TCM Schedule for Wednesday, December 12 -- WILLIAM A. WELLMAN

[Longhorn]

4:45am Cracked Nuts (1931)
Friendly idiots become rivals in a mythical kingdom's revolution.
Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Ben Turpin. Dir: Edward Cline. BW-65 mins, TV-G

6:00am This Man's Navy (1945)
Two Navy vets compete to see whose son is the bigger hero.
Cast: Wallace Beery, James Gleason, Tom Drake. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-100 mins, TV-PG
7:41am Short Film: One Reel Wonders: U.S. Navy Band (1943)
BW-10 mins

8:00am Fighting Seabees, The (1944)
World War II construction workers have to fight the enemy to get the job done.
Cast: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe. Dir: Edward Ludwig. BW-99 mins, TV-PG

9:41am Short Film: One Reel Wonders: U.S. Service Bands (1943)
BW-10 mins

10:00am Here Comes the Navy (1934)
A cocky naval cadet clashes with an old friend serving with him.
Cast: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Dorothy Tree. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. BW-87 mins, TV-PG

11:30am Navy Blues (1941)
Honolulu days are far from peaceful for a boatload of amorous sailors.
Cast: Ann Sheridan, Martha Raye, Jackie Gleason. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. BW-108 mins, TV-PG

1:30pm Immortal Battalion (1944)
A hopeless battalion becomes a top fighting unit in WWII Africa.
Cast: David Niven, Stanley Holloway, Raymond Huntley. Dir: Carol Reed. BW-88 mins, TV-PG

3:00pm Navy Comes Through, The (1942)
An old freighter single-handedly takes on a Nazi war fleet.
Cast: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Jane Wyatt. Dir: A. Edward Sutherland. BW-82 mins, TV-G

4:23pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Eyes Of The Navy (1940)
BW-20 mins

4:45pm Yellow Jack (1938)
A Marine in turn-of-the-century Cuba risks his life in the fight to cure yellow fever.
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Virginia Bruce, Lewis Stone. Dir: George B. Seitz. BW-83 mins, TV-G

6:15pm Crest Of The Wave (1954)
British and American sailors conduct demolitions experiments off the Scottish coast.
Cast: Gene Kelly, John Justin, Bernard Lee. Dir: Roy Boulting. BW-90 mins, TV-G

What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: WILLIAM A. WELLMAN

8:00pm Night Nurse (1931)
A nurse discovers that the children she's caring for are murder targets.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Ben Lyon, Clark Gable. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-72 mins, TV-G

9:15pm Purchase Price, The (1932)
A night-club singer on the lam becomes a farmer's mail-order bride.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-68 mins, TV-PG

10:30pm Safe In Hell (1931)
A ruthless woman wreaks havoc on a tropical haven for outlaws.
Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, John Wray. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-73 mins, TV-PG

12:00am Lilly Turner (1933)
After unwittingly marrying a bigamist, a pregnant woman faces many trials on the road to romance.
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Frank McHugh. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-65 mins, TV-PG

1:15am Midnight Mary (1933)
An abused orphan sinks into a life of crime.
Cast: Loretta Young, Ricardo Cortez, Franchot Tone. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-74 mins, TV-PG

2:30am Frisco Jenny (1932)
A district attorney prosecutes his own mother for murder.
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, Donald Cook, Louis Calhern. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-71 mins, TV-PG

3:45am Other Men's Women (1931)
A railroad engineer falls for a co-worker's wife.
Cast: James Cagney, Mary Astor, Joan Blondell. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-70 mins, TV-PG

[Longhorn]

1. Night Nurse (1931)

Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) is hired by the less than scrupulous Dr. Ranger (Ralf Harolde) to care for the Ritchey children, two little girls suffering from poor health. The girl's mother (Charlotte Merriam) is an alcoholic involved in a self-destructive relationship with Nick, her criminally-inclined chauffeur (Clark Gable, in an early performance minus his trademark mustache). It soon becomes apparent to Lora that the children are being slowly starved to death by the doctor and Nick as part of an insidious plot to gain control of the children's inheritance. Although she surprises her employer by taking an active interest in the little girls' welfare, she also places herself in a dangerous situation.

Often overlooked as a minor feature in the collective careers of Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable and director William Wellman, Night Nurse (1931) is actually more engrossing than some of their more highly regarded films. For one thing, the often sordid subject matter is directed with considerable verve; Wellman punches up the film's raciness with a steady stream of double intendre wisecracks, mostly delivered by Stanwyck and fellow compatriot Joan Blondell, as they parade around in various stages of undress. The violence in the film is rather strong for the period as well, with Gable beating Stanwyck to the floor in one scene and then carrying her semi-conscious body off to his bedroom for an off-screen rape. More controversial was the depiction of the film's villains - so callous they could murder children for profit - and the movie's pro-vengeance ending which suggested that the police and the courts were completely ineffective in dealing with certain unlawful situations. Of course, all of this makes Night Nurse one of the more fascinating pre-Code melodramas that Warner Brothers released in the early thirties; It also led to tighter censorship controls over content.

Seen today, Night Nurse is particularly interesting for Barbara Stanwyck's performance as a working class gal who knows how to use her brains as well as her fists. Her tough, seen-it-all attitude comes through memorably in such scenes as the one where she finds Mrs. Ritchey, lying drunk on the floor while her two young daughters are left unattended. Looking down on her with digust, Stanwyck mutters under her breath, "You Mother!"

Night Nurse was the first of five films Stanwyck and Wellman made together and the actress would later state that he was one of her favorite directors. She was also bedazzled by her co-star Clark Gable. In the biography, Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck by Ella Smith, the actress recalled that she and Joan Blondell grabbed each other's pinkies in awe when they first laid eyes on him: "The instant Clark walked onto the set I knew - we all knew- that here was a striking personality. He commanded attention." Wellman also realized his potential and wrote in his autobiography, A Short Time For Insanity, that in Night Nurse, Gable was "one of the most despicable heavies imaginable, and he did it with such savoir faire that he became a star. The powers-that-be at Warner Brothers liked his performance but decided he was not worth fooling with, not star material: his ears were too big. They forgot to look at his dimples and listen to his voice and see his smile." MGM noticed though and signed him to a long-term contract the same year. By the end of 1931, he had already established himself as one of the studio's top male leads due to his charismatic performances in A Free Soul (opposite Norma Shearer) and Possessed starring Joan Crawford.

Director: William Wellman
Screenplay: Oliver H.P. Garrett, Charles Kenyon, based on the novel by Grace Perkins (aka Dora Macy)
Art Director: Max Parker
Cinematography: Barney "Chick" McGill
Costume Design: Earl Luick
Film Editing: Edward McDermott
Original Music: Leo F. Forbstein
Principal Cast: Barbara Stanwyck (Lora Hart), Ben Lyon (Morlie), Joan Blondell (Maloney), Clark Gable (Nick), Blanche Frederici (Mrs. Maxwell), Charlotte Merriam (Mrs. Ritchey), Charles Winninger (Dr. Arthur Bell), Edward J. Nugent (Eagan).
BW-72m.

by Jeff Stafford