TCM Schedule for Friday, September 27, 2019 -- TCM Spotlight: College Football

[Staph]

Today in the daylight hours, TCM is visiting Egypt, in films that range from Vivian Leigh and Claude Rains in GBS's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) to Christopher Lee in the title role of Hammer Studio's The Mummy (1959). Then in prime time, it's one last visit to the gridiron! Enjoy!


7:51 AM -- EGYPT SPEAKS (1951)
This short film takes the viewer to Alexandria, Egypt.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 mins,


8:00 AM -- VALLEY OF THE KINGS (1954)
Archaeologists clash with graverobbers during the search for a priceless Egyptian treasure.
Dir: Robert Pirosh
Cast: Robert Taylor, Eleanor Parker, Carlos Thompson
C-86 mins, CC,

Filming in Egypt included views of the exterior and interior of Abu Simbel. The view also includes the Nile river in the background of one shot. The filming location is no longer accessible having been buried under Lake Nasser with the building of the Aswan dam. The massive complex was cut into large blocks and moved uphill between 1964-1968 to save it from being flooded.


9:30 AM -- MUMMY'S BOYS (1936)
Two ditch-digging fools sign on to help excavate a cursed Egyptian tomb.
Dir: Fred Guiol
Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Barbara Pepper
BW-68 mins, CC,

One of the screenwriters on Mummy's Boys was Philip G. Epstein, who would go on to co-author the script for Casablanca (1942).


10:45 AM -- LAND OF THE PHARAOHS (1955)
A scheming seductress plots to make herself queen of Egypt.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Jack Hawkins, Joan Collins, Dewey Martin
C-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The movie was Howard Hawks's first commercial failure. It caused Hawks to take a break from directing and travel through Europe for a number of years. He made his next movie, Rio Bravo (1959), four years later - the longest break between two movies in his career.


12:35 PM -- ANCIENT EGYPT (1938)
This short film takes a look at ancient Egypt.
C-9 mins,


12:45 PM -- CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA (1945)
Julius Caesar gives the famed Egyptian queen lessons in government.
Dir: Gabriel Pascal
Cast: Claude Rains, Vivien Leigh, Flora Robson
C-128 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- John Bryan

It was the last movie version of a George Bernard Shaw play made during his lifetime. His verdict afterward on Vivien Leigh's performance: "She's not right at all."


3:04 PM -- CAIRO "CITY OF CONTRAST" (1938)
This short film focuses on the landmarks, people and culture of Cairo, Egypt.
C-9 mins,


3:15 PM -- THE MUMMY'S SHROUD (1967)
The words on an Egyptian prince's burial shroud revive a vengeful mummy.
Dir: John Gilling
Cast: Andre Morell, John Phillips, David Buck
C-90 mins, CC,

Christopher Lee's regular stunt double, Eddie Powell, plays the mummy. Indeed, Powell had doubled for Lee in the stunt sequences on Hammer's first flirtation with the franchise in 1959, The Mummy (1959).


5:00 PM -- THE BARBARIAN (1933)
An Arab prince masquerades as a tour guide to court a beautiful American.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Ramon Novarro, Myrna Loy, Reginald Denny
BW-83 mins, CC,

The production was interrupted by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake that hit the Los Angeles area on the afternoon of March 10, 1933. My father was living in the LA area at the time, and told me many stories of the earthquake and its aftermath.


6:30 PM -- THE MUMMY (1959)
A resurrected mummy stalks the archaeologists who defiled his tomb.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux
C-88 mins, CC,

Sir Christopher Lee's mummy walk isn't entirely acting. He threw out his back carrying the girl, he dislocated his shoulder crashing through a door that was mistakenly deadbolted before filming the scene, and he also injured his knees and shins while doing scenes in the studio-tank "swamp". He couldn't see where the various pipes and fittings under the swampy water were.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: COLLEGE FOOTBALL



8:00 PM -- GOOD NEWS (1947)
A football hero falls in love with his French tutor.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Patricia Marshall
C-93 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane and Roger Edens for the song "Pass That Peace Pipe"

Since Peter Lawford spoke French fluently and June Allyson did not, Lawford had to teach Allyson how to teach him to speak French in the French Lesson scene.


9:46 PM -- HOW TO WATCH FOOTBALL (1938)
In this short film, Robert Benchley tries to watch a football game at a stadium but soon realizes he should have stayed at home.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Robert Benchley, Joyce Compton, Diane Cook
BW-9 mins,


10:00 PM -- SO THIS IS COLLEGE (1929)
A scheming coed comes between college buddies.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Elliott Nugent, Robert Montgomery, Cliff Edwards
BW-97 mins, CC,

When one of the freshmen has his pants stolen by Eddie in the bushes outside the prom, he exclaims "What am I, 'September Morn'?". "September Morn" is a 1911 painting by French artist Paul Emil Chabas of a nude woman bathing. It became a cause celebre in America during the 1910s when art dealers in both Chicago and New York were charged with indecency for displaying reproductions of it.


11:48 PM -- PRO FOOTBALL (1934)
In this short film, the Chicago Bears football team demonstrate various plays.
Dir: Ray McCarey
BW-9 mins,


12:00 AM -- ELEVEN MEN AND A GIRL (1930)
A college flirt lures the nation's best football players to join her school's team.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Joan Bennett, Frank McHugh
BW-72 mins, CC,

This was originally titled Maybe It's Love. This was re-titled Eleven Men and a Girl when it was sold to television in 1956, in order to avoid confusion with another WB film of the same name, Maybe It's Love (1935), and retains this title today when shown on Turner Classic Movies.


1:24 AM -- COLLEGE HOUNDS (1930)
This Dogville comedy short spoofs American football movies.
Dir: Jules White
BW-16 mins,

First of nine "Dogville Comedies" released by MGM from 1929 to 1931. These shorts generally spoofed popular films of the day and were hugely popular.


2:00 AM -- BELLADONNA OF SADNESS (1973)
A woman sells her soul to the devil to lead a rebellion against a corrupt baron.
Dir: Eiichi Yamamoto
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Chinatsu Nakayama, Shigako Shimegi
C-87 mins,

Third film in Osamu Tezuka and Eiichi Yamamato's Animerama trilogy, following A Thousand and One Nights (1969) and Cleopatra (1970). It is the only one of the trilogy not to be co-directed by Tezuka, who left Mushi Production shortly after the initial story treatment was written. Tezuka is uncredited on the film.


3:30 AM -- HOUSE (1977)
A schoolgirl spends her summer vacation in a haunted house.
Dir: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Cast: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Kumiko Ohba
C-88 mins,

The script was partly inspired by frights described to the director by his then preteen daughter.


5:00 AM -- THE DISTANT DRUMMER: FLOWERS OF DARKNESS (1972)
Filmmakers trace the history of opium and its role in today's drug trade in this short film.
Dir: William Templeton
Cast: Paul Newman, Vernon Hann, Jack Hurst
C-22 mins,


5:00 AM -- RIGHT OR WRONG? (1951)
In this short film, a young boy is arrested for breaking a window, and must decide between turning in his accomplices or taking the blame himself.
C-11 mins,


5:00 AM -- THE DISTANT DRUMMER: A MOVABLE SCENE (1970)
An educational short film that exposes drug use and drug culture.
Dir: William Templeton
Cast: Robert Mitchum, C. Mason Harvey, J. Thomas Ungerleider
C-22 mins,