TCM Schedule for Saturday, April 6, 2019 -- What's On Tonight: Best of the Essentials

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then tonight, TCM's non-essential Essentials are actually a selection of the best of the Essentials, East of Eden (1955), The Night of the Hunter (1955), and 99 River Street (1953). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- GASLIGHT (1944)
A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.
Dir: George Cukor
Cast: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten
BW-114 mins, CC,

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ingrid Bergman, and Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, William Ferrari, Edwin B. Willis and Paul Huldschinsky

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Angela Lansbury, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch and John Van Druten, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Joseph Ruttenberg, and Best Picture

The first time Ingrid Bergman met Charles Boyer was the day they shot the scene where they meet at a train station and kiss passionately. Boyer was the same height as Bergman, and in order for him to seem taller, he had to stand on a box, which she kept inadvertently kicking as she ran into the scene. Boyer also wore shoes and boots with 2-inch heels throughout the movie.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: THE FLYING BEAR (1941)
Barney the Bear is an aviation mechanic for a playful airplane.
Dir: Rudolf Ising
Cast: Pinto Colvig
BW-9 mins,


8:10 AM -- NEW SHOES (1936)
In this short film, a love affair blossoms after a couple purchases a new pair of shoes.
Dir: Sammy Lee
Cast: Arthur Lake, Jean Chatburn,
BW-10 mins,

Included as an extra in the Warner Bros DVD of "Wife Vs. Secretary" (1936).


8:21 AM -- STRIKES AND SPARES (1934)
In this short film, professional bowler Andy Varipapa provides bowling advice and shows off some bowling tricks.
Dir: Felix E. Feist
Cast: Buster Brodie, Ray Turner,
BW-9 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Novelty -- Pete Smith


8:30 AM -- GHOST VALLEY (1932)
A cowboy and a beautiful girl inherit a supposedly haunted gold mine.
Dir: Fred Allen
Cast: Tom Keene, Merna Kennedy, Kate Campbell
BW-54 mins,

Based on a story by Adele Buffington.


9:30 AM -- FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE: THE LAND OF THE DEAD (1940)
Episode seven of the Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe serial.
Dir: Ford Beebe, Ray Taylor
Cast: Buster Crabbe, Carol Hughes, Charles Middleton
BW-20 mins, CC,

In the 1960's this serial was edited into the length of a conventional feature to be sold to TV . The feature version was renamed Flash Gordon's Perils from the Planet Mongo.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: MY ARTISTICAL TEMPERATURE (1933)
Popeye and Bluto share an art studio, with the usual complications and competitions, solved by the power of spinach.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Seymour Kneitel (uncredited)
Cast: Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, Gus Wickie
BW-6 mins,

This cartoon makes use of Fleischer's Tabletop process, which animates the cells vertically between model set pieces in order to create the feeling of multi-plane depth.


10:08 AM -- THE CASE OF THE STUTTERING BISHOP (1937)
Perry Mason tries to find out if a long-lost heiress is the real thing.
Dir: William Clemens
Cast: Donald Woods, Ann Dvorak, Anne Nagel
BW-70 mins, CC,

Author Erle Stanley Garner objected so vehemently to what he felt was the miscasting of Ricardo Cortez as Mason, that Warners replaced him with Donald Woods.


11:30 AM -- THE SPECTACLE MAKER (1934)
In this magical short film, a mysterious stranger asks an eyeglass maker to design a lens that shows only beauty to anyone who wears it.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Francis X. Bushman Jr., Nora Cecil, Harvey Clark
C-20 mins,

Christian Rub's make-up and playing of Hans Schmidt in this film may have served as a model for Disney's depiction of Geppetto in PINOCCHIO. Rub also dubbed the character's voice in the 1940 animated feature.


12:00 PM -- MAD LOVE (1935)
A mad doctor grafts the hands of a murderer on to a concert pianist's wrists.
Dir: Karl Freund
Cast: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive
BW-68 mins, CC,

Peter Lorre's first American film. Charles Chaplin called Lorre the screen's best actor after seeing his performance in "Mad Love."


1:15 PM -- IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)
An aspiring actress begins to suspect that her temperamental boyfriend is a murderer.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy
BW-93 mins, CC,

Gloria Grahame and husband and Director Nicholas Ray quietly separated during filming, keeping it a secret for fear that one of them would be replaced. Ray slept on the studio set, saying that he needed to work late on preparation for the remainder of the film. It worked, and nobody suspected that their marriage was on the rocks.


3:00 PM -- KING RAT (1965)
A U.S. officer in a World War II Japanese POW camp tries to raise money to buy his fellow prisoners' freedom.
Dir: Bryan Forbes
Cast: George Segal, Patrick O'Neal, Todd Armstrong
BW-135 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey, and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Robert Emmet Smith and Frank Tuttle

Some of the actors had been P.O.W.s in World War II. Denholm Elliott, while serving in the Royal Air Force, had been shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans.


5:30 PM -- YOUNG WINSTON (1972)
The young Winston Churchill overcomes a bad family life and early military mistakes to launch his political career.
Dir: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Simon Ward, Peter Cellier, Ronald Hines
C-148 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Carl Foreman, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Donald M. Ashton, Geoffrey Drake, John Graysmark, William Hutchinson and Peter James, and Best Costume Design -- Anthony Mendleson

The final scene of the movie, in which the elderly Churchill is visited by the ghost of his father, who doesn't know the details of Winston's career, bears a strong resemblance to (and was probably based on) a story called "The Dream", which Churchill recounted to his family over dinner circa 1947, and later wrote out at their request.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: BEST OF THE ESSENTIALS



8:00 PM -- EAST OF EDEN (1955)
Two brothers compete for their father's approval and a woman's love.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey
C-118 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Jo Van Fleet

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Dean (This was the first posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history.), Best Director -- Elia Kazan, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- Paul Osborn

Elia Kazan, in his autobiography "A Life" (1988), said that Raymond Massey came to despise James Dean. Kazan did nothing to dispel the tension between the two, as it was so right for their characters in the film.


10:15 PM -- THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955)
A bogus preacher marries an outlaw's widow in search of the man's hidden loot.
Dir: Charles Laughton
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
BW-93 mins, CC,

At their initial meeting, Lillian Gish asked Charles Laughton why he wanted her for the part; he replied, "When I first went to the movies, they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward. Now they slump down, with their heads back, and eat candy and popcorn. I want them to sit up straight again."


12:00 AM -- 99 RIVER STREET (1953)
A taxi driver gets mixed up with jewel thieves.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter
BW-83 mins, CC,

Based on a story by George Zuckerman.


1:45 AM -- MAME (1974)
A wealthy eccentric takes in her orphaned nephew.
Dir: Gene Saks
Cast: Lucille Ball, Bea Arthur, Robert Preston
C-131 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Angela Lansbury recalled her time when she was playing Mame on Broadway and was visited by Lucille Ball who told her she was amazing in the part, deserved all the honors she was receiving and was a shoe in for the film version. Lansbury was very touched by this until she noticed Ball in the wings during her performance, taking notes. It was then that she realized that she was never going to play the part in the film.


4:00 AM -- PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (1981)
A traveling salesman's music-inspired dreams lead to tragedy.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Christopher Walken
C-108 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Dennis Potter, Best Costume Design -- Bob Mackie, and Best Sound -- Michael J. Kohut, Jay M. Harding, Richard Tyler and Al Overton Jr.

At least four paintings are recreated as "tableaux vivants" in the film: "Hudson Bay Fur Company" (1932) and "20 Cent Movie" (1936), both by Reginald Marsh, and "New York Movie" (1939) and "Nighthawks" (1942), both by Edward Hopper. Three of the four were painted after 1934, when the movie takes place, and all depict scenes in New York, not Chicago, the setting of the movie. Turner Classic Movies uses the "Fur Company" and "Nighthawks" shots in their "Open All Night" interstitial.