TCM Schedule for Friday, October 30, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Fright Favorites

[Staph]

It's the day before Halloween (which is actually one of my favorite holidays), so TCM is doubling down on the horror films. Argh! Enjoy, if you can!


6:00 AM -- MGM Parade Show #5 (1955)
25m | Documentary | TV-G
Tony Martin performs in a clip from "Till the Clouds Roll By".


6:30 AM -- Doctor X (1932)
1h 16m | Horror | TV-PG
A reporter investigates a series of cannibalistic murders at a medical college.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy

This is the film for which Michael Curtiz is quoted as saying, "This will make your blood curl!"


8:00 AM -- The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
1h 12m | Adventure | TV-PG
A Chinese warlord threatens explorers in search of the key to global power.
Dir: Charles Brabin
Cast: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Karen Morley

In filming the scene where Fu Manchu injects his mind control drug into Terry Granville's neck, Boris Karloff actually pushed the syringe into a baked potato, which was lying on the table next to Charles Starrett's head, out of camera range. However, each time Karloff pressed the plunger down, the potato would explode. This happened on several takes, until Karloff and Starrett couldn't do the scene without laughing. Director Charles Brabin finally gave up and dismissed the two actors for the day, saying, "Never mind! We'll shoot it tomorrow morning!"


9:30 AM -- The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
1h 3m | Drama | TV-PG
A big game hunter decides to stalk human prey.
Dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Cast: Joel Mccrea, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong

The actor playing "Ivan the Cossack" was Noble Johnson, a multi-talented black American who was a childhood friend of Lon Chaney. This is the earliest known instance of a black actor playing a Caucasian character.


10:45 AM -- Island of Lost Souls (1932)
1h 10m | Romance | TV-14
On a remote island, a mad scientist turns wild animals into human monsters.
Dir: Erle C. Kenton
Cast: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams

In response to British censors who claimed the film was "against nature", Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton) is said to have stated, "Of course it's against nature. So's Mickey Mouse!"


12:00 PM -- White Zombie (1932)
1h 13m | Horror | TV-PG
A zombie master menaces newlyweds on a Haitian plantation.
Dir: Victor Halperin
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn

According to friends of Bela Lugosi, the actor always regretted that he had taken the role of "Murder" Legendre for only $800 while the film was quite successful at the box office for the Halperin brothers. Speculation on the exact amount the actor was paid generally ranges from $400-$900 after Lugosi turned down a percentage of the film in favor of a flat salary. An associate of the actor claimed $5000 was deposited into his account. Lugosi became bitter about his decision and always felt underpaid whatever the amount ultimately was. In later years when the subject of the unexpected box office surprise was broached, he would scratch his palm and ask where the money was.


1:30 PM -- The Vampire Bat (1933)
1h 3m | Horror | TV-PG
Villagers suspect the town simpleton of being a vampire.
Dir: Frank Strayer
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas

To keep production costs low, "poverty row" Majestic Pictures filmed at night on "Universal's" European village set which was used for "Frankenstein (1931)." The interior of Lionel Atwill's house is the set from "The Old Dark House (1932)."


2:45 PM -- Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
1h 12m | Horror | TV-PG
A disfigured sculptor turns murder victims into wax statues.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell

The wax figures look like real people because they ARE real people. The original plan was to use actual wax figures, but they melted under the heat of the lights used at the time to film two-strip Technicolor.


4:15 PM -- Mad Love (1935)
1h 7m | Horror | TV-PG
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists.
Dir: Karl Freund
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive

Peter Lorre's first American film.


5:30 PM -- The Walking Dead (1936)
1h 6m | Horror | TV-PG
A framed man comes back from the dead to seek revenge.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Boris Karloff, Ricardo Cortez, Edmund Gwenn

The "glass heart" machine used to revive Karloff's dead character was said to be "nearly a prefect replica" of an actual perfusion pump--a device designed to keep organs alive outside an organism's body--which had been built by Charles Lindbergh, when the legendary pilot and engineer was working with a Nobel-winning scientist at New York's Rockefeller Institute research labs in the mid-1930s.


6:45 PM -- The Return of Dr. X (1939)
1h 2m | Horror | TV-PG
A murderer returns from the grave with a thirst for blood.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Rosemary Lane, Wayne Morris

Humphrey Bogart said of this film: "This is one of the pictures that made me march in to [Warner Bros. studio chief Jack L. Warner] and ask for more money again. You can't believe what this one was like. I had a part that somebody like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff should have played. I was this doctor, brought back to life, and the only thing that nourished this poor bastard was blood. If it had been Jack Warner's blood or [Harry Warner's] or [Sam Warner's] maybe I wouldn't have minded as much. The trouble was, they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."


8:00 PM -- The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959)
1h 10m | Horror | TV-14
A family fights against a voodoo curse that marks each member for death.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Eduard Franz, Valerie French, Grant Richards

The script is based in part on the Amazonian Indian practice of removing the skulls from decapitated heads, padding them with hot sand and shrinking them to an extremely small size.


9:15 PM -- Eye of the Devil (1966)
1h 29m | Horror | TV-PG
A French nobleman deserts his wife because of an ancient family secret.
Dir: J. Lee Thompson
Cast: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Donald Pleasence

This movie spent a long time on the shelf. Filming was completed in the early part of 1966, but its American release was not until late 1967, and its British one not until the spring of 1968. David Hemmings made this movie before his breakthrough role in Blow-Up (1966), and it is quite possible that the great (and unexpected) popularity of that movie was what finally pushed MGM into releasing this one. Many commented with surprise on the smallness of Hemmings' role - it is likely that his special billing, along with that of Sharon Tate, was an afterthought to disguise the fact that they had supporting parts. Although this movie was supposed to launch Tate, she had, because of its protracted shelf-life, already been seen in Don't Make Waves (1967), which she had made subsequently. That movie has a special "introducing" credit for her as a result.


11:00 PM -- The Devil's Bride (1968)
1h 35m | Horror | TV-14
Small town Satanists lure an innocent brother and sister into their coven.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi

The movie's U.S. title was changed to "The Devil's Bride" because its original title, "The Devil Rides Out", made it sound much too much like a Western.


12:45 AM -- The Wicker Man (1974)
1h 37m | Horror | TV-MA
A conservative police officer investigates a girl's disappearance on an island dominated by paganism.
Dir: Robin Hardy
Cast: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento

Director Robin Hardy explained the meaning of the scene with the woman with an egg in her hand nursing a baby while sitting in a graveyard to Alan Cumming in Scotland on Screen (2009). According to Hardy, it is a fertility ritual and she was hoping for another baby.


2:30 AM -- Fleshpot on 42nd Street (1972)
1h 20m | Experimental | TV-MA
Dusty Cole leaves her boyfriend and becomes a prostitute.
Dir: Andy Milligan
Cast: Lynn Flanagan, Bob Walters, Paul Matthews

Fred J. Lincoln and Richard Towers made The Last House on the Left the same year.


4:00 AM -- Guru the Mad Monk (1970)
1h 2m | Horror | TV-MA
A prison colony chaplain exploits his position to gain power through murder and grave robbery.
Dir: Andy Milligan
Cast: Neil Flanagan, Judy Israel, Paul Lieber

Goofs: At 24:20 into the movie, Father Guru enters a building and starts talking to his reflection in the mirror, there's an electric light switch right behind him.


5:15 AM -- Motion Trailer
15m | Short | TV-PG
This is a short compilation reel of local movie theater trailers for upcoming events, such as a "Bug-o-Rama" festival and a "Marathon of Fright."

[Auggie]

1. Heh ... Island of Lost Souls: romance. BTW ...

The Most Dangerous Game (from the department of useless trivia) utilized some off the same sets from King Kong.

Try to catch Charles Laughton in "Island." He's terrific.