TCM Schedule for Saturday, June 26, 2021 -- Daytime/Primetime Theme: Hitchcock Binge-watch Weekend

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Starting at 6:00 AM, TCM is devoting the weekend to a binge watch of Alfred Hitchcock films! Consider this a weekend masterclass in the art of film direction, and enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Sabotage (1936)
1h 16m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
An unhappily married woman discovers her husband is an enemy agent.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester

Graham Greene, a well-known film critic in the 1930s as well as a novelist, was well-known for his intense dislike of the films of Alfred Hitchcock and also for his no less intense admiration of the novels of Joseph Conrad, whose influence on Greene has been often remarked. However, although this Hitchcock film is a very free adaptation of Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent", Greene was, rather surprisingly, full of praise for it and often said it was Hitchcock's best film. Later and more renowned Hitchcock films found Greene once again indifferent, and he emphatically refused to sell the film rights to any of his novels to Hitchcock.

As with most of his films, director Alfred Hitchcock makes a cameo appearance. He can be seen at the 08:56 mark, just after the lights come back on in front of the movie theater, looking up towards the sky as he crosses in front of the crowd.


7:30 AM -- The 39 Steps (1935)
1h 27m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A man falsely suspected of killing a spy races across Scotland handcuffed to the beautiful blonde who turned him in.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim

Before filming the scene where Hannay (Robert Donat) and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) run through the countryside, Alfred Hitchcock handcuffed them together and pretended for several hours to have lost the key in order to put them in the right frame of mind for such a situation.

Director Cameo: at around seven minutes, man tossing some litter as Richard and Annabella are about to board a bus outside of the music hall. Walking with him is screenwriter Charles Bennett.


9:00 AM -- The Wrong Man (1956)
1h 45m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A musician is mistaken for a vicious thief, with devastating results.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle

The scene where Manny (Henry Fonda) is taken to prison was filmed in a real prison. As he is led to his cell , you can hear one of the inmates yell out "What'd they get ya for, Henry??", and a bunch of other prisoners laughing.

Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of his usual cameos, standing in a restaurant as Manny sits, but decided on using a narrated prologue instead, believing the levity of a cameo worked against the serious tone of the film.


11:00 AM -- Saboteur (1942)
1h 48m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young man accused of sabotage goes on the lam to prove his innocence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger

When the French liner, the S.S. Normandie burned and partially sank in New York City harbor, Alfred Hitchcock quickly dispatched a Universal newsreel crew to the scene to get footage that he incorporated into this movie, intercut with studio shots of the saboteur smiling from the back seat of a taxi as he looks out on the supposedly sabotaged ship.

Alfred Hitchcock's original cameo was cut by order of the censors. He and his secretary played deaf pedestrians. When Hitchcock's character made an apparently indecent proposal to her in sign language, she slapped his face. A more conventional cameo in front of a drugstore was substituted.


1:00 PM -- Torn Curtain (1966)
2h 8m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A U.S. scientist pretends to defect to follow his mentor behind the Iron Curtain.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova

The idea behind this movie came from the defections of British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to the Soviet Union in 1951. Alfred Hitchcock was particularly intrigued about Maclean's life in the Soviet Union, and about Melinda Marling, Maclean's wife, who followed her husband behind the Iron Curtain a year later with the couple's three children.

Director Cameo: Early in the movie sitting in a hotel lobby with a baby on his knee. He transfers the baby to his other knee, and then rubs his knee, as if disdainfully looking at something the baby has done to it.


3:15 PM -- North by Northwest (1959)
2h 16m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Ernest Lehman, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Film Editing -- George Tomasini

This movie has been referred to as "the first James Bond film" due to its similarities with splashily colorful settings, secret agents, and an elegant, daring, wisecracking leading man opposite a sinister yet strangely charming villain. The crop duster scene inspired the helicopter chase in From Russia with Love (1963).

Director Cameo: At around 2 mins, man arriving at a bus stop during the opening credits, but getting there a second too late and the door is closed in his face. He misses the bus.


5:45 PM -- Vertigo (1958)
2h 8m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he's been hired to tail.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color -- Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead, Sam Comer and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Sound -- George Dutton (Paramount SSD)

Uncredited second unit cameraman Irmin Roberts invented the famous "zoom out and track in" shot (now sometimes called "contra-zoom" or "trombone shot&quot to convey the sense of vertigo to the audience. The view down the mission stairwell cost $19,000 for just a couple of seconds of screentime.

Director Cameo: At around 11 mins, wearing a gray suit walking past Gavin Elster's shipyard, carrying a case for a very high quality costume mask for the Doctor of the Plague.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAYTIME AND PRIMETIME THEME -- HITCHCOCK BINGE-WATCH WEEKEND



8:00 PM -- The Birds (1963)
2h | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
In a California coastal area, flocks of birds unaccountably make deadly attacks on humans.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy

Nominee
Oscar Best Effects, Special Visual Effects
Ub Iwerks

Sir Alfred Hitchcock saw Tippi Hedren in a 1961 commercial aired during the Today (1952) show and put her under contract. In the commercial for a diet drink, she is seen walking down a street and a man whistles at her slim, attractive figure, and she turns her head with an acknowledging smile. In the opening scene of this movie, the same thing happens as she walks toward the bird shop. This was an inside joke by Hitchcock.

Director Cameo: at the start of the movie, man walking two dogs out of the pet shop. The dogs were actually his white terriers named Geoffrey and Stanley.


10:15 PM -- Rear Window (1954)
1h 52m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A photographer with a broken leg uncovers a murder while spying on the neighbors in a nearby apartment building.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Alfred Hitchcock, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert Burks, and Best Sound, Recording -- Loren L. Ryder (Paramount)

According to Georgine Darcy, when the man and woman on the fire escape struggle to get in out of the rain was based on a prank by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Each actor and actress in the apartment complex facing Jeff's rear window wore an earpiece through which they could receive Hitchcock's directions. Hitchcock told the man to pull the mattress in one direction and told the woman to pull in the opposite direction. Unaware that they had received conflicting directions, the couple began to fight and struggle to get the mattress inside once the crew began filming. The resulting mayhem, in which one of the couple is tossed inside the window with the mattress, provided humor and a sense of authenticity, which Hitchcock liked. He was so pleased with the result that he did not order another take.

Director Cameo: (At around 25 minutes) Winding the clock in the songwriter's apartment. The songwriter Ross Bagdasarian, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks.


12:15 AM -- Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
1h 48m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Gordon McDonell

Alfred Hitchcock said that part of why he considered this to be his favorite movie was that he loved the idea of bringing menace to an otherwise idyllic small town.

Director Cameo: On the train to Santa Rosa, California playing cards. He has the entire suit of spades in his hand, including the symbolic Ace.


2:30 AM -- Strangers on a Train (1951)
1h 36m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A man's joking suggestion that he and a chance acquaintance trade murders turns deadly.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Robert Burks

The final scene of the so-called American version of this movie had Barbara and Anne Morton waiting for Guy to call on the telephone. Alfred Hitchcock wanted the phone in the foreground to dominate the shot, emphasizing the importance of the call, but the limited depth-of-field of contemporary movie camera lenses made it difficult to get both phone and women in focus. So Hitchcock had an oversized phone constructed and placed in the foreground. Anne reaches for the big phone, but actually answers a regular one: "I did that on one take,"Hitchcock explained, "by moving in on Anne so that the big phone went out of the frame as she reached for it. Then a grip put a normal-sized phone on the table, where she picked it up."

Director Cameo: can be seen early in the film, boarding a train carrying a double bass as Guy disembarks.


4:30 AM -- Family Plot (1976)
2h | Suspense/Mystery | 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 Alfred Hitchcock about why he was cast. 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.

Director Cameo: (At around forty-five minutes) In silhouette behind the door at the registrar of births and deaths.

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1. Yay!