TCM Schedule for Friday, October 26 -- What's On Tonight: American Politics on Film

[Staph]

This morning TCM is celebrating Jackie Coogan, born John Leslie Coogan on October 26, 1914, in Los Angeles, California. Although those of us of a certain age remember Jackie best as Uncle Fester from The Addams Family television series (1964-1966, 1973), he got his start in silent films in 1919, and was one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood while still a child. In the afternoon, TCM is featuring Jungle movies, from Johnny Weissmuller as Jungle Jim to the Bowery Boys searching for diamonds in Jungle Gents. And in prime time, we get the last of this month's theme of American Politics on Film, with a trio of excellent political films -- Advise & Consent (1962), All The President's Men (1976), and Seven Days In May (1964). Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- A Day's Pleasure (1919)
In this silent short film, a man's attempts to give his family a day out are complicated by their dilapidated car.
Dir: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Jackie Coogan
BW-18 mins, TV-G,

The house the family appears from is in reality Charles Chaplin's office.


6:30 AM -- The Kid (1921)
In this silent comedy, an adoptive father schemes to keep his son.
Dir: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance, Carl Miller
BW-53 mins, TV-G,

For the scene in which the Kid is taken from the Tramp and nearly carted away to a workhouse, Charles Chaplin stated in his autobiography that the young Jackie Coogan was made to cry by his father, who told him that if he would not cry in the scene, he would be sent to an actual workhouse.


7:30 AM -- Oliver Twist (1922)
A young orphan falls in with a man training children to be thieves.
Dir: Frank Lloyd
Cast: Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney, Gladys Brockwell
BW-74 mins, TV-PG,

When it was found without intertitles in the 1970s, the film was restored with the help of Jackie Coogan and Sol Lesser. The intertitles were created by Blackhawk Films.


9:00 AM -- The Rag Man (1925)
In this silent film, a runaway orphan helps a junk dealer make his fortune.
Dir: Edward F. Cline
Cast: Lydia Yeamans Titus, Ethel Wales, Robert Edeson
BW-68 mins, TV-G,

Filmed on location in Manhatten.


10:15 AM -- Jungle Cavalcade (1941)
Compilation of footage from Frank Buck's three films about his adventures capturing animals for the world's zoos.
Dir: Armand Denis
Cast: Frank Buck
BW-78 mins, TV-PG,

Edited from Bring 'Em Back Alive (1932), Wild Cargo (1934), and Fang and Claw (1935).


11:45 AM -- The Jungle Book (1942)
A boy raised by wolves adjusts to life among humans.
Dir: Zoltan Korda
Cast: Sabu, Joseph Calleia, John Qualen
C-106 mins, TV-G, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Vincent Korda and Julia Heron, Best Cinematography, Color -- W. Howard Greene, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Lawrence W. Butler (photographic) and William A. Wilmarth (sound), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa

The Jungle Book was the first film for which original soundtrack recordings were issued. Previously, when record companies released music from a film, they had insisted on re-recording the music in their own studios with their own equipment. The "Jungle Book" records were taken from the same recordings used for the film's soundtrack, and their commercial success paved the way for more original-soundtrack albums.


1:45 PM -- Call of the Jungle (1944)
An amateur detective in the South Seas tries to track down a pair of jewel thieves.
Dir: Phil Rosen
Cast: Ann Corio, James Bush, Claudia Dell
BW-60 mins, TV-PG,

The beautiful Ann Corio appeared in a less than a handful of poverty row exotic films, but her real stardom was on the stage, over a period of twenty years. She was a hugely popular striptease artist, best known for her work at Minsky's Burlesk Theater in New York. In 1940, she was making around $1,000 a week for her work, plus a contractual 25% intake of house receipts. Corio suggested once that the art of the striptease should be rechristened "deciduous kinesthetics."


3:00 PM -- Jungle Jim (1948)
The famed explorer tries to protect a lady scientist searching the jungle for a polio cure.
Dir: William Berke
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Virginia Grey, George Reeves
BW-72 mins, TV-PG,

The second of the Jungle Jim series of films, based on a popular comic strip. The first starred Grant Withers as the safari leader. The rest starred former Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller.


4:15 PM -- Jungle Manhunt (1951)
Jungle Jim searches for a famous football player lost in the jungle.
Dir: Lew Landers
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Bob Waterfield, Sheila Ryan
BW-66 mins, TV-PG,

The football player is Bob Waterfield, who played professional football for the Los Angeles Rams and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1965.


5:30 PM -- Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952)
The famed explorer leads an anthropologist to a lost civilization of giants.
Dir: Lew Landers
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Angela Greene, Jean Willes
BW-65 mins, TV-PG,

Unlike Tarzan and other jungle-themed stories, Jungle Jim was based in southeast Asia.


6:45 PM -- Jungle Gents (1954)
The Bowery Boys go diamond hunting in Africa.
Dir: Edward Bernds
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey
BW-63 mins, TV-G, CC,

Film debut of Clint Walker.




TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: AMERICAN POLITICS ON FILM



8:00 PM -- Advise & Consent (1962)
A controversial presidential nomination threatens the careers of several prominent politicians.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Don Murray
BW-138 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Allen Drury, who was a congressional correspondent for The New York Times during the 1950s, while he was writing the book. Nearly every character is based on a real person (Lafe Smith is based on John F. Kennedy; Orrin Knox is based on Robert A. Taft, Fred Van Ackerman is based on Joseph McCarthy and the president is modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt). Even the blackmailing of Brig Anderson, and how it's resolved, is based on a real incident. And the Leffingwell nomination is based on the House Un-American Activities Committee investigation of Alger Hiss.


10:30 PM -- All The President's Men (1976)
Two Washington Post reporters investigate the Watergate break-in that ended Nixon's presidency.
Dir: Alan J. Pakula
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jason Robards Jr.
C-138 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Jason Robards, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- George Jenkins and George Gaines, Best Sound -- Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Rick Alexander (as Dick Alexander) and James E. Webb, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- William Goldman

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jane Alexander, Best Director -- Alan J. Pakula, Best Film Editing -- Robert L. Wolfe, and Best Picture

The furious volley of typewriter keys striking paper in the opening scenes was created by layering the sounds of gunshots and whip-lashes over the actual sounds of a typewriter, accentuating the film's theme of words as weapons. This is also why the closing scene has a teletypewriter printing headlines with the sound of cannon fire from a 21-gun salute in the background.


1:00 AM -- Seven Days In May (1964)
An American military officer discovers his superiors are planning a military coup.
Dir: John Frankenheimer
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March
BW-118 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Edmond O'Brien, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cary Odell and Edward G. Boyle

For security reasons, the Pentagon forbids camera crews near the entrances to the complex. John Frankenheimer wanted a shot of Kirk Douglas entering the building. So they rigged up a station wagon with a camera to film Douglas, in a full Marine colonel's uniform, walking up the steps of the Pentagon. The salutes Douglas received in that scene were real, as the guards had no reason to believe it was for a movie!


3:15 AM -- Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007)
The last great American showman, producer-director William Castle used outrageous hype to sell his low-budget horror films.
Dir: Jeffrey Schwarz
Cast: Terry Castle, John Waters, Joe Dante
C-82 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Includes clips from The Lady in Question (1940), The Chance of a Lifetime (1943), The Whistler (1944), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), This Is Your Life (1952) (TV Series), Fort Ti (1953), House on Haunted Hill (1959), The Tingler (1959), 13 Ghosts (1960), Homicidal (1961), Mr. Sardonicus (1961), Strait-Jacket (1964), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Circle of Fear (1972) (TV Series), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and Shanks (1974).


4:45 AM -- Macabre (1958)
A doctor's daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: William Prince, Philip Tonge, Jonathan Kidd
BW-71 mins, TV-PG,

Film debut of Jacqueline Scott.

[Graybeard]

1. Advise and Consent is great fun.

A terrific film for "politics geeks". And how quaint to be reminded that there was a time when Senators actually spent some time in the chamber sitting at their desks.

Great casting with Paul Ford as the Hubert Humphrey type and Peter Lawford as JFK, etc.