TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 24 -- Tennis Anyone?

[Staph]

In the morning, TCM is showing 1950s sci-fi films, including what is arguably the worst film every made, Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). The afternoon features crime dramas, leading into the evening's celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the FBI. (What does that have to do with tennis? Enquiring minds want to know!) Enjoy!


5:35am -- Short Film: FREDDIE RICH AND HIS ORCHESTRA (1938)
Bandleader Freddie Rich conducts three musical numbers in the short film.
Cast: Freddie Rich, Nan Wynn, Joe Sodja.
Dir: Lloyd French.
BW-11 mins

This short feature is included on the Warner Home Video 'The Adventures of Robin Hood (Two-Disc Special Edition)' for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), released in 2003.


6:00am -- The Man From Planet X (1951)
A space visitor uses hypnotic powers to enslave a Scottish island.
Cast: Margaret Field, Raymond Bond, William Schallert.
Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer.
BW-71 mins, TV-PG

To stretch his meager budget, Edgar G. Ulmer was able to use sets from the big budget Joan of Arc (1948).


7:30am -- Riders To The Stars (1954)
Early astronauts try to solve the mysteries of space travel by capturing a meteor.
Cast: Richard Carlson, Herbert Marshall, William Lundigan.
Dir: Richard Carlson.
C-80 mins, TV-G

While at Warners, William Lundigan's 'voice with a smile in it' was used as one of the narrators in several of the classic 1940s Looney Tunes cartoons.


9:00am -- Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
Aliens bring the dead to life to conquer the Earth.
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Vampira.
Dir: Edward D. Wood, Jr.
BW-78 mins, TV-PG

The film's original title was "Grave Robbers from Outer Space", but, supposedly, the Baptist ministers who financed the picture objected to it, so Edward D. Wood Jr. changed it to "Plan 9".


10:30am -- It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)
A giant octopus attacks San Francisco.
Cast: Kenneth Tobey, Faith Domergue, Donald Curtis.
Dir: Robert Gordon.
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

This is the film that brought together producer Charles H. Schneer and special effects legend Ray Harryhausen. Their professional relationship would last until Clash of the Titans (1981), the final feature for both men. Because the budget was so low, Harryhausen saved money by building his octopus model with six rather than the correct eight tentacles. He tried to pose the creature so this lack of the right number of arms wasn't apparent.


12:00pm -- 711 Ocean Drive (1950)
A telephone repairman gets mixed up with illegal gambling.
Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru, Otto Kruger.
Dir: Joseph M. Newman.
BW-102 mins, TV-PG

"Boulder Dam" is actually Hoover Dam. Congress authorized the Boulder Canyon Dam Project in 1931 and, it being traditional to name big federal dam projects after the sitting President, named it Hoover Dam. Franklin Roosevelt defeated Hoover in 1932 but could not officially change the name set by Congress. Harold Ickes (FDR's Interior Secretary) however issued a memo directing that his employees "...will refer to the dam as 'Boulder Dam' in this pamphlet as well as in correspondence and other references...." In 1947, after Roosevelt and Ickes had died, Congress passed a resolution to "restore" the name of Hoover Dam. But until that time, all official, tourist and other promotional materials called it "Boulder Dam." The public's recognition with the old name was still apparent in the movie (released in 1950) through the script and the highway signage seen enroute.


2:00pm -- Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Detective Mike Hammer fights to solve the murder of a beautiful hitchhiker with a mysterious connection to the Mob.
Cast: Ralph Meeker, Cloris Leachman, Albert Dekker.
Dir: Robert Aldrich.
BW-106 mins, TV-PG

The Kefauver Commission, a federal unit dedicated to investigating corrupting influences in the 1950s, singled this out as 1955's number one menace to American youth. Because of this, Robert Aldrich felt compelled to conduct a writing campaign for the free speech rights of independent film-makers.


3:47pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Where Is Jane Doe? (1956)
In this Screenliner short, New York City police detectives investigate the case of a missing girl, whose clothes are found on a bridge. Was it a suicide, was she murdered, or is this a hoax?
Narrator: Bob Hite.
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
BW-8 mins

Narrator Bob Hite was the announcer for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite throughout the 1970s.


4:00pm -- The Naked City (1948)
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart.
Dir: Jules Dassin.
BW-96 mins, TV-14

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- William H. Daniels, and Best Film Editing -- Paul Weatherwax

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Malvin Wald

Film debuts for James Gregory, John Randolph, Nehemiah Persoff, John Randolph, and Kathleen Freeman.


5:39pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Mighty Manhattan, New York'S Wonder City (1949)
This Fitzpatrick travel short visits Manhattan, exploring its history, culture, architecture, and people. The short also pays special visits to come of Manhattan's more famous neighborhoods and landmarks.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick
C-20 mins

Included as a bonus feature in Warner Home Video's 2003 DVD release of Kiss Me Kate (1953).


6:00pm -- The Out-of-Towners (1969)
A man's New York job interview turns into a non-stop nightmare.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, Anne Meara.
Dir: Arthur Hiller.
C-97 mins, TV-14

Unlike many 'Neil Simon' efforts, which were written as plays and then adapted into a film, Simon wrote this directly for the screen when he realized that a play would have difficulty portraying the many different locations involved.


7:46pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Barber Shop Blues (1933)
A barber shop owner wins a sweepstakes, so he remodels his shop and hires Claude Hopkins and his orchestra to play for his customers.
Cast: Claude Hopkins & Orchestra.
Dir: Joseph Henabery.
BW-10 mins

The songs include a version of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Blues, with special lyrics as Barber Shop Blues.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: TENNIS ANYONE?


8:00pm -- G-Men (1935)
A mob protege joins the FBI when a friend is gunned down.
Cast: James Cagney, Ann Dvorak, Margaret Lindsay.
Dir: William Keighley.
BW-86 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Darryl F. Zanuck (Write-in candidate, not an official nominee. The official AMPAS records list the pseudonym 'Gregory Rogers' as nominee.)

Two of the prominent action scenes in the film were based on real events. The rail station shoot-out in which gangsters free Danny Leggett, was based upon the famous "Kansas City Massacre" in which gunmen attacked FBI agents and policemen as they were transporting federal prisoner Frank "Jelly" Nash on June 17th, 1933. In real life, one agent, three policemen and Nash himself were killed. As shown in the film, this was incident that increased the power of the FBI and turned into the agency it is today. The other incident was the shoot-out at the lodge. That was based on a battle between FBI agents and the John Dillinger Gang (which included "Baby Face" Nelson) on April 22, 1934.


9:30pm -- Confessions Of A Nazi Spy (1939)
An FBI agent risks his life to infiltrate Nazi sympathizers in the U.S.
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Paul Lukas, George Sanders.
Dir: Anatole Litvak.
BW-104 mins, TV-PG

This was the first anti-Nazi movie made in Hollywood before the start of World War II. The movie is based on an actual spy-ring trial in New York in 1938, which convicted four individuals of spying for the German government. Hitler reportedly planned to execute the makers of this film upon winning the war.


11:30pm -- Walk East on Beacon! (1952)
A federal agent tries to track down the Communist spies behind a security leak.
Cast: George Murphy, Finlay Currie, Virginia Gilmore.
Dir: Alfred L. Werker.
BW-98 mins

Based on a magazine article by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.


1:15am -- Walk a Crooked Mile (1948)
The FBI and Scotland Yard join forces to stop security leaks at a nuclear power plant.
Cast: Louis Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe, Louise Allbritton.
Dir: Gordon Douglas.
BW-91 mins, TV-G

In 1938 Louis Hayward became the first of many actors to portray the character of Simon Templar, the Saint.


2:45am -- Down Three Dark Streets (1954)
An FBI Agent takes on the three unrelated cases of a dead agent to track down his killer.
Cast: Ruth Roman, Broderick Crawford, Martha Hyer.
Dir: Arnold Laven.
BW-86 mins, TV-PG

Ruth Roman and her son Richard "Dickie" Hall, were first-class passengers aboard the Andrea Doria when she collided with the Stockholm and sank in 1956. They were among almost 1,700 saved in the sinking. Roman and her son were separated in the rescue. She arrived in New York first and waited for him, surrounded by news photographers and reporters. She was on the pier to greet him when he arrived the next day when the rescue ship arrived in New York.


4:15am -- Big Jim McLain (1952)
A U.S. agent takes on communists in Hawaii.
Cast: John Wayne, Nancy Olson, James Arness.
Dir: Edward Ludwig.
BW-90 mins, TV-PG

Nancy Olson hated the script but she figured six weeks in Hawaii and a chance to work with an icon like Wayne seemed a good enough reason to accept. Besides, she thought the film would flop and nobody would see it. She didn't count on the constant TV exposure the film has had and says people stop her all the time to say they've seen her in the film. Olson, a staunch liberal Democrat, said she and Wayne would often have political arguments but she would always let Wayne have the last word.

[Staph]

1. The Naked City

"There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."

With that memorably stark declaration, producer Mark Hellinger closes one of the greatest film noirs of all time, Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948). The picture itself is just as hard-edged as its narration, a groundbreaking detective story shot in raw documentary style amid the bridges and concrete canyons of New York City. Nowadays, this sort of location filming is commonplace, even on network TV. But Hellinger and Dassin were the first filmmakers to venture into the streets of the Big Apple to shoot a movie.

The Naked City opens in tawdry noir style, with the murder of a young model in her Manhattan apartment. We then follow the six-day investigation of her death, which is lead by straight-shooting Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Detective James Halloran (Don Taylor.) Their often mundane police work is interspersed with quick sequences about the private lives of the detectives and the day-to-day rumblings of New York City itself. The investigation will lead to a trio of men who may have wanted the woman dead, including Frank Niles (Howard Duff), a shady type who seems to be hiding something even when he spills his guts to the cops. The final foot chase across the upper reaches of the Williamsburg Bridge is a classic sequence that is helped immeasurably by cinematographer William Daniels' Oscar®-winning camera work.

No doubt about it - this is one great-looking movie. Dassin and Daniels delivered perhaps the most starkly realized movie of the 1940s. Hellinger intended the images to resemble tabloid newspaper photographs. But it was Dassin and Daniels who had the brilliant idea to shoot scenes with a camera that was hidden inside a van, behind a tinted window. That way, the cast could cover the sidewalks without passersby even knowing they were taking part in a movie! The results are a virtual time capsule of life in post-war New York City.

Dassin directed other memorable films in the same mold as The Naked City, including Brute Force (1947), Night and the City (1950), and Thieves' Highway (1949). But his career in Hollywood, like so many others, would be tragically cut short when he was blacklisted during the ruthless McCarthy-era witch hunts. Dassin took the fall rather than name names before the committee...unlike several of his closest friends, including actor Lee J. Cobb, director Elia Kazan, and playwright Clifford Odets. After moving to Europe to find film work, Dassin settled in Greece, a weary but idealistic man who later admitted to having been a member of the Communist Party, although he never aimed to espouse his beliefs in any of his pictures.

Nevertheless, even with Dassin at the helm, Hellinger is the most fascinating person connected to The Naked City. A quick scan of his biography reads like an elaborate, Damon Runyon-inspired put-on: His first job was as a reporter for a theatrical publication called, mysteriously enough, Zit's Weekly. During prohibition, he drank copious amount of brandy and wrote the first-ever Broadway column, a wildly popular slice-of-life called "About Town." He soon began dressing in his lifelong uniform of dark blue shirts and white ties. He was so generous with his money, people would line up on pay day and wait for him to slide bills into their hands. In 1926, he married a beautiful showgirl whose actual name was Gladys Glad. In 1931, he wrote sketches for the Ziegfeld show, Hot Cha. He successfully toured the vaudeville circuit as an actor for a year. He broadcast football games for Columbia University without knowing a single thing about football...It goes on like that for pages.

Eventually, Hellinger wrote a couple of books that got sold to the studios out in Hollywood. He then declared that he, too, would go to Hollywood, but not as a mere screenwriter - he wanted to produce movies, too. After a string of forgettable B-pictures, he insisted, in 1941, that Humphrey Bogart play the lead in his production of High Sierra. The film was an indisputable classic that made Bogart a major star. Later, Hellinger would produce The Killers (1946), which introduced the world to Burt Lancaster. It was around this time that Hellinger became good friends with Ernest Hemingway, the author of the short story on which The Killers was based.

Hellinger dropped dead from a heart attack in 1947, having lived just long enough to enjoy a successful preview of The Naked City. At long last, he finally got some sleep.

Producer: Mark Hellinger
Director: Jules Dassin
Screenplay: Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald
Cinematography: William Daniels
Editing: Paul Weatherwax
Music: Miklos Rozsa and Frank Skinner
Art Design: John DeCuir
Set Design: Russell A. Gausman and Oliver Emert
Costume Design: Grace Houston
Makeup: Bud Westmore
Principal Cast: Barry Fitzgerald (Lt. Dan Muldoon), Howard Duff (Frank Niles), Dorothy Hart (Ruth Morrison), Don Taylor (Jimmy Halloran), Ted de Corsia (Garzah), House Jameson (Dr. Stoneman), Anne Sargent (Mrs. Halloran), Adelaide Klein (Mrs. Batory), Tom Pedi (Detective Perelli), Enid Markey (Mrs. Hylton), Frank Conroy (Capt. Donahue), Mark Hellinger (Narrator).
B&W-96m.

by Paul Tatara