TCM Schedule for Saturday, November 17, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Heavenly Mix-Ups

[Staph]

Tonight, TCM's non-essential Essentials is all about heavenly mix-ups, a pair of films that show angels dealing with events on earth. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- THE SPANISH MAIN (1945)
Dutch rebels in the Caribbean turn pirate and kidnap the corrupt Spanish governor's bride-to-be.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Maureen O'Hara, Paul Henreid, Walter Slezak
C-101 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- George Barnes

The inspiration for the " Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: JERKY TURKEY (1945)
A pilgram chases after the witty turkey he tried to hunt for Thanksgiving dinner.
Dir: Tex Avery
Cast: Tex Avery, Wally Maher, Bill Thompson
C-7 mins, CC,

The turkey's voice and look is patterned after Jimmy Durante.


8:08 AM -- SURE CURES (1946)
This short film presents the folly of using "home remedies" for various ills.
Dir: Dave O'Brien
Cast: Dave O'Brien,
BW-11 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, One-reel -- Pete Smith


8:19 AM -- THE GREAT AMERICAN PIE COMPANY (1935)
In this comedic short, two pie vendors discuss merging their businesses, but one of them may have an ulterior motive.
Dir: Nick Grinde
Cast: Spencer Charters, Mary Foy, Charles Sale
BW-11 mins,


8:30 AM -- MONTANA INCIDENT (1952)
A corrupt woman tries to prevent Whip Wilson and his friend from building a railroad line on her father's territory.
Dir: Lewis Collins
Cast: Whip Wilson, Rand Brooks, Noel Neill
BW-54 mins,

Rand Brooks is best remembered as Scarlet O'Hara's first husband Charles Hamilton in Gone With The Wind (1939), and as Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick Lucky Jenkins in twelve films.


9:30 AM -- MANDRAKE, THE MAGICIAN: THE FATAL CRASH (1939)
The sixth installment of the Mandrake, the Magician series.
BW-15 mins,


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: BROTHERLY LOVE (1936)
Inspired by Olive Oyl to show more brotherly love, Popeye completes a number of good deeds but runs into trouble while breaking up a fight.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Seymour Kneitel (uncredited)
Cast: Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, Gus Wickie
BW-6 mins, CC,

Wiffle Piffle, the door to door salesman from Fleischer's Screen Songs and Betty Boop Series of cartoons is seen running into the street brawl.


10:08 AM -- THE SAINT'S VACATION (1941)
Reformed jewel thief Simon Templar vies with Nazi agents for possession of a mysterious music box
Dir: Leslie Fenton
Cast: Hugh Sinclair, Sally Gray, Arthur Macrae
BW-61 mins, CC,

RKO decided to form a British Company to utilize funds frozen by the British government because of the "Films Act," which limited money taken out of the country to 50% of revenues earned from American films distributed in Great Britain. This was the first film made using those frozen funds.


11:30 AM -- SALT WATER DAFFY (1933)
In this comedic short, two men join the Navy and make life miserable for their supervisor. Vitaphone Release 1561-1562.
Dir: Ray McCarey
Cast: Jack Haley, Shemp Howard, Lionel Stander
BW-21 mins,

Based on a story by Jack Henley and Glen Lambert.


12:00 PM -- 20,000 YEARS IN SING SING (1932)
When his girl commits murder, a hardened criminal takes the rap to protect her honor.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Arthur Byron
BW-78 mins, CC,

This marks the only time Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis would ever appear together in a movie though Davis would state in the Whitney Stine biography, Mother Goddam, "One of my great dreams in later years was that we could find a really great script to do together. Spencer and I were both born on April 5. What a marvelous actor he was."


1:30 PM -- ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958)
A space visitor's touch turns an unhappy heiress into a vengeful giant.
Dir: Nathan Hertz
Cast: Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers
BW-66 mins, CC,

This film was made right after the success of Sputnik. The alien spacecraft is called a "satellite" because the writer thought that meant any spherical shaped spacecraft.


2:45 PM -- THE LAST VOYAGE (1960)
Passengers and crew fight to escape a sinking ocean liner.
Dir: Andrew L. Stone
Cast: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, George Sanders
C-91 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Augie Lohman

The ship used by the filmmakers was the SS Ile de France, the famous French liner that cruised the Atlantic from 1926-59. She was leased for $4,000 a day. After shooting completed, she was re-floated (having been partially sunk for the film) and towed to the scrap yard. She has a more heroic place in history, however. It was she that played a major role in the rescue of the passengers from the Italian liner Andrea Doria in 1956, after the latter ship collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm and sank off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. She was the first ship to arrive at the scene of the collision and immediately began taking aboard the Andrea Doria's passengers.


4:30 PM -- GANDHI (1982)
The legendary Indian leader uses peaceful means to free his homeland from British rule.
Dir: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud
C-191 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ben Kingsley, Best Director -- Richard Attenborough, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- John Briley, Best Cinematography -- Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Stuart Craig, Robert W. Laing and Michael Seirton, Best Costume Design -- John Mollo and Bhanu Athaiya (Bhanu Athaiya became the first Indian-born person to win an Oscar.), Best Film Editing -- John Bloom, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound -- Gerry Humphreys, Robin O'Donoghue, Jonathan Bates and Simon Kaye, Best Music, Original Score -- Ravi Shankar and George Fenton, and Best Makeup -- Tom Smith

When plans for this movie were announced, Sir Richard Attenborough held a press conference in Delhi for the Indian media. There was much concern expressed about how Gandhi, a virtual deity to many Indians, would or should be portrayed on-screen. One female journalist seriously suggested that Gandhi should only be shown as a brilliant white light moving across the screen. An exasperated Attenborough snapped back, "Madam, I am not making a film about bloody Tinkerbell!"



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: HEAVENLY MIX-UPS



8:00 PM -- HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (1941)
A prizefighter who died before his time is reincarnated as a tycoon with a murderous wife.
Dir: Alexander Hall
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Evelyn Keyes, Claude Rains
BW-94 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Harry Segall, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Montgomery,
Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- James Gleason, Best Director -- Alexander Hall, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Walker, and Best Picture

Columbia chief Harry Cohn had serious misgivings about this adaptation of Harry Segall's minor stage play. He preferred to reserve his more lavish budgets for surefire successes (i.e., anything featuring the studio's biggest star, Rita Hayworth). However, Sidney Buchman was eventually able to talk Cohn into forking out for costly celestial sets and Farnsworth's elaborate mansion and also into hiring Robert Montgomery on loan-out from MGM. Buchman was also able to convince Cohn that he had a better appreciation of what the public would pay to see than the Wall Street bankers who Cohn answered to.


10:00 PM -- HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS (1947)
An angel lands in the wild West to save a gambler's soul.
Dir: Albert S. Rogell
Cast: Robert Cummings, Brian Donlevy, Marjorie Reynolds
BW-98 mins, CC,

John Litel, who played Rev. Wainright, would later play Robert Cummings' Mr. Thackery on the Cummings' TV sitcom My Hero (1952).


12:00 AM -- THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944)
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey
BW-99 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Hugo Friedhofer and Arthur Lange

Was based loosely on J.H. Wallis' 1942 novel, "Once Off Guard".


2:00 AM -- THE SEVEN UPS (1973)
New York City cops wage a war against assorted hoods and criminals after one of their own is brutally killed by a hoodlum.
Dir: Philip D'Antoni
Cast: Roy Scheider, Victor Arnold, Jerry Leon
C-103 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

According to Dennis Farina in Dinner for Five: Episode #3.1 (2004), this film was the most realistic in its depiction of cops. Farina was once a cop who worked in Chicago.


4:00 AM -- 2010 (1984)
In this sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a U.S.-Soviet crew investigates a mysterious monolith orbiting Jupiter.
Dir: Peter Hyams
Cast: Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow
C-116 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Albert Brenner and Rick Simpson, Best Costume Design -- Patricia Norris, Best Sound -- Michael J. Kohut, Aaron Rochin, Carlos Delarios and Gene S. Cantamessa, Best Effects, Visual Effects -- Richard Edlund, Neil Krepela, George Jenson and Mark Stetson, and Best Makeup -- Michael Westmore

When Dr. Heywood Floyd stands in the doorway of his sleeping son's room, on the wall, to the left of his bed is a poster of an Olympic runner, with the text 'Beijing 08' on the bottom. Considering the film was made in 1984 and the Olympic Committee did not choose Beijing for the Olympics until July 2001, this is an example of life imitating art and background detail which came true.