TCM Schedule for Friday, June 18, 2021 -- Primetime Theme: Wedding Bells

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing a selection of 1950s thrillers. Then in prime time, TCM is celebrating June brides with a trio of films about weddings. Enjoy!


5:45 AM -- Eyes in the Night (1942)
1h 20m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Blind detective Duncan Maclain gets mixed up with enemy agents and murder when he tries to help an old friend.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Edward Arnold, Ann Harding, Donna Reed

This was the first film in what was meant to be to be a mystery franchise focused on blind detective "Mac" MacLain (Edward Arnold) who solved murders with the help of his seeing eye dog, Friday. When the second entry, The Hidden Eye, failed to elicit enough interest, M-G-M ended the series.


7:15 AM -- Return to Glennascaul (1953)
23m | Short | TV-PG
Short film starring Orson Welles. The plot is derived from the ubiquitous story of the vanishing hitchhiker.
Director: Hilton Edwards
Cast: Orson Welles, Michael Laurence, Shelah Richards

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel

"Glennascaul" is Irish for "Glen of the Shadows."


8:00 AM -- Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
1h 18m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-G
Nuclear tests awaken two prehistoric monsters whose battles threaten to level Japan.
Director: Motoyoshi Odo
Cast: Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Minoru Chiaki

George Takei's first film project, as the English language voice of the commander of the landing craft.


9:30 AM -- House on Haunted Hill (1958)
1h 15m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A millionaire offers total strangers a fortune to spend the night in a haunted house.
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long

The large grosses for this film were noticed by Alfred Hitchcock. This led him to create his own low-budget horror film--Psycho (1960).


11:00 AM -- Frankenstein--1970 (1958)
1h 22m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A descendent of Baron Frankenstein unleashes an undead murderer on the crew filming his forebear's story.
Director: Howard W. Koch
Cast: Boris Karloff, Tom Duggin, Jana Lund

The Breen Office ordered a number of changes in the script and the original cut of the film. One change ordered was the sound of the device Dr. Frankenstein uses to dispose of body parts. The original grinding sound was considered too horrific. It was replaced with the sound of a toilet flush which resulted in unintended laughter in audiences. This was believed to be the first time a toilet flush was heard in a motion picture.


12:30 PM -- Cosmic Monsters (1958)
1h 18m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A scientist's experiments open the doorway to a strange and deadly world.
Director: Gilbert Gunn
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Gaby Andre, Martin Benson

According to Leonard Maltin, this was Britain's only Giant Bug movie.


2:00 PM -- The Black Scorpion (1957)
1h 28m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Giant prehistoric scorpions terrorize the Mexican countryside.
Director: Edward Ludwig
Cast: Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas

Willis H. O'Brien and Pete Peterson began filming the special effects of this film in a large remodeled dressing room at the Tepeac Studios in Mexico City, but when money became tight they finished the picture in Peterson's garage in Encino, California.


3:30 PM -- Indestructible Man (1956)
1h 10m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Scientific experiments accidentally revive an executed criminal and make him impervious to harm, prompting him to seek revenge on his former partners.
Director: Jack Pollexfen
Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Max Showalter, Marian Carr

Although Joe Flynn played a serious role, audiences laughed at him. This convinced him that comedy was his forte, and he later specialized in comedic roles, most memorably as the irascible Capt. Binghamton in McHale's Navy (1962).


5:00 PM -- Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
1h 24m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A mad scientist uses an ape to murder his enemies.
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Karl Malden, Claude Dauphin, Patricia Medina

This was the final film made under Merv Griffin's contract with Warner Brothers. His salary never rose above the relatively paltry sum of $250 a week, and when Phantom tanked, Griffin abandoned his hopes of ever being a leading man in the movies, concentrating instead on succeeding in television.


6:30 PM -- House of Wax (1953)
1h 28m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A scarred sculptor re-populates his ravaged wax museum with human corpses.
Director: Andre Detoth
Cast: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk

It must have been easy for Vincent Price to act alarmed in the sequence in which his museum burns down. Right before the shoot, André De Toth's crew set three "spot fires" in strategic locations. Then the cameras started rolling and everything went downhill. The team quickly lost control of their fires, which merged into a massive inferno that put a hole in the sound stage roof and singed Price's eyebrows. But because the rapidly melting wax mannequins would've been very hard to replace, de Toth kept on filming-even as firemen arrived to help extinguish the flames.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- WEDDING BELLS



8:00 PM -- Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994)
1h 56m | Comedy | TV-MA
A young man's chance encounters with a beautiful woman are complicated by his close-knit extended family.
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Hugh Grant, Andie Macdowell, James Fleet

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Richard Curtis, and Best Picture

Inspiration for this movie came when co-executive producer and writer Richard Curtis was flipping through some old diaries and realized that he had been to seventy-two weddings in ten years.


10:15 PM -- Father of the Bride (1991)
1h 45m | Comedy | TV-PG
A father's mixed feelings about his daughter's marriage makes the wedding a torturous occasion.
Director: Charles Shyer
Cast: Steve Martin, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Diane Keaton

Tom Irish made his film debut in the 1950 version, Father of the Bride (1950); in this version he made his last film appearance. Irish plays the same character, Ben Banks, in both the 1950 and the 1991 versions of Father of the Bride.


12:15 AM -- June Bride (1948)
1h 37m | Romance | TV-G
Two bickering reporters turn a small-town wedding into a battleground.
Director: Bretaigne Windust
Cast: Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, Fay Bainter

Sandra Gould (uncredited as Towne's receptionist) played opposite Robert Montgomery in this film. In the '60's, she plays the second Gladys Kravitz opposite Montgomery's daughter Elizabeth Montgomery - a.k.a. Samantha - in Bewitched (1964).


2:00 AM -- The Stepfather (1987)
1h 38m | Horror | TV-14
A seemingly average man, after murdering his entire family, remarries a widow with a teenaged daughter and prepares to do it again.
Director: Joseph Ruben
Cast: Terry O'Quinn, Shelley Hack, Jill Schoelen

John List (1925-2008) was the real-life killer who inspired the film. Like the film, List killed his family in their suburban home and went on to live under a false identity. Also similar to the film, List continued to leave the house "for work" to keep up appearances with his wife after losing his job. Unlike the film, List did not assume multiple identities, commit further murders, become a stepfather, or use disguises after becoming a fugitive. List did remarry however, claiming that his first wife had died of cancer. He was finally apprehended after 18 years in hiding, and died in prison custody.


3:45 AM -- Wicked Stepmother (1989)
1h 32m | Comedy | TV-14
A couple comes home from vacation to find that their grandfather has re-married a witch.
Director: Larry Cohen
Cast: Bette Davis, Barbara Carrera, Colleen Camp

In the scene where Jenny (Colleen Camp) talks to Steve (David Rasche) about how much she misses her mother, we see two pictures of Jenny's deceased mother in her room. Both pictures are of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis ' on-and-off screen rival.


5:30 AM -- Shake Hands With Danger (1970)
23m | Short | TV-PG
Short safety film about the dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operations.
Cast: Charles Oldfather, John Clifford, Herk Harvey