TCM Schedule for Saturday, June 5, 2021 -- Primetime Theme: Cary Grant Double Feature

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In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM has a Cary Grant comedy double feature, with Monkey Business (1952) and I Was A Male War Bride (1949). Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Broadway Melody of 1936 (1936)
1h 43m | Musical | TV-G
A Broadway columnist tries to use an innocent dancer to frame a producer.
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Jack Benny, Eleanor Powell, Robert Taylor

Winner of an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Dave Gould for "I've Got a Feeling You're Fooling"

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Moss Hart, and Best Picture

Eleanor Powell was spotted in a Fox screen test by M-G-M studio chief Louis B. Mayer, who, due to the grainy quality of the test, initially thought she was African-American. Once Fox cast her in George White's Scandals (1935), M-G-M made its move. Reportedly, Powell did not want to participate in Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), as she was slated for the non-dancing role eventually played by Una Merkel. Too much of a neophyte to confront the studio executives, she engineered her dismissal by politely demanding the lead role and an exorbitant salary, and she was shocked when the studio met her terms, paving the way for her meteoric film career.


8:00 AM -- The Farm of Tomorrow (1954)
6m | Comedy
Educational film gags involving crossbreeding animals, plants, food and objects.
Director: Tex Avery
Cast: Paul Frees, Tex Avery, Billy Bletcher

This short followed The House of Tomorrow (1949), Car of Tomorrow (1951), and T.V. of Tomorrow (1953).


8:08 AM -- A Lady Fights Back (1944)
10m | Documentary | TV-PG
The saga of the Normandie is recounted from her life as a luxury liner, the horrific fire that nearly destroyed her, and her resuscitation to join in the war effort.
Cast: John Nesbitt, Harry Komer, Herbert Morgan

The closing shot shows the Normandie being towed away and the narrator suggests that she would be repaired and returned to service. However, by this time the war had turned in the Allies favor and it was realized that by the time repairs were complete the war would be over. Ultimately, the Normandie never sailed again and was sold for scrap.


8:19 AM -- Beautiful Banff and Lake Louise (1935)
8m | Short | TV-G
This focuses on the majestic towns and landscapes of the Canadian Rockies.
Director: Benjamin D. Sharpe
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick, Donald Novis


8:28 AM -- Experiment Alcatraz (1951)
57m | Drama | TV-PG
A doctor testing drugs on convicts gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: John Howard, Joan Dixon, Walter Kingsford

RKO bought the rights to this film from Crystal Productions for $100,000.


9:30 AM -- Batman: The Mark of the Zombies (1943)
17m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Batman races to stop enemy agents from destroying a supply train.
Director: Lambert Hillyer.
Cast: Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, J. Carroll Naish

At 23 years old, Lewis Wilson is the youngest actor to play the adult Bruce Wayne / Batman on screen.


10:00 AM -- Rocket to Mars (1946)
6m | Comedy | TV-PG
Popeye lands on Mars in a rocket ship.
Director: Bill Tytla, James Tyer (uncredited)
Cast: Harry Welch, Jackson Beck, Mae Questel

This is the first animated cartoon to depict alien invaders.


10:08 AM -- The Falcon Strikes Back (1943)
1h 6m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A society sleuth is framed for murder by criminals running a war-bond racket.
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Tom Conway, Harriet Hilliard, Jane Randolph

The previous film in the series, The Falcon's Brother (1942), references wartime restrictions on textiles for women's clothing. This film alludes to the rationing of gasoline, tires and meat. There is also shown a little subversion of said meat rationing when a woman at the knitting circle shows off a huge beef roast obtained through connections with a Senator.


11:30 AM -- Patrolling the Ether (1944)
20m | Drama | TV-PG
This short film details how the U.S. government created the R.I.D. to locate foreign enemy broadcasts.
Director: Paul Burnford
Cast: Hazel Brooks, Marc Cramer, Richard Crane

This was the first theatrical film in the USA to premiere on television; the event took place in New York City Monday 10 April 1944 on NBC"s WNBT (Channel 1).


12:00 PM -- Gun Crazy (1950)
1h 27m | Crime | TV-PG
Two disturbed young people release their fascination with guns through a crime spree.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger

The bank heist sequence was done entirely in one take, with no one outside the principal actors and people inside the bank aware that a movie was being filmed. When John Dall as Bart Tare says, "I hope we find a parking space," he really meant it, as there was no guarantee that there would be one. In addition, at the end of the sequence someone in the background screams that there's been a bank robbery - this was actually a bystander who saw the filming and assumed the worst.


1:45 PM -- The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
2h 3m | Drama | TV-G
The famed writer risks his reputation to defend a Jewish army officer accused of treason.
Director: William Dieterle
Cast: Paul Muni, Joseph Schildkraut, Gale Sondergaard

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Joseph Schildkraut, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg and Norman Reilly Raine, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Paul Muni, Best Director -- William Dieterle, Best Writing, Original Story -- Heinz Herald and Geza Herczeg, Best Art Direction -- Anton Grot, Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Assistant Director -- Russell Saunders, and Best Music, Score -- Max Steiner

The film was shot in reverse order; Paul Muni grew his own beard for the role, and it was trimmed and darkened as he proceeded to scenes where Zola is younger. His makeup took 3-1/2 hours to apply each morning.


4:00 PM -- Hang 'Em High (1968)
1h 54m | Western | TV-14
A cowboy drifter survives a hanging by a band of thugs and then swears vengeance.
Director: Ted Post
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley

Clint Eastwood's first leading role in a Hollywood film. He was already 38 years old.


6:00 PM -- The Gumball Rally (1976)
1h 46m | Comedy | TV-14
A bored businessman spearheads a madcap race from coast to coast.
Director: Chuck Bail
Cast: Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey

The character of Lapchick a shout out to silent film star, Charlie Chaplin. When ever he appears on screen, silent movie piano music plays, the character has no dialogue (save the final word in the film), the star who plays him, Harvey Jason, bears a resemblance to Chaplin, and if you scramble the letters in Lapchick, you can almost spell Chaplin.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- CARY GRANT DOUBLE FEATURE



8:00 PM -- Monkey Business (1952)
1h 37m | Comedy | TV-G
A scientist's search for the fountain of youth makes him and his wife regress to childhood.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn

The neighborhood through which Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe go joy-riding in an MG sports car before crashing into a moving van is Brentwood, California, which is immediately adjacent to the 20th Century-Fox back-lot where this film was shot.


10:00 PM -- I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
Comedy | TV-G
An Army woman stationed overseas tries to get her French husband back home.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan, Marion Marshall

Howard Hawks' first film to be shot in Europe, it was beset with problems. The German winter was unbearably cold and most of the cast and crew fell ill. Ann Sheridan caught pleurisy (which developed into pneumonia), Cary Grant contracted hepatitis with jaundice, and Hawks broke out in hives. Production was shut down for three months while Grant convalesced and resumed only after he was able to regain around thirty pounds! Hawks best summed up the lapse in production: "Cary ran into a haystack on a motorcycle and came out weighing twenty pounds less."


12:00 AM -- Possessed (1947)
1h 48m | Drama | TV-PG
A married woman's passion for a former love drives her mad.
Director: Curtis Bernhardt
Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford

Star Joan Crawford and director Curtis Bernhardt spent time in real psychiatric wards in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara and Pasadena, observing mental patients as research for the film and going over the script with doctors for the sake of authenticity. On one of those visits, Crawford and Bernhardt witnessed, without asking permission, a woman undergoing electroconvulsive therapy. Warner Bros. was later forced to pay substantial damages to the woman, who claimed their presence was an invasion of privacy. She also claimed that Crawford based the role on her, which must have been quite a compliment for the actress.


2:15 AM -- Jupiter's Darling (1955)
1h 36m | Musical | TV-G
A beautiful Roman mounts a romantic campaign to halt Hannibal's invasion of the empire.
Director: George Sidney
Cast: Esther Williams, Howard Keel, Marge Champion

This would be Esther Williams' last movie for MGM.


4:00 AM -- Rose Marie (1954)
1h 55m | Musical | TV-G
A trapper's daughter is torn between the Mountie who wants to civilize her and a dashing prospector.
Director: Mervyn Leroy
Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas

The lndian chant is led by Thurl Ravenscroft, a rare on-screen performance by the man whose voice was renowned for his animated and voice-over work. You know him as the original voice of Tony the Tiger (It's grrrreat!) and the singer of You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch from the original animated television version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966).