TCM Schedule for Thursday, June 30, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: Prime Time Theme: Revisionist Western

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM celebrates director Anthony Mann, born Emil Anton Bundesmann on June 30, 1906, in San Diego, California. From IMDB:

From age 18, Mann worked on the Broadway stage as an actor, production manager and set designer, later progressing to directing. In 1938, he joined David O. Selznick as a casting director and talent scout, supervising screen tests for Gone with the Wind (1939), Rebecca (1940) and Intermezzo (1939).

In Hollywood from 1939, Mann began as an assistant director at Paramount. Promoted to director, he began by turning out low-budget thrillers and films noir for studios like Republic, Eagle-Lion (formerly PRC) and RKO (1945-46). He was at MGM from 1949-51, but eventually made his breakthrough at Universal with a series of uncompromisingly tough, psychological Westerns starring James Stewart. These films featured a recurrent theme of revenge, obsession and rage. They were superbly photographed on location, amidst spectacular, rugged scenery, providing an effective backdrop for the narrative and a counterpoint to the leading protagonist's psyche. In stark contrast, Mann also directed a nostalgic and popular (though inaccurate) biopic of bandleader Glenn Miller, The Glenn Miller Story (1954), again featuring Stewart.

Towards the end of his career, Mann directed two major epics: El Cid (1961)--which was his last major success--and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), shot with an international cast at a cost of $18.4 million. Poorly received, the film bankrupted producer Samuel Bronston. Mann only directed two more films and died during shooting of A Dandy in Aspic (1968), which was completed by its star Laurence Harvey.

Then in prime time, it's the end of this month of Revisionist Westerns. This week -- Horror and Sci-Fi Double Feature and 90s Double Feature. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Desperate (1947)
1h 13m | Crime | TV-PG
An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he's accused of robbery.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr

The first assignment that director Anthony Mann felt he could call his own creation after doing several "B" pictures for RKO.


7:30 AM -- Border Incident (1949)
1h 36m | Drama | TV-PG
Police try to crack down on the illegal immigration racket.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard Da Silva

In an interview with TCM, Ricardo Montalban, who was born in Mexico, pointed to this film as one of the few he made in Hollywood in which he actually played a Mexican.


9:15 AM -- The Black Book (1949)
1h 30m | Drama | TV-PG
Opponents plot to bring down Robespierre during the French Revolution.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart, Richard Hart

Originally released as Reign of Terror.


11:00 AM -- Devil's Doorway (1950)
1h 24m | Western | TV-PG
A Native American Civil War hero returns home to fight for his people.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Robert Taylor, Louis Calhern, Paula Raymond

After an unsuccessful May 1950 press preview, MGM shelved the film. The grim movie was superbly made, but its uncompromising, downbeat story seemed to spell box-office disaster. After the release of the more mainstream Broken Arrow (1950) the following fall, it did get some bottom-of-the-bill bookings in neighborhood grindhouses but did little business and has remained little seen.


12:45 PM -- Side Street (1950)
1h 23m | Crime | TV-PG
A New York City mailman is chased by both cops and crooks when he steals a shipment of dirty money.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Farley Granger, Cathy O'Donnell, James Craig

Director Anthony Mann's final film noir. After this he would mostly make westerns.


2:15 PM -- The Tall Target (1951)
1h 18m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A detective tries to prevent the assassination of President Lincoln during a train ride.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Dick Powell, Paula Raymond, Adolphe Menjou

The first director attached to this subject several years before the film was finally made, was Joseph Losey. He had planned to cast Lena Horne in the role finally played by Ruby Dee - originally planned as a much larger part.


3:45 PM -- The Naked Spur (1953)
1h 31m | Western | TV-PG
A captive outlaw uses psychological tactics to prey on a bounty hunter.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom

When this film was released in Spain, its title was changed to "Colorado Jim." For unknown reasons, the name of James Stewart's character was also changed--from "Howard Kemp" to "Colorado Jim."


5:30 PM -- Cimarron (1960)
2h 20m | Western | TV-PG
A pioneer couple plays a major role in the settling of Oklahoma.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, Addison Hehr, Henry Grace, Hugh Hunt and Otto Siegel, and Best Sound -- Franklin Milton (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer SSD)

This was a remake of Cimarron (1931), which was the first Western to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Amazingly, no other Western had won an Oscar for Best Picture by the time this film had been released, and it would almost be 60 years before another Western was to win, Dances with Wolves (1990).



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- REVISIONIST WESTERNS



8:00 PM -- Westworld (1973)
1h 31m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
A future fantasy park turns deadly when robot workers go on a killing spree.
Director: Michael Crichton
Cast: Richard Benjamin, Yul Brynner, James Brolin

Michael Crichton became inspired to write this film after a trip to Disneyland, where he saw the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and was impressed by the animatronic characters. Furthermore, the ride is mentioned in Jurassic Park (1993), when Malcolm says "When the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.", unlike what happens in this film. Jurassic Park (1993) was based on the novel by Westworld director Michael Crichton.


9:45 PM -- Near Dark (1987)
1h 35m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
A young man reluctantly joins a traveling family of evil vampires because the girl he had tried to seduce is part of that group.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen

According to Lance Henriksen, he prepared for his role of Jesse by coming up with a background for his character and acting it out. The origin story he came up with was that Jesse was in the Confederate navy when he became a vampire. Henriksen painted his hair black with tar, since that was an actual thing seamen did in the 1800's. He then added broken fake nails to make his fingers look like the extensions of his finger bones and went to town at night like that while in character. He managed to scare a waitress in Denny's and a hitchhiker twice his size he picked up on the road one night. The hitchhiker quickly asked to leave the car as soon as they drove up to the first inhabited area, so Henriksen, without revealing that he was just an actor messing with the guy, gave the man all 80 dollars he had on him for being a good sport. Henriksen always jokingly adds that he was lucky, since the hitchhiker could have easily overpowered him in a fight and "make him cry like a baby."


11:30 PM -- Dead Man (1996)
2h | Drama
On the run after murdering a man, an accountant encounters a strange aboriginal American man who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cast: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Lance Henriksen

This movie contains conversations in the Cree and Blackfoot languages, which were intentionally not translated or subtitled, for the exclusive understanding of members of those nations, including several in-jokes aimed at Native American viewers.


1:45 AM -- Posse (1993)
1h 52m | Western
In 1898 Cuba, five Buffalo Soldiers find a gold cache, desert and return to America where they help defend a black town from the KKK.
Director: Mario Van Peebles
Cast: Mario Van Peebles, Stephen Baldwin, Charles Lane

Salli Richardson-Whitfield found herself in the unusual position of shooting a naked love scene (it will be her only one in her career) with the film's star, Mario Van Peebles, who also directed the movie. Seemingly unconcerned that Van Peeblees wanted to shoot a scene bordering on pornography, the actress saw an unusual advantage to the arrangement: "It makes one less man in the room."


3:45 AM -- Red River (1948)
2h 5m | Western | TV-PG
A young cowhand rebels against his rancher stepfather during a perilous cattle drive.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Borden Chase, and Best Film Editing -- Christian Nyby

After seeing John Wayne's performance in the film, directed by rival director Howard Hawks, John Ford is quoted as saying, "I never knew the big son of a bitch could act." This led to Ford casting Wayne in more complex, multi-layered, and dramatic roles in films like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).