TCM Schedule for Saturday, December 19, 2020 -- TCM Spotlight: TCM Classic Christmas Marathon

[Staph]

Throughout the day, and continuing until prime time on Christmas Day, it's the TCM Classic Christmas Marathon. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Three Godfathers (1936)
1h 22m | Western | TV-G
Three fugitives risk their lives to bring a newborn baby out of the desert to safety.
Director: Richard Boleslawski
Cast: Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Walter Brennan

This is a remake of the silent film The Three Godfathers (1916), which starred Harry Carey. In 1948, the film was remade again by John Ford, starring John Wayne. When Harry Carey died in 1947, Ford decided to remake the story in Technicolor and dedicate the film to his memory. Carey's son, Harry Carey Jr., plays one of the three godfathers, "The Abilene Kid".


7:30 AM -- Big Business (1929)
18m | Comedy | TV-G
A quarrel between two salesmen and a potential customer leads to an orgy of destruction.
Director: Leo McCarey
Cast: James Finlayson, Retta Palmer, Lyle Tayo

Thinking Finlayson will buy a tree, Stan calls out "Babe!" to Oliver Hardy, who is standing at their car. Babe was Oliver Hardy's nickname, but was not used in the films. As a silent, no one felt a need to correct it.


8:00 AM -- Alias Boston Blackie (1942)
1h 7m | TV-PG
A reformed thief tracks down an escaped convict so he can prove the man is innocent.
Director: Lew Landers
Cast: Chester Morris, Adele Mara, Richard Lane

Towards the end of the film, the action takes place at the "Jane Drake Theatre," where "Jane Drake" is appearing a play called "Bedtime Story," written by "Lucius Drake". These characters, the play and the theatre are all left over from Bedtime Story (1941), also produced by Columbia Pictures a few months earlier, starring Loretta Young and Fredric March in the Drake roles.


9:15 AM -- Bush Christmas (1947)
1h 17m | Drama | TV-G
A group of children track down rustlers they accidentally helped steal their father's horses.
Director: Ralph Smart
Cast: Chips Rafferty, John Fernside, Stan Tolhurst

In June 1947, the film was shown in the British Parliament to members of the House of Lords and House of Commons. This was an attempt to persuade them to allow employment of child actors under the age of 12.


10:45 AM -- A Night at the Movies: Merry Christmas! (2011)
58m | Documentary | TV-PG
Star interviews and film clips trace the history of Christmas movies.
Director: Laurent Bouzereau
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Michael Patrick Hearn, Chevy Chase

Includes clips from Little Women (1933), Scrooge (1935), A Christmas Carol (1938), Remember the Night (1940), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Christmas in Connecticut (1945), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Little Women (1949), Holiday Affair (1949), White Christmas (1954), A Christmas Story (1983), Gremlins (1984), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Home Alone (1990), The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Elf (2003), and The Polar Express (2004).


12:00 PM -- Fitzwilly (1967)
1h 42m | Comedy | TV-PG
When an aging philanthropist goes broke, her butler robs from the rich so she can give to the poor.
Director: Delbert Mann
Cast: Dick Van Dyke, Barbara Feldon, Edith Evans

Fitzwilly's thrift store is named for St. Dismas, the "good thief," in Christian tradition.


2:00 PM -- Susan Slept Here (1954)
1h 38m | Comedy | TV-PG
A Hollywood screenwriter takes in a runaway girl who's more woman than he can handle.
Director: Frank Tashlin
Cast: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio), and Best Music, Original Song -- Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers for the song "Hold My Hand"

Susan Slept Here (1954) was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency, primarily for its suggestive title. In a male-dominated society George Washington Slept Here (1942) sounded no similar moral alarms. The ban hurt the movie's receipts but did greater harm to the Legion who were taken less seriously after The Moon Is Blue (1953) ban a year earlier in shocked response to the word 'virgin' used outside the church.


4:00 PM -- Desk Set (1957)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-G
A computer expert tries to prove his electronic brain can replace a television network's research staff.
Director: Walter Lang
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young

Improvised Scene: Sumner is leaving Bunny's apartment, shortly after Mike leaves and Peg arrives, when Bunny and Sumner are recapping the afternoon's events for Peg. Tracy puts on the ruined shoes and grimaces as he tries to walk in them, which causes Bunny to laugh. He hobbles off stage and returns with his hat pulled down over his ears, his shirt dangling out of his pants, staggering as though drunk and talking crazy. This moment, including the women's hysterical laughter and Hepburn's literally falling out of her chair, is spontaneous and not in the script.


6:00 PM -- The Bishop's Wife (1948)
1h 49m | Comedy | TV-G
An angel helps set an ambitious bishop on the right track.
Director: Henry Koster
Cast: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven

Winner of an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Henry Koster, Best Film Editing -- Monica Collingwood, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Hugo Friedhofer, and Best Picture

In Britain the film was selected for that year's Royal Command Film Performance screening. Princess Margaret and her sister, Queen Elizabeth, both attended the screening of 'The Bishop's Wife' on November 25 at the Odeon Theatre in Leicester Square. According to David Niven, "The audience loved every second of it, and the Queen and Princess Margaret told me afterwards and at great length how much they had enjoyed it." Although most of the critics at the time sneered when it was released in time for Christmas 1947, the public audiences loved it as well.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT -- TCM CLASSIC CHRISTMAS MARATHON



8:00 PM -- We're No Angels (1955)
1h 46m | Comedy | TV-G
After escaping Devil's Island, three offbeat prisoners help a goodhearted family outwit a scheming relative.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov

Basil Rathbone's first feature film since 1946's "Dressed to Kill," the last of the 14 Sherlock Holmes films he made with Nigel Bruce.


10:00 PM -- Lady on a Train (1945)
1h 33m | Comedy | TV-PG
A young woman enlists a mystery writer to help her solve a murder when the corpse vanishes.
Director: Charles David
Cast: Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy, David Bruce

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Bernard B. Brown (Universal SSD)

Last film for Ralph Bellamy for ten years until The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955).


12:00 AM -- Kiss of Death (1947)
1h 38m | Drama | TV-14
An ex-con trying to go straight must face a crazed criminal out for revenge.
Director: Henry Hathaway
Cast: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Richard Widmark, and Best Writing, Original Story -- Eleazar Lipsky

When New York mobster Joe Gallo--a vicious killer known as "Crazy Joe"--was starting out as a small-time hoodlum, he saw this movie and instantly idolized Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark). Afterwards, Gallo began wearing his suits with black shirts and white ties in emulation of Udo. He also began acting in a more crazed manner, thus giving rise to his "Crazy Joe" persona, which lasted until the gangster's death in 1972, when he was murdered by rival gangsters in Umberto's Clam House in Little Italy.


2:00 AM -- Lady in the Lake (1947)
1h 43m | Drama | TV-PG
Philip Marlowe searches for a missing woman in this mystery shot entirely from the detective's viewpoint.
Director: Robert Montgomery
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan

The entire movie plot unfolds from lead Robert Montgomery's point of view, thus creating a rarity in film: the principal character is only seen on-screen as a reflection in mirrors and windows, and as the narrator speaking directly to the audience.

(And for those of you new to the Classic Films Group, Robert Montgomery is our patron saint.)




4:00 AM -- Cover Up (1949)
1h 25m | Mystery | TV-14
An insurance investigator smells something wrong when he looks into a small-town suicide.
Director: Alfred E. Green
Cast: William Bendix, Dennis O'Keefe, Barbara Britton

The $20,000 insurance policy would equate to over $201,000 in 2017.


5:30 AM -- Backfire (1950)
1h 31m | Drama | TV-PG
A veteran tries to clear an old friend of a murder charge.
Director: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Viveca Lindfors, Dane Clark, Virginia Mayo

Gambler Solly Blayne (Richard Rober) is shot from outside the living room window as he relaxes in his Los Angeles home, which is exactly the same way that gangster Bugsy Siegel was killed in Beverly Hills in 1947.

[CBHagman]

1. As always, thanks for posting the fascinating backstories...

...and thank you as well for acknowledging Robert Montgomery and including the portrait!

[Staph]

2. DU longtime member Longhorn (RIP) was the one that told me about our Patron Saint.

I love that portrait! He's definitely McDreamy!