TCM Schedule for Thursday, March 30, 2017 -- What's On Tonight - African-American Independents

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films directed by Archie Mayo. He started as an actor in 1915, and switched to directing in 1917. Then in prime time, TCM has a selection of films from African-American independent producers and directors, including Gordon Parks' autobiographical film The Learning Tree (1969). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- ILLICIT (1931)
Young free-thinkers turn conventionally jealous when they marry.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, James Rennie, Charles Butterworth
BW-79 mins, CC,

The play that's referred to, "Fifty Million Frenchmen" was a musical comedy written by Cole Porter and opened on Broadway in 1929.


7:30 AM -- STREET OF WOMEN (1932)
A property developer is torn between his wife and his mistress.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Kay Francis, Roland Young, Alan Dinehart
BW-59 mins,

Film debut of Gloria Stuart.


8:45 AM -- TWO AGAINST THE WORLD (1932)
A debutante takes the rap for her sibling's mistakes.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Constance Bennett, Neil Hamilton, Helen Vinson
BW-70 mins, CC,

There are conflicting writing sources for this movie: The Motion Picture Guide lists the source as the play, "A Dangerous Set", while the AFI Catalogue lists only a story, "The Higher-Ups", by the same authors. The onscreen credit says it was a play, but no title is specified, and no information about the play has been found.


10:00 AM -- UNDER EIGHTEEN (1932)
A girl from the slums falls for a lecherous Broadway producer.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Marian Marsh, Anita Page, Regis Toomey
BW-79 mins, CC,

Based on the story Sky Life by Frank Mitchell Dazey and Agnes Christine Johnston.


11:30 AM -- EVER IN MY HEART (1933)
During World War I, a woman suspects her husband of being a German spy.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, Ralph Bellamy
BW-68 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Beulah Marie Dix and Bertram Millhauser.


12:45 PM -- THE MAYOR OF HELL (1933)
A racketeer goes straight to run a reform school.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: James Cagney, Madge Evans, Arthur Byron
BW-90 mins, CC,

Remade in 1938 as Crime School and in 1939 as Hell's Kitchen.


2:30 PM -- THE MAN WITH TWO FACES (1934)
An actor uses his skills to protect his sister from her sinister husband.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Mary Astor, Ricardo Cortez
BW-73 mins, CC,

One of the photos in producer Ricardo Cortez's office is that of character comedian Edward Everett Horton.


3:45 PM -- GAMBLING LADY (1934)
Two gamblers fall in love but one is already married to a possible murderer.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Pat O'Brien
BW-66 mins, CC,

Watch for Tyrone Power in a bit in the Park Avenue gambling scene.


5:00 PM -- BORDERTOWN (1935)
An ambitious Mexican-American gets mixed up with his boss's neurotic wife.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Margaret Lindsay
BW-91 mins, CC,

Paul Muni hired a Mexican man as chauffeur to study his accent and mannerisms in preparation for this role.


6:45 PM -- THE EXPERT (1932)
An elderly man complicates his married son's life when he moves in.
Dir: Archie Mayo
Cast: Charles "Chic" Sale, Dickie Moore, Lois Wilson
BW-68 mins,

The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 24 September 1924 and closed in January 1925 after 141 performances. The opening night cast included O.P. Heggie as "Old Man Minick."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: AFRICAN-AMERICAN INDEPENDENTS



8:00 PM -- DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (1991)
Three generations of Gullah women reunite in 1902 before the family emigrates to the North.
Dir: Julie Dash
Cast: Cora Lee Day, Alva Rogers, Barbara O
C-112 mins,

Selected to the Library of Congress National Registry of Film in 2004.


10:00 PM -- THE LEARNING TREE (1969)
A black boy growing up in Kansas dreams of a better life in this film version of director Gordon Parks's autobiography.
Dir: Gordon Parks
Cast: Kyle Johnson, Alex Clarke, Estelle Evans
C-107 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The first major studio feature film directed by an African-American (Gordon Parks).


12:00 AM -- LOSING GROUND (1982)
A philosophy professor responds to her husband's philandering by pursuing fulfillment on her own.
Dir: Kathleen Collins
Cast: Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane Jones
C-86 mins,

Only the second full length feature film directed by an African American woman after Will (1981). The film never received distribution outside of festival screenings in director Kathleen Collins's lifetime. It was only decades after she died, that her daughter, who had inherited the negatives of the film, approached Milestone Films, and asked them to help restore and release the film.


1:30 AM -- SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: TAKE ONE (1968)
Cameras capture the backstage drama as acting students audition for a film.
Dir: William Greaves
Cast: Patricia Ree Gilbert, Don Fellows, Jonathan Gordon
C-75 mins, CC,

Followed by Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2 (2005).


3:00 AM -- THE SYMBOL OF THE UNCONQUERED (1921)
In this silent film, a black heiress fights off the Ku Klux Klan to save her land.
Dir: Oscar Micheaux
Cast: Iris Hall, Walker Thompson, Lawrence Chenault
BW-59 mins,

The only surviving print of this film is in the collection of the Cinematheque Royale in Belgium. Its title cards are in French and Flemish. They have been translated back, from French, into English.


4:15 AM -- GO DOWN, DEATH! (1944)
Gangsters try to frame a minister out to clean up their Southern town.
Dir: Spencer Williams
Cast: Myra D. Hemmings, Samuel H. James, Eddye L. Houston
BW-54 mins,

Based on a poem by James Weldon Johnson. Johnson was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. In 1920 he was the first African American to be chosen as executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer. He served in that position from 1920 to 1930. Johnson established his reputation as a writer, and was known during the Harlem Renaissance for his poems, novels, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture. He was appointed under President Theodore Roosevelt as US consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua for most of the period from 1906 to 1913. In 1934 he was the first African-American professor to be hired at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University.


5:30 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #27 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon introduces Part One of "Captains Courageous" and introduces a clip from "Forbidden Planet."
BW-29 mins, CC,

[kimbutgar]

1. Thank you for posting this.

I am a big pre code movie fans and there are movies I wanted to tape.

My step grandfathers nephew was Paul Winfield. I met him several times and wanted to see Sounder.