TCM Schedule for Friday, October 31, 2014 -- What's On Tonight - 24 Hours of Horror

[Staph]

It's Halloween, and TCM is celebrating with 24 hours of horror films. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, but I just hate horror films! The rest of y'all enjoy!



6:00 AM -- London After Midnight (1927)
In this silent film, vampires are suspected in an unsolved murder.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Henry B. Walthall
BW-47 mins,

Provided the rock band London After Midnight with its name.


7:00 AM -- Mark Of The Vampire (1935)
Vampires seem to be connected to an unsolved murder.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allen, Lionel Atwill
BW-61 mins, CC,

Throughout the film, Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) has an unexplained bullet wound on his temple. In the original script, Count Mora was supposed to have had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Luna, and to have committed suicide. After filming began, however, MGM deleted references to the crime (and any remaining references may have been deleted when 20 minutes of footage was removed after the film's preview). Because director Tod Browning's previous film, Freaks (1932), had been a box office disaster, Browning was unable to object to any changes made by the studio.


8:03 AM -- Things You Never See On The Screen (1935)
This short film presents a series of bloopers from various Warner Bros. productions.
BW-10 mins,


8:15 AM -- The Devil-Doll (1936)
A Devil's Island escapee shrinks murderous slaves and sells them to his victims as dolls.
Dir: Tod Browning
Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton
BW-78 mins, CC,

Madame Mandilip's special dolls are costumed as members of vicious street gangs known as the Apache (pronounced ah-PAHSH), who were involved in theft, prostitution, and the occasional murder in pre-World War I Paris. The dolls even perform the Apache dance popularized by the gangs, in which extremely close steps alternate with seemingly brutal punches, kicks, hair-pulling, spins, and throws; it was usually danced to the Valse des rayons (aka Valse chaloupée) composed by Jacques Offenbach. In the 1930s and 1940s, this dance was still performed by professional dancers and can be seen in several films and even cartoons of the period.


9:45 AM -- I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
A nurse in the Caribbean resorts to voodoo to cure her patient, even though she's in love with the woman's husband.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: James Ellison, Frances Dee, Tom Conway
BW-69 mins, CC,

Val Lewton did not like the article "I Walked With A Zombie" by Inez Wallace that had been optioned so he adapted the story to fit the novel "Jane Eyre" because he felt the article's plot was too clichéd.


11:00 AM -- Cat People (1942)
A newlywed fears that an ancient curse will turn her into a bloodthirsty beast.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph
BW-73 mins, CC,

R.K.O. gave Val Lewton only $150,000 to make the film, resulting in "creative" producing. This forced many of the scenes requiring special effects to be done in shadows which many believe increased the suspense of the film. When studio execs insisted that more footage of the panther be included in the movie, Lewton was able to maintain the budget and the suspense of the film by limiting how many scenes the panther could be visibly seen and told the cinematographer to "keep the panther in the shadows." Thus the panther was only visible in the office and zoo cage.


12:15 PM -- The Tingler (1959)
A scientist discovers an organism that lives on fear.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman
C-82 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Pamela Lincoln and Darryl Hickman, who play the young suitors, actually got married on November 28th after the Tingler release on July 29th 1959. They had two children, and divorced on December 8th, 1982.


1:45 PM -- Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007)
The last great American showman, producer-director William Castle used outrageous hype to sell his low-budget horror films.
Dir: Jeffrey Schwarz
Cast: Terry Castle, John Waters, Joe Dante
C-82 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Features clips from The Lady in Question (1940), The Chance of a Lifetime (1943), The Whistler (1944), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), This Is Your Life (1952) (TV Series), Fort Ti (1953), House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Tingler (1959), 13 Ghosts (1960), Homicidal (1961), Mr. Sardonicus (1961), Strait-Jacket (1964), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Circle of Fear (1972) (TV Series), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Shanks (1974).


3:15 PM -- Dementia 13 (1963)
Members of an Irish family are being killed off by one of their own who wishes to inherit the family fortune.
Dir: Francis Coppola
Cast: William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton
BW-75 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Francis Ford Coppola was assisting Roger Corman on the set of The Young Racers (1963) in Ireland. Corman allowed Coppola to use the same set, crew and actors Luana Anders, William Campbell and Patrick Magee for this film if he could shoot around the shooting schedule of Corman's film. This became Francis Ford Coppola's first Director credit, as "Francis Coppola".


4:34 PM -- Kingdom Of The Saguenay (1963)
This short film takes the viewer down the Saguenay River, located in Quebec.
Dir: Douglas Sinclair
C-9 mins,


4:45 PM -- Carnival of Souls (1962)
After surviving a car crash, a church organist is haunted by the undead.
Dir: Herk Harvey
Cast: Candace Hilligoss, Herk Harvey, Frances Feist
BW-83 mins, CC,

Upon release in 1962 the film was a failure in the box office, but its subsequent airings on late night television helped to gain it a strong cult following. Today it is regarded as a landmark in psychological horror.


6:15 PM -- Repulsion (1965)
Strange dreams haunt a beautiful young woman left alone in her apartment.
Dir: Roman Polanski
Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
BW-105 mins, CC,

This film, along with Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Tenant (1976), forms a loose trilogy by Roman Polanski about the horrors of apartment/city dwelling.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 24 HOURS OF HORROR



8:00 PM -- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
A space probe unleashes microbes that turn the dead into flesh-eating zombies.
Dir: George A. Romero
Cast: Judith O'Dea, Russell Streiner, Duane Jones
BW-96 mins, CC,

When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies, as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway.


9:49 PM -- Searchers For A Special City (1966)
This short film focuses on how the production team for the movie "Mister Buddwing" (1966) scouted for filming locations in New York City.
BW-9 mins,


10:00 PM -- Curse of the Demon (1958)
An anthropologist investigates a devil worshipper who commands a deadly demon.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis
BW-82 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This film was mentioned in the opening song from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) ("Science Fiction Double Feature&quot : "Dana Andrews said prunes gave him the runes, but passing them used lots of skill".


11:28 PM -- Alert Today - Alive Tomorrow (1956)
This short film promotes the need for cooperation and neighborliness in the event of a nuclear disaster and associated civil defense procedures.
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
BW-15 mins,


11:45 PM -- House Of Wax (1953)
A scarred sculptor re-populates his ravaged wax museum with human corpses.
Dir: Andre DeToth
Cast: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk
C-88 mins, CC,

Warner Bros.' first 3-D movie, filmed by director André De Toth - who was blind in one eye and hence could not see the effect.


1:22 AM -- Poltergeist (Featurette) (1982)
A behind-the-scenes promotional short on the making of "Poltergeist" (1982).
Dir: Frank Marshall
C-7 mins,


1:30 AM -- Poltergeist (1982)
Evil spirits abduct a suburban family's daughter causing chaos and havoc.
Dir: Tobe Hooper
Cast: Jobeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight
C-114 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Effects, Visual Effects -- Richard Edlund, Michael Wood and Bruce Nicholson, Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing -- Stephen Hunter Flick and Richard L. Anderson, and Best Music, Original Score -- Jerry Goldsmith

Steven Spielberg's premise for 'Poltergeist' was based on the history of Cheeseman Park in Denver, Colorado. The park was originally a cemetery, which was converted into a park during city beautification efforts in the early 20th century. The man hired to move the bodies scammed the city of Denver into overpaying him, and the city quickly ran out of funds to pay for moving the dead. With no money left in the coffers, the city decided to simply leave the remaining 'residents' buried in unmarked graves underneath the sod. The park was completed as scheduled, but supernatural occurrences have been reported ever since.


3:30 AM -- Strait-Jacket (1964)
Murder follows an axe murderer home when she's released from a mental hospital.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson
BW-93 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Film debut of Lee Majors who got the small role of playing Lucy Harbin's (Joan Crawford's) husband in the flashback scene after his good friend Rock Hudson asked William Castle to please find a part for the then 23-year-old actor.


5:15 AM -- Eyes Without a Face (1959)
A surgeon steals young women's faces hoping to heal his daughter's scars.
Dir: Georges Franju
Cast: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob
BW-90 mins, Letterbox Format

Director John Carpenter once suggested that selecting the mask that Michael Myers wore in Halloween (1978) was influenced by Edith Scob's mask in this film.