TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 2, 2021 -- TCM Spotlight: Flower Power

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM returns to the Essentials. Tonight, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird are showing a pair of films that prominently feature flowers. Personally, I think they're scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find a unique theme... Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Reunion in France (1942)
1h 44m | War | TV-PG
A Frenchwoman tries to help a downed U.S. flyer escape the Nazis.
Director: Jules Dassin
Cast: Joan Crawford, John Wayne, Philip Dorn

At a Nazi party, Frau Amy Schröder is introduced. She is played by Natalie Schafer, who would later go on to play Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell on Gilligan's Island (1964).


8:00 AM -- The Blue Danube (1939)
7m | Animation, Comedy, Family
Placid landscapes are seen, along with a family of swans as a conductor leads the title tune.
Director: Hugh Harman


8:09 AM -- The Law and the Lab (1956)
8m | Crime, Short | TV-G
This short film focuses on the job of a lab technician and forensic detail.
Director: Frances Dinsmoor
Cast: Bob Hite


8:18 AM -- Los Angeles "Wonder City of the West" (1935)
8m | Short, Documentary | TV-G
This takes the viewer to L.A., with a visit to the Disney studios.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick, Walt Disney, Wilfred M Cline

As he often does in these shorts, James A. FitzPatrick has himself photographed and inserted into the film - this time examining the back lot sets at MGM and greeting Walt Disney.


8:27 AM -- Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937)
58m | Adventure | TV-G
As Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond prepares to marry Phyllis Clavering, she is kidnapped.
Director: Louis King
Cast: John Barrymore, John Howard, Louise Campbell

John Barrymore was recruited for the role of Colonel Nielson after Sir Guy Standing, who played him in the first film in the series, died. Barrymore received top billing for this and two more films in Paramount's Drummond series. H.B. Warner succeeded Barrymore as Nielson in the final four films of the series.


9:30 AM -- The New Adventures of Tarzan: New Adventures (1935)
21 m | Action, Adventure
Tarzan goes to Guatemala to find his lost friend and help discover hidden treasure.
Director: Edward Kull, Wilbur McGaugh
Cast: Frank Baker, Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt

The original story for this serial featured munitions runners, Alice and Gordon mistaken for spies and pursued by the Guatemalan police, and Ula Vale as a mysterious figure revealed in the final episode to be an undercover government operative. The script was rewritten during production and these elements dropped. However, the original treatment was used for the pressbook synopsis and the original chapter titles were retained despite lacking relevance any longer (e.g. "Operative 17" as the final chapter). Virtually all Tarzan/serial film "historians" continue to refer to the pressbook synopsis, also, instead of watching the serial, and thus fail to accurately present the story that was finally filmed. Caveat emptor.


10:00 AM -- The Marry-Go-Round (1943)
7m | Animation, Children, Comedy | TV-PG
Popeye is smitten with Olive Oyl but lacks the nerve to propose.
Director: Seymour Kneitel, Graham Place (uncredited)
Cast: Arnold Stang, Margie Hines, Jack Mercer

Shorty's girlfriend is Dorothy Lamour, whose actual pictures hang next to his hammock, clashing with the cartoon world. The Hollywood references continue when Shorty makes love to Olive Oyl: he imitates Charles Boyer in Algiers (1938) and throws in a little Maurice Chevalier into the impression.


10:08 AM -- The Girl from Mexico (1939)
1h 9m | Comedy | TV-G
An ad man tours Mexico trying to cast a new radio show.
Director: Leslie Goodwins
Cast: Lupe Velez, Donald Woods, Leon Errol

RKO wasn't planning a series while this film was being made, but the Mexican Spitfire series developed after it was such a big hit.


11:30 AM -- A Modern Cinderella (1932)
17m | Musical, Short | TV-G
In this comedic short, a poor shop girl delivers a lavish dress to a snobbish patron.
Director: Roy Mack
Cast: Lee Dixon, Ruth Etting, Barbara Child

Ruth Etting's life was later portrayed in the film Love Me Or Leave Me (1955), with Doris Day playing Etting.


12:00 PM -- Treasure Island (1934)
1h 42m | Adventure | TV-G
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a young boy out to foil pirates and find hidden treasure.
Director: Victor Fleming
Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore

MGM boss Louis B. Mayer insisted on a happy ending, so there had to be a re-shoot. Wallace Beery so resented this that he sabotaged the extra work by blowing his lines, staying in his dressing room for hours or taking long breaks. As a result, what was scheduled as a one day shoot took four days.


2:00 PM -- The Story of G. I. Joe (1945)
1h 49m | War | TV-14
War correspondent Ernie Pyle joins an Army platoon during World War II to learn what battle is really about.
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Burgess Meredith, Robert Mitchum, Freddie Steele

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Mitchum, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Leopold Atlas, Guy Endore and Philip Stevenson, Best Music, Original Song -- Ann Ronell for the song "Linda", and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Louis Applebaum and Ann Ronell

The extras in the film were real American GIs, in the process of being transferred from the war in Europe to the Pacific. Many of them were killed in the fighting on Okinawa--the same battle in which Ernie Pyle was killed by a Japanese machine gunner--never having seen the movie in which they appeared.


4:00 PM -- Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
3h 46m | Adventure | TV-14
A British military officer enlists the Arabs for desert warfare in World War I.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- David Lean, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, John Stoll and Dario Simoni, Best Sound -- John Cox (Shepperton SSD), Best Film Editing -- Anne V. Coates, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Omar Sharif, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (The nomination for Wilson was granted on 26 September 1995 by the Academy Board of Directors, after research at the WGA found that the then blacklisted writer shared the screenwriting credit with Bolt.)

Elaborate screen tests with Albert Finney as T.E. Lawrence were shot at a cost of £100,000. Finney later balked at producer Sam Spiegel's demand that he sign a 7-year contract if he accepted the role. Finney dropped out, replaced by Peter O'Toole, already under contract to Spiegel.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- FLOWER POWER



8:00 PM -- City Lights (1931)
1h 27m | Silent, Comedy | TV-G
In this silent film, the Little Tramp tries to help a blind flower seller see again.
Director: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charlie Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee

Charles Chaplin had interviewed several actresses to play the blind flower girl, but was unimpressed with them all. While seeing a film shoot with bathing women in a Santa Monica beach, he found a casual acquaintance, Virginia Cherrill. She waved and asked if she would ever get the chance to work with him. After a series of poor auditions from other actresses, Chaplin eventually invited her to do a screen test. She was the first actress to subtly and convincingly act blind on camera due to her near-sightedness.


9:45 PM -- Vertigo (1958)
2h 8m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he's been hired to tail.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color -- Hal Pereira, Henry Bumstead, Sam Comer and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Sound -- George Dutton (Paramount SSD)

The flower shop, Podesta Baldocchi, has been in business in San Francisco since 1871 and still operates today as an online business, delivering flowers in the Bay Area.


12:00 AM -- The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
1h 20m | Drama | TV-G
Harry Melville Quincy lives with his two sisters, Lettie and Hester, who try to thwart his developing relationship.
Director: Robert Siodmak
Cast: George Sanders, Ella Raines, Geraldine Fitzgerald |

The film was previewed with five different endings and the existing one (a complete departure from the play) was selected for reasons of popular response and censorship, prompting the resignation of producer Joan Harrison from Universal Pictures.


1:45 AM -- If Winter Comes (1948)
1h 37m | Drama | TV-G
Scandal results when a well-meaning man takes in a pregnant girl.
Director: Victor Saville
Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Deborah Kerr, Angela Lansbury

Twenty-two-year-old Dame Angela Lansbury wanted the sympathetic part of the waif-like village girl Effie, but was forced to play Mabel, the thirty-five-year-old, shrewish wife of fifty-year-old Walter Pidgeon. This brought home to Lansbury that she would never be a star player at MGM. The role of Effie went to Janet Leigh, Lansbury's future The Manchurian Candidate (1962) co-star. In that movie, Lansbury again played an unsympathetic older woman, but would cite the part of Mrs. Iselin as her favorite movie role.


3:30 AM -- Winter Meeting (1948)
1h 44m | Drama | TV-G
A repressed poetess and an embittered war hero help each other cope with their problems.
Director: Bretaigne Windust
Cast: Bette Davis, Janis Paige, James Davis

On Wednesday 23 March 1949, the Balboa Theatre, a second-run venue in San Francisco's Richmond District, offered this one, paired with Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven (1948) as "The Year's TWO WORST Pictures" and did a sellout business. Truth in advertising pays off, as long as you don't do it too often.


5:30 AM -- MGM Parade Show #8 (1955)
25m | Documentary | TV-G
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant perform in a clip from The Philadelphia Story.