TCM Schedule for Friday, June 7, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: Based on Booth Tarkington

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is featuring remakes, and remakes of remakes. It makes for an interesting day of comparisons. In primetime, TCM is celebrating novelist Booth Tarkington. From Wikipedia:

In the 1910s and 1920s, Tarkington was regarded as the great American novelist, as important as Mark Twain. His works were reprinted many times, were often on best-seller lists, won many prizes, and were adapted into other media. Penrod and its two sequels were regular birthday presents for bookish boys. By the later twentieth century, however, he was ignored in academia: no congresses, no society, no journal of Tarkington Studies. In 1985 he was cited as an example of the great discrepancy possible between an author's fame when alive and oblivion later: According to this view, if an author succeeds at pleasing his or her contemporaries — and Tarkington's works have not a whiff of social criticism — he or she is not going to please later readers of inevitably different values and concerns.

Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- ATTACK (1956)
A cowardly captain leads his men into danger in WWII Belgium.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Jack Palance, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin
BW-108 mins, CC,

Although he plays a coward in this film, in real life Eddie Albert, who served in WW II, was a war hero. At the Battle of Tarawa (1943), whilst braving heavy enemy fire, he rescued over 70 wounded Marines, loading them on to his landing craft and taking them back to other ships to receive medical care. For these actions he was award the Bronze Star with "V" device for valor.


8:30 AM -- THE REAR GUNNER (1943)
This short film, produced in cooperation with the U.S. War Department, focuses on a small-town Kansas boy who fulfills his dream of becoming a tail gunner in a bomber. Vitaphone Release 1111A.
Dir: Ray Enright
Cast: Ronald Reagan, Burgess Meredith, Dane Clark
BW-20 mins,

There are two versions of this film: One that lists cast members Burgess Meredith and Ronald Reagan normally, and one that lists them as "Lieutenant Burgess Meredith" and "Lieutenant Ronald Reagan".


9:00 AM -- THE LAST OF MRS. CHEYNEY (1937)
A chic jewel thief in England falls in love with one of her marks.
Dir: Richard Boleslawski
Cast: Joan Crawford, William Powell, Robert Montgomery
BW-98 mins, CC,

Myrna Loy was originally cast as Fay Cheyney, while Joan Crawford was cast in Parnell (1937). Because Crawford did not like her role in that film, she switched roles and films with Loy.


10:40 AM -- BURIED LOOT (1935)
This short film covers the story of a man who confesses to embezzlement only after burying the money he stole.
Dir: George B. Seitz
Cast: Shirley Ross, Al Hill, Henry Otho
BW-18 mins,

The first in a series of fifty "Crime Does Not Pay" shorts from MGM released between 1935 and 1947.


11:00 AM -- LAW AND THE LADY (1951)
A society jewel thief falls for one of her marks.
Dir: Edwin H. Knopf
Cast: Greer Garson, Michael Wilding, Fernando Lamas
BW-104 mins, CC,

This movie is a remake of 1939's "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" with Joan Crawford, William Powell and Robert Montgomery. And the 1939 version of that movie is the remake of 1929's "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" with Norma Shearer and Basil Rathbone.


1:00 PM -- SATAN MET A LADY (1936)
In the second screen version of The Maltese Falcon, a detective is caught between a lying seductress and a lady jewel thief.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth
BW-74 mins, CC,

The second of three film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon," this film has notable connections to both other versions. First, this film's screenwriter, Brown Holmes, was also credited as a screenwriter on The Maltese Falcon (1931), directed by Roy Del Ruth. Second, this film's cinematographer, Arthur Edeson, was also the director of photography for John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941). Third, Warren William, who plays the Sam Spade character (Ted Shane) in this film, also played Perry Mason in a series of films beginning in 1934, but was replaced in 1936 by Ricardo Cortez - who had played Sam Spade in the 1931 "Maltese Falcon". Finally, Bette Davis filled in for Raymond Burr when he had to have surgery in Perry Mason: The Case of Constant Doyle (1963).


2:18 PM -- SO YOU WANT TO BE A DETECTIVE (1948)
In this comedic short, Joe McDoakes imagines himself as a private detective on a murder case. Vitaphone Release 1636A.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Kit Guard, Clifton Young
BW-11 mins,

Lila Leeds, who here plays "Veronica Vacuum", had the eye-catching role of the receptionist in the film this short spoofs Lady in the Lake (1946).


2:30 PM -- THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the murderous search for a priceless statue.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George
BW-100 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sydney Greenstreet, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston, and Best Picture

Warner Bros. planned to change the name of the film to "The Gent from Frisco" because the novel's title had already been used for The Maltese Falcon (1931). The studio eventually agreed to keep the original title at John Huston's insistence.


4:15 PM -- TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (1944)
A skipper-for-hire's romance with a beautiful drifter is complicated by his growing involvement with the French resistance.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall
BW-100 mins, CC,

The most famous scene in the film is undoubtedly the "you know how to whistle" dialog sequence. It was not written by Ernest Hemingway, Jules Furthman or William Faulkner, but by Howard Hawks. He wrote the scene as a screen test for Bacall, with no real intention that it would necessarily end up in the film. The test was shot with Warner Bros. contract player John Ridgely acting opposite Bacall. The Warners staff, of course, agreed to star Bacall in the film based on the test, and Hawks thought the scene was so strong he asked Faulkner to work it into one of his later drafts of the shooting script.


6:00 PM -- THE BREAKING POINT (1950)
A desperate fishing boat captain rents his ship to some gunmen on the lam.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter
BW-97 mins, CC,

Based on the same novel as To Have And Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway. The setting is moved to southern California, but it's otherwise pretty faithful to the novel, moreso than the 1944 film.


7:45 PM -- SO YOU WANT TO PLAY THE HORSES (1946)
In this comedic short, Joe McDoakes attempts to improve his odds at playing the horse races. Vitaphone Release 1497A.
Dir: Richard Bare
Cast: Jane Harker, Richard Erdman, Fred Kelsey
BW-11 mins,

The fourth of more than sixty Joe McDoakes shorts.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: BASED ON BOOTH TARKINGTON



8:00 PM -- ALICE ADAMS (1935)
A small-town girl with social ambitions falls in love with a local playboy.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone
BW-99 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, and Best Picture

There was a disagreement among Katharine Hepburn and George Stevens about the post-party scene. The script called for Hepburn to fall onto the bed and break into sobs, but Stevens wanted her to walk to the window and cry, with the rain falling outside. Hepburn could not produce the tears required, so she asked Stevens if she could do the scene as scripted. Stevens yelled furiously at Hepburn, which did the trick and the scene was filmed Stevens' way, and Hepburn's tears are real.


10:00 PM -- THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942)
A possessive son's efforts to keep his mother from remarrying threaten to destroy his family.
Dir: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter
BW-88 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Agnes Moorehead, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Stanley Cortez, Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera, and Best Picture

RKO chopped 50 minutes of the film and added a happy ending while Orson Welles was out of the country. The footage was subsequently destroyed; the only record of the removed scenes is the cutting continuity transcript. The consensus of opinion according to nearly everyone who saw the original conclusion--which included a tour of the decaying Amberson mansion--was that it was much more powerful than the tacked-on "happy" ending.


11:45 PM -- ON MOONLIGHT BAY (1951)
A small-town tomboy falls for the boy-next-door in the years before World War I.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, ["Smiling"] Jack Smith
C-95 mins, CC,

Based on Booth Tarkington's Penrod stories.


1:27 AM -- BOOKED FOR SAFEKEEPING (1960)
In this short documentary, police officers are trained in the assistance and management of mentally ill and confused persons.
Dir: George C Stoney
BW-32 mins,


2:00 AM -- SOMETIMES AUNT MARTHA DOES DREADFUL THINGS (1971)
Two over the top eccentric fugitives become roommates in Miami to avoid the law, leading to deception and murder.
Dir: Thomas Casey
Cast: Abe Zwick, Wayne Crawford, Don Craig
BW-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Stanley's hippie van has a Mercedes logo instead of a peace symbol painted real big on the passenger's side of the van.


3:45 AM -- WHOEVER SLEW AUNTIE ROO? (1971)
A demented widow lures unsuspecting children into her mansion in a bizarre "Hansel and Gretel" twist.
Dir: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Shelley Winters, Mark Lester, Chloe Franks
BW-92 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

According to Director Curtis Harrington, Hugh Griffith was an alcoholic, and his wife accompanied him to the set each day to ensure he didn't imbibe.


5:30 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #23 (1955)
Gene Kelly and Jerry the Mouse perform in a clip from "Anchors Aweigh"; George Murphy, Dore Schary and Richard Brooks show a short film about the making of "The Last Hunt." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-29 mins,