TCM Schedule for Friday, November 25 -- What's On Tonight: Based on the novels of Sir Walter Scott

[Staph]

As an anti-dote to the overdose of football during this extended Thanksgiving weekend, we have the knights and ladies of Sir Walter Scott. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Divorce, American Style (1967)
A bored couple drifts toward divorce, only to discover how hard the single life is.
Dir: Bud Yorkin
Cast: Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds, Jason Robards Jr..
C-109 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Robert Kaufman (story) and Norman Lear (screenplay)

Tim Matheson's movie debut.


8:00 AM -- Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
A couple divorces by mistake during a madcap Mexican vacation.
Dir: Jack Donohue
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Dean Martin.
C-109 min, TV-PG , CC

Someone in Mexico took exception to the idea of their country being a place for quickie divorces or marriages, convinced the government to block Frank Sinatra (for a time) from entering Mexico, even though he owned property down there.


10:00 AM -- Penelope (1966)
A neglected wife turns to bank robbery to get her husband's attention.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Natalie Wood, Ian Bannen, Dick Shawn.
C-98 min, TV-PG , CC

There seems to be a scene cut from the movie, perhaps a fantasy sequence. Some lobby cards show Natalie Wood and her husband in the film in their beds. The husband looks bored and uninterested in Natalie. In others from the same scene he reads a newspaper or has a boardroom meeting while Natalie sits in bed looking gorgeous.


11:39 AM -- One Reel Wonder: Penelope's Fashion Show (1966)
This is a promotional short for the feature film Penelope.
Cast: Edith Head, Natalie Wood.
C-4 min,

Natalie Wood poses for test shots with several of the ensembles that Miss Head has designed for the film.


12:00 PM -- Sunday in New York (1963)
A philandering pilot gets real moral, real fast when his sister contemplates a premarital fling.
Dir: Peter Tewksbury
Cast: Rod Taylor, Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson.
C-105 min, TV-PG , CC

Despite signs that read Idlewild International Airport, the airport scenes were filmed at the clearly recognizable Los Angeles International Airport, including the long corridor of mosaic tile that Cliff Robertson runs down, and - reflected in a window of a door when Robertson leaves the terminal and walks downstairs to the tarmac - the famous Theme Building.


1:48 PM -- One Reel Wonder: The Singing Nun (1966)
A promotional short for the film of the same name, starring Debbie Reynolds.
C-3 min,

The film had nothing to do with the actual singing nun, Sister Luc Dominique aka Sœur Sourire, a Belgian nun who had a one-hit wonder with the song Dominique.


2:00 PM -- The Sundowners (1960)
An Australian sheepherder and his wife clash over their nomadic existence and their son's future.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov.
C-133 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Deborah Kerr, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Glynis Johns, Best Director -- Fred Zinnemann, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Isobel Lennart. and Best Picture

The definition of 'sundowner' given in the film is not the most common one used in Australia. A 'sundowner' was the term used for a swagman who arrived at a homestead/ farm just on sundown, in time to ask for a meal or food but too late to be asked to do any work. The sundowner usually departed early in the morning, before anyone else was up and before being asked to do some work.


4:15 PM -- Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1960)
A drama critic and his family try to adjust to life in the country.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Doris Day, David Niven, Janis Paige.
C-111 min, TV-G , CC

Beginning her feature-film career portraying Katharine Hepburn's mother in Little Women, Spring Byington closed her movie years playing Doris Day's mother in this film.


6:15 PM -- With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)
A widow and a widower have to contend with hostile children when they fall in love.
Dir: Howard Morris
Cast: Doris Day, Brian Keith, Pat Carroll.
C-95 min, TV-G , CC

This was Doris Day's final big screen appearance, following a 20 year career in the movies.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: BASED ON NOVELS BY SIR WALTER SCOTT



8:00 PM -- Ivanhoe (1952)
Sir Walter Scott's classic tale of the noble knight torn between his fair lady and a beautiful Jew.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine.
C-107 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, and Best Picture

Scriptwriter Marguerite Roberts was a member of the American Communist Party and in 1951 she was ordered to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Roberts and her husband John Sanford refused to name fellow members of the party and were both blacklisted. MGM received permission from the SWG (Screen Writer's Guild) to remove Roberts' name from the film after she refused to testify before HUAC.


10:00 PM -- Quentin Durward (1955)
A gallant Scots knight falls in love with his uncle's future wife.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Robert Taylor, Kay Kendall, Robert Morley.
C-101 min, TV-G , CC

The lead was first offered to Grace Kelly, who declined.


11:49 PM -- One Reel Wonder: Merry Wives Of Windsor (1953)
The MGM Symphony Orchestra performs the Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor.
C-9 min,

The credits are spoken, rather than printed on the screen.


12:00 AM -- King Richard and the Crusaders (1954)
King Richard's attempts to win back the Holy Lands are complicated by his love of a tempestuous Englishwoman.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Rex Harrison, Virginia Mayo, George Sanders.
C-114 min, TV-G , CC

Based on the Scott novel The Talisman. The film invents a military order of "Castelaines" or "Castlers", of which Sir Giles (Robert Douglas) is the Master. In the source novel, these characters are Knights Templar, whom Sir Walter Scott invariably depicted as villains. It is unclear whether the change was made because of the Production Code (Templars were a monastic order, so hostile depictions might fall under the rules against negative depictions of clergy), or to avoid upsetting the Masonic Knights Templar, of which a number of distinguished Hollywood figures were members.


2:00 AM -- Freaked (1993)
A vain actor, his best friend, and an activist end up at a mutant freak farm run by a weirdo scientist.
Dir: Alex Winter
Cast: Alex Winter, Megan Ward, Michael Stoyanov.
C-80 min, TV-MA , CC

Director Alex Winter claims that Mr. T got stressed out and left the set three days before filming was finished. A "scab T" was required for one shot. This stand-in can be seen in one of the cage shots during the battle between the huge Stuey and Ricky. Mr. T was unavailable for re-dubbing the scene with all the milkmen, so Lee Arenberg did the voice-over instead.


3:30 AM -- UHF (1989)
After a local public station gets a new owner, the station becomes a hit with a mix of hilariously bizarre shows.
Dir: Jay Levey
Cast: Weird Al Yankovic, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy.
C-97 min, TV-14 , CC

Yankovic never was really crazy about the name UHF (his preference was "The Vidiot"), feeling that it wouldn't make much sense in a world that was slowly gravitating toward cable television, and even less so overseas, where the UHF designation is not widely known. Unfortunately, he and Orion Pictures couldn't agree on a suitable name. For the U.S. market, Orion insisted on UHF, but for the overseas release, they wanted to use Yankovic's suggestion, while still tying the name to the U.S. title, so in most foreign markets the movie was called "The Vidiot from UHF". Al says in the movie's commentary that he would go on a foreign television show and would be asked, "Why did you name your movie 'The Vidiot from UHF?" to which he felt like replying, "I DIDN'T! The studio did! I hate that title!" Interestingly, in Mexico the movie was released as "Los Telelocos", which translates roughly as "The TV Crazies".


5:15 AM -- We Learn About the Telephone (1965)
Jimmy sketches an animated person, who takes us back through history to explain how people developed a need to communicate, and shows us devices that helped to do so.
Dir: Jean Yarbrough
Cast: William Boyett, Pat Cardi, Pam Ferden.
25 min, TV-G

Pat Cardi, who plays Jimmy, was the creator of MovieFone in 1988.


5:50 AM -- One Reel Wonder: Madeira "Isle Of Romance" (1938)
In this Traveltalk series entry, we visit Madeira Island, the largest of the Madeira Islands group in the Atlantic Ocean.
Narrator: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 min,

The Madeira Islands, known to the Romans but later forgotten, were re-discovered by Portuguese sailors in the service of Infante D. Henrique (Henry the Navigator) in 1419, and settled after 1420.