TCM Schedule for Saturday, May 20, 2017 -- The Essentials - A Night in Buenos Aires

[Staph]

During tonight's Essentials, we are heading far south of the border to Buenos Aires. Don't cry for me, but enjoy!


6:00 AM -- TRIPLE CROSS (1966)
A safecracker turns double agent during WWII.
Dir: Terence Young
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard
C-126 mins, CC,

While the movie ending implies that Baron Von Grunen (Yul Brynner) dies after being shot in the back (or allows the viewer to infer such), actually Chapman and Von Grunen remained friends after the war. Von Grunen even attended the wedding of Chapman's daughter.


8:15 AM -- THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS (1969)
A casino blackjack dealer plots to hijack and rob an armored car.
Dir: Antonio Isasi Isasmendi
Cast: Gary Lockwood, Elke Sommer, Lee J. Cobb
C-129 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This picture was an international co-production of four countries: France, Italy, Spain and West Germany, but not the USA, even though it was shot there and Americans Gary Lockwood, Lee J. Cobb, and Jack Palance lead the cast.


10:30 AM -- MEET BOSTON BLACKIE (1941)
A reformed thief uncovers a spy ring while investigating a murder at sea.
Dir: Robert Florey
Cast: Chester Morris, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Lane
BW-61 mins, CC,

This was the first in a series of Boston Blackie films starring Chester Morris and was sufficiently popular to spawn 13 more hour-long pictures. Most of the films in the series worked on a twelve day schedule.


12:00 PM -- THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION (1976)
Sherlock Holmes seeks psychiatric help from Sigmund Freud and gets caught up in mystery.
Dir: Herbert Ross
Cast: Alan Arkin, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Duvall
C-113 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Nicholas Meyer, and Best Costume Design -- Alan Barrett

While Nicholas Meyer's novel showed Dr. Sigmund Freud with a daughter, the child he had in real life, the movie showed him with a make-believe son because Dr. Anna Freud threatened a lawsuit if she was included. Since her father was dead she had no control over how he was portrayed.


2:15 PM -- 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH (1957)
A crashed spaceship unleashes a rapidly growing monster from Venus.
Dir: Nathan Juran
Cast: William Hopper, Joan Taylor, Frank Puglia
BW-83 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

One of the reasons the film takes place in Italy is that Ray Harryhausen always wanted to vacation there but could never afford to go on his own.


4:00 PM -- THE QUIET AMERICAN (1958)
An American economist gets caught between Communists and colonialists in Indochina.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, Claude Dauphin
C-122 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In Europe, director-writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz was savagely attacked for his film's infidelity to the source novel by Graham Greene, not least by Greene himself. The screenplay essentially turns the novel inside-out, so that the blundering "quiet American", whose extreme naiveté causes tragedy and his own death despite his having only the best of intentions, is transformed into a shrewd and heroic figure, far wiser and more honorable than his British rival. Mankiewicz later referred to the film as "very bad" (although he also liked to point out that Jean-Luc Godard had called it the best film of its year) and claimed that he had not been able to concentrate on the film because of the mental collapse of his wife, Rose Stradner, who committed suicide soon after he had finished it.


6:15 PM -- SPEEDWAY (1968)
A race car driver tries to outrun the beautiful tax auditor out to settle his account.
Dir: Norman Taurog
Cast: Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, Bill Bixby
C-94 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This is the first racing film to give opening credits to actual NASCAR drivers.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: A NIGHT IN BUENOS AIRES



8:00 PM -- GILDA (1946)
A gambler discovers an old flame in South America, but she's married to his new boss.
Dir: Charles Vidor
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready
BW-110 mins, CC,

Humphrey Bogart declined the role of Johnny Farrell in what was to become a classic film noir and huge box-office hit. He reasoned that, with gorgeous Rita Hayworth playing Gilda, audiences wouldn't look at anyone else.


10:15 PM -- YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER (1942)
An Argentine heiress thinks a penniless American dancer is her secret admirer.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou
BW-97 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Music, Original Song -- Jerome Kern (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "Dearly Beloved", and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Leigh Harline

Apparently features a 15-year-old Fidel Castro as an extra.


12:00 AM -- CORNERED (1946)
A World War II veteran hunts down the Nazi collaborators who killed his wife.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: Dick Powell, Walter Slezak, Micheline Cheirel
BW-103 mins, CC,

The second and last collaboration between Dick Powell and director Edward Dmytryk. Along with "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), these films transformed Powell's image from that of a light song-and-dance man into a serious "tough guy" actor.


2:00 AM -- ERASERHEAD (1977)
A cog in the industrial machine tries to cope with his unhappy wife and mutant baby.
Dir: David Lynch
Cast: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anna Roberts
BW-89 mins, CC,

Though only released at first as a "midnight movie," a number of Hollywood A-list directors saw the film and were impressed by it. John Waters, whose Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974) played the same venue, often mentioned Eraserhead as a favorite film, urging viewers to see it. Stanley Kubrick reportedly said the same; this was one of the films he made the cast and crew of The Shining (1980) watch to get in the right frame of mind for. Mel Brooks saw it and offered Lynch the chance to direct The Elephant Man (1980); Lynch accepted. George Lucas asked Lynch to direct Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983); Lynch turned it down.


3:45 AM -- IT'S ALIVE (1974)
A couple's use of an experimental fertility drug produces a monstrous infant.
Dir: Larry Cohen
Cast: Guy Stockwell, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan
C-91 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

"It's Alive" was filmed and edited simultaneously with another Larry Cohen feature, Hell Up in Harlem (1973), which was shot on the weekends during the production of "It's Alive." This means that many of the cast and crew put in consecutive 7 day work weeks to create the films.


5:30 AM -- WHEN YOU GROW UP (1973)
In this short film, children learn about the world of fun that awaits them when they grow up and go to work.
Dir: Jerry Kurtz
C-11 mins,


5:30 AM -- ONE GOT FAT (1963)
Children wearing monkey masks pay the price for bad bicycle safety habits in this instructional short.
Dir: Dale Jennings
Cast: Diane Chambers, Charles Hagens, Lucie Hagens
C-15 mins,