TCM Schedule for Friday, July 23 -- TCM Primetime Feature -- Shirley Temple

[Staph]

It's kid's day -- with a day of the first ten films of the Bowery Boys and an evening of the best of Shirley Temple. Enjoy!


5:00am -- Palm Springs Weekend (1963)
College students on spring break turn Palm Springs into a disaster area.
Cast: Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Ty Hardin, Stefanie Powers
Dir: Norman Taurog
C-100 mins, TV-PG

During the scene where the motel swimming pool fills up with soap bubbles, a lot of the set crew people and actors became physically sick from the fumes caused by the bubbles popping, forcing the set to be temporarily closed down.


7:15am -- Live Wires (1946)
In their first film, the Bowery Boys tackle gangsters.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Mike Mazurki, Bobby Jordan
Dir: Phil Karlson
BW-65 mins, TV-G

The first of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies. In 1945, when East Side Kids producer Sam Katzman refused to grant Leo Gorcey's request to double his weekly salary, Gorcey quit the series, formed his own production company (owned forty percent of the company), Jan Grippo Productions, revamped the format getting rid of the teen-aged stories, and rechristened the series The Bowery Boys (i.e. "Leo Gorcey and The Bowery Boys").


8:30am -- In Fast Company (1946)
The Bowery Boys get wrapped up in a taxi war.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Jane Randolph, Judy Clark
Dir: Del Lord
BW-63 mins, TV-G

The second of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.


9:45am -- Bowery Bombshell (1946)
The Bowery Boys tackle gangsters to clear one of their own from a bogus robbery charge.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict
Dir: Phil Karlson
BW-66 mins, TV-G

The spare tire on the boys' jalopy reads "Dead End", which happens to be the name of the movie that started their film careers.


11:00am -- Spook Busters (1946)
When they set themselves up as ghost hunters, the Bowery Boys tangle with a mad scientist.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Douglass Dumbrille, Bobby Jordan
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-68 mins, TV-G

Think of it as a very early Ghostbusters.


12:15pm -- Mr. Hex (1946)
A hypnotist turns one of the Bowery Boys into a championship boxer.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-63 mins, TV-G

The story for this Bowery Boys entry was written by Jan Grippo, who was Leo Gorcey's agent and became his producing partner for the Bowery Boys films. This was the only story by Grippo to be produced.


1:30pm -- Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)
The Bowery Boys try to expose a phony fortune-teller.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-63 mins, TV-G

The Boys start the Elite Detective Agency.


2:45pm -- News Hounds (1947)
When they get newspaper jobs, the Bowery Boys take on a sport-fixing mob.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-68 mins, TV-G

Leo Gorcey's first wife left him for the same man he went into business on a radio program - Groucho Marx. From there, Groucho became Leo's first "husband-in-law" and one of his best friends.


4:00pm -- Bowery Buckaroos (1947)
The Bowery Boys head west and land themselves in hot water.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-65 mins, TV-G

Bobby Jordan's last appearance in a Bowery Boys movie.


5:15pm -- Angels Alley (1948)
An ex-con cousin of one of the Bowery Boys gets them into trouble with the law.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, David Gorcey
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-68 mins, TV-G

Police radio dispatch: Calling all cars, stolen police car.
Sach 'Turkey' Horace Debussy Jones (unknowingly driving the police car): Police shouldn't steal cars, well, just goes to show you can't trust anybody.


6:30pm -- Jinx Money (1948)
The Bowery Boys find a dead gangster's loot-and the mob out to get it back.
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Sheldon Leonard
Dir: William Beaudine
BW-68 mins, TV-G

The tenth of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: SHIRLEY TEMPLE


8:00pm -- The Poor Little Rich Girl (1936)
A lost rich girl takes up with a pair of musical performers.
Cast: Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, Gloria Stuart, Jack Haley
Dir: Irving Cummings
BW-79 mins, TV-G

The precision tap dance performed by Jack Haley, Alice Faye, and Shirley Temple required endless takes. Althought Haley, Faye, and Temple were all excellent tap dancers, they found it extremely difficult to stay in sync for such a long and complicated number.


9:30pm -- Heidi (1937)
An orphaned girl tends goats for her grandfather until she's sold to serve as a disabled girl's companion.
Cast: Shirley Temple, Jean Hersholt, Arthur Treacher, Helen Westley
Dir: Allan Dwan
BW-88 mins, TV-G

The scene in which Heidi is suddenly squirted in the face while milking a goat was planned without Shirley Temple's knowledge. A tube of milk was attached to the goat udder where Temple couldn't see it, and when she was squirted, her surprised reaction was genuine.


11:00pm -- The Little Princess (1939)
When her father is reported dead in war, his daughter fights harsh conditions at her boarding school.
Cast: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter
Dir: Walter Lang
C-93 mins, TV-G

The original source of the movie was a novel called "Sara Crewe; or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and it was published in 1888. She later adapted her book for the stage calling it "A Little Princess" (in London, 1902) and "The Little Princess" (in New York, 1903). It was successful enough that her publisher, C. Scribner's Sons, requested that she expand her original novel to include scenes from the play. The result was the final novel, "A Little Princess; being the whole story of Sara Crewe," which was published in 1905, and is the secondary source for the movie.


12:45am -- Honeymoon (1947)
A teen bride eloping to Mexico suddenly falls for an older man.
Cast: Shirley Temple, Franchot Tone, Guy Madison, Lina Romay
Dir: William Keighley
BW-74 mins, TV-G

By the time this film was made, 19-year-old Shirley Temple had already been married for two years to John Agar. They divorced in 1949.


2:15am -- Big Bad Mama (1974)
Bad luck forces a woman and her daughters into crime.
Cast: Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Susan Sennett
Dir: Steve Carver
C-84 mins, TV-MA

Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead performed most of the guitar and banjo music in the movie.


3:45am -- Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
The legendary bank robbers run riot in the South of the 1930s.
Cast: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Dir: Arthur Penn
C-111 mins, TV-14

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Estelle Parsons, and Best Cinematography -- Burnett Guffey

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Warren Beatty, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Hackman, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Michael J. Pollard, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Faye Dunaway, Best Costume Design -- Theadora Van Runkle, Best Director -- Arthur Penn, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- David Newman and Robert Benton, and Best Picture

Michael J. Pollard's character, C.W. Moss, is a fictional conglomeration of all of Bonnie and Clyde's minor sidekicks including: Ralph Fults (their first sidekick), William Daniel Jones (nicknamed "W.D." and "Deacon", and was an attendant at the gas station owned by Clyde's father), Ray Hamilton, and Henry Methvin (who's father made the deal with Frank Hamer to set Bonnie and Clyde up).


5:45am -- Short Film: The Golden Years (1960)
In this instructional film, bowling is made respectable and appealing to middle-class Americans through modernization and design.
BW-14 mins, TV-G

[lavenderdiva]

1. Shirley Temple movies!

how that takes me back- I used to adore watching her perform, and loved 'Heidi'!