TCM Schedule for Thursday, February 4, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Kiss Connection

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, the theme "Take Me To Your Leader", a collection of various science fiction and monster movies. Then in prime time, it's the first day of a new February celebration call the Kiss Connection. Tell us more, Roger!

Kissing has provided a touch of titillation to the movies since the early days of the cinema. One of the first movies ever shown commercially to the public was The Kiss, an 1896 snippet of film showing John Rice bussing May Irwin in a now-quaint scene from the stage musical The Widow Jones.

Since then, almost all movie romances have been sealed with kisses. So, we thought it might be fun to play a kind of “One Degree of Separation” game in which we connect a number of stars by smooching partners they have in common. Hence The Kiss Connection, in which we trace a trail of osculation in movies of the 1930s-60s that begins and ends with Irene Dunne.

Shown below are the star kissers and the films that link them, along with anecdotes about specific scenes.

February 4: In My Favorite Wife (1940) Irene Dunne kisses Cary Grant, who in Charade (1963) kisses Audrey Hepburn, who in Love in the Afternoon (1957) kisses Gary Cooper, who in Ball of Fire (1941) kisses Barbara Stanwyck, who in The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) kisses Humphrey Bogart, who in To Have and Have Not (1944) kisses Lauren Bacall.

Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck enjoyed a potent romantic chemistry in Ball of Fire, their first of three films together. In this comedy directed by Howard Hawks, Cooper is an innocent, bumbling professor of semantics and Stanwyck a jaded, confident showgirl. In the movie’s most delicious scene, the diminutive Stanwyck stands on a couple of books to bring herself to kissing level with the tall, gangly Cooper.

She declares, “I’m going to show you what yum-yum is” as she wraps her arms around his neck. “Here’s yum,” she says, and plants a big kiss on his lips. Then, “Here’s the other yum,” with a longer, even more emphatic kiss. Finally, “And here’s yum-yum,” with a kiss so intense and forward-leaning that they both tumble over and into a nearby chair.

The other films in which Cooper and Stanwyck costarred were Meet John Doe (1941) and Blowing Wild (1953). Anthony Quinn, who costarred in the later film, wrote in his memoirs that, at the time, Cooper was “keeping company” with Stanwyck. According to Quinn, both onscreen and off, Cooper considered Stanwyck to be a true “ball of fire.”

. . .

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)
1h 23m | Sci-Fi | TV-14
Communist Chinese invade the U.S. by burrowing beneath the Pacific.
Director: Montgomery Tully
Cast: Kerwin Mathews, Viviane Ventura, Robert Ayres

Vintage British General Post Office telephones--e.g. models 746--are clearly visible throughout the film sitting on desks of the U.S. military which, of course, is ridiculous.


7:45 AM -- The Amazing Mr. Nordill (1947)
10m | Short, Drama | TV-G
This short film focuses on Everett Nordill, a mastermind behind a counterfeiting ring in the nineteenth century.
Director: Joseph Newman
Cast: Paul Maxey, Leon Ames, John Nesbitt

Although Nordill was supposedly a real criminal, no information on him or his exploits exists on the Internet other than as relates to this short film.


8:00 AM -- Destroy All Monsters (1969)
1h 28m | Action, Foreign, Horror | TV-PG
Aliens have released all the giant monsters from their imprisonment on Monster Island and are using them to destroy all major cities on the planet.
Director: Ishiro Honda
Cast: Akira Kubo, Jun Tazaki, Yoshio Tsuchiya

This film is considered the end of Toho's Golden Age of monster films. Toho intended for this to be the final Godzilla film, but it was successful enough that they decided to continue the series. However, future films would eschew traditional theatrical runs in preference for Toho's Champion Film festival, a seasonal matinee festival for children. A consequence meant that future films would reduce budgets and staff since the films were excessive in cost. For example, this film and the ones prior had two or more large groups of crew members that divide the work on the human drama and effects scenes individually. Case in point, a cinematographer for the human scenes and a different cinematographer for the monster and special effects sequences. Subsequent films would reduced this to a singular crew that had to manage those aspects.


9:45 AM -- Five Million Years to Earth (1968)
1h 38m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Subway excavations unearth a deadly force from beyond space and time.
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley

Of the three Hammer "Quatermass" films, this is the only one which "Quatermass" creator Nigel Kneale personally liked. This was largely due to the fact that he was much happier with Andrew Keir's performance as the title character than he had been with Brian Donlevy's in The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and Quatermass 2 (1957). He described Donlevy as "a former Hollywood heavy gone to seed" and claimed that he was drunk during much of the shooting of the latter film, a claim which its director Val Guest repudiated.


11:30 AM -- The Future Is Now (1955)
14m | Short, Documentary | TV-G
This goes inside government research laboratories to showcase some of the products that will be used in the near future.
Director: Larry O'Reilly
Cast: Dwight Weist


12:00 PM -- The Giant Behemoth (1959)
1h 19m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A radioactive dinosaur plots a deadly path to London.
Director: Eugene Lourie
Cast: Gene Evans, Andre Morell, John Turner

To save money on an already tiny budget,the attacks on London and the ferry were filmed without sound. Many people are seen talking but there is no dialog. Sound effects were added later. The reporter at the ministry is shown in close up, but his mouth movements and dialog don't match. He also has a distinct American accent.


1:30 PM -- Fantastic Planet (1973)
1h 12m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A runaway slave uses alien technology to lead a revolt against his masters.
Director: Rene Laloux
Cast: Barry Bostwick, Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin

Five years in the making -- one reason the coproduction took so long to complete is that in 1968 the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia which caused a delay.


2:45 PM -- The Snow Devils (1965)
1h 18m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Aliens plot to freeze the Earth as a replacement for their doomed home planet.
Director: Antonio Margheriti
Cast: Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Ombretta Colli, Renato Baldini

The screenplay was written by Audrey Wisberg, who also wrote Schwarzenegger's "Hercules in New York."


4:30 PM -- The Wild, Wild Planet (1965)
1h 33m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
Space amazons control the Earth by shrinking its leaders.
Director: Anthony Dawson
Cast: Tony Russel, Lisa Gastoni, Massimo Serato

While filming, a crack in the pool while filled with "blood" originated a leak, so people in the neighborhood suddenly saw blood-like red-colored water coming out from their taps.


6:15 PM -- Voyage to the Sky (1937)
11 m | Documentary, Foreign, Sci-Fi
We begin on planet Earth, with a demonstration of measuring distances using triangulation?????
Director: Jean Painleve


6:30 PM -- The Thing from Another World (1951)
1h 27m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
The crew of a remote Arctic base fights off a murderous monster from outer space.
Director: Christian Nyby
Cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, James Arness

The skeleton crew at the South Pole Telescope station have a tradition every winter-over of watching this movie, and the other two adaptations on the very first night after the departure of the final plane of the season.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- KISS CONNECTION



8:00 PM -- My Favorite Wife (1940)
1h 28m | Comedy | TV-G
A shipwrecked woman is rescued just in time for her husband's remarriage.
Director: Garson Kanin
Cast: Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Leo McCarey, Bella Spewack and Sam Spewack, Best Art Direction, Black-and-White -- Van Nest Polglase and Mark-Lee Kirk, and Best Music, Original Score -- Roy Webb

Gail Patrick, who plays Grant's bride Bianca here, later abandoned acting and eventually served as a producer on the long-running Raymond Burr series Perry Mason.

Irene Dunne kisses Cary Grant ...


9:45 PM -- Charade (1963)
1h 54m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young woman returns home from vacation to find her elegant apartment stripped and her husband dead.
Director: Stanley Donen
Cast: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "Charade"

Cary Grant's character is being pursued by henchmen whom he dismissively refers to as the Marx Brothers. As a young actor still going by his birth name Archie Leach, Grant toured the same vaudeville revues as the Marx Brothers and often watched them perform. In his own letters at the time, young Archie admitted to basing his early stage persona after Zeppo Marx, the straight foil and sometimes romantic lead of the legendary troupe.

Cary Grant kisses Audrey Hepburn ...


12:00 AM -- Love in the Afternoon (1957)
2h 10m | Romance | TV-G
An aging American tycoon overcomes his inhibitions to court a young Parisian.
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Gary Cooper, Audrey Hepburn, Maurice Chevalier

The original ending of the film just showed the two lovers departing together on a train, which threatened to land the film on the Catholic Legion of Decency's "Condemned List." As a result, Maurice Chevalier was called back to do the voice-over heard at the close of the film, in which he reports that the couple are "now married and serving a life sentence in New York City."

Audrey Hepburn kisses Gary Cooper ...


2:30 AM -- Ball of Fire (1942)
1h 51m | Comedy
A group of professors takes in a nightclub singer hiding from the law to protect her gangster boyfriend.
Director: Howard Hawks, William Tummel
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

In one scene, Professor Potts discusses whether "Two and two is five" or "Two and two are five" before his bad math is pointed out. "2 + 2 = 5" is a phrase dating back to at least the French Revolution of 1789 to indicate general absurdity. It wasn't until 1949 that George Orwell used the phrase in a new context, one that continues to this day, meaning an obviously false dogma propagated by the ruling class. The movie maintains the original meaning.

Gary Cooper kisses Barbara Stanwyck ...


4:30 AM -- The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
1h 39m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A woman slowly discovers that her artist husband is a deranged killer.
Director: Peter Godfrey
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith

Humphrey Bogart and Barbara Stanwyck had a friendly relationship on set. Producer Mark Hellinger, whom Bogart liked very much, announced that Bogart would not be seen in any painter's wardrobe which would appear less than the tough guy image he had cultivated. When a painter's smock and beret with a tassel showed up on his wardrobe clothes rack one day, the actor was furious. The smock and beret were a joke perpetrated by Stanwyck, and the two performers had a good laugh afterward.

Barbara Stanwyck kisses Humphrey Bogart ...