TCM Schedule for Friday, November 1, 2013 -- Friday Night Spotlight: Screwball Comedies

After polishing off a few more Vincent Price films, we've got a day full of cops and robbers, and an evening of screwball comedies. I'm so glad to see the end of the horror films! Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- The Conqueror Worm (1968)
A corrupt witch hunter uses bogus accusations to satisfy his greed and lust.
Dir: Michael Reeves
Cast: Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Rupert Davies
C-87 min, TV-MA

On the first day of filming, Vincent Price fell from his horse. Director Michael Reeves refused to see him, hoping that angering Price would help the actor make his character more fierce. Price regarded his performance here as the finest of his horror movie career.


8:15 AM -- Theatre of Blood (1973)
Using deaths from Shakespeare's plays, an actor takes revenge on the critics who panned his work.
Dir: Douglas Hickox
Cast: Diana Rigg, Dennis Price, Ian Hendry
C-104 min, TV-14

The full name of Vincent Price's character, according to his memorial, is Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart. "Sheridan" is probably a reference to the eighteenth-century playwright and manager Richard B. Sheridan, or his actor-manager father, Thomas Sheridan. The name of Diana Rigg's character is derived from that of Edwina Booth, daughter of actor Edwin Booth (1833-1893), considered by many to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day - and the brother of John Wilkes Booth, the most infamous actor of his day.


10:00 AM -- The Beast Of The City (1932)
A police captain leads the fight against a vicious gangland chief.
Dir: Charles Brabin
Cast: Walter Huston, Jean Harlow, Wallace Ford
86 min, TV-14

Fifty-two minutes into the film Daisy (Jean Harlow) has a party at her place. On a small table against the back wall is a photo of Clark Gable, her co-star in Red Dust the same year.


11:30 AM -- The Wet Parade (1932)
A crusading politician fights the evils of both drink and prohibition.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Dorothy Jordan, Lewis Stone, Neil Hamilton
117 min, TV-G

The story begins in 1916, then moves to 1919, and the early 1920's, but Dorothy Jordan and Myrna Loy wear up to the minute 1932 fashions throughout.


1:30 PM -- Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
Police patrolmen are stalked by a vengeful mobster escaped from prison.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Mark Stevens, Edmond O'Brien, Gale Storm
89 min, TV-PG

Continuity issues -- Rocky and Dan leave Romano's in a 1949 Ford squad car, but when they arrive at the night club, they are driving a pre-war junker.


3:15 PM -- Mask of the Avenger (1951)
When his father is murdered, an Italian nobleman becomes an outlaw to avenge the crime.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: John Derek, Anthony Quinn, Jody Lawrance
C-83 min, TV-G

Based loosely on the novel by Alexandre Dumas père.


4:45 PM -- Scandal Sheet (1952)
A tabloid editor assigns a young reporter to solve a murder the editor committed himself.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: Broderick Crawford, Donna Reed, John Derek
82 min, TV-PG

Remade as a TV movie in 1985, starring Burt Lancaster, Lauren Hutton, and Pamela Reed.


6:15 PM -- The Brothers Rico (1957)
A reformed mob accountant tries to get to his gangster brother before the criminals can.
Dir: Phil Karlson
Cast: Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Kathryn Grant
92 min, TV-PG

Mimi Aguglia, who plays Argentina Brunetti's mother in the film, was her real life mother too.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: SCREWBALL COMEDIES



8:00 PM -- It Happened One Night (1934)
A newspaperman tracks a runaway heiress on a madcap cross-country tour.
Dir: Frank Capra
Cast: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly
105 min, TV-PG

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable (In 1996, Steven Spielberg anonymously purchased Clark Gable's Oscar to protect it from further commercial exploitation, gave it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, commenting that he could think of "no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy".), Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Claudette Colbert (Claudette Colbert was so convinced that she would lose the Oscar to write-in nominee Bette Davis that she didn't attended the ceremony originally. She was summoned from a train station to pick up her Academy Award.), Best Director -- Frank Capra, Best Writing, Adaptation -- Robert Riskin, and Best Picture.

Columbia Pictures was considered a Poverty Row studio at the time of the film's release. Both MGM and Warner Brothers would lend out temperamental actors to Columbia as a 'humbling experience.' Studio boss Harry Cohn, who was loath to pay for his own roster of contract stars during the early 30's, would invariably assign them to work on Frank Capra's films. Although the studio had received Oscar nominations prior to this picture, its success virtually single-handedly lifted Columbia out of the ranks of poverty row.


10:00 PM -- His Girl Friday (1940)
An unscrupulous editor plots to keep his star reporter-and ex-wife-from re-marrying.
Dir: Howard Hawks
Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy
92 min, TV-G

(at around 35 mins) In the news room the reporters are playing poker and one of them calls out to the reporter McCue, played by Roscoe Karns, who's sitting by a window that looks on a staircase. "Hey Mac (no response)... Hey Stairway Sam, would you mind turning on some lights." If you back up the DVD a minute or two you'll see why he's "Stairway Sam". In the background of these newsroom scenes McCue (or "Stairway Sam&quot is trying to look up the women's' dresses as they go up the stair case (at 27:30, 35:20 and 39:00). Even during one of the few serious moments in the film just after Molly Molloy confronts the newsmen with their lies Stairway Sam can't help himself. Not to mention he's flirting with and chatting up every woman who walks by. This was probably something that got by the Hayes office censors of the time.


11:45 PM -- Libeled Lady (1936)
When an heiress sues a newspaper, the editor hires a reporter to compromise her.
Dir: Jack Conway
Cast: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy
98 min, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture

Reportedly, while shooting the movie, the four stars had become close friends, and William Powell even gave up his old habit of hiding out in his dressing room between scenes so he could join in the fun with the rest of the cast. One of the biggest jokes was a running gag Spencer Tracy played on Myrna Loy, claiming that she had broken his heart with her recent marriage to producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. He even set up an "I Hate Hornblow" table in the studio commissary, reserved for men who claimed to have been jilted by Loy.


1:30 AM -- Nothing Sacred (1937)
When a small-town girl is diagnosed with a rare, deadly disease, an ambitious newspaper man turns her into a national heroine.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger
C-74 min, TV-PG

This was Carole Lombard's only Technicolor film.


3:00 AM -- The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
A daffy socialite gets her friends mixed up in a murder investigation.
Dir: Leigh Jason
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Sam Levene
80 min, TV-G

Katherine Hepburn turned down the role of Melsa Manton after the poor box-office of Bringing Up Baby.


4:30 AM -- The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)
A pilot and a temperamental heiress are stranded in the desert together.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: James Cagney, Bette Davis, Stuart Erwin
92 min, TV-G

Ann Sheridan was originally scheduled to play the Bette Davis role but was on suspension by Warners.