TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 25, 2017 -- TCM Spotlight - Creature Features

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, it's all Summer all the time, very appropriate for the approaching weekend. And in prime time, it's the last of the Creature Features. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #29 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon introduces Part Three of "Captains Courageous" and a clip from "Tribute to a Badman."
BW- 29 mins, CC,


6:30 AM -- SUMMER STOCK (1950)
A farmer gets sucked into show business when a theatrical troupe invades her farm.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken
C- 109 mins, CC,

One one particular day of fiming, Judy Garland was said to be "not in a fit state to work" so Gene Kelly feigned a fall so that she would be able to take the day off.


8:30 AM -- CORVETTE SUMMER (1978)
A high school student takes off in search of his stolen, rebuilt Corvette.
Dir: Matthew Robbins
Cast: Mark Hamill, Annie Potts, Eugene Roche
BW- 105 mins, CC,

Mark Hamill said of this movie around the time of production: "I insisted on looking different. And I'm only interested in the car, not even any girl, until Annie Potts came along. . . It's not a car movie. It's really a love story. And I'm so thrilled to be working with Annie Potts. She reminds me of Judy Holliday. She's a unique creature." Hamill years after the film first came out then said: "Corvette Summer is a great little picture and it's got sort of a title that's a misnomer because you sort of put it in one category when you first see it and you go, 'Oh gee, it's quite a nicely written, uh romantic movie.' And I enjoyed it immensely."


10:30 AM -- SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER (1960)
A dowager tries to buy a lobotomy to silence the woman who witnessed her son's murder.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift
BW- 114 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Elizabeth Taylor, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Oliver Messel, William Kellner and Scott Slimon

Screenwriter Gore Vidal credits film critic Bosley Crowther with the success of this film. Crowther wrote a scathing review denouncing the film as the work of degenerates obsessed with rape, incest, homosexuality, and cannibalism among other qualities. Vidal believes advertising such salacious detail made audiences flock in droves to the film.


12:30 PM -- A SUMMER PLACE (1959)
An adulterous couple discovers that their children are sexually involved.
Dir: Delmer Daves
Cast: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee
C- 130 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The house where Ken (Richard Egan) and Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire) lived toward the end of the film is an actual private residence that was built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1948. It still stands today on Scenic Road in Carmel-by-the-Sea and is a prime feature in local tours.


2:45 PM -- SUMMER HOLIDAY (1948)
Musical remake of Ah, Wilderness!, about a small-town boy's struggles with growing up.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Gloria De Haven, Walter Huston
C- 93 mins, CC,

This movie is the musical version of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness". Mickey Rooney appears in both versions. In the original, he is the younger brother, Tommy. In this movie, he is the older brother, Richard.


4:30 PM -- SUMMER OF '42 (1971)
A high school student falls in love, for the first time, with a World War II bride.
Dir: Robert Mulligan
Cast: Jennifer O'Neill, Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser
C- 104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score -- Michel Legrand

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Herman Raucher, Best Cinematography -- Robert Surtees, and Best Film Editing -- Folmar Blangsted

During an interview on The Mike Douglas Show in 1972, Herman Raucher said that after the novel and movie were released, several women wrote letters to him claiming to be Dorothy. One of the letters was indeed from the real Dorothy, who wanted to know if she had psychologically damaged Raucher, and also informed him that had been happily remarried and was now a grandmother. It was the last time that Raucher, by that time married with children, heard from Dorothy.


6:15 PM -- IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME (1949)
In this musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, feuding co-workers in a small music shop do not realize they are secret romantic pen pals.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall
C- 103 mins, CC,

Buster Keaton was working as a gag writer at MGM when this movie was made. The filmmakers approached him to devise a way for a violin to get broken that would be both comic and plausible. Keaton came up with an appropriate fall, and the filmmakers then realized he was the only one who would be able to execute it properly, so they cast him in the film. Keaton also devised the sequence in which Van Johnson inadvertently wrecks Judy Garland's hat, and coached Johnson intensively in how to perform the scene. This was the first MGM film Keaton appeared in since being fired from the studio in 1933.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: CREATURE FEATURES



8:00 PM -- TARANTULA (1955)
A scientist's experiments to cure hunger create a giant tarantula.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Cast: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll
BW- 80 mins, CC,

Professor Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) predicts that by the year 2000 the human population will be 3.6 billion. In fact it was almost double that at that time.


9:30 PM -- RETURN OF THE FLY (1959)
Attempting to duplicate his father's work on matter transmission, a scientist turns himself into a monster.
Dir: Edward L. Bernds
Cast: Vincent Price, Brett Halsey, John Sutton
BW- 80 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Vincent Price signed on after reading the first draft of the script. However, the studio demanded re-writes in order to reduce production costs. The re-writes reportedly removed much of what Price liked about the first draft.


11:15 PM -- THE COSMIC MONSTER (1958)
A scientist's experiments open the doorway to a strange and deadly world.
Dir: Gilbert Gunn
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Gaby Andre, Martin Benson
BW- 72 mins, CC,

Originally titled The Strange World of Planet X.


12:45 AM -- THE WASP WOMAN (1960)
A cosmetics executive's search for eternal beauty turn her into a monster.
Dir: Roger Corman
Cast: Susan Cabot, Fred Eisley, Barboura Morris
BW- 61 mins, CC,

This was Susan Cabot's final movie.


2:00 AM -- SWAMP THING (1982)
After a violent incident with a special chemical, a research scientist is turned into a swamp plant monster.
Dir: Wes Craven
Cast: Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise
C- 91 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Portraying the Swamp Thing creature in this movie, with the film's sequel The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), actor-stuntman Dick Durock became the first person since Christopher Reeve in the "Superman" films franchise to reprise a superhero role of a DC Comics protagonist. Durock also played the character in the television series Swamp Thing (1990).


3:44 AM -- ON THE TRAIL OF THE IGUANA (1964)
This short film provides a behind-the-scenes look at the on-location filming of "The Night of the Iguana" (1964).
Dir: Ross Lowell
C- 14 mins,


4:00 AM -- THE KILLER SHREWS (1959)
A maniacal scientist creates a formula that turns your average shrew into a giant, man-killing beast.
Dir: Ray Kellogg
Cast: James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis
BW- 68 mins, CC,

Close-ups of the giant shrews were filmed using hand puppets. The wider shots used dogs made up as the shrews.


5:15 AM -- TCM PRESENTS ELVIS MITCHELL UNDER THE INFLUENCE: BILL MURRAY (2008)
Celebrities reveal the classic movies that influenced their lives in interviews with acclaimed film critic/interviewer Elvis Mitchell.
C- 29 mins, CC, Letterbox Format


5:45 AM -- BABY FACE HARRINGTON (1935)
A milquetoast has to fight off cops and gangsters when he's mistaken for a criminal.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Charles Butterworth, Una Merkel, Harvey Stephens
BW- 62 mins,

The play, "Something to Brag About," by Edgar Selwyn and William Le Baron, opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 13 August 1925, but had only 4 performances.