TCM Schedule for Saturday, November 14, 2020 -- The Essentials

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, in the Essentials, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird are showing us . . . well, I'm not sure what this week's theme is and the changes to the TCM website make it impossible to tell exactly. My best guess is hiding from the bad guys, but it could be a salute to actors Allen Jenkins or Tim Ryan, or it could even be a salute to Richard Wagner, as his music is featured in the two films featured in prime time tonight. Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- The Honeymoon Machine (1961)
1h 27m | Comedy | TV-PG
Two sailors discover a way to beat the roulette tables in a Venice casino.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Steve McQueen, Brigid Bazlen, Jim Hutton

When the Russian Consul, berating his code-breakers and underlings, begins hitting the desk with his shoe, this is a humorous reference to Russian leader Nikita Kruschev's actions at the United Nations in October of the previous year (1960), when Kruschev banged the rostrum with his shoe in anger at statements made by the Filipino delegation.


8:00 AM -- The Impossible Possum (1954)
6m | Comedy | TV-G
Barney Bear tries to catch a possum for dinner but the possum has many tricks up his sleeve.
Director: Dick Lundy
Cast: Paul Frees


8:08 AM -- The Merchandise Mart (1956)
8m | Documentary | TV-G
This focuses on the Merchandise Mart, one of the largest buildings for the display and sale of wholesale goods.
Director: Larry O'reilly
Cast: Peter Roberts


8:17 AM -- Beautiful Budapest (1938)
8m | Documentary | TV-G
This short documentary focuses on the landmarks, people and culture of Budapest.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick


8:26 AM -- Flying Devils (1933)
1h 2m | Drama | TV-PG
A trio of veteran pilots joins an aerial circus.
Director: Russell Birdwell
Cast: Bruce Cabot, Eric Linden, Arline Judge

Based on a story by Louis Stevens


9:30 AM -- Wild West Days: Six Gun Law (1937)
21m | Action | TV-G
Retired lawman Kentucky Wade and his three buddies come to Brimstone and help their friends.
Director: Ford Beebe, Clifford Smith
Cast: John Mack Brown, George Shelley, Lynn Gilbert

Episode seven of thirteen.


10:00 AM -- Too Weak to Work (1933)
7m | Comedy | TV-PG
Bluto thinks he needs a complete rest; Popeye, however, soon teaches him that honest toil is best.
Director: Izzy Sparber (as I. Sparber), James Tyer (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 -- Mexican Spitfire at Sea (1942)
1h 13m | Comedy | TV-G
An advertising executive and his temperamental wife sail to Hawaii in search of business.
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Cast: Lupe Velez, Leon Errol, Charles "buddy" Rogers

This is the fourth installment of the Spitfire films, a series of seven comedies that originated after the box-office success of The Girl from Mexico (1939), which first introduced Carmelita and the other characters of the series.


11:30 AM -- You, the People (1940)
21m | Drama | TV-PG
This focuses on a gangster who tries to get a cooked mayor re-elected.
Director: Roy Rowland
Cast: William Edmunds, Thomas E Jackson, Ken Christy

Thirty-second in the Crime Doesn't Pay series.


12:00 PM -- Dodge City (1939)
1h 45m | Western | TV-PG
A soldier of fortune takes on the corrupt boss of a western town.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Ann Sheridan

The barroom brawl was supposedly the largest ever filmed.


2:00 PM -- In a Lonely Place (1950)
1h 31m | Drama | TV-PG
Screenwriter Dixon Steele is known for his belligerent temper, especially when drinking.
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy

In her essay "Humphrey and Bogey", Louise Brooks wrote that more than any other role that Humphrey Bogart played, it was the role of Dixon Steele in this movie that came closest to the real Bogart she knew.


3:45 PM -- Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
2h 3m | Comedy | TV-PG
A Chicago gangster stumbles into philanthropic work during a gang war.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.

Nominee for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Jimmy Van Heusen (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "My Kind of Town", and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Nelson Riddle

Making this film should have been fun. Instead, by more than one account, it was a waking nightmare for all involved. John F. Kennedy was assassinated soon after filming started, casting a pall over the entire set. Not long after that, Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped from his dressing room at Lake Tahoe, Nevada (Upon payment of a large ransom, he was released, unharmed, a few days later). Victor Buono, who played Deputy Sheriff Alvin Potts, later observed that it was a minor miracle that filming was completed at all.


6:00 PM -- The Gumball Rally (1976)
1h 46m | Comedy | TV-14
A bored businessman spearheads a madcap race from coast to coast.
Director: Chuck Bail
Cast: Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey

They wanted a shot of the Ferrari speedometer but the helicopter couldn't keep up. They finally got the shot by mounting the camera on the AC Cobra.


8:00 PM -- Ball of Fire (1942)
1h 51m | Drama | TV-G
A group of professors takes in a nightclub singer hiding from the law to protect her gangster boyfriend.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Barbara Stanwyck, Best Writing, Original Story -- Thomas Monroe and Billy Wilder, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Alfred Newman

When Gary Cooper is taking notes of the newsboy's slang, the marquee on the theater across the street advertises Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), an inside joke that refers to the script's inspiration.


10:00 PM -- Brother Orchid (1940)
1h 30m | Comedy | TV-PG
After a failed hit, a mob chief recuperates in a monastery.
Director: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sothern, Humphrey Bogart

Of the five films that Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart made together, this is the only one in which neither is killed. The other films are Bullets or Ballots (1936), Kid Galahad (1937), The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938), and Key Largo (1948). In those five films, Robinson kills Bogart once, Bogart kills Robinson once, and they kill each other twice.


12:00 AM -- Fear (1946)
54m | Drama | TV-PG
A detective uses psychological warfare to get a confession out of a murderous student.
Director: Alfred Zeisler
Cast: Peter Cookson, Warren William, Anne Gwynne

Re-titled, and edited down to less than thirty minutes, after having been previously telecast as a feature film this was re-sold to television in the early 1950's as part of a syndicated half hour mystery show.


1:30 AM -- Family Plot (1976)
2h | Comedy | TV-14
A phony psychic takes on a pair of kidnappers.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris

At one point during filming, Bruce Dern questioned Sir Alfred Hitchcock about why he was cast in the movie. Hitchcock replied, "Because Mr. Packinow wanted a million dollars, and Hitch doesn't pay a million dollars." It took Dern a while to realize that "Mr. Packinow" was Al Pacino.


3:45 AM -- Frenzy (1972)
1h 56m | Thriller | TV-MA
When a temperamental man's ex-wife falls victim to a serial killer, he becomes the number one suspect.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Jon Finch, Barry Foster, Barbara Leigh-hunt

Much of the location filming was done in and around Covent Garden, and was an homage to the London of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's childhood. The son of a Covent Garden merchant, Hitchcock filmed several key scenes showing the area as the working produce market that it was. Aware that the area's days as a market were numbered, Hitchcock wanted to record the area as he remembered it. According to the "Making of" featurette on the DVD, an elderly man who remembered Hitchcock's father as a dealer in the vegetable m

[CBHagman]

1. Bogart and Robinson.

What a description of the five movies Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart made together!

In those five films, Robinson kills Bogart once, Bogart kills Robinson once, and they kill each other twice.

Of those films, I've only seen Brother Orchid and Key Largo. The first was a real surprise, and the second was a real nail-biter!

[rdmtimp]

2. According to the pdf file that is linked in the monthly Now Playing email..

the theme for tonight is "Unlikely Hideouts".

[Staph]

3. Then I was close!

I said "hiding from the bad guys".

I've finally signed up for the Now Playing email. I'm tired of so much information missing from the TCM website.