TCM Schedule for Friday, June 17 -- What's On Tonight - Audie Murphy

[Staph]

TCM is a week early to celebrate the birthday of Eleanor Parker, born on June 26, 1922, in Cedarville, Ohio. She's best remembered as the Baroness engaged to Captain Von Trapp in the Sound of Music (1965), but we get a day full of her earlier films today. In primetime, TCM is only three days early to celebrate the birthday of Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy, born on June 20, 1924, in Kingston, Texas. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The Last Ride (1944)
A detective suspects foul play in a series of accidental deaths.
Dir: D. Ross Lederman
Cast: Richard Travis, Charles Lang, Eleanor Parker.
57 min, TV-G

Eleanor Parker has a very small role as the woman that the good guy and bad guy both love.


7:00 AM -- Never Say Goodbye (1946)
A husband tries to win back his wife before she can divorce him.
Dir: James V. Kern
Cast: Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker, Lucile Watson.
94 min, TV-PG, CC

When Errol Flynn dons a disguise as Humphrey Bogart, it's Bogart himself who's doing the voice-over.


8:45 AM -- Of Human Bondage (1946)
A medical student risks his future when he falls for a low-class waitress.
Dir: Edmund Goulding
Cast: Paul Henreid, Eleanor Parker, Alexis Smith.
106 min, TV-PG, CC

In an exchange which had Warner Bros. loaning to RKO the services of Joan Leslie for The Sky's the Limit (1943) and John Garfield for The Fallen Sparrow (1943), Warners acquired the production rights to W. Somerset Maugham's classic novel, which RKO already had adapted to the screen in 1934, featuring memorable performances by Bette Davis and Leslie Howard.


10:45 AM -- One For The Book (1947)
A lovelorn actress shares her apartment with a lonely soldier.
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Ronald Reagan, Eleanor Parker, Eve Arden.
103 min, TV-G, CC

The film has not been shown on television under its original title for years. It is always shown under its reissue title, "One For the Book".


12:30 PM -- Valentino (1951)
The famed silent screen star is torn between love and his career.
Dir: Lewis Allen
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Richard Carlson, Patricia Medina.
104 min, TV-PG

The film debut of Anthony Dexter, after more than 400 screen tests for the role of Valentino. The limited success of the film meant that Dexter had a small career, mostly in action hero parts similar to those that Valentino himself played.


2:30 PM -- The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)
A junkie must face his true self to kick his drug addiction.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak.
119 min, TV-14, CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Frank Sinatra, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and- White -- Joseph C. Wright and Darrell Silvera, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Elmer Bernstein

Marlon Brando was offered the role of Frankie Machine, but Frank Sinatra jumped at the opportunity and was signed before Brando could accept.


4:45 PM -- Lizzie (1957)
A mousy woman discovers she has two other personalities.
Dir: Hugo Haas
Cast: Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone, Joan Blondell.
81 min, TV-PG

Based on the novel The Bird's Nest, by Shirley Jackson (yes, that Shirley Jackson, whose short story The Lottery was required reading when I was in high school -- it haunts me still!).


6:15 PM -- An American Dream (1966)
A man suspected of murdering his wife has to elude the police and a gang of hoodlums.
Dir: Robert Gist
Cast: Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Eleanor Parker.
C-103 min, TV-14

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Johnny Mandel (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for the song "A Time for Love"

Director Robert Gist had a small acting role in the 1958 film adaptation of Norman Mailer's novel, The Naked and the Dead (1958). "An American Dream" has been the only other Mailer novel filmed to date, though a number of other films have been based on Mailer's nonfiction books.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: AUDIE MURPHY



8:00 PM -- Bad Boy (1949)
A lawman tries to find the source of a juvenile delinquent's bad behavior.
Dir: Kurt Neumann
Cast: Lloyd Nolan, Jane Wyatt, James Gleason.
86 min, TV-PG, CC

Audie Murphy's first starring role.


9:30 PM -- Drums Across the River (1954)
A bigot is forced into the role of peacekeeper when crooks try to steal Native American lands.
Dir: Nathan Juran
Cast: Audie Murphy, Walter Brennan, Lyle Bettger.
C-78 min, TV-PG

Jay Silverheels (Tonto from the television series The Lone Ranger) filmed his role on hiatus from The Long Ranger.


11:00 PM -- The Guns of Fort Petticoat (1957)
A Union deserter helps a group of women fight off an Indian attack.
Dir: George Marshall
Cast: Audie Murphy, Kathryn Grant, Hope Emerson.
C-81 min, TV-PG

Based on the novel The Guns of Fort Petticoat by Chester William Harrison. Lord, how I hate these misogynist movies! Poor girls -- they can't protect themselves, so the hero will have to teach them how to shoot (and kiss!). </rant>


12:30 AM -- The Quick Gun (1964)
A gunslinger helps an ungrateful town fight off a raid by his former gang.
Dir: Sidney Salkow
Cast: Audie Murphy, Merry Anders, James Best.
C-89 min, TV-PG

Audie Murphy's postwar life wasn't all roses. He suffered from what is now called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) but was then called "combat fatigue", and was known to have a hair-trigger temper. He woke up screaming at night and slept with a loaded .45 automatic nearby. He was acquitted of attempted murder charges brought about by injuries he inflicted on a man in a bar fight. Director Don Siegel said in an interview that Murphy often carried a pistol on the set of The Gun Runners (1958) and many of the cast and crew were afraid of him. He had a short-lived and turbulent marriage to actress Wanda Hendrix, and in the 1960s his increasing bouts of insomnia and depression resulted in his becoming addicted to a particularly powerful sleeping pill called Placidyl, an addiction he eventually broke. He ran into a streak of bad financial luck and was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1968. Admirably, he campaigned vigorously for the government to spend more time and money on taking care of returning Vietnam War veterans, as he more than most others knew exactly what kinds of problems they were going to have.

On May 18, 1971, Murphy was aboard a private plane on his way to a business meeting when it ran into thick fog near Roanoke, VA, and crashed into the side of a mountain, killing all six aboard. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. According to cemetery records, the only grave site visited by more people than Murphy's is that of assassinated President John F. Kennedy.


2:15 AM -- Black Christmas (1974)
A deranged killer terrorizes the women staying in a sorority house over Christmas.
Dir: Bob Clark
Cast: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder.
C-98 min, TV-MA

Around 1986, Olivia Hussey met producers for the film Roxanne (1987), who were interested in casting her for the title role, co-star Steve Martin met her and said "Oh my God Olivia, you were in one of my all time favorite films", thinking it was her classical performance in the phenomenal Romeo and Juliet (1968/I), Olivia was surprised to find out it was indeed Black Christmas (1974), Martin claimed he had seen it over 20 times.


4:00 AM -- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Martians kidnap Santa Claus to cheer up their children.
Dir: Nicholas Webster
Cast: John Call, Leonard Hicks, Vincent Beck.
C-81 min, TV-PG

This was Pia Zadora's debut.


5:30 AM -- Social Seminar: Changing (1971)
A young family tries to cope with shifting social values.
Dir: Hubert Smith
C-28 min, TV-MA