TCM Schedule for Saturday, October 17, 2020 -- The Essentials

[Staph]

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 a pair of Gene Kelly musicals, Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Summer Stock (1950). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Password Is Courage (1962)
1h 56m | Comedy | TV-PG
A British officer leads an attempt to escape from a German POW camp.
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Maria Perschy, Alfred Lynch

"Hogan's Heroes" (1965) shared many similarities to this movie. The regular characters in "Hogan's Heroes" (1965) are characters straight out of this movie, and many of the antics in the series are things that happen in the movie. However, there is no mention of Charles Coward's autobiography or of this movie in any of the "Hogan's Heroes" (1965) credits.


8:00 AM -- Sheep Wrecked (1958)
6m | Comedy | TV-G
Sheepherder Droopy protects his flock from a Southern wolf.
Director: Michael Lah
Cast: Daws Butler, Bill Thompson


8:08 AM -- Cave Explorers (1957)
8m | Documentary | TV-G
A group of Austrian speleologists explore a newly-discovered cave.
Director: Heinz Scheiderbauer
Cast: Peter Roberts, Jack Davis, Herman Fuchs

This is one of several short subjects, already in the can, and slated for release by RKO Radio Pictures as part of their Screenliners 1956-1957 season, but which received no theatrical distribution at the time, as a result of the demise of RKO. In 1994, they became part of the TCM library and, for the past 20+ years, finally saw the light of day through occasional airings on cable television.


8:17 AM -- The Capital City Washington, D.C. (1940)
8m | Documentary | TV-G
This focuses on Washington, D.C.'s famous buildings and monuments.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick, Bakaleinikoff, Robert Carney


8:27 AM -- She Loved a Fireman (1937)
57m | Drama | TV-G
A ne'er-do-well learns the hard way that there's more to fire fighting than lying around the bunkhouse.
Director: John Farrow
Cast: Dick Foran, Ann Sheridan, Robert Armstrong

Interestingly, the two male leads are best remembered today for their roles in classic horror movies: Armstrong for King Kong (1933) and Foran for The Mummy's Hand (1940).


9:30 AM -- Wild West Days: The Indians Are Coming (1937)
Action | TV-G
Retired lawman Kentucky Wade and his three buddies come to Brimstone and help their friends.
Directors: Ford Beebe, Clifford Smith
Cast: John Mack Brown, George Shelley, Lynn Gilbert

Chapter four of thirteen.


10:00 AM -- A Hull of a Mess (1942)
6m | Comedy | TV-PG
Popeye and Bluto desire to win government contracts to build ships, and vie to build the biggest and best.
Director: Izzy Sparber (as I. Sparber), Al Eugster (uncredited)
Cast: Jack Mercer, William Pennell

One of a number of Popeye shorts which were sent off to Asia in the 80's to undergo the infamous redraw and colorization process.


10:08 AM -- Lord of the Jungle (1955)
1h 9m | Adventure | TV-PG
The jungle boy tries to stop a herd of rogue elephants.
Director: Ford Beebe
Cast: Johnny Sheffield, Wayne Morris, Nancy Hale

This was Johnny Sheffield's 12th and last appearance as Bomba. He had previously played "Boy" opposite Johnny Weissmuller in 8 M-G-M Tarzan films. Although he would survive for more than half a century after this film's release, Sheffield chose never to appear on screen again.


11:30 AM -- Kissing Time (1933)
21m | Romance | TV-G
An American woman visits a small South American town where she quickly falls for a charming lieutenant.
Director: Roy Mack
Cast: Don Zelaya, Jane Froman, Ralph Sanford


12:00 PM -- Angel and the Badman (1947)
1h 40m | Romance | TV-G
When a Quaker girl nurses a notorious gunman back to health, he tries to adopt her peaceful ways.
Director: James Edward Grant
Cast: John Wayne, Gail Russell, Harry Carey

It was the first motion picture produced by John Wayne's production company, Patnel Productions. It also was Wayne's first producing effort for Republic.


1:45 PM -- Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
1h 57m | Adventure | TV-G
The famed 19th century hero defeats enemy fleets and courts an admiral's widow.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, Robert Beatty

The Hornblower series of books were written by C.S. Forester and he adapted his own novels for this movie. In all, there were eleven novels in the series. Among his other adventures, he survives a courts martial for mutinying against a legendary captain who was a dangerously mentally ill, prevents an invasion of Ireland by Napoleonic forces, unmasks a traitor among the admiralty, foils an assassination plot against Russian Tsar Alexander I, retrieves sunken treasure within the Ottoman Empire, encounters the army of Simon Bolivar, and despite his years battling the French he is made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III); eventually retiring as Admiral of the Fleet.


4:00 PM -- Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
1h 32m | Comedy | TV-PG
Spoofy send-up of the Western genre centers around a cowboy who drifts into a lawless town and brings things back together.
Director: Burt Kennedy
Cast: James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan

Actor/screenwriter Beau Dare, wrote a screenplay, "The Return of Jason McCullough" for James Garner (2004) that picks up the film 25 years on, where Garner's character, "Jason," comes out of retirement to clean up the town from outlaws, one last time. Dare also wrote the leader of the gang of outlaws for Pernell Roberts (Adam Cartwright of Bonanza), who's character, "Cole Danton" is a resourseful, but frustrated Shakespearean actor. Roberts, in real life was a renowned Shakespearean actor.


5:45 PM -- Rollerball (1975)
2h 9m | Action | TV-14
The star of a bloodthirsty future sport tries to clean up the game before it kills him.
Director: Norman Jewison
Cast: James Caan, John Houseman, Maud Adams

The game sequences were filmed in the Olympic Basketball Arena in Munich, West Germany. Munich citizens were invited to the filming to serve as spectators to the games. Director Norman Jewison intended this movie to be anti-violence, but audiences so loved the action of the game that there was actually talk about forming rollerball leagues in the wake of this movie, which horrified him.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS



8:00 PM -- Singin' in the Rain (1952)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-G
A silent-screen swashbuckler finds love while trying to adjust to the coming of sound.
Director: Gene Kelly
Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O'connor, Debbie Reynolds

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jean Hagen, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Lennie Hayton

Jean Hagen (Lina Lamont) plays someone with a screeching voice--someone from a low-class background, working with Kathleen Freeman who plays the well-spoken elocution teacher. In fact, Hagen was well known for her nicely modulated voice, while Freeman was known for playing comic blue-collar roles that involved exasperated bellowing.


10:00 PM -- Summer Stock (1950)
1h 49m | Musical | TV-G
A farmer gets sucked into show business when a theatrical troupe invades her farm.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken

By 1950, with On the Town (1949) in release and An American in Paris (1951) in pre-production, Gene Kelly could essentially write his own ticket at MGM. The slender thread of Summer Stock (1950) held no creative appeal to him, but he accepted the assignment out of devotion to Judy Garland, realizing that this was her last chance to save her flailing film career. However, despite its anemic plot, a throwback to Garland's barnyard vehicles with Mickey Rooney, Kelly managed to concoct one of his most fondly remembered routines, the dance with the newspaper and squeaky floor board set to "You Wonderful You."


12:00 AM -- Destination Murder (1950)
1h 12m | Crime | TV-PG
A woman infiltrates the mob to find her father's killer.
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Joyce Mackenzie, Stanley Clements, Hurd Hatfield

In this 1950 movie, a behind-the-times movie theater is showing Flight Lieutenant (1942) and Corregidor (1943). Posters seen outside the theater include Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) and Germany Year Zero (1948).


1:45 AM -- The Fearless Vampire Killers; or, Pardon Me but Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1966)
1h 38m | Comedy | TV-14
A bumbling professor tracks vampires in the wilds of Eastern Europe.
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Jack Macgowran, Roman Polanski, Alfie Bass

For the ballroom scene (when the music stops and only three people are visible in a huge mirror despite of a few dozen vampires in the room) Roman Polanski had the room completely copied behind a fake mirror with three doubles acting as the human protagonists.


3:45 AM -- House of Dark Shadows (1970)
1h 37m | Drama | TV-14
A vampire seeks a cure so he can wed the reincarnation of his lost love.
Director: Dan Curtis
Cast: Jonathan Frid, Joan Bennett, Grayson Hall

This film was shot concurrently with the original Dark Shadows (1966) series. During the time of filming, the television program was in the middle of its 1970 parallel time story-arc. Major characters appearing in the film were temporarily written out of the TV series so that they would be available to shoot the movie.


5:30 AM -- Return to Glennascaul (1953)
23m | Horror | TV-PG
Short film starring Orson Welles. The plot is derived from the ubiquitous story of the vanishing hitchhiker.
Director: Hilton Edwards
Cast: Orson Welles, Michael Laurence, Shelah Richards

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel

The film was given to RCA Recording Studios in Hammersmith to complete post-production. They engaged Joseph Sterling to edit it. When the film arrived, it had been very roughly assembled by someone not used to cutting room procedure: trims tightly wound up, no identification, etc. Originally, the film's commentary was given by Michael Laurence, who played Sean Merriman. When editing was completed, Hilton Edwards ran the film for Orson Welles. He then decided that he should re-do the commentary.

[BarbD]

1. TCM is my go-to channel for escape.

Old movies, commercial free and uncut. Love it.

[Staph]

2. We're old movie junkies in this group!

The TCM schedules that we post are a reminder of what to watch this week and a starting point for discussions of our favorites.