TCM Schedule for Saturday, March 10, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: Saturday Night Noir

[Staph]

The daylight schedule resembles an old-time movie house's Saturday matinee -- cowboy movies, cartoons, and a short travelogue. Then in prime time, the not-Essentials features film noir. (And in late night, TCM is showing The Big Chill (1983). My sister went to high school with writer/director Larry Kasdan -- it's a small world!) Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- MOVIE CRAZY (1932)
A stagestruck young actor accidentally receives somebody else's invitation to test in Hollywood.
Dir: Clyde Bruckman
Cast: Harold Lloyd, Constance Cummings, Kenneth Thomson
BW-96 mins,

The final climax of the picture on board of the ship between Harold and Vance was basically reworked from Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother (1927). The film was also shot with a silent film camera to re-create the Lloyd silent technique and the sound effects and dialogue were recorded in post-production.


8:00 AM -- RIDE HIM, COWBOY (1932)
A cowboy tames a wild horse suspected of killing a man, then rides out to find the real culprit.
Dir: Fred Allen
Cast: John Wayne, Duke, Ruth Hall
BW-55 mins, CC,

An early John Wayne film, before he really learned to act. BTW, Duke, in the Cast credits, is a horse. He appeared in six films, as John Wayne's horse.


8:00 AM -- TOM AND JERRY: THE COUNTERFEIT CAT (1950)
Tom the cat steals the headpiece of a dog to deceive the bulldog Spike and get a chance to eat the canary Spike is guarding.
Dir: Tex Avery
BW-7 mins,


8:00 AM -- LAND OF THE INCAS (1937)
This short film focuses on the land and history of the Incas.
C-9 mins,

Filmed on location in Peru, including Machu Picchu.


8:00 AM -- TRADER HOUND (1931)
In this comedic short, a dog travels to Africa with a young sheik to look for adventure.
Dir: Zion Myers
BW-15 mins,

Spoof of Trader Horn (1931).


9:30 AM -- RED BARRY: MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE (1938)
An undercover police detective sets out to discover who stole $2 million in Bonds.
Cast: Buster Crabbe, Edna Sedgewick, Frances Robinson
BW-20 mins,

Red Barry is a 1938 Universal movie serial based on the comic strip "Red Barry" by Will Gould. Millions for Defense is the first chapter.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: POPEYE THE SAILOR (1933)
The first Popeye movie short, based on the character from the King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre.
Dir: Dave Fleischer
Cast: William Costello, William Pennell, Bonnie Poe
BW-8 mins, CC,

To ensure that people watched this short, it was marketed as a Betty Boop vehicle and Betty makes a small cameo appearance in the movie; however, the main character is actually Popeye.


10:00 AM -- TARZAN THE APE MAN (1932)
A British lord raised by apes kidnaps a beautiful noblewoman exploring Africa with her father.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Neil Hamilton, C. Aubrey Smith
BW-100 mins, CC,

Near the beginning of the movie, Jane sees several tribes in the village, one of which is the Wakanda. As this is a fictional tribe, this could be the inspiration for Marvel comics Wakanda, home of the Black Panther.


12:00 PM -- KIT CARSON (1940)
Frontiersman Kit Carson fights off Indian attacks on the trail to California.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Jon Hall, Lynn Bari, Dana Andrews
BW-96 mins,

Both Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels appear in this movie, better known as the Lone Ranger and Tonto.


2:00 PM -- VIVA ZAPATA! (1952)
Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata leads the peasants against a corrupt president.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn
BW-113 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Anthony Quinn (Anthony Quinn was not present at the awards ceremony. His wife Katherine DeMille accepted on his behalf.)

Nominee for Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Marlon Brando, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- John Steinbeck, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Thomas Little and Claude E. Carpenter, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alex North

Anthony Quinn was very disappointed when Marlon Brando was cast as Emiliano Zapata - he thought that with his Latin appearance, he would have been a better choice. To solve the argument, both actors competed to see which of them could urinate furthest into the Rio Grande. Quinn lost the bet, but he won an Oscar for the best supporting actor as Zapata's brother.


4:15 PM -- SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF! (1969)
A cowboy drifts into a lawless town and brings things back together.
Dir: Burt Kennedy
Cast: James Garner, Joan Hackett, Walter Brennan
C-93 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film's title is a parody of a bumper sticker popular around the time it was made, "Support Your Local Police", part of the "law-and-order" movement led by such politicians as Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Wallace.


6:00 PM -- A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964)
A mysterious stranger plays dueling families against each other in a Mexican border town.
Dir: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Volontè
C-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

After considering Henry Fonda, director Sergio Leone offered the role of the Man With No Name to James Coburn, who proved to be too expensive. Charles Bronson then turned it down after describing it as the "worst script I have ever seen". Third choice Richard Harrison also declined the role but pointed Leone in the direction of Rawhide (1959). Leone then offered the part to "Rawhide" star Eric Fleming, who turned it down but suggested his co-star Clint Eastwood for the part. The rest, as they say, is history. Leone would eventually work with both Fonda and Bronson in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), and Coburn in Duck, You Sucker (1971).



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SATURDAY NIGHT NOIR



8:00 PM -- KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL (1952)
To commit the perfect crime, a former detective keeps his colleagues' identities secret from each other.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster
BW-99 mins, CC,

The 1.2 million dollars stolen from the bank would be the equivalent of almost 10.75 million dollars in 2015.


10:00 PM -- THE CROOKED WAY (1949)
A war hero's amnesia keeps him from dealing with his criminal past.
Dir: Robert Florey
Cast: John Payne, Sonny Tufts, Ellen Drew
BW-86 mins, CC,

In one scene, John Payne hitches a ride in a mortuary van from a place called "Green Acres". It's coincidental that the movie's cast includes Frank Cady and Percy Helton, who both appeared on the TV series of the same name, Green Acres (1965).


12:00 AM -- STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940)
A newspaperman serves as key witness in a circumstantial murder case.
Dir: Boris Ingster
Cast: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet
BW-64 mins, CC,

In the three film generally cited by film historians as the 'first Films Noir,' M, Stranger on the Third Floor and The Maltese Falcon, Peter Lorre stars in all three.


1:30 AM -- THE BIG CHILL (1983)
A friend's death brings together a group of former college activists.
Dir: Lawrence Kasdan
Cast: Glenn Close, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Glenn Close, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek, and Best Picture

Before actual shooting was to begin, Lawrence Kasdan wanted the cast to spend some significant time rehearsing together. As they travelled from California to Atlanta, Georgia and ultimately Beaufort, South Carolina, the actors had nearly three weeks of rehearsal time before the cameras rolled--something extremely rare for a film. JoBeth Williams believed it was partly due to the studio not wanting to spend a lot of money on the actual shooting process. More importantly, however, Kasdan wanted to give the cast and crew a chance to work out how they would play their scenes together and get to know each other well enough to achieve the effortless camaraderie that comes with the close long-time friendships depicted in the story. It was a strategy that all of the actors found extremely helpful in making their characters' relationships believable. "It's like playing on a wonderful team," said Kevin Kline at the time, "and it's fun being part of that team. It's a sharing, like sharing a victory when you've won. There's a beautiful exhilaration in team play, which is about as apt a parallel as I can make to this ensemble."


3:30 AM -- BYE BYE BRAVERMAN (1968)
Four failed writers try to attend a friend's funeral.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: George Segal, Jack Warden, Joseph Wiseman
C-94 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

At the funeral home when the Rabbi (Alan King) is delivering the eulogy, he references living one's life as James Bond. The next shot is of Joseph Wiseman, who played the title character in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond film.