TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 2, 2015 -- What's On Tonight - Treasures From the Disney Vault

[Staph]

In the morning, we've got a trio of silent films (including a different version of The Wizard of Oz), followed by a day of witches, Satanists and the occult. In prime time, TCM is showing a selection of Disney classics, including animated shorts, feature films, live-action movies, documentaries, nature films and made-for-television movies. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Häxan (1922)
Scenes trace the history of witchcraft from the middle ages to the early 20th century.
Dir: Benjamin Christensen
Cast: Benjamin Christensen,
B/W-107 min,

Maria, the weaver (one of the persecuted witches) was played by Maren Pedersen, whom Christensen allegedly discovered while she was selling flowers on a street corner. Pedersen claimed that she was the first Red Cross nurse in Denmark. During the shoot, Pedersen reportedly turned to Christensen and said, "The Devil is real. I have seen him sitting at my bedside." Christensen was so struck by this confession of modern demonic activity (or at least the belief in modern demonic activity) that he incorporated this anecdote into the film itself.


8:00 AM -- The Wizard of Oz (1925)
In this silent film, a farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.
Dir: Larry Semon
Cast: Larry Semon, Bryant Washburn, Dorothy Dwan
B/W-72 min,

First broadcast on television in a three-part serial on 8, 9, and 10 June 1931, by W2XCD, an early broadcaster owned by the DeForest Radio Company and based in Passaic, New Jersey.


9:15 AM -- The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927)
This silent silhouetted animation is based on the Arabian Nights' tales.
Dir: Lotte Reiniger
B/W-67 min,

One of the earliest feature-length animated films (only two Argentinean films, both now lost, may predate it). Lotte Reiniger cut figures out of black cardboard with a pair of scissors, and joined movable parts with thread in order to animate them. In the years 1923-1926, about 250,000 frame-by-frame stills were made and 96,000 were used in the film. Her husband, Carl Koch, was responsible for the photography in all her films until his death in 1963.


10:24 AM -- Believe It Or Not #22 (1931)
In this short film, Robert L. Ripley presents a series of interesting sights to a group of sailors, such as a six year old boy who can shave. Vitaphone Release 1197.
B/W-7 min,


10:45 AM -- Day of Wrath (1943)
Repressed passions lead to tragedy when a conservative minister's second wife falls for his adult son.
Dir: Carl Th. Dreyer
Cast: Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neiiendam
B/W-93 min,

Though the film is outwardly a chronicle of a religious witch-hunt, it contained many subtler comparisons to the behavior of the Nazis (torture and questioning) and Carl Theodor Dreyer fled Denmark for Sweden where he remained until the war was over.


12:30 PM -- Bewitched (1945)
A girl enlists a psychic to get rid of her murderous alternate personality.
Dir: Arch Oboler
Cast: Edmund Gwenn, Phyllis Thaxter, Harry H. Daniels Jr.
B/W-65 min, CC

Working title: "Alter Ego". This movie has nothing to do with the 1960s television series of the same name.


1:45 PM -- The Seventh Victim (1943)
A girl's search for her missing sister puts her in conflict with a band of satanists.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
B/W-71 min, CC

Notable cast members include Hugh Beaumont (Gregory Ward), who played the father, Ward Cleaver in the TV series Leave It To Beaver (1957-1963); Barbara Hale (uncredited subway passenger), who played secretary Della Rees in Perry Mason (1957-1966, plus 30 Perry Mason TV movies), pioneering celebrity chef Joseph "Chef" Milani, who ran the famous Hollywood Canteen during WWII, and character actor Feodor Chaliapin Jr (cult henchman), whose best-known role was as the mad monk Jorge De Burgos in The Name of the Rose (1986) and as the Old Man in Moonstruck (1987).


3:00 PM -- Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
A beautiful witch puts a love spell on an unknowing publisher.
Dir: Richard Quine
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon
C-102 min, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color -- Cary Odell and Louis Diage, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White or Color -- Jean Louis

This was James Stewart's final appearance as a romantic lead. This was because many of the leading ladies that were playing his romantic interest were becoming younger and a few were half his age. The critics in 1958 felt that Stewart was miscast as a suave New York businessman, and he apparently agreed. After this film he would concentrate more on roles that portrayed him as an everyman or as a father figure.


4:45 PM -- The Devil's Own (1966)
Following a horrifying experience with the occult in Africa, a schoolteacher moves to a small English village, only to discover that black magic resides there as well.
Dir: Cyril Frankel
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Kay Walsh, Alec McCowen
C-91 min, Letterbox Format

Joan Fontaine reportedly purchased the film rights to Norah Lofts' novel (written under the nom-de-plume of Peter Curtis) and brought the project to Hammer. This was Fontaine's final film before her death on December 15, 2013, at the age of 96.


6:30 PM -- The Terror (1963)
A lost soldier discovers a mysterious beauty haunting a half-deserted castle.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight
C-79 min, CC

Having finished The Raven (1963), Roger Corman immediately shot this film using the same sets and the same two lead actors. All of the scenes involving Boris Karloff were filmed by Corman in four days, but the finished film, which was largely improvised, required nine months to complete, the longest production of Corman's career. Corman shot the castle scenes with Boris Karloff so quickly that he didn't even bother to use slates to mark the beginnings of shots. Once he just had the actors walk downstairs one after another in succession, figuring he could later cut the single shot into separate shots that he could probably use somewhere.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TREASURES FROM THE DISNEY VAULT



8:00 PM -- Beach Picnic (1939)
Donald Duck tries to keep ants from stealing his picnic lunch.
Dir: Clyde Geronimi
Cast: Clarence Nash, Lee Millar,
C-8 min,


8:00 PM -- The Simple Things (1953)
Mickey Mouse and Pluto go fishing.
Dir: Charles A Nichols
Cast: James Macdonald, Pinto Colvig,
C-7 min, CC


8:00 PM -- Hawaiian Holiday (1937)
Mickey Mouse and his friends barely survive a Hawaiian vacation.
Dir: Ben Sharpsteen
Cast: Walt Disney, Pinto Colvig, Marcellite Garner
C-8 min, CC


8:30 PM -- Johnny Tremain (1957)
After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice joins the fight for American independence.
Dir: Robert Stevenson
Cast: Hal Stalmaster, Luana Patten, Jeff York
C-80 min, CC

Based on Esther Forbes' Newberry Medal-winning historical novel.


10:00 PM -- The Liberty Story (1957)
Walt Disney shares animated and live-action representations of America's struggle for independence.
Dir: Hamilton Luske
Cast: Hal Stalmaster, Sterling Holloway, Luana Patten
C-48 min, CC

A segment of the Disneyland television series, using clips from Johnny Tremain (1957) and the short Ben and Me (1953).


11:00 PM -- The Living Desert (1953)
Documentary of the live of flora and fauna in a desert in the US.
Dir: James Algar
Cast: Winston Hibler,
C-69 min, CC

Won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Features -- Walt Disney

When originally released to theaters in 1953, this 69-minute feature film was double billed with Walt Disney's 21-minute cartoon short Ben and Me (1953), as a 90-minute package deal. This and "Ben and Me" were the first to be released by Buena Vista. RKO continued to distribute Disney's cartoons until 1956. RKO shut down in 1957.


12:15 AM -- The Great Locomotive Chase (1956)
A Union spy tries to destroy the Confederacy's rail system.
Dir: Francis Lyon
Cast: Fess Parker, Jeffrey Hunter, Jeff York
C-88 min, CC, Letterbox Format

Only 13 pieces of equipment were actually used: two full-sized locomotives, one yard engine, three passenger cars, two iron boxcars and five wooden boxcars that were built specifically to be destroyed in the film. The various pieces of equipment bore different numbers on different trains throughout the movie.


1:51 AM -- The Amazing Miss Cummings - An Actress At Work And Play (1975)
This short film provides a behind-the-scenes look at child actress Quinn Cummings on the set of the movie "The Goodbye Girl" (1977).
Dir: William Riead


2:00 AM -- Treasure of Matecumbe (1976)
After the Civil War, a young Southerner races to find his family's treasure, buried on a swampy Florida island.
Dir: Vincent McEveety
Cast: Robert Foxworth, Joan Hackett, Peter Ustinov
C-116 min, CC

Scenes in the last act of this film were filmed along the beach and swamp areas of Bay Lake on the Walt Disney World property in Florida. The dock, which flanks the former Discovery/Treasure Island, still exists.


4:00 AM -- Rascal (1969)
A lonely boy adopts a baby raccoon.
Dir: Norman Tokar
Cast: Steve Forrest, Bill Mumy, Pamela Toll
C-85 min,

As revealed in a number of interviews with him, film critic Gene Siskel wrote his first review to ever appear in print for this film. He gave it a negative review.


5:39 AM -- Season In Tyrol (1969)
This short film looks at various seasonal activities offered in the Tyrol region of Austria. Vitaphone Release 3452A.
Dir: Kurt Jetmar
C-18 min,

[CBHagman]

1. One of these days I've got to see "Häxan."

That and the rest of Johnny Tremain, which I've seen only parts of.

Rascal, on the other hand, I have seen, though I didn't remember Bill Mumy was in it, and I can't remember the whole plot.