TCM Schedule for Saturday, October 3, 2020 -- The Essentials

[Staph]

Last edited Tue Oct 6, 2020, 10:38 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM finally returns to the Essentials. Tonight, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird are showing the amazing Lawrence of Arabia. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Million Dollar Baby (1941)
A young innocent's surprise inheritance causes problems with her poor but proud boyfriend.
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Jeffrey Lynn, Ronald Reagan
BW-101 mins, CC,

According to contemporary articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Irene Dunne was considered for the role of Pam. Ann Sheridan was originally cast for the part, but was replaced by Olivia de Havilland during Sheridan's contract dispute with the studio. Finally de Havilland was replaced by Priscilla Lane.


8:00 AM -- MGM Cartoons: The Peachy Cobbler (1950)
A poor cobbler feeds his last crust of bread to some birds that are really elves, who show their gratitude by finishing all his work while he sleeps.
Dir: Tex Avery (Fred)
Cast: Daws Butler
BW-7 mins,

This short is featured on the Warner Bros. DVD for Nancy Goes to Rio (1950).


8:08 AM -- Phonies Beware! (1956)
This short film takes a look at how the U.S. FDA looks at fraudulent drug claims.
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
BW-8 mins,


8:17 AM -- Night Life in Chicago (1948)
This short film offers high-lights of Chicago's night life.
C-9 mins,


8:27 AM -- Arctic Fury (1949)
A doctor lost in the frozen North fights his way back to civilization.
Dir: Norman Dawn
Cast: Del Cambre, Eve Miller, Gloria Petroff
BW-61 mins, CC,

This film was cobbled together from the 1936 independent film "Tundra." It was originally intended as a prestige film by Carl Laemmle's Universal regime in its last days. The idea of spending seven months in Alaska was abandoned and stock footage from "Alaskan Adventures (1926"and "SOS Iceberg (1933) were incorporated. Thirteen years later original actors Delcambre and McCormick were included in some new footage with Eve Miller and Gloria Petroff under the direction of Fred R. Feitshans, and was released under the now new title, "Arctic Fury".


9:30 AM -- Wild West Days: The Redskins' Revenge (1937)
Retired lawman Kentucky Wade and his three buddies come to Brimstone and help their friends.
Dirs: Ford Beebe, Clifford Smith
Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, George Shelley, Lynn Gilbert
BW-20 mins, CC,

Episode two of thirteen.


10:00 AM -- Popeye: Baby Wants a Bottleship (1942)
Olive is going shopping and drops Swee'pea off for Popeye to watch.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Al Eugster (uncredited)
Cast: Margie Hines, Jack Mercer
BW-7 mins, CC,

The Final "Popeye" Cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios


10:08 AM -- Safari Drums (1953)
A group of movie makers arrive in Africa to make a film about jungle wildlife.
Dir: Ford Beebe
Cast: John[ny] Sheffield, Douglas Kennedy, Barbara Bestar
BW-71 mins, CC,

The ninth of twelve episodes.


11:30 AM -- Alaska Lifeboat (1956)
This short film focuses on a medical services ship that stops in the native village of Haines, Alaska.
Dir: Herbert Morgan
BW-21 mins,


12:00 PM -- The Prince and the Pauper (1937)
Rousing adaptation of the Mark Twain tale of a 16th-century prince who trades places with a lookalike peasant.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Henry Stephenson
BW-118 mins, CC,

Freddie Bartholomew was originally considered by MGM for the central dual role. However, real-life twins Billy Mauch and Robert J. Mauch were already under contract with Warner Bros who used them for the Prince and the Pauper when the film was finally shot.


2:15 PM -- Key Largo (1948)
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
BW-100 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

At one point in the movie, Romanian born Edward G. Robinson's character, Johnny Rocco, angrily says, "After living in the USA for more than 30 years they call me an undesirable and want to throw me out of the country...like I was a dirty red or something." A year after this film, he was investigated by the Committee on Un-American Activities which claimed the progressive Democrat, was "frequently involved in Communist fronts and causes". Robinson eventually testified as a friendly witness but he was still grey listed in the 1950's. Robinson also owned a copy of Leon Trotsky's Autobiography "My Life", that the famed exiled had autographed for him.


4:15 PM -- The Defiant Ones (1958)
Two convicts, a white racist and an angry black, escape while chained to each other.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel
BW-96 mins, Letterbox Format, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith (Nedrick Young had been blacklisted at the time and the Oscar went to his pseudonym 'Nathan E. Douglas'. In 1993 AMPAS restored Young's credit upon the request of his widow and recommendation of the Academy's writers branch.), and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sam Leavitt

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Tony Curtis, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Sidney Poitier (Sidney Poitier became the first African-American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.), Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Theodore Bikel, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Cara Williams, Best Director -- Stanley Kramer, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, and Best Picture

In an August 2002 interview with Randy Shulman for Metro Weekly, Tony Curtis discussed what he saw as the homosexual subtext in The Defiant Ones: ""The subject of homosexuality did not come up literally, but it was so evident. There have been a number of movies I've found myself in without even thinking about it doing it because I like the idea of the impudent attitude toward sex, politics or anything else. My film career always kind of moved in that direction."


6:00 PM -- The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
A bored tycoon turns to bank robbery and courts the insurance investigator assigned to bring him in.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke
C-102 mins, Letterbox Format, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Michel Legrand (music), Alan Bergman (lyrics) and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind"

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Michel Legrand

Faye Dunaway's breakthrough movie Bonnie and Clyde (1967) hadn't come out yet when she was cast in May 1967. Steve McQueen jokingly referred to her as "Done Fade-away", unaware that she would become an overnight sensation that summer.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS



8:00 PM -- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
A British military officer enlists the Arabs for desert warfare in World War I.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
C-227 mins, Letterbox Format, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- David Lean, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, John Stoll and Dario Simoni, Best Sound -- John Cox (Shepperton SSD), Best Film Editing -- Anne V. Coates, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Omar Sharif, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (The nomination for Wilson was granted on 26 September 1995 by the Academy Board of Directors, after research at the WGA found that the then blacklisted writer shared the screenwriting credit with Bolt.)

King Hussein of Jordan lent an entire brigade of his Arab Legion as extras for the movie, so most of the film's "soldiers" are played by real soldiers. Hussein frequently visited the sets and became enamored of a young British secretary, Antoinette Gardiner, who became his second wife in 1962. Their eldest son, Abdullah II King Of Jordan, ascended to the throne in 1999.


12:00 AM -- Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
A police detective's violent nature keeps him from being a good cop.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill
BW-95 mins, CC,

This is the last in a series of films that Otto Preminger made as a director-for-hire for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940's. The series includes Laura (1944), which also stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, Fallen Angel (1945) and Whirlpool (1950).


2:00 AM -- Across the Wide Missouri (1951)
An explorer leads the way west for 19th-century settlers along the American frontier.
Dir: William Wellman
Cast: Clark Gable, Ricardo Montalban, John Hodiak
C-78 mins, CC,

During filming Ricardo Montalban was thrown from a horse and trampled. The resulting injury to his spine left him in constant pain for the rest of his life which increased as he aged, eventually leading to a 9-1/2 hour operation in 1993 in an unsuccessful attempt to correct the damage. The operation left him paralyzed from the waist down.


3:30 AM -- On An Island With You (1948)
A movie star falls for a handsome naval officer during location shooting in Hawaii.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Esther Williams, Peter Lawford, Ricardo Montalban
C-108 mins, CC,

Cyd Charisse completed the bulk of this film (most impressively in two romantic dance duets with Ricardo Montalban), then broke her leg during the filming of the big ceremonial dance, where the corps de ballet is in island native makeup. A double completed her scenes (shot at full length), but the injury kept her out of her next scheduled film, Easter Parade (1948). That role, which would've advanced her to fourth billing, went to Ann Miller, making her MGM debut.


5:30 AM -- Inflation (1942)
In this wartime short film, the Devil assists Hitler in causing mischief with the U.S. economy.
Dir: Cy Endfield
Cast: Edward Arnold, Esther Williams, Donald Curtis
BW-17 mins,