TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 26

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26 Saturday



6:15 AM The Outrage (1964)
A Mexican bandit's crimes receive wildly different interpretations from four witnesses. Cast: Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson. Dir: Martin Ritt. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

8:00 AM Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958)
A dying plantation owner tries to help his alcoholic son solve his problems. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Burl Ives. Dir: Richard Brooks. C-108 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS

10:00 AM Armored Car Robbery (1950)
A police officer tries to find half a million dollars stolen by gangsters. Cast: Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, William Talman. Dir: Richard Fleischer BW-68 mins, TV-PG

11:15 AM Johnny Angel (1946)
A sailor sets out to solve his father's murder. Cast: George Raft, Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso. Dir: Edwin L. Marin. BW-79 mins, TV-G, CC

12:45 PM The Fighting Kentuckian (1949)
A militiaman falls for a Frenchwoman and tries to protect her people from land grabbers. Cast: John Wayne, Vera Ralston, Oliver Hardy. Dir: George Waggner. BW-102 mins, TV-G, CC

2:30 PM Dead Poets Society (1989)
An English teacher inspires his students to seize the day with sometimes disastrous results. Cast: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke. Dir: Peter Weir. C-129 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

5:00 PM Private Screenings: Norman Jewison (2007)
Director Norman Jewison discusses his life and career with TCM host Robert Osborne. C-60 mins, TV-PG, CC

6:15 PM The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
A bored tycoon turns to bank robbery and courts the insurance investigator assigned to bring him in. Cast: Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke. Dir: Norman Jewison. C-102 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

What's On Tonight: THE ESSENTIALS: MICHAEL REDGRAVE

8:00 PM The Importance Of Being Earnest (1952)
A proper Englishman gets caught leading a double life. Cast: Michael Redgrave, Edith Evans, Michael Denison. Dir: Anthony Asquith. C-96 mins, TV-G, CC

9:49 PM Short Film: London Can Take It! (1940)
Despite the nightly Nazi air raids, London's citizens are shown to be courageous and determined. Cast: Quentin Reynolds BW-9 mins,

10:00 PM Thunder Rock (1942)
A disillusioned writer moves into a lighthouse where some ghostly visitors restore his faith. Cast: Michael Redgrave, Barbara Mullen, James Mason. Dir: Roy Boulting. BW-107 mins, TV-G

12:00 AM The Way to the Stars (1945)
A young flyer deals with the strains of wartime service and survivors' guilt during World War II. Cast: Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John. Dir: Anthony Asquith. BW-109 mins,

2:00 AM The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A young woman on vacation triggers an international incident when she tries to track an elderly friend who has disappeared. Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Dame May Whitty. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. BW-96 mins, TV-G, CC

3:45 AM The Quiet American (1957)
An American economist gets caught between Communists and colonialists in Indochina. Cast: Audie Murphy, Michael Redgrave, Giorgia Moll. Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. BW-122 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

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1. 'The Importance Of Being Ernest'

Why THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST Is Essential

The Importance of Being Earnest was the first English-language film version of Oscar Wilde’s classic tale of social pretension and mistaken identity.

The film recorded for posterity two of the most acclaimed stage performances of the 20th century, Michael Redgrave's interpretation of Jack Worthing and Dame Edith Evans' legendary Lady Bracknell.

The Importance of Being Earnest was the third and final collaboration for Redgrave and director Anthony Asquith. They also had worked together on The Winslow Boy (1948), often hailed as Redgrave's finest film performance.

It was also Asquith's third collaboration with Margaret Rutherford. In The V.I.P.s (1963), their fourth and last film together, he directed her to an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actress.

The Importance of Being Earnest was a pioneering work in the development of Technicolor. In place of the garish color palettes that had dominated most earlier films using the process, this one used a subtle array of pastels to capture the light, witty tone of Wilde’s original play.

by Frank Miller


Trivia & Fun Facts About THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

Critic C.A. Lejeune once called The Importance of Being Earnest the most quoted play in the English language next to Hamlet.

Director Anthony Asquith was the son of former Home Secretary Herbert Asquith, who filed the gross indecency charges under which Oscar Wilde was put on trial.

Michael Redgrave's mother played Lady Bracknell in the first London production of the play after Wilde's trial and incarceration.

Historians have suggested a number of in-jokes Wilde may have inserted in the play. "Ernest" may have been a code word for "homosexual" in 1890s London, while at least one biographer has pointed out the similarity between the name of Algernon's imaginary invalid friend, "Bunbury" and the towns of Banbury and Sunbury, where Wilde met and later engaged in a flirtation with a schoolboy.

The name of Margaret Rutherford's character, Miss Prism, is believed to be a pun on the word "misprision," which means "concealment of an error."

Cecily's fortune, 130,000 pounds, would be about $18 million today.

The Brighton Line, in whose cloakroom Jack Worthing says he was found, was the classier of the two railroad lines running through Victoria Station at the time.

The Importance of Being Earnest was only Edith Evans’ sixth film. Despite its success, she would be off the screen for seven years.

Every day on the set (and on every film he made), Asquith wore a handkerchief given him by Mary Pickford in 1919 while he was studying the U.S. film industry in Hollywood.

For the U.S. release of The Importance of Being Earnest, the distributor insisted the word "perambulator" be re-dubbed with "baby carriage." Evans objected to this at first, trumpeting in her best Lady Bracknell voice, "I positively decline to do it," but she finally gave in.

The first film version of The Importance of Being Earnest was made in Germany in 1932 under the title Liebe, Scherz und Ernst. It was released in some countries as Bunbury, the name of Algernon's imaginary friend. More recently it had been filmed in Argentina as Al Compás de tu Mentira (1950).

The Importance of Being Earnest was one of the first plays broadcast over British television, with productions in 1937 and 1938. It also aired in 1946, with Margaret Rutherford as Lady Bracknell.

Edith Evans had to miss the film premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest because she was appearing on stage that night. Instead, she sent her secretary.

The film was advertised in the U.S. with the line, "They don't come any wilder than Oscar Wilde's classic comedy of manners, morals and morality!"