TCM Schedule for Monday, December 17 -- TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: LEE J. COBB

[Longhorn]

3:30am Black Fury (1935)
A coal worker gets mixed up in the mob's efforts to infiltrate his union.
Cast: Paul Muni, Karen Morley, William Gargan. Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-94 mins, TV-G

5:05am Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Some Of The Best - 1944 (1944)
Features highlights of MGM's productions from 1924 through1943.
BW-50 mins, TV-G

6:00am Toast Of New York, The (1937)
A 19th century con artist rises from medicine shows to Wall Street.
Cast: Edward Arnold, Cary Grant, Frances Farmer. Dir: Rowland V. Lee. BW-109 mins, TV-G

8:00am Penny Serenade (1941)
A woman on the verge of divorce recalls her heartbreaking attempts to adopt a child.
Cast: Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Beulah Bondi. Dir: George Stevens. BW-119 mins, TV-G

10:00am Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Walter Slezak. Dir: Leo McCarey. BW-115 mins, TV-G

12:00pm Bachelor And The Bobby-Soxer, The (1947)
A teenage girl's crush on a playboy spells trouble, particularly when he falls for her older sister.
Cast: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple. Dir: Irving Reis. BW-95 mins, TV-G

1:37pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: So You Think You'Re Allergic (1945)
Joe McDoakes (George O'Hanlan) is constantly sneezing and believes he is allergic to everything, even his own wife.
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Knox Manning Dir: Richard L. Bare BW-11 mins

2:00pm Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
A New York businessman's dream of a country home is shattered when he buys a tumbledown rural shack.
Cast: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Melvyn Douglas. Dir: H.C. Potter. BW-94 mins, TV-G

3:48pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Stuff For Stuff (1949)
BW-11 mins

4:00pm Every Girl Should Be Married (1949)
A young woman uses scientific research to trap a man into marriage.
Cast: Cary Grant, Betsy Drake, Franchot Tone. Dir: Don Hartman. BW-85 mins, TV-G

5:30pm Dream Wife (1953)
For state reasons, a diplomat fakes an engagement to a Middle Eastern princess.
Cast: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Walter Pidgeon. Dir: Sidney Sheldon. BW-99 mins, TV-G

7:10pm Short Film: From The Vaults: Will Rogers Memorial Hosp. (Cary Grant) (1940)
BW-2 mins

7:30pm MGM Parade Show #8 (1955)
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant perform in a clip from "The Philadelphia Story"; George Murphy introduces a clip from "The Tender Trap." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins, TV-G

What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: LEE J. COBB

8:00pm Come Blow Your Horn (1963)
A big city swinger teaches his sheltered brother how to become a chick magnet.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Lee J. Cobb, Molly Picon. Dir: Bud Yorkin. C-112 mins, TV-PG

10:00pm Man Of The West (1958)
A reformed outlaw is among the hostages when his former colleagues rob a train.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Lee J. Cobb, Julie London. Dir: Anthony Mann. C-99 mins, TV-PG

12:00am Lawman (1971)
A by-the-books sheriff courts disaster when he takes on a corrupt town boss.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb. Dir: Michael Winner. C-99 mins, TV-MA

1:45am Exodus (1960)
A young Israeli activist fights to set up a homeland for his people.
Cast: Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Sal Mineo. Dir: Otto Preminger. C-208 mins, TV-PG

5:30am Festival of Shorts #54 (2007)
Features the MGM Musical Revue short: Snow Gets In Your Eyes (1938).
BW-22 mins, TV-G

[Longhorn]

1. Penny Serenade (1941)

Cary Grant and Irene Dunne took a break from screwball comedy to play an everyday couple coping with life's problems in the heart-wrenching tale Penny Serenade (1941).

The tearjerker begins as Dunne's character Julie is ready to leave her husband Roger Adams, played by Cary Grant. She begins to listen to old records, and the couple's life together is told in flashbacks related to the songs, including "Penny Serenade," "You Were Meant For Me," and "Poor Butterfly."

She reminisces about the two meeting, marrying and traveling to Japan, where reporter Roger is on assignment. They try to start a family but Julie miscarries. A return to the United States and adoption follow. But tragedy strikes again when the girl they adopted dies. Julie, unable to cope with Roger's grief or her own, is ready to end the marriage. But then hope returns in the form of another possible adoption and brings the two back together.

Grant's emotional performance was hailed by the critics, and he was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award®, losing to Gary Cooper in Sergeant York. Dunne said later that Grant astounded everyone with the depth of his performance. "He was very apprehensive about nearly everything. So apprehensive, in fact, that he would get almost physically sick. If the script, the director, an actor, or a particular scene displeased him, he would be greatly upset. I remember one scene in Penny Serenade where he had to plead with a judge to keep an adopted baby. He was so disturbed. I had to talk to him and talk to him." (On-Screen, Off-Screen Movie Guide by Ted Sennett).

Helping the heart-broken couple are Beulah Bondi, as head of an adoption society, and family friend Applejack, played with comic sweetness by Edgar Buchanan. Buchanan, later known to TV audiences as Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction, provides some of the lighter moments in Penny Serenade, such as when he attempts to give the baby a bath.

The restrained and tasteful direction by George Stevens (Shane, 1953, The More the Merrier, 1943, A Place in the Sun, 1951) prevented the film from becoming too excessively maudlin and, most critics and moviegoers regarded it as a warm and moving portrait of a marriage.

Penny Serenade was one of three films in which Stevens directed Grant, with Gunga Din in 1939 and the 1942 comedy The Talk of the Town rounding out the trio. Dunne also had great success with the director. Along with Penny Serenade, Stevens steered Dunne in I Remember Mama (1948), a role that earned her a fifth Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Dunne and Grant were no strangers by the time they made Penny Serenade. In the years before, they had teamed up for the rollicking romantic comedies The Awful Truth (1937) and My Favorite Wife (1940), both box office hits. But Dunne always said that the romantic drama Penny Serenade was her personal favorite.

Producer/Director: George Stevens
Screenplay: Morrie Ryskind (based on the story by Martha Cheavens)
Cinematography: Joseph Walker
Film Editing: Otto Meyer
Art Direction: Lionel Banks
Music: W. Franke Harling
Cast: Irene Dunne (Julie Gardiner Adams), Cary Grant (Roger Adams), Beulah Bondi (Miss Oliver), Edgar Buchanan (Applejack), Ann Doran (Dotty), Wallis Clark (Judge).
BW-119m. Closed captioning.

by Amy Cox