TCM Schedule for Friday, May 6, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: Primetime Theme: Air Disasters

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is going Undercover. Then in prime time, on the 85th anniversary of the crash of the airship Hindenberg, TCM is showing films about Air Disasters, including the film that was the inspiration for Airplane! (1980), Zero Hour! (1957). Airplane!'s directors, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker bought the rights to Zero Hour! and even used some of the dialogue word for word. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Sabotage (1936)
1h 16m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
An unhappily married woman discovers her husband is an enemy agent.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Tester

Graham Greene, a well-known film critic in the 1930s as well as a novelist, was well-known for his intense dislike of the films of Alfred Hitchcock and also for his no less intense admiration of the novels of Joseph Conrad, whose influence on Greene has been often remarked. However, although this Hitchcock film is a very free adaptation of Conrad's novel "The Secret Agent", Greene was, rather surprisingly, full of praise for it and often said it was Hitchcock's best film. Later and more renowned Hitchcock films found Greene once again indifferent, and he emphatically refused to sell the film rights to any of his novels to Hitchcock.


7:45 AM -- Murder on Diamond Row (1937)
1h 17m | Crime
A former Scotland Yard inspector goes undercover to find a mysterious fence.
Director: William K. Howard
Cast: Edmund Lowe, Sebastian Shaw, Ann Todd

Based on a novel by Edgar Wallace.


9:15 AM -- I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (1951)
1h 23m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
When an FBI agent goes undercover in the Communist Party, his wife and friends question his patriotism.
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Frank Lovejoy, Dorothy Hart, Philip Carey

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Documentary, Features -- Bryan Foy

The Communist Party USA was established in 1919. In 1921 it changed its name to The Workers Party of America. It was banned in 1954 by an act of Congress (the Communist Control Act of 1954). At its peak in 1944 the membership rose to 80.000 members but by mid-1950s it dropped to only 5000 members, including 1500 FBI informants.


10:45 AM -- Don't Talk (1942)
21m | Drama | TV-PG
This focuses on industrial sabotage during wartime.
Director: Joseph Newman
Cast: Donald Douglas, Matt Mchugh, James Millican

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel

Dwight Frye plays a saboteur trying to stop the shipment of machine tools from a defense plant. Somewhat ironic as when he died the year after this was made, the death certificate had him listed as being a tool designer since he was working at Lockheed to do his bit in the war effort.


11:15 AM -- Clouds over Europe (1939)
1h 18m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
When enemy agents steal plans for an experimental plane, the test pilot fights to clear his name.
Director: Tim Whelan
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson

Patrick Macnee readily confessed that his famous portrayal of John Steed in The Avengers (1961) was, in many respects, based upon Sir Ralph Richardson's performance as the louche hat-wearing, umbrella-wielding Major Charles Hammond in this film.


12:45 PM -- Violence (1947)
1h 12m | Crime | TV-PG
A female reporter goes undercover within a Neo-Nazi group, then loses her memory.
Director: Jack Bernhard
Cast: Nancy Coleman, Michael O'shea, Sheldon Leonard

The pin Fred picks up off the floor and puts on Joe's jacket is the Honorable Service Lapel Button (or Pin). This was awarded to all U.S. military personnel who were honorably discharged in WWII. Steve also is seen wearing this pin. It was nicknamed "the ruptured duck".


2:00 PM -- Springfield Rifle (1952)
1h 33m | Western | TV-PG
A Union officer goes undercover to root out Confederate raiders.
Director: Andre Detoth
Cast: Gary Cooper, Phyllis Thaxter, David Brian

The opening scene has a matte shot with the U.S. capitol dome in the background. The dome was not completed until 1866.


3:45 PM -- The Double Man (1967)
1h 45m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Russian secret service officials attempt to kidnap a CIA officer and replace him with a double of its own.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Cast: Yul Brynner, Britt Ekland, Clive Revill

This movie was made and released about nine years after its source novel Legacy of a Spy by author Henry Maxfield was first published in 1958. 'Legacy of a Spy' was also this film's working title.


5:45 PM -- The Sea Wolves (1980)
2h | Adventure | TV-PG
During World War II, the British must attack a German ship, but it's safe in neutral Goa. As a result, they send civilians: former soldiers who are about sixty years old.
Director: Andrew V. Mclaglen
Cast: Gregory Peck, Roger Moore, Trevor Howard

Many of the lead cast were quite old to be appearing in an action movie. Gregory Peck was 63, Trevor Howard was 66, and David Niven was 69. Their ages were reflective, though, of the movie's unique story. The occupations of the real Calcutta Light Horse, who partook in the raid on Goa, included civilian businessmen, bankers, merchants, insurance agents, part-time soldiers, jute merchants, lawyers, accountants, and solicitors.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- AIR DISASTERS



8:00 PM -- The Hindenburg (1975)
1h 56m | Drama | TV-14
Sabotage causes the airship Hindenburg to crash on arrival at New York in this disaster film.
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: George C Scott, Anne Bancroft, William Atherton

Winner of Oscar Special Achievement Awards for Peter Berkos for sound effects, and for Albert Whitlock and Glen Robinson for visual effects

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Robert Surtees, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Edward C. Carfagno and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Sound -- Leonard Peterson, Jack A. Bolger Jr., John L. Mack and Don Sharpless

Robert Wise originally wanted to shoot the entire film in black and white for a more documentary-like feel. The studio refused. As a result, according to cinematographer Robert Surtees, the color is "very muted" with a "definite blue cast to it in the printing". In Wise's own words, he explained: "I had to find my way out of color at the end and transition to the stock shots, so we used a lot of black and dark colors in the interiors to give an impression of black-and-white in a color film."


10:15 PM -- Zero Hour! (1957)
1h 21m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
When a flight crew falls ill, the only man who can land the plane is afraid of flying.
Director: Hall Bartlett
Cast: Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden

Like Airplane! (1980), this movie featured an actor portraying a pilot who would be later elected to a sports Hall of Fame. Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch in this movie would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Airplane! was elected to the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame.


12:00 AM -- Back from Eternity (1956)
1h 37m | Adventure | TV-PG
When an airliner crashes in the jungle, the repaired plane can only hold five of the survivors.
Director: John Farrow
Cast: Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, Rod Steiger

Uninterestingly, given the title Back From Eternity, this was the first film by model Vikki Dougan, who made the backless dress famous (later used for the cartoon character Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit).


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
Cast: Arnold Johnson, Stan Gottlieb, Allen Garfield

Robert Downey Sr. redubbed all of Arnold Johnson's (Putney Swope) lines. According to Downey, he did this because Johnson had trouble remembering his lines and often flubbed them during filming.


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

As Robert Downey Sr. explained in a 2008 interview with the Village Voice, security was lax around the White House as President John F. Kennedy was in Europe, so that is how Taylor Mead was able to stroll around and even walk up to a group of military officers, whom he tried to engage, but they ignored him.


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

The filmmaker's wife (and mother of actor Robert Downey, Jr.), Elsie Downey, plays all of the female roles.