TCM Schedule for Friday, February 4, 2022 -- What's on Tonight: Teacher Tales

[Staph]

During the day, we're All Aboard, or perhaps better titled All At Sea. Then in prime time, TCM gives us Teacher Tales. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Breaking Point (1950)
1h 37m | Drama | TV-PG
A desperate fishing boat captain rents his ship to some gunmen on the lam.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter

Identified by critic Thom Andersen as an example of "film gris", a suggested sub-category of film noir incorporating a left-wing narrative.


7:45 AM -- Blood Alley (1955)
1h 55m | Adventure | TV-PG
An American sailor breaks out of a Chinese jail and dodges Communist agents on the road to Hong Kong.
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Paul Fix

In an interview Lauren Bacall said that she took the role when Robert Mitchum was to be the male lead. When John Wayne took the role after Mitchum was fired she expected to clash with him since she was a left-wing Democrat and he was a right-wing conservative Republican. She said that he was warm and friendly and they did not discuss politics. She later starred with him again in his last movie The Shootist (1976).


9:45 AM -- Barnacle Bill (1941)
1h 38m | Drama | TV-G
A fishing boat captain searches for romance in hopes of improving his financial picture.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, Leo Carrillo

MGM contractee Shirley Temple refused to appear in the film and was replaced by Virginia Weidler.


11:30 AM -- Billy Budd (1962)
1h 52m | Drama | TV-G
Adaptation of Herman Melville's classic tale of a ship's captain caught between an innocent young sailor and an evil officer.
Director: Peter Ustinov
Cast: Terence Stamp, Peter Ustinov, Robert Ryan

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Terence Stamp

Writer and Director Sir Peter Ustinov reported that he was horrified by attempts by Allied Artists to make this movie more commercial. One idea was to close this movie with a montage of stock footage from pirate movies. There were also repeated attempts to impose a happy ending on the film. Ustinov sarcastically asked if they thought "Ben Hur" would have been a bigger hit had Christ been reprieved from the Crucifixion in that film. The tragic ending of Melville's story was retained.


1:45 PM -- Captains Courageous (1937)
1h 56m | Drama | TV-G
A spoiled rich boy is lost at sea and rescued by a fishing boat.
Director: Victor Fleming
Cast: Freddie Bartholomew, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Marc Connelly, John Lee Mahin and Dale Van Every, Best Film Editing -- Elmo Veron, and Best Picture

When production finally wrapped in late February 1937, Spencer Tracy was relieved. "Well, I got away with it," he said later. "Want to know why? Because of Freddie, because of that kid's performance, because he sold it 98 per cent. The kid had to believe in Manuel, or Manuel wasn't worth a quarter. The way he would look at me, believe every word I said, made me believe in it myself. I've never said this before, and I'll never say it again. Freddie Bartholomew's acting is so fine and so simple and so true that it's way over people's heads. It'll only be by thinking back two or three years from now that they'll realize how great it was."


3:45 PM -- Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
2h 12m | Adventure | TV-PG
Classic adventure about the sadistic Captain Bligh, who drove his men to revolt during a South Seas expedition.
Director: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone

Winner of an Oscar for Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Franchot Tone, Best Director -- Frank Lloyd, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings and Carey Wilson, Best Film Editing -- Margaret Booth, and Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of departmment) with score by Herbert Stothart

This is the only film to receive three nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor: Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone. Because of this, the Academy introduced a Best Supporting Actor Oscar shortly afterward to ensure this situation would not be repeated. They all lost to Victor McLaglen for The Informer (1935).


6:15 PM -- Key Largo (1948)
1h 41m | Crime | TV-G
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

In a classic case of a director being emotionally manipulative, John Huston did not inform Claire Trevor about when she was to perform her song solo until the very day it was shot. Trevor was not a trained singer, and she had not even rehearsed the song yet. She also felt very intimidated that she had to perform the song for the A-list actors seated directly in front of her. The result was a hesitant, nervous, uncomfortable rendition--exactly the feeling Huston was hoping to get.

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WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- TEACHER TALES



8:00 PM -- To Sir, With Love (1967)
1h 45m | Drama | TV-PG
A substitute teacher changes the lives of the slum children in his class.
Director: James Clavell
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson

The film did so unexpectedly well in the States that Columbia Pictures did market research to find out why so many people had gone to it. Their answer: Sidney Poitier.


10:00 PM -- Stand and Deliver (1988)
1h 42m | Drama | TV-14
Based on the true story of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School.
Director: Ramon Menendez
Cast: Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips, Rosanna Arquette

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Edward James Olmos

According to Edward James Olmos, he wrote most of his dialogue with Jaime Escalante, and much of it was verbatim what Escalante had said in the real-life situations that were depicted in the movie. For instance, Olmos said the dialogue in the scene where Escalante confronts the ETS investigators about the cheating allegations was word for word what Escalante told the ETS in real life.


12:00 AM -- Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
1h 54m | Drama | TV-PG
A cold-hearted teacher becomes the school favorite when he's thawed by a beautiful young woman.
Director: Sam Wood
Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Donat (Robert Donat was not present at the awards ceremony. Victor Saville accepted the award on his behalf.)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Eric Maschwitz, R.C. Sherriff and Claudine West, Best Sound, Recording -- A.W. Watkins (Denham SSD), Best Film Editing -- Charles Frend, and Best Picture

34-year-old Robert Donat ages 63 years (1870-1933) over the course of this movie. He remarked: "As soon as I put the mustache on, I felt the part, even if I did look like a great Airedale come out of a puddle."


2:15 AM -- The Brood (1979)
1h 31m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
Frank Carveth and his ex-wife Nola are locked in a brutal custody battle over their daughter.
Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle

David Cronenberg wrote the film following the tumultuous divorce and child-custody battle he waged against Margaret Hindson. Cronenberg also said that Samantha Eggar's character, Nola Carveth, possessed some of the characteristics of his ex-wife.


4:00 AM -- It's Alive (1974)
1h 30m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A couple's use of an experimental fertility drug produces a monstrous infant.
Director: Larry Cohen
Cast: Guy Stockwell, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan

For the design of the baby monster, Larry Cohen drew a picture of what he wanted it to look like to Rick Baker, with the oversized forehead and pulsating veins running through the head. Cohen and Baker based it off the Starchild from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and a wolf.