TCM Schedule for Friday, January 28, 2022 -- What's on Tonight: Let's Go Skydiving

[Staph]

During the day, TCM is giving us 1950s horror films. It's bad enough that the month of October is horror day and night - now they've got to show them in January! (As you can tell, I hate horror movies! Bah, humbug!!)

Then in prime time, TCM is taking us Skydiving, or at least, that's what the twice-monthly schedule says. But instead, we're getting a trio of films about art. I guess. The first is Burden of Dreams (1982), about the making of director Werner Herzog's epic film Fitzcarraldo. The second is Andrei Rublev (1973), about the legendary 15th century painter. The last is another documentary, Christo's Valley Curtain (1973), about an artwork consisting of a curtain of orange fabric hung along a Colorado state highway. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Madeleine (1950)
1h 55m | Crime | TV-PG
A beautiful young woman stands trial for poisoning her lover.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Ann Todd, Norman Woland, Ivan Desny

Ann Todd had portrayed the title character in a production of the play on which this movie was based, and had always wanted to play her in a movie adaptation. Shortly after she married director Sir David Lean, he agreed to make this movie and cast her as the lead as a "wedding present" of sorts.


8:15 AM -- Al Capone (1959)
1h 45m | Crime | TV-PG
Chicago's most notorious gangster rules the city ruthlessly.
Director: Richard Wilson
Cast: Rod Steiger, Fay Spain, James Gregory

The real Al Capone died of advanced syphilis which had become neurosyphilis. Due to the production code in effect at the time, the narrator (James Gregory) attributes Capone's death to an "incurable disease".


10:15 AM -- Dillinger (1945)
1h 10m | Crime | TV-PG
The legendary gunman plots a series of daring heists.
Director: Max Nosseck
Cast: Lawrence Tierney, Edmund Lowe, Anne Jeffreys

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Philip Yordan

Many conservative social and religious groups demanded that the film be withdrawn or banned outright because of what they considered its "brutal and sensational" subject matter. The Chicago Censorship Board banned the film from being shown in Chicago for two years. The film finally opened on May 30, 1947, at the Oriental Theater in downtown Chicago and at the Biograph Theater on the north side, where the real John Dillinger had just seen a movie--Manhattan Melodrama (1934)--the night he was ambushed and shot dead by the FBI.


11:30 AM -- Them! (1954)
1h 34m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Federal agents fight to destroy a colony of mutated giant ants.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects

Walt Disney screened the movie because he was interested in casting James Arness as Davy Crockett. However, he was so impressed by Fess Parker as the "Crazy Texan Pilot", that he chose him for the part.


1:15 PM -- The Mummy (1959)
1h 26m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A resurrected mummy stalks the archaeologists who defiled his tomb.
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux

Although intended as a remake of The Mummy (1932), the plot and most of its principle characters are taken from The Mummy's Hand (1940) and The Mummy's Tomb (1942). The 1932 movie's famous and early scene of the sight of the mummy walking across the tomb floor driving a member of the archaeological team insane is re-created here, but not seen in any of the 1940s movies. The finale of The Mummy's Ghost (1944) is also interpolated into this movie, albeit with a somewhat different outcome. Despite all this, there is no credit to any pre-existing source material at all.


3:00 PM -- The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
1h 22m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
A scientist's attempts to create life unleash a bloodthirsty monster.
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing's friendship was sparked when Lee stormed into Cushing's dressing room, complaining that "I've got no lines!" Cushing kindly responded, "You're lucky. I've read the script."


4:30 PM -- The Fly (1958)
1h 34m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A mad scientist has invented a matter-transmitting device and decides to test it on himself.
Director: Kurt Neumann
Cast: Al Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price

Although many people swear this film was broadcast in black and white, it never was. This might be the "Mandela Effect", which is simply a false memory. It's extremely common. The Fly was only ever filmed and shown in color. However, the sequels Return of the Fly (1959) and Curse of the Fly (1965) are in black and white. This is likely where the confusion comes from, or they might have watched it on a black & white television, which were common through the 1980s.


6:15 PM -- House of Wax (1953)
1h 28m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A scarred sculptor re-populates his ravaged wax museum with human corpses.
Director: Andre Detoth
Cast: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk

It must have been easy for Vincent Price to act alarmed in the sequence in which his museum burns down. Right before the shoot, André De Toth's crew set three "spot fires" in strategic locations. Then the cameras started rolling and everything went downhill. The team quickly lost control of their fires, which merged into a massive inferno that put a hole in the sound stage roof and singed Price's eyebrows. But because the rapidly melting wax mannequins would've been very hard to replace, de Toth kept on filming, even as firemen arrived to help extinguish the flames.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- LET'S GO SKYDIVING



8:00 PM -- Burden of Dreams (1982)
1h 34m | Documentary | TV-MA
Director Werner Herzog combats bad weather, morale problems and a South American war to make his epic Fitzcarraldo.
Director: Les Blank
Cast: Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale

Throughout production, Les Blank and his small crew became exhausted and exasperated from the stress of the work. Blank said that he felt "unconnected" to the people around him. Keeping up with the antics of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski proved difficult for the reserved, introverted Blank. By the last week of production, he was so burnt out that he feared coming out of production "like some Viet Nam veterans, horribly calloused". He wrote in his journal, "I'm tired of it all and I couldn't care less if they move the stupid ship - or finish the fucking film".


9:45 PM -- Andrei Rublev (1973)
3h 5m | Drama | TV-MA
The legendary 15th-century painter fights to continue working while his country is at war.
Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy
Cast: Anatoli Solonitzine, Nikolay Sergeyev, N. Grinko

For the scene where the cow is on fire, it was covered in an asbestos coat that protected it from actually being burned. But for the scene where the horse falls down the stairs, it was shot in the neck by director Andrei Tarkovsky. The crew acquired the horse from a slaughterhouse where it was going to be shot the next day.


1:15 AM -- Christo's Valley Curtain (1973)
28m | Documentary
Under the supervision of artist Christo, iron-workers hang a quarter-mile orange curtain across a Colorado valley.
Director: Ellen Giffard
Cast: Christo, Jeanne-Claude

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Documentary, Short Subjects -- Albert Maysles and David Maysles

Christo and Jeanne-Claude met in October 1958 when he was commissioned to paint a portrait of her mother, Précilda de Guillebon. Initially, Christo was attracted to Jeanne-Claude's half-sister, Joyce. Jeanne-Claude was engaged to Philippe Planchon. Shortly before her wedding, Jeanne-Claude became pregnant by Christo. Although she married Planchon, Jeanne-Claude left him immediately after their honeymoon. Christo and Jeanne-Claude's son, Cyril, was born on May 11, 1960.


2:00 AM -- Putney Swope (1969)
1h 25m | Comedy | TV-MA
An unexpected member of the executive board of an advertising firm is accidentally put in charge.
Director: Robert Downey Sr.
Cast: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield

In a 2000 interview, Marlene Clark, who plays a topless stewardess in the film's Lucky Airlines commercial spoof, said this was her first experience with onscreen nudity. She said director Robert Downey Sr. lied to her and other topless actresses in the scene. "He said, 'Take off your tops. You're out of focus. Nobody will see anything' And we were so stupid, we believed him. Of course, when I saw the movie, I was speechless. I couldn't have been more in focus!"


3:30 AM -- Babo 73 (1964)
57m | Comedy
Tribulations of a newly elected President.
Director: Robert Downey Sr.
Cast: Taylor Mead, Robert Downey, Robert Downey

Debut feature film of classic underground filmmaker Robert Downy, Sr.


4:30 AM -- Chafed Elbows (1965)
1h 3m | Comedy
A welfare recipient marries his mother.
Director: Robert Downey
Cast: George Morgan, Elsie Downey, Lawrence Wolf

The opening credits state: "Special Hindrance: N.Y.C. Police Dept."


5:45 AM -- A Day in the Death of Donny B. (1969)
14m | Documentary | TV-14
A heroin addict desperately tries to raise the money for a fix.
Director: Carl Fick
Cast: Donny B., Dennis Blakeley, Carl Fick

Made for what is now the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration which is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.