TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 3 -- TCM Spotlight: All Aboard!

[Staph]

The daytime feature for today is a selection of episodes from a 1950s televsion anthology series called Screen Directors Playhouse. Each episode is paired with a film starring one of the actors featured in that episode. The primetime spotlight is on films about luxury travel on the high seas. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: Meet The Governor (1955)
A country bumpkin takes on the state political machine to run for governor.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Herb Shriner, Barbara Hale, Bobby Clark.
25 min, TV-PG


6:30 AM -- Jolson Sings Again (1949)
After a premature retirement, the legendary singer revives his career to entertain the troops during World War II.
Dir: Henry Levin
Cast: Larry Parks, Barbara Hale, William Demarest.
96 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- William E. Snyder, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Morris Stoloff and George Duning, and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman

Since appearing as himself in the Jolson Story, Al Jolson had wanted to play himself in this film too. Though he doesn't play himself, he does appear. During the filming of The Jolson story there is a man standing watching the filming in a gray cowboy hat, this is Jolson.


8:15 AM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: Day Is Done (1955)
During the Korean War, a sergeant tries to use a Chinese bugle to inspire his men.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Rory Calhoun, Bobby Driscoll, Richard Crane
26 min, TV-PG


8:45 AM -- The Big Caper (1957)
A con artist moves into a small town to spearhead a payroll robbery.
Dir: Robert Stevens
Cast: Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa, James Gregory.
85 min, TV-PG

Henry Willson, an agent known for a stable of young, attractive, marginally talented actors with unusual names (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter) signed Francis Timothy Cuthbert to a contract and initially christened him "Troy Donahue", then changed it to "Rory Calhoun". He used the Troy Donahue name later on another up-and-coming actor, with excellent results.


10:15 AM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: A Midsummer Daydream (1955)
After finding the girl of his dreams, a man has to fight for her love.
Dir: John Brahm
Cast: Kim Hunter, Don Hanmer, Keenan Wynn
26 min, TV-PG


10:45 AM -- Storm Center (1956)
A librarian fights to keep a controversial book on the shelves.
Dir: Daniel Taradash
Cast: Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter.
86 min, TV-PG

The Legion of Decency did not like the movie because of what it considered the film's "pro-Communist" leanings. Instead of condemning the picture, though, it used a "separate classification" for it. That had previously been used on Blockade (a Spanish Civil War film that the League also thought was anti-Catholic and pro-Communist) and Martin Luther (because the film portrayed the life of the man who split Christianity, and also because the League thought it was full of inaccurate presentations of Church teachings).


12:15 PM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: Arroyo (1955)
A young woman stumbles into a Western town claiming she's the survivor of an Indian attack.
Dir: George Waggner
Cast: Jack Carson, Bob Steele, Lynn Bari.
26 min, TV-PG


12:45 PM -- Quick Money (1938)
A small-town mayor fights crooks set on opening a gambling resort.
Dir: Edward Killy
Cast: Fred Stone, Gordon Jones, Dorothy Moore, Jack Carson.
59 min, TV-G

During the 1940s, Jack Carson would often disappear from Hollywood for weeks at a time. Only his wife knew where he went, and she (Kay St. Germain Wells) would tell no one. Years later Carson revealed the secret: he had joined the Clyde Beatty circus as a clown and was traveling with their show. Audiences never knew it was him; "They loved me and my routines," he said.


2:00 PM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: Want Ad Wedding (1955)
With no friends in town, a sailor advertises to find wedding guests.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Jimmy Lydon, Sally Forrest, Leon Ames
26 min, TV-PG


2:30 PM -- Ride the High Iron (1956)
A public relations man defies his boss to court a beautiful client.
Dir: Don Weis
Cast: Don Taylor, Sally Forrest, Raymond Burr.
73 min, TV-PG

Originally made for television but released theatrically.


4:00 PM -- Screen Directors Playhouse: The Life Of Vernon Hathaway (1955)
A meek daydreamer starts living his dreams in real life.
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
Cast: Alan Young, Cloris Leachman, Douglass Dumbrille.
26 min, TV-PG


4:30 PM -- tom thumb (1958)
A six-inch-tall boy takes on a pair of comical crooks.
Dir: George Pal
Cast: Russ Tamblyn, Alan Young, June Thorburn.
C-92 min, TV-G , CC

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Tom Howard

Producer/director George Pal was good friends with animator Walter Lantz and would usually insert a Lantz reference in his films as an homage. In this film during the "Tom Thumb's Tune" sequence, when Tom is dancing past the rows of toys, you can hear Woody Woodpecker's laugh.


6:09 PM -- One Reel Wonder: Operation Raintree (1957)
A promotional short film for MGM's feature Raintree County.
C-5 min,

Filmed on location in Danville, KY, Natchez, MS, Reelfoot Lake, TN, and Port Gibson, MS.


6:15 PM -- Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)
A sister act in Paris tries to top their aunts' escapades there during the roaring twenties.
Dir: Richard Sale
Cast: Jane Russell, Jeanne Crain, Alan Young.
C-99 min, TV-G

Broadway star Gwen Verdon had one number as a hotel maid, but her sexy moves were deemed obscene. She was cut, although her name appears in some cast lists, and her scene re-shot with a non-musical performer. However, one gets a brief glimpse of Ms. Verdon as a 'flapper' at the very beginning of the brief flashback number, "Miss Annabelle Lee" (showing the 'aunts' in flashback in the 1920's).



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: ALL ABOARD



8:00 PM -- Romance On The High Seas (1948)
A singer on a Caribbean cruise gets mixed up in a series of romantic problems.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Don DeFore.
C-99 min, TV-PG , CC

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Jule Styne (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "It's Magic", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Ray Heindorf

This was Doris Day's first ever acting role, and she was extremely naive about how films were made. She wrote in her autobiography that the first scenes to be filmed would be aboard the cruise ship, and the first day she walked onto the sound stage and asked when they would be leaving for the boat? The crew broke up laughing.


9:49 PM -- One Reel Wonder: Paris On Parade (1938)
This Traveltalk short showcases the Paris International Exposition of 1937.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
Narrator: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 min,


10:00 PM -- April in Paris (1952)
A bureaucrat's mistake sends a chorus girl to Paris representing American theatre in place of a star actress.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Doris Day, Ray Bolger, Claude Dauphin.
C-100 min, TV-G , CC

Doris Day writes in her autobiography that she only encountered trouble or tension on two of her Warner Bros. films, "Young at Heart" and "April in Paris". On "Paris", she writes that leading man Ray Bolger and director David Butler clashed early on, with Butler accusing Bolger of trying to steal scenes away from Day. Doris says that, being a relative newcomer to films, she was unaware of Bolger's tricks and managed to stay out of the line of fire.


11:45 PM -- Luxury Liner (1948)
The daughter of a ship's captain becomes a sea-going cupid.
Dir: Richard Whorf
Cast: George Brent, Jane Powell, Lauritz Melchior.
C-98 min, TV-PG , CC

Xavier Cugat plays himself at the leader of the ship's orchestra.


1:30 AM -- New Moon (1940)
A revolutionary leader romances a French aristocrat in Louisiana.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Mary Boland.
105 min, TV-PG , CC

One of the films included in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way)" by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell.


3:30 AM -- And The Ship Sails On (1983)
Taking on a horde of refugees upsets a luxury liner's trip to bury a famous opera singer.
Dir: Federico Fellini
Cast: Linda Polan, Freddie Jones, Barbara Jefford.
C-127 min, TV-PG

According to an excerpt from the book "I, Fellini", Fellini was uncertain about casting Freddie Jones in the role of Orlando, mainly for the fact that he would be a British type within a Mediterranean setting. When he saw an advertisement for an ice cream carrying the brand name Orlando on the sign of a bus, Fellini took it as a favorable omen and Jones got the part.


5:44 AM -- One Reel Wonder: The Tin Man (1935)
Two friends, played by Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly, are heading to a party when they get lost and need direction. Unbeknownst to them an escaped convict is using their car to hide out in and the house they stop at to use the phone is owned by a mad scientist with a robot.
Dir: James Parrott
Cast: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Matthew Betz.
15 min,