TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 23, 2021 -- TCM Spotlight: Robert Mitchum Double Feature

[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 featuring bad boy Robert Mitchum, Out of the Past (1947), and The Night of the Hunter (1955). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- East Side, West Side (1949)
1h 48m | Drama | TV-G
A chic New York couple is torn apart by a seductive model.
Director: Mervyn Leroy
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Van Heflin

Last film for Gale Sondergaard for twenty years until Slaves (1969). She was blacklisted for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activites Committee.


8:00 AM -- The Dot and the Line (1965)
10m | Short | TV-G
A straight line tries to woo a dot.
Director: Chuck Jones
Cast: Robert Morley

Winner of an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Cartoons -- Chuck Jones and Les Goldman

To give the squiggle an unkempt appearance, the animation drawings were inked on rice paper. The ink bled, creating a textured line that was then Xeroxed onto cel.


8:11 AM -- So Your Wife Wants to Work (1956)
8m | Short, Comedy | TV-G
This comedic short involves a wife who wants to work, but her husband isn't too keen on the idea.
Director: Richard Bare
Cast: George O'Hanlon, Phyllis Coates, Emory Parnell

The final "Joe McDoakes" short.


8:20 AM -- Suva (1940)
8m | Short, Documentary | TV-G
This short film takes the viewer on a tour of the Fiji Islands.
Director: James A. Fitzpatrick
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick


8:29 AM -- Fugitive in the Sky (1937)
58m | Drama | TV-G
A flight carrying government agents and gangsters must land in a dust storm.
Director: Nick Grinde
Cast: Jean Muir, Warren Hull, Gordon Oliver

The airplane in the film is a Ford Tri-Motor. 199 were built between 1926 and 1933. It was the first all-metal commercial passenger airliner and saw service throughout the world. Although the corrugated aluminum skin was extremely robust, it contributed to significant drag that hampered the plane's performance. It was soon outclassed by the Douglas DC-2 and Boeing 247.


9:30 AM -- The New Adventures of Tarzan: River Perils (1935)
25m | Action, Adventure
Tarzan goes to Guatemala to find his lost friend and help discover hidden treasure.
Director: Edward Kull, Wilbur McGaugh (uncredited)
Cast: Frank Baker, Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt

Episode four of twelve.


10:00 AM -- Spinach Packin' Popeye (1944)
7m | Animation, Children, Comedy | TV-PG
Through a series of flashbacks, we see Popeye displaying his prowess in his motion pictures Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.
Director: Izzy Sparber, Willard Bowsky, Dave Fleischer, Dave Tendlar
Cast: Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, Gus Wickie


10:08 AM -- Desperate Search (1953)
1h 13m | Drama | TV-PG
A man fights to find his children after their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness.
Director: Joseph Lewis
Cast: Howard Keel, Jane Greer, Patricia Medina

The novel upon which this film is based was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post from January 5 to February 9, 1952.


11:30 AM -- The Mild West (1933)
20m | Western, Short | TV-PG
This musical short focuses on the trials and tribulations of a saloon singer.
Director: Joseph Henabery
Cast: Olive Borden, Janet Reade, Paul Keast


12:00 PM -- Black Legion (1937)
1h 20m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A disgruntled factory worker is lured into joining a secret society out to terrorize foreigners.
Director: Archie L. Mayo
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-moore

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Robert Lord

The location used for the machine shop is actually the real Warner Brothers machine shop, which still exists and can be seen today on tours.


1:30 PM -- The Best Man (1964)
1h 42m | Drama | TV-PG
Two presidential hopefuls get caught up in the dirty side of politics.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Edie Adams

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Lee Tracy

United Artists had originally selected Frank Capra to direct, which would have been his first film since Pocketful of Miracles (1961). Gore Vidal, from whose play the motion picture was adapted, was not happy with the selection of Capra, whose idealism and sentimentality Vidal thought were ill-suited to his cynical script. One idea that Capra proposed, for example, was to add a scene in which Henry Fonda's character would dress up as Abe Lincoln for an appearance before the convention delegates (as a nod to Fonda's role in Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)). Ultimately, Vidal succeeded in convincing United Artists to replace Capra with Franklin J. Schaffner. Although Capra lived another 27 years, dying at 94 in 1991, he never directed another film.


3:30 PM -- Take the High Ground! (1953)
1h 41m | War | TV-PG
A tough drill sergeant prepares green recruits for service in the Korean War.
Director: Richard Brooks
Cast: Maurice Jara, Robert Arthur, William Hairston

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

At about 18 minutes into the film while Richard Widmark and Karl Malden's characters are shooting pool there is a sign on the wall that reads: Watch Your Language Single Men Present. A real "sign" of the times.


5:30 PM -- Red River (1948)
2h 5m | Western | TV-PG
A young cowhand rebels against his rancher stepfather during a perilous cattle drive.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru

Nominee for Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Borden Chase, and Best Film Editing -- Christian Nyby

Montgomery Clift had learned to ride horses while at military prep school, but it was a different kind of riding than he was required to do in this role. He asked experienced Western actor Noah Beery Jr.. for help and worked hard to become convincing on screen. Beery later said, "The thing he enjoyed most was becoming a hell of a good cowboy and horseman." Howard Hawks always had high praise for how hard Clift worked on the picture.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- ROBERT MITCHUM DOUBLE FEATURE



8:00 PM -- Out of the Past (1947)
1h 37m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A private eye becomes the dupe of a homicidal moll.
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas

On November 14, 1987, Robert Mitchum was the guest host on Saturday Night Live (1975), broadcast from the NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York. One of the sketches he participated in was a black-and-white spoof of the film called "Out of Gas." The sketch featured an unbilled guest appearance by none other than Jane Greer.


10:00 PM -- The Night of the Hunter (1955)
1h 33m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A bogus preacher marries an outlaw's widow in search of the man's hidden loot.
Director: Charles Laughton
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

Charles Laughton, who thought that Robert Mitchum was "one of the best actors in the world," wrote in Esquire of the private man he knew to be different than the public image: "All this tough talk is a blind, you know. He's a literate, gracious, kind man, with wonderful manners, and he speaks beautifully--when he wants to. He's a tender man and a very great gentleman. You know, he's really terribly shy." Laughton was usually ill at ease with very macho men yet very comfortable with his star.


12:00 AM -- Born to Kill (1947)
1h 32m | Crime | TV-PG
A murderer marries a young innocent then goes after her more experienced sister.
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak

According to a contemporary article in The Hollywood Reporter, Tallulah Bankhead was first considered for the role of Helen that went to Claire Trevor.


2:00 AM -- It Should Happen to You (1953)
1h 26m | Comedy | TV-G
A poor model from a small town comes to New York with big ambitions.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Judy Holliday, Peter Lawford, Jack Lemmon

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Jean Louis

Film debut of Jack Lemmon. Lemmon, who had previously only acted briefly in television, had a tendency to overact for the camera, but George Cukor soon convinced him that "less is more." The actor later remarked, "I've learned my craft from that advice. It's the hardest thing in the world to be simple, and the easiest thing in the world to act your brains out and make an ass of yourself."


4:00 AM -- It Could Happen to You (1994)
1h 41m | Comedy, Drama, Romance | TV-PG
In lieu of a tip, a New York cop offers a recently bankrupt waitress half of his lottery ticket.
Director: Andrew Bergman
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, Rosie Perez

The movie is based on the true story of Phyllis Penzo and Officer Robert Cunningham. For twenty-four years, Penzo served as a waitress at Sal's Pizzeria in Yonkers, New York. Cunningham, a thirty-year veteran of the police force in nearby Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., was a regular customer at the restaurant, well-liked by the staff there. (His favorite dish was linguine with clams.) One day in March, 1984, Cunningham asked Penzo for help picking his weekly lottery numbers. Penzo suggested three numbers, and Cunningham came up with three more numbers on his own. Cunningham jokingly promised that if he won, he would split the winnings with Penzo as a tip. The next day, to Penzo's surprise, Cunningham and his wife came to the diner with the winning lottery ticket in hand. Cunningham's ticket had won $6 million, which he split with Penzo, giving her $3 million. In real life, however (as stated in a disclaimer at the end of the movie), Cunningham and Penzo were both happily married to other people for many years.