TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 31, 2013 -- Star of the Month - Vincent Price

[Staph]

Throughout the day, TCM is celebrating Halloween with a variety of horror films starring the incomparable Christopher Lee, with the prime time hours featuring TCM's Star of the Month Vincent Price. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
A scientist's attempts to create life unleash a bloodthirsty monster.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart
C-83 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Although they had both previously appeared in Hamlet and Moulin Rouge, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of this film for the first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases, and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing's death in 1994.


7:30 AM -- The Mummy (1959)
A resurrected mummy stalks the archaeologists who defiled his tomb.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux
C-88 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

A door that Christopher Lee must crash through was accidentally bolted by a grip before the scene is shot. Lee's shoulder was dislocated when he broke down the door, but the shot remains in the movie. Christopher Lee's mummy walk isn't entirely acting. Besides the injuries to his back and shoulder, he also injured his knees and shins while doing scenes in the studio-tank "swamp" - he couldn't see where the various pipes and fittings under the swampy water were.


9:00 AM -- Horror Castle (1963)
A Holocaust survivor tortures women in the dungeons of an ancient castle.
Dir: Anthony Dawson
Cast: Rossana Podestà, Georges Rivière, Christopher Lee
C-84 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

Filmed in Italy, in Italian. Christopher Lee's voice was dubbed by another actor for the English-language version.


10:30 AM -- The Castle of the Living Dead (1964)
A traveling circus entertains a medieval count who uses them in his bizarre experiments.
Dir: Michael Reeves
Cast: Christopher Lee, Donald Sutherland,
BW-90 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

Another Italian film -- According to Christopher Lee, during postsynch stage, he had to dub his own voice only with a vague memory of his lines because a continuity girl had neglected to record the dialogs of the film on paper.


12:15 PM -- Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1965)
Four travelers unwittingly revive the bloodsucking count.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Andrew Keir
C-90 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Many speculations were made around the absence of dialog for Dracula: contrary to Christopher Lee's claiming about his refusal to deliver stupid lines, none of these were said to be found in the original scripts. It had been more largely admitted that Hammer productions, fearing for increase of his salary, had limited Lee's appearance on screen to minimum and dialogs to none. However the following adventures of Dracula played by Lee, though not particularly talkative, tend to deny this last hypothesis.


1:45 PM -- The Devil's Bride (1968)
Small town Satanists lure an innocent brother and sister into their coven.
Dir: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi
C-96 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

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


3:45 PM -- Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1969)
Dracula goes after the niece of the monsignor who destroyed his castle.
Dir: Freddie Francis
Cast: Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson
C-92 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Christopher Lee loved to recount the following tale: Hammer was given a Queen's Award to Industry while shooting the final scenes of Dracula impaled on the rocks, with a group of British government dignitaries watching as Lee thrashed around screaming and pouring with gore. After the scene wrapped, a minister turned to wife and said, "That man is a member of my club."


5:30 PM -- Horror Express (1972)
An anthropologist discovers a frozen monster which he believes may be the Missing Link.
Dir: Eugenio Martin
Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas
C-88 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

Filmed in December 1971, the first Christmas for Peter Cushing since the February 14 death of his beloved wife Helen. Christopher Lee's family made it as warm an affair as possible for Cushing, who would grieve for his lost wife for the remainder of his life, often playing roles that mirrored his own sadness. Despite the freezing working conditions and "abominable" food, this film provided one of the few co-starring roles where the two actors get to work in unison, rather than opposing one another, with Cushing getting the most amusing lines.


7:15 PM -- Now Playing November (2013)
BW-21 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: VINCENT PRICE



8:00 PM -- Pit And The Pendulum (1961)
A young man investigates his sister's death in a mysterious castle.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Vincent Price, John Kerr, Barbara Steele
C-80 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

To increase the pendulum's sense of deadly menace, director Roger Corman took out every other frame during the editing stage making the blade appear to move twice as fast.


9:30 PM -- The Haunted Palace (1963)
After inheriting a decaying estate, a man discovers his family's deadly secret.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Vincent Price, Debra Paget, Lon Chaney [Jr.]
C-87 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Completed April 1963, and the only film teaming Vincent Price and Lon Chaney Jr., other than Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein.


11:15 PM -- The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)
A sadistic nobleman isolates his court from a world stricken with the plague.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher
C-89 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Jane Asher asked Roger Corman if a friend could visit the set and join them for lunch. She explained that her friend was a musician who was about to about to do his first gig in London that night. At the end of lunch, Corman wished him good luck with his concert. Roger Corman had never heard of Paul McCartney until he read of the concert's success in the next day's newspapers.


1:00 AM -- The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
A madman uses the plagues of ancient Egypt to avenge his wife's death.
Dir: Robert Fuest
Cast: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Virginia North
C-95 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Joseph Cotten would grumble on the set that he had to remember and deliver lines, while Vincent Price's were all to be post-dubbed. Price responded, "Yes, but I still know them, Joe." In fact, Price was well-known in Hollywood for his ability to memorize all of the characters' lines in a given production, not just his own.


2:45 AM -- Twice-Told Tales (1963)
A poisonous young beauty, the secrets of eternal life and a haunted house chill this collection of Nathaniel Hawthorne stories.
Dir: Sidney Salkow
Cast: Vincent Price, Sebastian Cabot, Mari Blanchard
C-120 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Beverly Garland claimed that she saw Vincent Price--who was a connoisseur of fine art, sculpture and furniture, among other things--eying some of the prop furniture on the set of the film. When the shooting ended, those pieces of furniture "mysteriously" vanished.


5:00 AM -- The Tomb Of Ligeia (1964)
A man's obsession with his dead wife leads to trouble for his new bride.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Vincent Price, Elizabeth Shepherd, John Westbrook
C-82 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Roger Corman wanted to break away from his standard technique of shooting his "Poe" features entirely on soundstages. There are many scenes, including the entire first reel, that were shot outdoors.