TCM Schedule for Saturday, May 2, 2015 -- The Essentials: Greta Garbo

[Staph]

Tonight's Essentials features a trio of Greta Garbo's best films, including Ninotchka (1939), Queen Christina (1933), and Anna Christie (1930), Garbo's first talkie. Enjoy!



6:15 AM -- Kidnapped (1948)
After being kidnapped and sold into slavery, a young man fights to reclaim his birthright.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Roddy McDowall, Sue England, Dan O'Herlihy
BW-82 min

Roddy McDowall was co-producer of this film and cast his mother, Winifriede McDowall, in the small role of the innkeeper's wife. Winifriede had dreamed of being an actress, but this was her only film role.


7:42 AM -- Football Headliners (1955)
This short film highlights thirteen important college football games played during the 1955 season.
BW-16 min


8:00 AM -- Thunderbirds Are Go (1968)
Puppet heroes race around the world to rescue a stolen experimental plane.
Dir: David Lane
Cast: Sylvia Anderson, Ray Barrett, Alexander Davion
Color-93 min

The top 60s pop group Cliff Richard and the Shadows "appear" in this film in puppet form, Portrayed as future versions of themselves. They perform two songs: "Lady Penelope", an instrumental, and "Shooting Star", accompanying Cliff Richard.


9:45 AM -- Spotlight (1950)
This short film spotlights several interesting stories, from monks who use dogs to help them find people missing in the snow to rabbits that perform tricks.
BW-14 min


10:00 AM -- Batman: The Sign of the Sphinx (1943)
The Caped Crusader battles a Japanese scientist turning people into zombies.
BW-16 min


10:30 AM -- Bomba the Jungle Boy (1949)
A photographer and his daughter discover a wild boy in the jungle.
Dir: Ford Beebe
Cast: Johnny Sheffield, Peggy Ann Garner, Onslow Stevens
BW-71 min

This was the first of 12 features, made during a six year period (1949-1955), starring Johnny Sheffield as Bomba, that were made by poverty row studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield had made his last Tarzan movie two years earlier. When the last Bomba feature was made in 1955, it would mark the end of Sheffield's film career.


11:42 AM -- Jungle Safari (1950)
This promotional short for "King Solomon's Mines" (1950) focuses on the challenges of on-location filming in the African wilderness.
Color-10 min


12:00 PM -- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939)
Mark Twain's classic troublemaker helps a runaway slave escape to the North.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Mickey Rooney, Walter Connolly, William Frawley
BW-91 min

Rex Ingram, playing Jim, was actually born on a riverboat on the Mississippi River. He was born near Cairo, Illinois, which is Jim's intended destination in the book and film.


1:35 PM -- The Bill Of Rights (1939)
This short film dramatizes the birth of the American Bill of Rights. Vitaphone Release 9300-9301.
Dir: Crane Wilbur
Cast: Moroni Olsen, Sidney Bracy, Boyd Irwin
Color-17 min


2:00 PM -- Back From Eternity (1956)
When an airliner crashes in the jungle, the repaired plane can only hold five of the survivors.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Robert Ryan, Anita Ekberg, Rod Steiger
BW-97 min

Barbara Eden's movie debut.


3:47 PM -- Nostradamus And The Queen (1953)
In this short film, an elderly Catherine de Medici reflects back on how the prophecies of Nostradamus accurately predicted her fate.
Cast: Grandon Rhodes, Mitchell Lewis, Maria Palmer
BW-11 min


4:00 PM -- To Have And Have Not (1944)
A skipper-for-hire's romance with a beautiful drifter is complicated by his growing involvement with the French resistance.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Brennan, Lauren Bacall
BW-100 min

At the funeral for her husband, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall put a whistle in his coffin. It was a reference to the famous line she says to him in their first film together To Have and Have Not (1944): "You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and blow."


5:49 PM -- Land Of The Zuider Zee (1951)
This short film takes the viewer to popular sites around Holland.
Dir: Ralph F. Donaldson
Color-9 min


6:00 PM -- Green Fire (1955)
An emerald prospector clashes with a beautiful plantation owner in South America.
Dir: Andrew Marton
Cast: Stewart Granger, Grace Kelly, Paul Douglas
Color-100 min

As a variety of the mineral beryl, the emerald is a gemstone that is colored green and contains trace amounts of chromium and vanadium. Its name derives from the ancient Greek word "smaragdos" which means "green gem". Although mined since 1500 BCE in ancient Egypt, the largest producer of emeralds is Colombia with 50-95% of the world production, depending on the year, source and grade.


7:50 PM -- Just What I Needed (1955)
This short film provides a humorous look at "unwanted" gifts.
Dir: Dave O'Brien
Cast: Leon Tyler, Dave O'Brien,
BW-9 min



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: GRETA GARBO



8:00 PM -- Ninotchka (1939)
A coldhearted Soviet agent is warmed up by a trip to Paris and a night of love.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire
BW-110 min

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Writing, Original Story -- Melchior Lengyel, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture

The tagline "Garbo laughs!" came before the screenplay was written; the film was built around that single, now legendary, slogan.


10:00 PM -- Queen Christina (1933)
Romantic tale of the 17th-century Swedish queen and her romance with a Spanish diplomat.
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Cast: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith
BW-99 min

The scene where Christina goes around the room at the inn, remember the night she spent with her lover, was choreographed so meticulously that Greta Garbo performed the scene to a metronome.


11:49 PM -- Desert Regatta (1932)
In this short film, power boat racers use specially designed outboard motor boats in a race on California's Salton Sea.
Dir: Jules White
BW-9 min


12:00 AM -- Anna Christie (1930)
Eugene O'Neill's classic about a romantic prostitute trying to run away from her past.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Greta Garbo, Charles Bickford, George F. Marion
BW-90 min

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, Best Director -- Clarence Brown, and Best Cinematography -- William H. Daniels

The Broadway play "Anna Christie" by Eugene O'Neill opened at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York on 2 November 1921 and ran for 177 performances. George F. Marion (Chris) and James T. Mack (Johnny) originated their movie roles in the play. Marion also starred in the earlier silent movie version Anna Christie (1923). To date, the play has been revived 3 times, most recently in 1993 with Natasha Richardson as Anna, Rip Torn as Chris, Liam Neeson as Matt and Anne Meara as Marthy.


1:34 AM -- The Voice That Thrilled The World (1943)
This short film traces the history of sound in the movies, featuring snippets from early sound pictures. Vitaphone Release 1179A.
Dir: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Sheldon Jett,
BW-18 min


2:00 AM -- Roller Boogie (1979)
When her favorite roller disco is threatened with closing, a girl organizes the skaters to save it.
Dir: Mark L. Lester
Cast: Linda Blair, Jim Bray, Beverly Garland
Color-104 min

The original male lead was slated to be Canadian actor David Kennedy. However, due to his off-screen romance with Linda Blair and their subsequent break-up, he was allegedly dismissed at the behest of Blair.


3:45 AM -- ABBA: The Movie (1977)
A disc jockey tries to land an in-depth interview with the Swedish rock group during their hit Australian tour.
Dir: Lasse Hallström
Cast: Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus
Color-97 min

This film's director Lasse Hallström said of this movie in 2002 that it had a screenplay that was "conceived on the plane on the way to Australia, about a disc jockey trying to get an in-depth interview with ABBA. It started out as a 16-millimeter project and ended up, when the producers decided to gamble big, being in 35-millimeter wide-screen Panavision."


5:30 AM -- Shake Hands With Danger (1970)
Short safety film about dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operation, showing many simulated accidents on construction sites.
Color-23 min