound film in The Cocoanuts.


5:30 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #25 (1955)
Jeanette MacDonald and Allan Jones perform in a clip from "The Firefly"; Dan Dailey introduces a clip from "Meet Me in Las Vegas." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-29 mins, CC,

[CBHagman]

1. Wait a minute. If Lassie's getting rehabilitated...

...why does the TCM description refer to his return from combat?!