TCM Schedule for Saturday, July 20, 2019 -- The Essentials: Extracurricular Activities

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, The Essentials is back! (or should that be The Essentials are back?), with trailblazing producer, director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who will join primetime host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films she has chosen. Tonight's theme is films about teachers and students up to no good. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON (1942)
A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Walter Slezak
BW-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Stephen Dunn (RKO Radio SSD)

Towards the beginning of the film, Cary Grant tells Ginger Rogers that he will always remember her character "just the way you look tonight;" evoking a smirk from Rogers. The line alludes to the song of the same title Fred Astaire sang to Rogers in Swing Time (1936).


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: POULTRY PIRATES (1938)
The ducks and chickens next door eye the Captain's garden covetously through a poorly mended fence.
Dir: I. Freleng
Cast: Mel Blanc, Billy Bletcher
BW-9 mins,

On Friday 1 October 1937 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed Robert Allen as the director of their new series of cartoons based on Rudolph Dirk's "The Captain and the Kids" newspaper comic-strip feature. The company also signed George Gordon as lay-out man and animator for the series. Prior to that Gordon had been with Terry Toons for the previous seven years.


8:11 AM -- AN OPTICAL POEM (1938)
In this short film, animated geometric forms reflect the moods of Liszt's' "Hungarian Rhapsody."
Dir: Oskar Fischinger
C-7 mins,


8:19 AM -- VISITING VERA CRUZ (1946)
This short film looks at the people, customs, and landmarks in Vera Cruz, the main port city of Mexico.
C-10 mins,


8:29 AM -- CROSS FIRE (1933)
A war hero takes on gangsters who've invaded a wild West town.
Dir: Otto Brower
Cast: Tom Keene, Betty Furness, Edgar Kennedy
BW-56 mins, CC,


9:30 AM -- LOST CITY OF THE JUNGLE: BOOBY TRAP RENDEZVOUS (1946)
Episode ten of thirteen.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins, Ray Taylor
Cast: Russell Hayden, Jane Adams, Lionel Atwill
BW-16 mins, CC,


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: PLUMBING IS A "PIPE" (1938)
With Olive Oyl's home's plumbing seriously leaking and plumber Wimpy taking forever to arrive, Popeye tries to solve the problem.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Willard Bowsky (uncredited)
Cast: Margie Hines, Jack Mercer
BW-7 mins, CC,

This is the first time Margie Hines performs the voice of Olive Oyl.


10:08 AM -- BOWERY BOMBSHELL (1946)
The Bowery Boys tackle gangsters to clear one of their own from a bogus robbery charge.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan
BW-66 mins, CC,

The spare tire on the boys' jalopy reads "Dead End", which happens to be the name of the movie--Dead End (1937)--that started their film careers.


11:17 AM -- THE BOSS DIDN'T SAY GOOD MORNING (1937)
In this short film, an office worker fears for his job after his boss fails to respond to his "good morning."
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Sheila Bromley, Ernie Alexander, Jack Mulhall
BW-10 mins,

When the narrator states that John Jones is "almost as contented as a certain famous brand of cows", the reference is to the Carnation company and it's long-running advertising line "Carnation Condensed Milk, the milk from contented cows".


11:30 AM -- SEEING RED (1939)
In this short film, a man fired from his job places a curse on his former boss.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Red Skelton, Mary Wickes, John Regan
BW-19 mins,


12:00 PM -- BATAAN (1943)
Thirteen U.S. soldiers risk their lives to hold a bridge against the Japanese.
Dir: Tay Garnett
Cast: Robert Taylor, George Murphy, Thomas Mitchell
BW-115 mins, CC,

This is one of few contemporary World War II films to feature an American soldier who was an African-American. As such, the movie was not shown in parts of the American South. The book "The Films of World War II" notes that producer Dore Schary said that letters of complaint were received by the studio. The NAACP gave MGM two awards for presenting an African-American in an intelligent and sympathetic manner. Schary deliberately did not tell writer Robert Hardy Andrews he was planning to cast an African-American as one of the soldiers, in order to avoid any racial speeches in the script.


2:00 PM -- THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948)
An orphaned boy mystically acquires green hair and a mission to end war.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, Barbara Hale
C-82 mins, CC,

Unfortunately for the film's director, Joseph Losey, the eccentric, politically conservative Howard Hughes took over RKO while this film was being shot and, hating the film's pacifist message, did his best to sabotage it. Losey, however, managed to protect the integrity of his project. Screenwriter Ben Barzman, who was also later blacklisted along with Losey, would later recall that "Joe shot the picture in such a way that there wasn't much possibility for change. A few lines were stuck in here and there to soften the message, but that was about it". Barzman also remembered that 12-year-old Dean Stockwell was called into Hughes' office and Hughes told him that when the other children spoke of the horror of war, he should say, "And that's why America has gotta have the biggest army, and the biggest navy, and the biggest air force in the world!" According to Barzman, little Stockwell was so in sympathy with the film's message that he dared to respond, "No, sir!" Even after Hughes started to scream at him, the boy held his ground and refused to do it.


3:30 PM -- 12 ANGRY MEN (1957)
A jury holdout tries to convince his colleagues to vote not guilty.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley
BW-96 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Sidney Lumet, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Reginald Rose, and Best Picture

At the beginning of the film, the cameras are all positioned above eye level and mounted with wide-angle lenses to give the appearance of greater distance between the subjects. As the film progresses the cameras slip down to eye level. By the end of the film, nearly all of it is shot below eye level, in close-up and with telephoto lenses to increase the encroaching sense of claustrophobia.


5:15 PM -- THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967)
A renegade officer trains a group of misfits for a crucial mission behind enemy lines.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson
C-150 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- John Poyner

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Cassavetes, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing -- Michael Luciano

Production on the film ran for so long, that Jim Brown was in danger of missing training camp for the up-coming 1965 to 1966 football season. As training camp and the NFL season approached, the NFL threatened to fine and suspend Brown if he did not leave filming and report to camp immediately. Not one to take threats, Brown simply held a press conference to announce his retirement from football. At the time of his retirement, Brown was considered to be one of the best in the game, and even today is considered to be one of the NFL's all-time greats.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES



8:00 PM -- LOSING GROUND (1982)
A philosophy professor responds to her husband's philandering by pursuing fulfillment on her own.
Dir: Kathleen Collins
Cast: Seret Scott, Bill Gunn, Duane Jones
C-86 mins,

Only the second full length feature film directed by an African American woman after Will (1981). The film never received distribution outside of festival screenings in director Kathleen Collins's lifetime. It was only decades after she died, that her daughter, who had inherited the negatives of the film, approached Milestone Films, and asked them to help restore and release the film.


9:45 PM -- ACCIDENT (1967)
An Oxford professor dealing with a mid-life crisis finds himself attracted to a young student.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Stanley Baker, Jacqueline Sassard
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Stanley Baker (Charley) later said regarding this movie, "It's obvious what Accident meant. It meant what was shown on the screen. One of Joe's (Producer and Director Joseph Losey's) problems is that he tends to wrap things up too much for himself. I think that seventy-five percent of the audience didn't realize that Accident was a flashback."


12:00 AM -- WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956)
Reporters compete to catch a serial killer.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders
BW-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The movie was based on a real murder case that took place in 1946. In that year William Heirens killed three women and left a message scrawled in lipstick on a bathroom mirror after the second murder. In the message he urged the police to catch him before he killed again. Because of this the press dubbed him The Lipstick Killler.


2:00 AM -- ZABRISKIE POINT (1970)
A young girl helps a student radical escape the police.
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Rod Taylor
C-114 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Harrison Ford fans know his scenes were cut from this film. However, in the jail scene, if you look closely you can see him standing against the back wall near the door.


4:00 AM -- RED DESERT (1964)
A housewife fighting insanity becomes involved with a man passing through town.
Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast: Monica Vitti, Richard Harris, Carlo Chionetti
C-117 mins, Letterbox Format

While making this film on-location in Italy, Richard Harris experimented with LSD for the first time. He was caught climbing the Trevi fountain in Rome, and then ended up locked in a hotel bathroom, smashing the mirrors to smithereens with his bare fists.