TCM Schedule for Saturday, December 25, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Fireside Favorites with the Hosts

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM wraps up the Classic Christmas Marathon. Then in prime time, we get a pair of films chosen by our hosts. Enjoy and have the merriest of Christmases!


6:00 AM -- Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
1h 24m | Romance | TV-G
A ghost tries to smooth the way for two young lovers he knew during his lifetime.
Director: A. Edward Sutherland
Cast: Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger

This was the most famous of the handful of films produced by Lee Garmes. Garmes was better known as one of the industry's leading Directors of Photography.


7:30 AM -- Star in the Night (1945)
21m | Short | TV-G
Three cowboys see a bright light in the distance and decide to investigate on Christmas Eve.
Director: Don Siegel
Cast: J. Carrol Naish, Lynne Baggett, Anthony Caruso

Winner of an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel -- Gordon Hollingshead

Although not credited by choice, Star in the Night was co-written by Betty Smith who was romantically involved at the time with credited screen writer Robert Finch. The screen adaptation of Smith's best-selling novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), was also released in 1945.


8:00 AM -- Tenth Avenue Angel (1948)
1h 14m | Drama | TV-G
A child of the tenements helps an ex-con find a new life.
Director: Roy Rowland
Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, George Murphy

Flavia's block party speech was taken from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's address to the Young Democratic Club in Baltimore, Maryland on April 13, 1936.


9:30 AM -- Little Women (1933)
1h 55m | Drama | TV-G
The four March sisters fight to keep their family together and find love while their father is away at war.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas

Winner of an Oscar for Best Writing, Adaptation -- Victor Heerman and Sarah Y. Mason

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- George Cukor, and Best Picture

Uncredited producer David O. Selznick had a difficult time convincing RKO executives to produce this film. There was a belief in Hollywood at the time that films based on historic novels were not popular, particularly one that centered on women during the Civil War. Selznick persisted, and the film was a commercial success. Because of this, later in the decade Selznick produced Gone with the Wind (1939) through his own production company, Selznick International Pictures, from the novel by Margaret Mitchell.


11:30 AM -- Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
1h 30m | Comedy | TV-G
A small-town boy tries to juggle two girlfriends at once.
Director: George B. Seitz
Cast: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland

The fourth of sixteen Hardy family films starring Mickey Rooney. Due to Rooney's rising star status and the increasing focus on his character in the films, this is the first one with "Andy Hardy" in the title. The first of three Hardy films featuring Judy Garland as Betsy Booth. Just the second film pairing Mickey and Judy, they would eventually appear in ten films together.


1:30 PM -- O. Henry's Full House (1952)
1h 57m | Drama | TV-PG
Five stories reveal O. Henry's gift for the surprise ending.
Director: Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Henry King
Cast: John Steinbeck, Charles Laughton, Marilyn Monroe

John Steinbeck opens an O. Henry volume at the start of each segment, and the viewers are shown the first one or two paragraphs of the upcoming story's first page. However, only the introduction to "The Ransom of Red Chief" seems to show exactly what O. Henry wrote at the start of that tale. What is shown prior to the other four yarns is similar to, but not exactly, O. Henry's actual opening words.


3:45 PM -- It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)
1h 55m | Comedy | TV-G
Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Don Defore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani

Originally planned to be directed by Frank Capra, he chose to do It's a Wonderful Life (1946) instead.


6:00 PM -- In the Good Old Summertime (1949)
1h 43m | Musical | TV-PG
Feuding co-workers in a small music do not realize that they are secret romantic pen pals.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall

Buster Keaton was working as a gag writer at MGM when this movie was made. The filmmakers approached him to devise a way for a violin to get broken that would be both comic and plausible. Keaton came up with an appropriate fall, and the filmmakers then realized he was the only one who would be able to execute it properly, so they cast him in the film. Keaton also devised the sequence in which Van Johnson inadvertently wrecks Judy Garland's hat, and coached Johnson intensively in how to perform the scene. This was the first MGM film Keaton appeared in since being fired from the studio in 1933.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- FIRESIDE FAVORITES WITH THE HOSTS



8:00 PM -- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
2h 41m | Epic | TV-PG
The Japanese Army forces World War II POWs to build a strategic bridge in Burma.
Director: David Lean
Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Alec Guinness (Alec Guinness was not present at the awards ceremony. Jean Simmons accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Director -- David Lean, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Pierre Boulle, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson were blacklisted at the time and received no screen credit. They were posthumously awarded Oscars in 1984. Pierre Boulle was not present at the awards ceremony. Kim Novak accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Cinematography -- Jack Hildyard, Best Film Editing -- Peter Taylor (Peter Taylor was not present at the awards ceremony. William A. Lyon accepted the award on his behalf.), Best Music, Scoring -- Malcolm Arnold (Malcolm Arnold was not present at the ceremony. Morris Stoloff accepted the award on his behalf.), and Best Picture

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sessue Hayakawa

The walk Alex Guinness did when he was released from the cramped prison came to him automatically. It wasn't until later that he realised it was how his son Matthew walked, with a limping stagger, when he recovered from polio.


11:00 PM -- Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
1h 54m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A British lawyer gets caught up in a couple's tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder.
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Laughton, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Elsa Lanchester, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Sound, Recording -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Film Editing -- Daniel Mandell, and Best Picture


1:15 AM -- Midnight Lace (1960)
1h 48m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A young woman can't get anyone to believe she's being stalked.
Director: David Miller
Cast: Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Irene

Myrna Loy recorded in her memoirs that she had been rather shocked by how reactionary John Gavin was, despite his being a young man. She hinted that her disapproval had been overt and had led to many arguments throughout the filming, and to some ill-feeling between the two of them. Gavin's right-wing politics eventually led to his becoming Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Mexico.


3:15 AM -- The Thrill of It All (1963)
1h 48m | Comedy | TV-G
A doctor tries to cope with his wife's newfound stardom as an advertising pitch woman.
Director: Norman Jewison
Cast: Doris Day, James Garner, Arlene Francis

Myrna Loy recorded in her memoirs that she had been rather shocked by how reactionary John Gavin was, despite his being a young man. She hinted that her disapproval had been overt and had led to many arguments throughout the filming, and to some ill-feeling between the two of them. Gavin's right-wing politics eventually led to his becoming Ronald Reagan's ambassador to Mexico.


5:15 AM -- MGM Parade Show #22 (1955)
25m | Documentary | TV-G
Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald perform in a clip from "Maytime".