TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 22, 2017 -- What's On Tonight - U-Boats

[Staph]

Tonight's Not-The-Essentials covers u-boats - German submarines - in both World Wars I and II. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #28 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon introduces Part Two of "Captains Courageous" and interviews Robby the Robot from "Forbidden Planet."
BW-29 mins, CC,


7:00 AM -- THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (1939)
Mark Twain's classic troublemaker helps a runaway slave escape to the North.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Walter Connolly, William Frawley
BW-91 mins, CC,

Rex Ingram, playing Jim, was actually born on a riverboat on the Mississippi River. He was born near Cairo, Illinois, which is Jim's intended destination in the book and film.


8:45 AM -- SATELLITE IN THE SKY (1956)
Astronauts are trapped on a space station with a ticking bomb.
Dir: Paul Dickson
Cast: Kieron Moore, Lois Maxwell, Donald Wolfit
C-84 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Special effects director Wally Veevers also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), and Superman (1978).


10:30 AM -- SWING SHIFT MAISIE (1943)
A brassy showgirl signs on to help the war effort as a factory worker.
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
Cast: Ann Sothern, James Craig, Jean Rogers
BW-86 mins, CC,

The seventh of ten movies starring Ann Sothern as the heroine Maisie Ravier.


12:15 PM -- THE F.B.I. STORY (1959)
A dedicated FBI agent thinks back on the agency's battles against the Klan, organized crime and Communist spies.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: James Stewart, Vera Miles, Murray Hamilton
C-149 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The scene in the film in which J. Edgar Hoover "personally" arrested Alvin Carpis has since been debunked as a myth created by Hoover himself. In 1936 Hoover had gone before the Senate Appropriations Commitee to get more funds to continue to build the FBI. A senator asked Hoover if he'd ever personally made an arrest. Hoover kept trying to dodge the question but was eventually forced to answer that he hadn't (he'd joined the bureau as an Assistant Director and was promoted through the bureaucracy without ever having served in the field). Embarrassed by the hearings, Hoover made it a point to follow the case of Carpis, the last of the high-profile 1930s-era bank robbers. According to Carpis himself in his autobiography "Public Enemy Number One: The Alvin Karpis Story", as he was leaving the hotel to get into his car, he was surrounded by nearly a dozen well-armed agents who forced him out of the car. As he stood there being patted down for weapons, he noticed two men peering around the corner. An agent saw what Carpis was looking at and said, "It's okay, Chief. We got 'im." Then Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson (who makes a cameo appearance in the film in the same scene as Hoover) came out and Hoover dramatically showed Carpis his badge, declaring, "Carpis, you're under arrest!"


3:00 PM -- WILSON (1944)
A chronicle of the political career of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Dir: Henry King
Cast: Charles Coburn, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell
C-154 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Lamar Trotti, Best Cinematography, Color -- Leon Shamroy, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Wiard Ihnen and Thomas Little, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), and Best Film Editing -- Barbara McLean

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Alexander Knox, Best Director -- Henry King, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Fred Sersen (photographic) and Roger Heman Sr. (sound), Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alfred Newman, and Best Picture

The film, a pet project and labor of love for producer Darryl F. Zanuck, was a notorious box-office flop in its day, despite good reviews and several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Actor, and despite the fact that when it played the Roxy in New York, it grossed more than any one movie had in a single theatre up to then. Zanuck was so heartbroken over the movie's failure that he forbade anyone who came into his presence to ever mention the film again.


5:45 PM -- FAMILY PLOT (1976)
A phony psychic takes on a pair of kidnappers.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris
C-120 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This is Alfred Hitchcock's final film and its final shot was of a woman breaking the fourth wall by looking straight into the camera and winking at the audience. This was arguably a fitting coda to his career exemplifying the black humor that was prevalent in his movies.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: U-BOATS



8:00 PM -- THE ENEMY BELOW (1957)
During World War II, an American destroyer meets a German U-Boat.
Dir: Dick Powell
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Curt Jurgens, Al Hedison
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Walter Rossi

The U-Boat seen in this movie is far roomier and more spacious, cleaner and tidier than the real German U-boats of World War II (which were more realistically depicted in the later movie Das Boot (1981)). During the Second World War, these subs did not have passageways and private rooms and were dirty and cramped. Since the U-boat's "head" (toilet) could not be used at depth, the crew was forced to use buckets which, during depth charge attacks, frequently spilled. It was said that when a U-boat returned to base the smell inside the boat was enough to make dockworkers who went aboard vomit.


10:00 PM -- ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943)
A Merchant Marine crew fights off enemy attacks at the start of World War II.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Massey, Alan Hale
BW-127 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Guy Gilpatric

Very few early World War II films featured African-Americans in the US military. Star Humphrey Bogart was quoted in 'The Pittsburgh Courier' on 26 September 1942 as saying that he wanted to have a black Merchant Marine captain in this film. He said, "In the world of the theatre or any other phase of American life, the color of a man's skin should have nothing to do with his rights in a land built upon the self-evident fact that all men are created equal." (In so far as I can tell from IMDB's detailed entry on this film, Bogart didn't get his wish.)


12:30 AM -- THE SPY IN BLACK (1939)
A German sub tries to sink the British fleet during World War I.
Dir: Michael Powell
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Sebastian Shaw, Valerie Hobson
BW-82 mins,

The password that Hardt is to use for his contact is the opening line of Heine's poem Die Lorelei, in which a beautiful woman, who lures sailors on the rocks, is used as a symbol of homesickness. When his crew joke about him spouting love poetry to a woman in the dark, they miss half of the point.


2:15 AM -- DOLEMITE (1975)
When he's framed for drug dealing, a pimp enlists his call girls to bust him out.
Dir: D'Urville Martin
Cast: Rudy Ray Moore, D'Urville Martin, Jerry Jones
C-90 mins, Letterbox Format

This film is a noted influence on the works of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, rapper Snoop Dogg and comedian Eddie Murphy.


4:00 AM -- CLEOPATRA JONES (1973)
A female drug agent locks horns with a violent drug dealer.
Dir: Jack Starrett
Cast: Tamara Dobson, Shelley Winters, Bernie Casey
C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Cleo's ride in the film is a customized black and silver 1973 Corvette Stingray. When she opens the door to get out, the T-bar panel in the roof above the driver's seat automatically opens as well so she can get out without squashing her afro.

[longship]

1. "The Enemy Below"

Directed by Dick Powell. It's a workable film with a good cast and some very good supporting actors. Mitchum and Jurgens are top knotch here, both brooding through both their delemmas and their roles.

Remade as a Star Trek episode, Balance of Terror, Star Trek's introduction to Romulans. The Romulan commander is played by Mark Lenard who later became famous playing Spock's Romulan father.

I like both this film and the Star Trek homage.