TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 7, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Spotlight: It's About Time

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, we are getting a Dean Martin double feature, followed by a bunch of swamp films. Then in prime time, the TCM Spotlight focuses on Time. Tell us more, Rob!

TCM SPOTLIGHT: IT’S ABOUT TIME

By Rob Nixon

Thursdays | 23 Movies

Time, whether as an abstract concept in the universal scheme of things or a measurable absolute in our everyday lives, has fascinated and perplexed humans since, well, time began (assuming time is a straight line with a beginning and an end). Philosophers, scientists, artists and authors have wrestled with the big questions and taken flights of theory and fancy around the subject, wondering what it would be like to somehow conquer and manipulate this seemingly immutable, unbendable fact of our existence.

Is time travel possible? While cosmologists and physicists continue to debate that question, motion pictures, with their ability to shuffle time, to play with our perception of it through editing, special effects and narrative devices, have for decades imagined all sorts of possibilities for how we move through time and how it moves through us. This monthlong TCM series offers 23 movies that explore time through music, romance, comedy, fantasy and science fiction.

The first night of the series screens two sci-fi movies released in the same year, 1968, that continue to resonate throughout popular culture. In Planet of the Apes, a crew of astronauts under the command of Charlton Heston travel through a wormhole far into the future and crash land on a foreign planet where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species and humans are treated like animals. The box office hit has spawned sequels, prequels, reboots, television series, parodies and too many references and homages to count. And if you don’t know why Hollywood’s Moses/Ben-Hur ends the movie shouting “God damn you all to hell!” you won’t get any spoilers here. You probably don’t know what Soylent Green is either.

The other big sci-fi movie of the year – the biggest, in fact, reaching second place at the box office – is Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely regarded as one of the best and most influential films in cinema history. Steven Spielberg called it his generation’s “big bang,” and Ridley Scott in 2007 said that, in spite all the imitations and references that followed, nothing can ever beat Kubrick’s masterwork, thereby rendering the science fiction genre dead – a rather stark admission from the director of Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982).

Contrary to Scott’s statement, 2001 elevated the film genre from its beginnings as fodder for Saturday matinee serials to a vehicle for serious drama and philosophical explorations, as well as big-budget blockbuster entertainment. Kubrick’s musings on life, time, the nature of human intelligence and our place in the universe have inspired and informed such works as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Interstellar (2014) and Arrival (2016).

The rest of the night’s programming showcases the kind of lower budget, melodramatic sci-fi that preceded Kubrick’s groundbreaking movie. World Without End (1956) and Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) propel their characters through time warps into dystopian futures. And fans of Dr. Who and his time- and space-defying Tardis will enjoy Peter Cushing as the enduring Time Lord in Dr. Who & the Daleks (1965) and Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966).

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Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Dean Martin: King of Cool (2020)
Documentary | TV-PG
The story of Dean Martin told through interviews and archival footage.
Director: Tom Donahue
Cast: Jerry Lewis, Bob Newhart, Angie Dickinson

Martin described his career as a boxer as follows: "I won all but 11 fights." When asked how many he had fought, he would reply, "A dozen." In reality he fought 36 bouts and won 25 of them under the name Dino Crocetti. He reportedly fought under the nickname Kid Crochet, although no records of fights have been found under that name.


8:00 AM -- Ada (1961)
1h 49m | Drama | TV-G
A call girl weds an easygoing politician and helps him against corrupt state officials.
Director: Daniel Mann
Cast: Susan Hayward, Dean Martin, Wilfrid Hyde-white

MGM acquired the film rights to the novel Ada Dallas (by Wirt Williams) even before it was published in October 1959, and announced Elizabeth Taylor was being sought as the lead. Subsequently, an article in the 12 February 1960 edition of Daily Variety announced Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum were the planned leads.


10:00 AM -- A Lion Is in the Streets (1953)
1h 28m | Drama | TV-PG
A peddler from the bayou becomes a major force in local politics.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Barbara Hale, Anne Francis

The film is based on a 1945 novel of the same title which was a fictionalized account of assassinated Louisiana politician Huey Long (1893-1935) by Adria Locke Langley. A film based on a similar subject, All the King's Men (1949), won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1949. That b/w film shot on location with non-professional extras had a gritty realism that this studio-bound movie did not have, and the latter film suffered by comparison.


11:30 AM -- Cry of the Hunted (1953)
1h 20m | Drama | TV-PG
A prison convict escapes through the Louisiana swamps.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Cast: Vittorio Gassman, Barry Sullivan, Polly Bergen

Although alligators are potential menaces to the human characters in the Louisiana swamp segments, the alligators and human actors never appear in the same shot.


1:00 PM -- The Drowning Pool (1975)
1h 46m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Harper, the wisecracking private investigator, goes to New Orleans to help out an old flame.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Cast: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Tony Franciosa

The opening credits sequence: William Goldman later said he knew he'd succeed as a screenwriter as soon as he wrote the opening scene in Harper (1966) in which Harper is forced to recycle used coffee grounds from the trash for his morning cup of coffee. Harper's dismay at the result, as realized by Paul Newman on screen, immediately created empathy between the character and the audience. Ironically, that opening sequence was the last thing he wrote for that script.


3:00 PM -- Louisiana Story (1948)
1h 17m | Documentary | TV-G
A Louisiana boy gets involved with an oil company drilling in the bayou.
Director: Robert Flaherty
Cast: Joseph Boudreaux, Lionel Leblanc, Mrs. E. Bienvenu

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story -- Frances H. Flaherty and Robert J. Flaherty

After a screen test had been shot of Joseph Boudreaux, but before he had been chosen for the role of The Boy, his uncle gave him a "G.I."--i.e., very short--haircut. The production had to delay shooting until his hair grew back.


4:30 PM -- Good-Bye, My Lady (1956)
1h 35m | Drama | TV-G
A stray dog brings together a young boy and an old man in the Georgia swamps.
Director: William A. Wellman
Cast: Walter Brennan, Phil Harris, Brandon De Wilde

When not filming with the thirteen-year-old Brandon De Wilde, My Lady (full registered name: My Lady of the Congo) spent all her time with him. My Lady was six months old when she was brought over from England, along with other Basenjis to act as stand-ins. In the agreement to supply the dog, it was written into the contract that My Lady would belong to De Wilde after filming was completed.


6:15 PM -- Wind Across the Everglades (1958)
1h 33m | Adventure | TV-PG
A game warden takes on a band of bird poachers in the Florida Everglades.
Director: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Burl Ives, Christopher Plummer, Gypsy Rose Lee

In his autobiography, written fifty years after this film was made, Peter Falk claimed that he and Christopher Plummer were the only professional actors in the film. This was untrue, but there are certainly several people in prominent roles who were not primarily thought of as actors, including the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, the pugilist Tony Galento, the writer Mackinlay Kantor and the circus clown Emmett Kelly. It was also the first acting role for leading lady Chana Eden.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- IT'S ABOUT TIME



8:00 PM -- Planet of the Apes (1968)
1h 52m | Adventure | TV-14
An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Charlton Heston, Roddy Mcdowall, Kim Hunter

Winner of an Honorary Oscar Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement in the movie

Nominee for Oscars for Best Costume Design -- Morton Haack, and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) -- Jerry Goldsmith

On set, the actors playing chimpanzees were jealous of the other apes because the gorillas and orangutans did not have exposed ears, which meant less time in the make-up chairs. Extras were given pull-over masks rather than appliances glued to their faces, unless they had a close-up scheduled.


10:15 PM -- Dr. Who and the Daleks (1966)
1h 25m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-G
The eccentric Time Lord and his companions help a peaceful race fight off murderous mutant robots.
Director: Gordon Flemyng
Cast: Peter Cushing, Roy Castle, Jennie Linden

William Hartnell, who played the Doctor in the television series, was reportedly very disappointed to be replaced by Peter Cushing for the film. Peter Cushing was cast because he was better known to US (and international) audiences.


12:00 AM -- Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A. D. (1967)
1h 21m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A time-traveling mystery man helps future Earthlings fight off robot invaders.
Director: Gordon Flemyng
Cast: Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Ray Brooks

The rebel hideout in 2150 is prominently identified as Embankment station on the London Underground's Bakerloo and Northern Lines. There had actually been a station called Embankment once, but it was renamed in 1914; thus this was a suitable name for a fictional station. However, in 1976, 10 years after the movie was released, reality conformed to fiction when the station, now served by the Bakerloo and Northern Lines among others, was given back its original name of Embankment.


1:30 AM -- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
2h 40m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Classic sci-fi epic about a mysterious monolith that seems to play a key role in human evolution.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Visual Effects -- Stanley Kubrick

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Stanley Kubrick, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer

According to Douglas Trumbull, the total footage shot was some 200 times the final length of the film.


4:15 AM -- Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
1h 15m | Sci-Fi | TV-G
Experimental pilot testing a new rocket powered craft (actually a Convair F-102 intercepto...
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Cast: Robert Clarke, Arianne Arden, Vladimir Sokoloff

This film and another Robert Clarke / Edgar G. Ulmer production, The Amazing Transparent Man (1960), which was shot at the same time and in the same location, were originally to be distributed by a company called Pacific International. Shortly after the films were completed, Pacific International went bankrupt, and producer Clarke lost all the money he had put into it. The films were put up for auction by the film lab that processed them in order to recoup its costs. Both films were bought by American-International Pictures for a fraction of their cost, and upon release they made the company quite a bit of money. Except for his salary as an actor for two weeks' work, Clarke never saw a dime from the films.


5:45 AM -- World Without End (1955)
1h 20m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
Astronauts returning from a voyage are caught in a time warp and are propelled into a post-Apocalyptic Earth populated by mutants.
Director: Edward Bernds
Cast: Hugh Marlowe, Nancy Gates, Nelson Leigh

According to writer/director Edward Bernds, cost-conscious producer Richard V. Heermance wanted to do a science-fiction film in order to take advantage of some stock footage from Monogram's Flight to Mars (1951), which Bernds said could have been re-shot for a few thousand dollars and would have looked far more authentic than the stock footage.