TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 13 -- What's On Tonight: Twain Time

[Staph]

Today we're celebrating the birthday of Yves Montand, born as Ivo Livi on October 13, 1921 in Monsummano Terme, Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy. And in primetime, TCM is celebrating the works of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain. Enjoy!



6:30 AM -- Escape From East Berlin (1962)
An East German helps dig a tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Don Murray, Christine Kaufmann, Werner Klemperer.
89 min, TV-G , CC

Filmed in Berlin.


8:15 AM -- Etoile sans lumiere (1946)
An aspiring singer is hired to dub an established film star.
Dir: Marcel Blistene
Cast: Yves Montand, Edith Piaf, Marcel Herrand
C-82 min, TV-PG

Yves Montand's film debut.


9:45 AM -- Wages of Fear (1953)
A team of international outcasts risks their lives driving explosives through the South American mountains.
Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Cast: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Peter Van Eyck.
148 min, TV-14

This film was spoofed by Spike Milligan in a Goon Show episode entitled "Fear Of Wages".


12:15 PM -- The Law (1960)
A cook turns to theft so she and her lover can marry.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Gina Lollobrigida, Pierre Brasseur, Marcello Mastroianni.
C-121 min, TV-PG

Originally titled La Legge.


2:30 PM -- Goodbye Again (1961)
A 40-year-old woman swaps her sophisticated lover for a young law student.
Dir: Anatole Litvak
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Yves Montand, Anthony Perkins.
120 min, TV-PG , CC

Based on the novel by Françoise Sagan.


4:45 PM -- The Devil by the Tail (1969)
A run-down hotel's staff sabotages the road to force people to book rooms.
Dir: Philippe de Broca
Cast: Yves Montand, Maria Schell, Jean Rochefort.
C-95 min, TV-PG

Originally titled Le diable par la queue.


6:30 PM -- Bwana Devil (1952)
A British railway engineer in Kenya tries to capture the lions attacking his workers.
Dir: Arch Oboler
Cast: Robert Stack, Barbara Britton, Nigel Bruce.
C-79 min, TV-PG

Based on the 1898 Tsavo Lion attacks that were also told in The Ghost and the Darkness.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TWAIN TIME



8:00 PM -- Tom Sawyer (1973)
The classic American bad boy sails the Mississippi with his friend Huck Finn after their supposed deaths.
Dir: Don Taylor
Cast: Celeste Holm, Jodie Foster, Sandy Kenyon.
C-99 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Philip M. Jeffries and Robert De Vestel, Best Costume Design -- Donfeld, and Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation -- Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman and John Williams

Other versions of the Tom Sawyer story were filmed in 1917 (starring Jack Pickford, Mary's little brother), in 1930 (starring Jackie Coogan), in 1938 (starring Mickey Rooney), in 1958 in Brazil, in 1973 (starring Josh Albee), in 1981 in the Soviet Union, in 1986 in Australia (starring Simon Hinton), in 1995 starring (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), and to be released on November 17, 2011, and filmed in Germany.


10:00 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.
91 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Art Direction -- Lyle R. Wheeler

Many disputes arose between photographer James Wong Howe and his associate, Technicolor photographer Wilfred M. Cline about which colors to use in wardrobe and sets. Cline wanted bright primary colors, while Howe insisted on subdued earth tones. Since Howe got his way, after one week they were not on speaking terms and The Technicolor Company banned Howe from shooting further pictures in color; Howe did not make another color film for 10 years.


12:00 AM -- A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court (1949)
A blow to the head sends an auto mechanic back to the days of Camelot.
Dir: Tay Garnett
Cast: Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
C-107 min, TV-G , CC

Mark Twain got his idea for Hank Martin to use the eclipse for his benefit from Christopher Columbus. Columbus actually used an eclipse knowingly to perhaps alter history. Stranded in Jamaica in 1503, on his fourth voyage, Columbus and his crew were wearing out their welcome with the natives, who were feeding them. Columbus knew a lunar eclipse was coming, so he "predicted" the Moon's disappearance. The natives begged him to bring it back and, of course, he did, in due time.


2:00 AM -- The Prince And The Pauper (1937)
Rousing adaptation of the Mark Twain tale of a 16th-century prince who trades places with a lookalike peasant.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Henry Stephenson.
118 min, TV-G , CC

Freddie Bartholomew was originally considered for the central dual role. Instead, real-life twins Billy Mauch and Robert J. Mauch were hired.


4:15 AM -- The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944)
Twain moves from Mississippi riverboats to the Gold Rush to literary immortality.
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Fredric March, Alexis Smith, Donald Crisp.
130 min, TV-G , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- John Hughes and Fred M. MacLean, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Paul Detlefsen (photographic), John Crouse (photographic) and Nathan Levinson (sound), and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

The scene where Clemens receives an honorary degree from Oxford University in 1907 was the recreation of an event that C. Aubrey Smith, who plays the Oxford Chancellor, actually witnessed.

[CBHagman]

1. I always love those background stories.

The account of C. Aubrey Smith at the Oxford ceremony is particularly interesting and shows how history interconnects us all!