TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 8 (Guest Programmer Charles Busch)

[Staph]

What an interesting day! This morning features six films from the Philo Vance series, based on detective novels by S. S. Van Dine. The afternoon movies are based on the Penrod Schofield character, from three novels by Booth Tarkington. And this evening's guest programmer is Charles Busch.

A celebrated writer and one of the world’s most unconventional “leading ladies,” New York-born Charles Busch came to prominence as author and star (in drag) of plays that both parody and celebrate classic film genres. Among the most successful of these were Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Red Scare on Sunset and Die, Mommie, Die!, which was made into a 2003 movie starring Busch. Among his other credits as author are Broadway’s The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award.®


4:00am -- Blackboard Jungle (1955)
An idealistic teacher confronts the realities of juvenile delinquency.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Sidney Poitier.
Dir: Richard Brooks.
BW-101 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell, Edwin B. Willis and Henry Grace, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Russell Harlan, Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Brooks

This film launched the Rock and Roll era by using "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets as its theme music. The song was chosen for the theme after it was heard among records owned by Peter Ford, the son of the film's star, Glenn Ford. For years it was thought the producer's daughter had discovered the song, but this has since been proven incorrect. "Rock Around the Clock" went to No. 1 around the world and eventually sold an estimated 25 million copies.


5:42am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Teenagers On Trial (1955)
This documentary short examines teenage youth, of which an alarming two percent is delinquent.
Narrator: Bob Hite.
BW-19 mins

The courts, according to this movie, are wrong to try such youths as adults, because it is obviously the failings of schools and parents which cause kids to go bad. The movie then suggest town meetings and team organizations for the kids, because as the movie says, "Any kid would rather be in a team than a gang!"


6:00am -- The Bishop Murder Case (1930)
Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a series of murders inspired by Mother Goose rhymes.
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Leila Hyams, Roland Young.
Dir: Nick Grinde.
BW-87 mins, TV-G

The third of the Philo Vance movies, and the first featuring Basil Rathbone as the amateur detective.


7:45am -- The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
Society sleuth Philo Vance investigates a murder tied to a Long Island dog show.
Cast: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette.
Dir: Michael Curtiz.
BW-73 mins, TV-G

William Powell's last outing as Philo Vance, a year before his most famous role as Nick Charles in The Thin Man.


9:00am -- The Dragon Murder Case (1934)
Society sleuth Philo Vance looks into a murder near a mysterious "dragon pool."
Cast: Warren William, Lyle Talbot, Eugene Pallette.
Dir: H. Bruce Humberstone.
BW-67 mins, TV-PG

Warren William's first try as Philo Vance. An amateur inventor, William held the patent for the first lawn vacuum, a device which became commonplace with landscapers decades after his death.


10:15am -- The Casino Murder Case (1935)
Society sleuth Philo Vance takes on a series of murders at an aging dowager's mansion.
Cast: Paul Lukas, Rosalind Russell, Alison Skipworth.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin.
BW-83 mins, TV-G

Lukas' only turn as Philo Vance. He won an Oscar for Best Actor nine years later in Watch On the Rhine.


11:48am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Bars And Stripes (1937)
Cast: Veola Vonn, Dick Winslow, Maynard Holmes.
Dir: Joseph Sherman.
BW-11 mins

This "tabloid musical" short showcases bandleader Dick Winslow and singer Veola Vonn in a plot similar to O'Henry's "The Cop and the Anthem."


12:00pm -- The Garden Murder Case (1936)
Society sleuth Philo Vance suspects dirty doings behind a mysterious series of suicides.
Cast: Edmund Lowe, Virginia Bruce, Nat Pendleton.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin.
BW-61 mins, TV-G

Edmund Lowe's real name is Edmund Dantes Lowe. Literary parents, I suppose!


1:15pm -- Calling Philo Vance (1939)
Society sleuth Philo Vance tangles with foreign agents when he investigates the murder of an aircraft manufacturer.
Cast: James Stephenson, Margot Stevenson, Henry O'Neill.
Dir: William Clemens.
BW-62 mins, TV-G

British stage actor James Stephenson made his film debut quite late in life, at the age of 49, in 1937, making four pictures that year. But it was the sympathetic role of the family attorney Howard Joyce in The Letter (1940) that was his role of a lifetime, for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He died suddenly in 1941 of a heart attack at the age of 53.


2:30pm -- Penrod and Sam (1931)
Booth Tarkington's tale of two mischievous boys in turn-of-the-century Indiana.
Cast: Leon Janney, Matt Moore, ZaSu Pitts.
Dir: William Beaudine.
BW-71 mins, TV-G

Penrod and Sam is the second of three books that Tarkington wrote about a boy growing up in a small town before World War I.


3:45pm -- Penrod And Sam (1937)
A club for junior-league detectives gets caught up in a bank robbery.
Cast: Billy Mauch, Frank Craven, Spring Byington.
Dir: William McGann.
BW-64 mins, TV-G

In this version, the setting has been updated to the 1930s. Billy Mauch, who plays Penrod, is probably best remembered for starring with his twin brother Bobby in The Prince And The Pauper (1937). Years later, The Mauch Twins confessed to trading parts on set, so this movie may have actually starred Bobby at times!


5:00pm -- Penrod and His Twin Brother (1938)
A young boy's lookalike lands him in hot water.
Cast: Billy Mauch, Bobby Mauch, Frank Craven.
Dir: William McGann.
BW-63 mins, TV-G

A follow-on to the 1937 Penrod and Sam, giving Penrod a "twin brother" he never had in the original Booth Tarkington stories.


6:15pm -- Penrod's Double Trouble (1938)
A missing boy's lookalike takes his place and raises havoc.
Cast: Billy Mauch, Bobby Mauch, Dick Purcell.
Dir: Lewis Seiler.
BW-60 mins, TV-G

One last sequel to the Mauch Twins Penrod films.


7:30pm -- Festival of Shorts #53 (2007)
Features Double Exposure (1935) a Warner Comedy short starring Bob Hope.
Cast: Bob Hope, Jules Epailly, John Berkes.
Dir: Lloyd French.
BW-22 mins

One of Hope's earliest films, but not otherwise memorable.


What's On Tonight: TCM GUEST PROGRAMMER: CHARLES BUSCH


8:00pm -- I Could Go On Singing (1963)
An American singing star in London tries to reclaim the son she gave up for adoption.
Cast: Judy Garland, Dirk Bogarde, Aline MacMahon.
Dir: Ronald Neame.
C-99 mins, TV-G

Judy Garland's final film. Two of her children, Lorna and Joey Luft, are extras in the film.


9:49pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Spade Cooley: King Of Western Swing (1945)
Cast: Spade Cooley, Knox Manning (narrator).
Dir: Jack Scholl.
BW-10 mins

This short chronicles the rise in popularity of Spade Cooley and his unique blend of country and swing music.


10:00pm -- The Hard Way (1943)
An ambitious woman doesn't care who she hurts in her drive to make her sister a star.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson.
Dir: Vincent Sherman.
BW-109 mins, TV-G

As rigid and tough-minded as Bette Davis, Ida would often refuse to play a Davis hand-me-down role and was often suspended by Warner Bros. for doing so. It was during those breaks that she would go on movie sets, chum around with the male directors and learned the craft of directing. Blazing new trails, she became the only notable and respected female filmmaker of her era in Hollywood, and only the second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild.


12:00am -- Escape (1940)
A Nazi officer's mistress helps an American free his mother from a concentration camp.
Cast: Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, Conrad Veidt.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy.
BW-98 mins, TV-G

Author Grace Zaring Stone used a pen name when her book was published to protect relatives living in Europe from Nazi retribution. Similarly, no composer credit was given in the film for the same reason, and some of the actors used fictitious names.


1:43am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Mendelssohn'S Wedding March (1939)
A fanciful account of how Mendelssohn came to write his Wedding March.
Cast: Mary Anderson, Vernon Dent, E. Alyn Warren.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick.
C-9 mins

Mary Anderson was one of a multitude of young actresses who auditioned for the role Scarlett O'Hara. She ended up playing Maybelle Merriwether.


2:00am -- A Woman's Face (1941)
Plastic surgery gives a scarred female criminal a new outlook on life.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt.
Dir: George Cukor.
BW-106 mins, TV-PG

No one is sure exactly how the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford started, but one time Miss Davis said of Joan, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie." In return Joan said, "I don't hate Bette Davis even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms, instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that".


4:00am -- Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star (2002)
A TCM original documentary that examines Crawford's life and unparalleled movie career. Narrated by Angelica Huston.
Dir: Peter Fitzgerald.
BW-87 mins, TV-14

Comments from dozens of Crawford's co-stars, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Dickie Moore, Margaret O'Brien, Cliff Robertson, Anita Page, and Crawford historian and today's Guest Programmer Charles Busch.

[Staph]

1. Escape (1940)

Based on a popular 1939 novel by Ethel Vance, Escape (1940) was one of MGM's first anti-Nazi films. American Mark Preysing (Robert Taylor) goes to Germany to rescue his mother, who had returned to her native country to sell her late husband's estate. While there, she was arrested for trying to take money out of the country. With the aide of Countess von Treck (Norma Shearer), Preysing learns his mother is in a concentration camp scheduled for execution. Both the Countess and Preysing risk their lives to free her.

Critics raved about the film's suspense. Well-known film critic Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times, "this is far and away the most dramatic and hair-raising picture yet made on the sinister subject of persecution in a totalitarian land, and the suspense which it manages to compress in its moments of greatest intensity would almost seem enough to blow sizable holes in the screen." Modern Screen called it a "gripping and spine-tingling melodrama. Both Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor are excellent."

Some Shearer fans consider Escape one of her best performances, but the actress would only make two more films before retiring. Lawrence J. Quirk in Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer states, "The late Anita Louise, who had appeared with Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938) and who later came to know her well, told me years ago that she felt that after 1939 Shearer essentially lost interest in her career, and regarded the six-picture contract (with three films yet to go) as something of a burden." She turned down lead roles in Gone With the Wind (1939) and Mrs. Miniver (1942). Shearer was the widow of MGM studio executive Irving Thalberg, who had died suddenly of pneumonia in 1936. After Escape, Shearer completed her contract with Her Cardboard Lover and We Were Dancing (both 1942), then remarried and retired from filmmaking.

According to Gavin Lambert in Norma Shearer, producer Lawrence Weingarten first offered Escape to director Alfred Hitchcock "who was intrigued by the subject and the idea of working with Norma but feared M-G-M would supervise him too closely. Weingarten then turned to Mervyn LeRoy, impressed by the melodramas he had made while under contract to Warners." LeRoy directed such films as I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932) and They Won¿ Forget (1937).

For Escape, director LeRoy originally wanted the German actor Conrad Veidt in the role of General Kurt von Kolb, but he was unavailable. Paul Lukas was cast instead. But a week after filming began, LeRoy had to recast the part. LeRoy states in his autobiography Mervyn LeRoy: Take One, "he was the only person I ever had to take out of a picture and it wasn¿ because he was untalented, but he simply was misinterpreting the part. I was lucky; when I had to make the change, Veidt was available."

Several members of the cast of Escape were German natives who fled the country when Hitler came to power. Conrad Veidt, who starred in the silent German classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), went into exile in England with his Jewish wife in the early 1930s. Veidt became a British citizen in 1939. He made his American film debut in Escape and soon after appeared in Casablanca (1942). Other cast members Felix Bressart and Albert Bassermann also fled Germany in 1933 and arrived in Hollywood by 1939.

LeRoy was pleased when he learned Bassermann was in Hollywood, but MGM's casting director doubted the German star would want the small role LeRoy had in mind. LeRoy met with Bassermann anyway, who read the script and immediately agreed to do the part saying, "It isn't how long the part is, but how good it is."

Hitler banned Escape in Germany for its critical depiction of the country. When MGM continued making anti-Nazi films, Hitler eventually banned all MGM films.

Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Producer: Mervyn LeRoy, Lawrence Weingarten
Screenplay: Arch Oboler and Marguerite Roberts. Based on a novel by Ethel Vance.
Cinematography: Robert Planck
Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons
Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof, Franz Waxman, Eugene Zador
Cast: Norma Shearer (Countess von Treck), Robert Taylor (Mark Preysing), Conrad Veidt (Gen. Kurt von Kolb), Alla Nazimova (Emmy Ritter), Felix Bressart (Fritz Keller), Albert Bassermann (Dr. Arthur Henning).
BW-99m.

By Deborah L. Johnson