TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 9, 2016 -- The Essentials - Joan Leslie

[Staph]

Tonight's Essentials features some of the films of Joan Leslie, who passed away in October of 2015. Enjoy!



6:45 AM -- In Old Santa Fe (1934)
After losing his horse in a crooked race, a cowboy is framed for murder.
Dir: David Howard
Cast: Ken Maynard, Evalyn Knapp, H. B. Warner
BW-63 mins,

This film is essentially Gene Autry's screen test. After Ken Maynard's quarrelsomeness got him fired by studio head Nat Levine, Autry won his first starring role in The Phantom Empire (1935), originally intended to star Maynard. Many years later Autry quietly helped support Maynard when he was old and alcoholic.


8:00 AM -- Song of the Gringo (1936)
A U.S. Marshal poses as an outlaw to find his missing father.
Dir: John McCarthy Jr.
Cast: Tex Ritter, Joan Woodbury, Fuzzy Knight
BW-61 mins,

Just prior to start of filming this, his first movie, Tex Ritter went to a barber shop for a haircut. He fell asleep in the barber's chair and too much hair was cut off. This is why in most of this movie he keeps his hat clamped tightly on his head, and when he does remove it he's wearing a very obvious wig.


9:15 AM -- For the Love of Rusty (1947)
A dog helps a boy and his father sort out their differences.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Ted Donaldson, Tom Powers, Ann Doran
BW-69 mins,

Third of eight films about the dog named Rusty.


10:30 AM -- Angels Alley (1948)
An ex-con cousin of one of the Bowery Boys gets them into trouble with the law.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict
BW-68 mins, CC,

The ninth of 48 Bowery Boys movies, and the first Bowery Boys movie not to feature Bobby Jordan.


11:43 AM -- Grandad Of Races (1950)
This short film presents the annual horse race held in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. Vitaphone Release 1950A.
Dir: André De La Varre Jr.
C-10 mins,


12:00 PM -- Firecreek (1968)
A pacifist sheriff must use tougher means when his town is threatened by a band of outlaws.
Dir: Vincent McEveety
Cast: James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens
C-104 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Four of the actors have links to the Star Trek universe. Gary Lockwood, BarBara Luna, and Morgan Woodward all starred in Star Trek (1966) episodes. Brooke Bundy appeared in a Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) episode.


2:00 PM -- Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
The famed 19th century hero defeats enemy fleets and courts an admiral's widow.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, Robert Beatty
C-117 mins, CC,

The ship Bush and Hornblower board to meet the admiral at the end of the movie is the actual HMS Victory, currently dry-docked at Portsmouth, England. As Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, she is still commissioned as an official vessel of the Royal Navy, and the only surviving, original ship of the line still in existence.


4:15 PM -- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
The legendary bank robbers run riot in the South of the 1930s.
Dir: Arthur Penn
Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Estelle Parsons, and Best Cinematography -- Burnett Guffey

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Warren Beatty, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Faye Dunaway, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Hackman, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael J. Pollard, Best Director -- Arthur Penn, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- David Newman and Robert Benton, Best Costume Design -- Theadora Van Runkle, and Best Picture

Gene Hackman was on the set one day when he noticed a guy standing behind him and staring. The man said, "Hell, Buck would've never wore a hat like that." Hackman turned around and looked at him and said, "Maybe not." He looked like an old Texas farmer. The man introduced himself and said, "Nice to meet you - I'm one of the Barrows."


6:15 PM -- The Phenix City Story (1955)
A crusading lawyer takes on the corrupt machine running a Southern town.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant
BW-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In the film, John Patterson (Richard Kiley) is depicted as supportive of African-American Zeke Ward (James Edwards) and his family. In real life, following his term as Alabama attorney general (1954-1958), he ran for governor in 1958, ran an openly racist campaign and won. One of his opponents, George Wallace, had run as a racial moderate and told his friends after the election, "John Patterson out-niggered me, and I'm never gonna be out-niggered again." Four years later, in 1962, Wallace won the governorship of Alabama as an avowed segregationist.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: JOAN LESLIE



8:00 PM -- Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Spirited musical biography of the song-and-dance man who kept America humming through two world wars.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston
BW-126 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Cagney, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Huston, Best Director -- Michael Curtiz,
Best Writing, Original Story -- Robert Buckner, Best Film Editing -- George Amy, and Best Picture

Joan Leslie portrays Mary Cohan, aging from 18 to 57 throughout proceedings. Leslie turned 17 during the production of the film. The fact that she was still attending school during production caused numerous delays.


10:30 PM -- The Hard Way (1942)
An ambitious woman doesn't care who she hurts in her drive to make her sister a star.
Dir: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie
BW-109 mins, CC,

Per director Vincent Sherman, the film was actually based on dancer-actress Ginger Rogers' relationship with her quintessential stage-mother, Lela E. Rogers.


12:30 AM -- The Sky's The Limit (1943)
A pilot on leave falls for a pretty news photographer.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Fred Astaire, Joan Leslie, Robert Benchley
BW-90 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "My Shining Hour", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Leigh Harline

In one scene Joan Manion (played by Joan Leslie) is asked by Fred Atwell - a.k.a. Fred Burton (played by Fred Astaire) if her boss, Mr. Harriman (played by Robert Benchley), has ever proposed marriage to her: She replies that he has attempted to numerous times, but keeps getting side-tracked by discussions of such things as the "sex life of polyps". It turns out that in one of Robert Benchley's earliest films he played a "Doctor Benchley" in the film The Sex Life of the Polyp (1928) where he lectures Women's Clubs on this interesting creature that can change its sex.


2:15 AM -- Phase IV (1974)
Scientists at a remote desert base discover that ants are preparing to conquer the world.
Dir: Saul Bass
Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick
C-84 mins,

According to actor Michael Murphy, director Saul Bass was very worried about Lynne Frederick, who was British, being able to sound suitably American for the film, since her character was supposed to be from Arizona. Bass made her run her lines over and over while he listened for any hint of a British accent.


3:51 AM -- Holland Sailing (1956)
This short film focuses on sailboat races in Holland.
BW-8 mins,


4:00 AM -- Them! (1954)
Federal agents fight to destroy a colony of mutated giant ants.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon
BW-92 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects

The flamethrowers used in the movie were standard World War 2 weapons and were loaned by the US Army. The actors handling the weapons were WW2 combat veterans who had actually used them in battle.


5:41 AM -- King & Queen Meet The Stars (1954)
In this promotional short film king and queen of England meet various Hollywood stars.
BW-3 mins,


5:45 AM -- The House in the Middle (1954)
Military tests demonstrate the dangers of poor home maintenance in the event of a nuclear attack in this short film.
C-12 mins,