TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 11, 2019 -- TCM Primetime - What's On Tonight: 50s Westerns

[Staph]

In the daylight today, TCM is celebrating the King of Hollywood, William Clark Gable. It's not his birthday, but any day is a good one to celebrate Clark Gable. The films today are all from Gable's early years. Then in primetime, TCM is showing a selection of Westerns from the 1950s, including one of my personal favorites, The Searchers (1956). That's the film that proved to me that John Wayne can really act. Enjoy!



7:15 AM -- DANCE, FOOLS, DANCE (1931)
A brother and sister risk their lives to expose the gangsters who ruined their family.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Joan Crawford, Lester Vail, Cliff Richards
BW-81 mins, CC,

"Dance, Fools, Dance" is clearly based on two infamous incidents in Chicago crime history: the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in a garage and the June 9, 1930 murder of Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle, shot while heading to a train station. However, unlike the movie's Bert Scranton, Lingle was a shady character who played both sides of the law and had parlayed a $65 a week salary into a $60,000 income. In journalistic terms Lingle was known as a legman who would telephone in the salient details of the story which would be actually written by a rewrite man. This is what happens when Crawford's Bonnie phones in her story after the shootout.


8:45 AM -- LAUGHING SINNERS (1931)
A Salvation Army preacher saves a troubled girl from suicide.
Dir: Harry Beaumont
Cast: Joan Crawford, Neil Hamilton, Clark Gable
BW-72 mins, CC,

Most of the film was shot with Johnny Mack Brown in the role of Carl when it was decided to drop this footage and reshoot it with Clark Gable.


9:59 AM -- ROSELAND (1930)
A pretty dance hall girl is looking for the right guy in this musical short. Vitaphone Release 1041-1042.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Jimmy Grainger Jr., Ruth Etting, Donald Cook
BW-12 mins,

The $1 replacement fee on Helen's Roseland employee card would equate to $14.60 in 2018.


10:15 AM -- HELL DIVERS (1932)
Two naval air force officers carry their rivalry from the skies to the bedroom.
Dir: George Hill
Cast: Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Conrad Nagel
BW-109 mins, CC,

Flight operations were filmed aboard the USS Saratoga. Scenes of planes landing on the carrier deck were edited post-production to obscure the actual operation of the aircraft arresting gear.


12:15 PM -- RED DUST (1932)
A plantation overseer in Indochina is torn between a married woman and a lady of the evening.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond
BW-83 mins, CC,

Seeking to avoid scandal, Louis B. Mayer worked to remove Jean Harlow from the film following the suicide of her husband, Paul Bern. The suicide occurred under suspicious circumstances, which set the rumor mill ablaze with speculation that Bern had been murdered. Mayer sought to spare the studio the scandal by replacing Harlow in this film. He was only convinced that she should remain in the picture when a poll of audiences suggested that they strongly supported the actress due to sympathy for her having been widowed.


1:45 PM -- STRANGE INTERLUDE (1932)
A doctor's daughter defies convention in her fight for love and her child.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, Alexander Kirkland
BW-109 mins, CC,

When Maureen O'Sullivan first met Gable on the set, he was in his old man make-up. He asked her out on a horse-riding date, but thinking he was too old for her, she turned him down. Later when she was doing some voice-overs, she saw him without make-up and regretted her decision. Gable never asked her out again.


3:45 PM -- HOLD YOUR MAN (1933)
A hard-boiled babe and a con man wear down each other's rough edges.
Dir: Sam Wood
Cast: Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Stuart Erwin
BW-87 mins, CC,

When Eddie (Clark Gable) is looking around Ruby's (Jean Harlow) apartment, waiting for his clothes to dry, he spots a pennant on the wall that says "Albany Night Boat". That refers to the steamships that would depart New York City in the early evening for an overnight trip up the Hudson River to Albany. The ships had hundreds of staterooms and were often used - as the film's contemporary audience would know - for romantic getaways or illicit affairs. The pillow Eddie sees next may also have been a souvenir from the ship as it's inscribed "We're here today/Tomorrow we're through. So let's be gay. It is up to you." Such trips peaked in the early 20th century, but started to decline in the 1930's when less costly, speedier, and more efficient modes of transportation by rail and automobile came to the fore. By the 1940's, the Albany Night Boat had virtually ceased to exist.


5:14 PM -- HOW TO HOLD YOUR HUSBAND - BACK (1941)
This short film focuses on how marriages can start to crumble.
Dir: Johnny Hines
Cast: Vince Barnett, Sherry Hall, Johnny Hines
BW-9 mins,

Final film, as an actor and as a director, of Johnny Hines.


5:30 PM -- THE WHITE SISTER (1933)
A noblewoman becomes a nun when she thinks her lover is killed during the war.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Lewis Stone
BW-106 mins, CC,

This was the first movie in which Clark Gable wore a mustache.


7:19 PM -- THE YACHT PARTY (1932)
Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra play big band songs of the era on a yacht in this short film. Vitaphone Release 1457.
Dir: Roy Mack
BW-9 mins,


7:30 PM -- THE CANDID CAMERA STORY (VERY CANDID) OF THE METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER PICTURES 1937 CONVENTION (1936)
This short film chronicles various events associated with MGM's 1937 convention for the studio's national sales and distribution staff.
BW-16 mins,


7:48 PM -- SOME OF THE GREATEST (1955)
This short film showcases scenes from "Don Juan" (1926), starring John Barrymore.
Dir: Robert Youngson
BW-11 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: 50'S WESTERNS



8:00 PM -- 3:10 TO YUMA (1957)
A sheriff must run the gauntlet to get his prisoner out of town.
Dir: Delmer Daves
Cast: Glenn Ford, Van Heflin, Felicia Farr
BW-92 mins, CC,

The theme song is sung by Frankie Laine. Well-known for singing the theme songs to westerns, and for having such sincerity in his voice when doing so, It was because of his very familiar contributions to westerns that Mel Brooks chose Laine to sing the theme for Blazing Saddles (1974). The inside joke was that Laine sang his heart out, never realizing that the lyrics were a spoof.


9:40 PM -- GUN TO GUN (1944)
This short western focuses on a ranch owner who must deal with corrupt officials over a cattle transaction.
Dir: D. Ross Lederman
Cast: Harry Woods, Forrest Taylor, Robert Shayne
BW-18 mins,

Third episode in Warner Bros. Santa Fe Trail 2-reel Western series.


10:00 PM -- THE MAN FROM LARAMIE (1955)
A wandering cowboy gets caught in the rivalry between an aging rancher's sons.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film has been described as a western version of King Lear.


12:00 AM -- WARLOCK (1959)
A Western town hires a famous gunman to rid it of outlaws.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn
C-121 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

DeForest Kelley rather famously told an anecdote about the filming of this movie in his later years on the Star Trek convention circuit, about the time Princess Sofia of Greece was visiting the set and Kelley flubbed a scene by falling over a chair onto his backside and saying "Oh, shit," in front of the princess. Henry Fonda told him the following Monday not to worry about it because he had danced with the princess over the weekend and ascertained that she had no idea what "shit" meant. This did not stop Kelley from getting a standing ovation at the commissary when the cast and crew broke for lunch.


2:15 AM -- RIDE LONESOME (1959)
A bounty hunter tries to bring a murderer to justice through perilous territory.
Dir: Budd Boetticher
Cast: Randolph Scott, Karen Steele, Pernell Roberts
C-73 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Film debut of James Coburn.


3:45 AM -- THE SEARCHERS (1956)
An Indian-hating Civil War veteran tracks down the tribe that slaughtered his family and kidnapped his niece.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles
C-119 mins, CC,

Reportedly this film was seen in a theater in Texas by Buddy Holly and his friends in the summer of 1956. They were so impressed with Ethan's (John Wayne) repeated use of the phrase "That'll be the day" that they used it as the title for their now standard rock song, which they composed soon after.


5:46 AM -- TALE OF A TROTTER (1956)
This short film follows the life of Spunky, a "trotter" or standardbred racehorse used for harness racing with "sulkies."
Cast: Peter Roberts, Marty Glickman, Spunky
BW-8 mins,

This is one of several short subjects, already in the can, and slated for release by RKO Radio Pictures as part of their Sportscopes 1956-1957 season, but which received no theatrical distribution at the time, as a result of the demise of RKO. In 1994, they became part of the TCM library and, for the past 20+ years, finally saw the light of day through occasional airings on cable television.