TCM Schedule for Friday, April 10 -- Starring Herbie

[Staph]

Another strange Friday theme -- two weeks ago it was Hall of Fame Running Backs as Stars. Tonight it's Herbie the Love Bug. Enjoy!


4:45am -- The Tiger Makes Out (1967)
A would be revolutionary gets more than he bargained for when he kidnaps a hyper house wife.
Cast: Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Bob Dishy, John Harkins
Dir: Arthur Hiller
C-95 mins, TV-PG

Eli Wallach (Ben Harris) and Anne Jackson (Gloria Fiske) are husband and wife in real life.


6:30am -- Man in the Vault (1956)
Bank robbers force a locksmith to help them with a big heist.
Cast: William Campbell, Karen Sharpe, Anita Ekberg, Berry Kroeger
Dir: Andrew V. McLaglen
BW-73 mins, TV-G

There really was a Grover's Lock and Key on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. Apparently, it was easier to use the existing storefront than create a phony one for the movie.


7:45am -- Ring of Fear (1954)
Mystery writer Mickey Spillane tries to help Clyde Beatty deal with a plot to sabotage his circus.
Cast: Clyde Beatty, Mickey Spillane, Pat O'Brien, Sean McClory
Dir: James Edward Grant
C-93 mins, TV-PG

Originally intended to be photographed in 3-D and to be titled "Man-Killer."


9:30am -- Kings Row (1942)
Small town scandals inspire an idealistic young man to take up psychiatry.
Cast: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field
Dir: Sam Wood
BW-127 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- James Wong Howe, Best Director -- Sam Wood, and Best Picture

Erich Wolfgang Korngold had written the scores for a number of important movies for Warners, including The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939). Korngold was told he was to write a score for a new picture, Kings Row. According to Brendan Carroll in his biography of Korngold, the composer, thinking this was another royal story, set about writing the celebrated fanfare theme of the picture. Despite the wrong assumption, Korngold decided to keep and develop the theme into what has become a classic score.


11:45am -- Topaz (1969)
A French agent is sent to Cuba to spy for the CIA.
Cast: John Forsythe, Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, John Vernon
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
C-142 mins, TV-PG

According to Alfred Hitchcock, this was another of his experimental movies. In addition to the dialogue, the plot is revealed through the use of colors, predominantly red, yellow and white. He admits that this did not work out.


2:15pm -- The Barefoot Contessa (1954)
A Spanish dancer becomes an international star but still longs to get her feet in the dirt.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
C-130 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Edmond O'Brien

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz

The character of Maria Vargas is said to be based on Rita Hayworth, who was actually offered the part.


4:30pm -- No Way Out (1950)
A racist gangster forces a black doctor to tend to his injuries.
Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
BW-107 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Lesser Samuels

Richard Widmark was apparently very uncomfortable with some of the racist comments his character, Ray Biddle, made, especially given his friendship with Sidney Poitier. As a result, after some of the takes involving particularly venomous remarks, Widmark actually apologized to Poitier for the remarks his character had made.


6:30pm -- The Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics (2008)
An original documentary exploring the history of Disney live action films through interviews with the stars who helped make them memorable.
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Kurt Russell, Dick Van Dyke, Dean Jones
Dir: Peter Fitzgerald
BW-79 mins

Disney's death spawned two rumors that became urban legends. The first is that he had his body cryogenically frozen. The second held that he was buried somewhere on the grounds of Disneyland. Both rumors are completely untrue. Disney was cremated and his ashes interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: STARRING HERBIE


8:00pm -- The Love Bug (1968)
A Volkswagen with a brain becomes a championship racecar.
Cast: Dean Jones, Michele Lee, David Tomlinson, Buddy Hackett
Dir: Robert Stevenson
C-108 mins, TV-G

When beginning production of the film, Disney set up a casting call for about a dozen cars, and kept them outside the studios for the crew to examine during their breaks. Among the lineup were Toyotas, Volvos, and of course, the pearl white Volkswagen Beetle. When the crew walked by to inspect the cars, they would kick the tires and grab the steering wheel to see how it handled. However, when they came across the Volkswagen, they began to pet it, and so the Beetle got the job.


10:00pm -- Herbie Rides Again (1974)
A spunky widow uses her magical Volskwagen to fight off a corrupt land developer.
Cast: Helen Hayes, Ken Berry, Stefanie Powers, John McIntire
Dir: Art Vitarelli
C-88 mins, TV-G

Unlike The Love Bug (1968), in which all VW logos were removed from Herbie, Disney worked closely with Volkswagen to promote the sequel. 300,000 Herbie posters were distributed to dealers to pass on to their customers and each VW dealer had a Bug on display that was made up to look like Herbie. Plus, if a customer wanted to turn their new Beetle into a Herbie they could purchase a graphics kit from the VW parts department.


11:33pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: The Car That Became A Star (1964)
This short documentary follows the story of the antique Rolls that appeared in the title role of MGM's "The Yellow Rolls Royce" (1964).
Cast: Rex Harrison, Jeanne Moreau, Shirley MacLaine, George C. Scott
BW-10 mins

The Rolls-Royce used in the film was a pale blue 1930 Phantom II Sedanca de Ville, which M-G-M technicians covered with 20 coats of yellow paint; a few coats of black were added to the top of the hood, the roof, and the wings.


11:45pm -- Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo (1977)
Thieves plant stolen diamonds under the hood of a magical Volkswagen.
Cast: Dean Jones, Don Knotts, Julie Sommars, Jacques Marin
Dir: Vincent McEveety
C-105 mins, TV-G

The gas cap used in the film was fake. As every Herbie fan knows, Herbie's gas tank is under the hood, (as revealed plenty of times in the original movie). The fake gas tank was added so that the gem thieves could easily stash the diamond inside Herbie, without looking conspicuous. The tank was removed in the remaining sequels


2:00am -- Blood Feast (1963)
An Egyptian priest uses human sacrifice to bring back his goddess.
Cast: Thomas Wood, Mal Arnold, Connie Mason, Scott H. Hall
Dir: Herschell G. Lewis
C-67 mins

Was filmed in Miami in only nine days and cost just under $25,000 (some sources say $60,000) and earned back millions for its creator and associates.


3:15am -- Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)
Travelers stumble on a Southern town out for revenge for losing the Civil War.
Cast: Connie Mason, Thomas Wood, Jeffrey Allen, Ben Moore
Dir: Herschell G. Lewis
C-84 mins

The plot of this gore film was inspired by the musical Brigadoon (1954). This film was reportedly shot in an area of Florida that is now occupied by Walt Disney World.


4:45am -- Day in the Death of Donny B (1969)
A heroin addict desperately tries to raise the money for a fix.
Dir: Carl Fick.
BW-14 mins, TV-14

This short film's soundtrack mostly consists of voice-overs of Donny's parents despairing over his future, former addicts describing the junkie lifestyle, and cops informing us of the consequences of illegal drug use and addiction.

[Staph]

1. The Love Bug (1969)

1969 was a watershed year for movies in the United States; it was the first full year under the new MPAA ratings system, which allowed a much greater freedom for filmmakers to explore previously forbidden themes and topics. The result was a slate of daring and challenging films including Midnight Cowboy, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, and Easy Rider. How did the moviegoing public react to this new frontier in groundbreaking cinema? They voted with their pocketbooks and made the highest-grossing film of the year the Walt Disney Production The Love Bug (1968), a movie about a man and his racing Volkswagen Beetle, nicknamed “Herbie.”

The success of The Love Bug probably surprised the Disney organization as much as anyone. After all, the movie followed roughly the same formula as a number of previous live-action comedies they had turned out in the 1960s built on a fantasy/sports premise, such as The Absent-Minded Professor (1961; basketball) and Son of Flubber (1963; football). The sport in this case is auto racing, and our hero is Jim Douglas (Dean Jones), a driver living in San Francisco who is down-on-his-luck because he can't keep a sponsor on the racing circuit. His fortunes change when he happens upon an upscale auto showroom and a pretty sales assistant named Carole (Michele Lee). The two strike up a friendship under the glaring eye of the obnoxious dealership owner, Thorndyke (David Tomlinson). A used Volkswagen beetle rolls into the showroom and immediately takes a liking to Douglas; unknown to the driver, it follows him home. Douglas lives in an apartment with Tennessee Steinmetz (Buddy Hackett), an eccentric Eastern-influenced artist specializing in large sculpted-metal objects often made from old car parts. Douglas is forced to buy the errant beetle when Thorndyke threatens to prosecute him for stealing it. He soon learns that he and "Herbie" (as Tennessee nicknames the bug) are a pretty unbeatable racing combination, and with Tennessee as chief mechanic and Carole as head cheerleader, they take on the cheater Thorndyke in a series of auto races.

The Love Bug is set in San Francisco, and makes good use of the locale in several scenes, such as one in which Herbie follows a cable car uphill, and during a bizarrely touching sequence in which the bug threatens to "jump" off the Golden Gate Bridge. Since the film was made in the late 1960s, Disney could hardly avoid the presence of the city's counterculture, although the one scene with hippies is something of a throwaway. (It is worth noting that the hippie with the most dialogue is played by an unrecognizable Dean Jones!) Interestingly, it isn't a hippie, but Buddy Hackett's earthy Tennessee character that displays a New Age take on the possible reason for Herbie's seemingly sentient state: Us human beings – we had a chance to make something outa this world. We blew it. OK, another kind of a
civilization is gonna take a turn. I'm sittin' up on top of this mountain, right? I'm surrounded by these gurus and swamis and monks, right? I'm lookin' at my stomach, I'm knockin' back a little rice wine. Got some contemplation goin' – I see things like they are. We take machines and we stuff 'em with information until they're smarter than we are! Take a car. Most guys spread more love and time and money on their car in a week than they do on their wife and kids in a year. Pretty soon, you know what? The machine starts to think it *is* somebody.

Disney Productions became known for the elaborate special effects in their live-action films during this period. Although the studio possessed the superior "sodium vapor process" (a yellowscreen that created more accurate matte lines than the more common bluescreen), the optical work in The Love Bug is curiously substandard and obvious. Fortunately, the movie rolls ahead at breakneck speed with some excellent stunt driving and some startling physical effects. A particularly impressive example of the latter occurs late in the film as Herbie develops a split personality – and a split chassis – to block the way of an opposing racecar.

Any Disney live-action picture from the 1960s or 70s could be counted on to feature a number of familiar comedic faces in supporting roles. The Love Bug included Joe Flynn as Havershaw, the sniveling assistant to evil Thorndyke. Flynn previously had a brief role in Son of Flubber in 1963, and would appear in nine more Disney productions in the next decade. The police detective that initially investigates the disappearance of Herbie in The Love Bug is played by gravelly-voiced comic Joe E. Ross, popular for years in vaudeville and in such television series as Car 54, Where Are You? (1961-63). In the drive-in scene, California's oldest and crankiest carhop is played by Iris Adrian, an actress with dozens of credits dating back to the early sound era; along the way she appeared with Laurel & Hardy in Our Relations (1936), the Marx Bros. in Go West (1940), and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in Road to Zanzibar (1941).

Critics were seldom kind to the Disney live-action features, so it is not surprising to encounter harsh reviews for The Love Bug. Time magazine wrote “It can be a many-splendored thing. Optimists insist that it’s sweeping the country. According to the Beatles, it’s ‘all you need.’ however, gives love such a mauling that it emerges bruised and battered, in an all but unrecognizable state ... Connoisseurs of camp may enjoy watching Tomlinson ranting at the Volkswagen, but The Love Bug is surely the first film in which the actors are so meticulously insipid that a car can handily steal the show.” In The New York Times, Vincent Canby called the film “...a long, sentimental Volkswagen commercial about a small car - the film...has the form of fantasy-comedy, lots of not-very-special effects and no real humor.”

The Love Bug was certainly critic-proof at the box office, and Disney has brought Herbie back several times in the 30 years since the first film, including three sequels, Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), and Herbie Goes Bananas (1980); a short-lived TV series in 1982; a remake for TV in 1997 (starring Bruce Campbell); and a recent relaunch, Herbie Fully Loaded (2005), starring Lindsay Lohan.

Producer: Bill Walsh
Director: Robert Stevenson
Screenplay: Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi; Gordon Buford (story "Car-Boy-Girl")
Cinematography: Edward Colman
Art Direction: Carroll Clark; John B. Mansbridge
Music: George Bruns
Film Editing: Cotton Warburton
Cast: Dean Jones (Jim), Michele Lee (Carole), David Tomlinson (Thorndyke), Buddy Hackett (Tennessee Steinmetz), Joe Flynn (Havershaw), Benson Fong (Mr. Wu), Andy Granatelli (Association President), Joe E. Ross (detective), Iris Adrian (carhop), Ned Glass (toll booth attendant), Robert Foulk (Bice), Gil Lamb (policeman at park)
C-107m.

by John M. Miller