TCM Schedule for Friday, April 4, 2014 -- What's On Tonight - Charlton Heston

During the day, TCM is featuring films written by Niven Busch. Today's films are not his best known -- those would be The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and Duel In The Sun (1946). And in prime time, we get some of the less histrionic films of Charlton Heston. Whatever you think of his politics, he actually was a decent journeyman actor. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Scarlet Dawn (1932)
A Russian nobleman and his fiancee elope to live as peasants in Turkey.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Nancy Carroll, Lilyan Tashman
BW-57 mins,

Although the onscreen credits list the writing source as a novel, no record of its publication has been found.


7:00 AM -- Miss Pinkerton (1932)
A private duty nurse gets herself mixed up in a murder investigation.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Joan Blondell, George Brent, Ruth Hall
BW-66 mins,

Based on the novel by Mary Roberts Rinehart.


8:15 AM -- He Was Her Man (1934)
A safecracker goes straight to get back at some fellow crooks.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Victor Jory
BW-70 mins, CC,

Busch's third wife was actress Teresa Wright, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for Mrs. Miniver (1943), while the two of them were married.


9:30 AM -- The Big Shakedown (1934)
A racketeer breaks into black-market medicine.
Dir: John Francis Dillon
Cast: Charles Farrell, Bette Davis, Ricardo Cortez
BW-61 mins,

Busch wrote the screenplay, but also wrote the story on which this film was based, with co-author Samuel G. Engel.


10:45 AM -- Babbitt (1934)
A small-town businessman bumbles into blackmail and a real-estate swindle.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee, Claire Dodd
BW-74 mins, CC,

Based on Sinclair Lewis' novel, and previously filmed in 1924, with Willard Louis as George F. Babbitt.


12:00 PM -- Off The Record (1939)
A lady reporter adopts the young delinquent her crime exposes helped send to jail.
Dir: James Flood
Cast: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan
BW-71 mins,

Based on an original story by Saul Elkins and Sally Sandlin.


1:15 PM -- The Moonlighter (1953)
A former jailbird makes good after the wrong man is accused for his crime.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Ward Bond
BW-78 mins, CC,

Warner Bros. also released this movie in 3-D.


2:45 PM -- The Treasure Of Pancho Villa (1955)
An American adventurer competes with the famed Mexican bandit to recover a lost gold shipment.
Dir: George Sherman
Cast: Rory Calhoun, Shelley Winters, Gilbert Roland
C-96 mins, Letterbox Format

The film takes place during the time of the Mexican Revolution, but Pancho Villa is not a character in the film.


4:30 PM -- Tennessee Champ (1954)
A boxer reforms his crooked manager.
Dir: Fred M. Wilcox
Cast: Shelley Winters, Keenan Wynn, Dewey Martin
C-73 mins, CC,

The competing boxer is played by Charles Bronson, under his birth name Charles Buchinsky.


5:45 PM -- What's The Matter With Helen? (1971)
After their sons are convicted of murder, two women relocate to Hollywood to start a talent school.
Dir: Curtis Harrington
Cast: Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Dennis Weaver
C-101 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design -- Morton Haack

According to Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters' psychiatrist advised her not to portray a woman having a nervous breakdown because, at the time, she was having a real-life nervous breakdown. "She's the kind of actress who becomes the part she's playing..." said Reynolds, "so all through the film she drove all of us insane!"


7:27 PM -- The Moviemakers - Wild Rover's Featurette (1971)
This promotional short film provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the "Wild Rovers" (1971).
Dir: Ronald Saland
C-12 mins,


7:46 PM -- Prologue: The Artist Who Did Not Want To Paint (1965)
This short promotional short film to "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (1965) focuses on the life and sculptures of Michelangelo.
Dir: Vincenzo Labella
C-13 mins,



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: CHARLTON HESTON



8:00 PM -- Ruby Gentry (1952)
A tempestuous girl from the swamps ignites passions when she moves into the business world.
Dir: King Vidor
Cast: Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden
BW-83 mins, CC,

The swamp background noise, instead of being North Carolina wildlife, is jungle noises. Perhaps it is the same sound clip from Cape Fear with Gregory Peck. Both were to have taken place in the swamps of North Carolina, yet both sounded like something out of Tarzan.


9:30 PM -- The Agony And The Ecstasy (1965)
Michelangelo fights censorship and an autocratic pope to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Dir: Carol Reed
Cast: Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, Diane Cilento
C-139 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Leon Shamroy, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith and Dario Simoni, Best Costume Design, Color -- Vittorio Nino Novarese, Best Sound -- James Corcoran (20th Century-Fox SSD), and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Alex North

Charlton Heston put a steel rod in his nose to make it resemble Michelangelo's broken one, but Rex Harrison steadfastly refused to grow a beard, even though the real-life Julius II had one.


12:00 AM -- 55 Days At Peking (1963)
An American major leads the defense against Chinese revolutionaries in 1900 Peking.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, David Niven
C-162 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Dimitri Tiomkin (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) for the song "So Little Time", and Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Dimitri Tiomkin

In China at the time working as a professional mining engineer, future President of the United States, Herbert Hoover and his wife were civilians under siege at the foreign legations' compound. The future first Lady, Louise "Lou" Henry Hoover, collected shrapnel from Boxer artillery that is on display at the Presidential Library in West Branch, IA. The Hoovers picked up Mandarin Chinese while in China and used it at the White House when they didn't want to be overheard.


2:46 AM -- A Look At The World Of "Soylent Green" (1973)
This short film gives a behind-the-scenes look at the science fiction film "Soylent Green" (1973).
C-10 mins,


3:00 AM -- Soylent Green (1973)
A future cop uncovers the deadly secret behind a mysterious synthetic food.
Dir: Richard O. Fleischer
Cast: Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Edward G. Robinson
C-97 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In very poor health with cancer, Edward G. Robinson was almost totally deaf when he made this movie, and only able to hear anyone if they spoke directly into his ear. Because of this, scenes with him talking to other people had to be shot several times before he got the rhythm of the dialogue and was able to respond to people as if he could really hear them. And because he was unable to hear director Richard Fleischer yell "cut" when a scene went wrong, Robinson would often continue acting out the scene, unaware that shooting had stopped seconds earlier.


4:45 AM -- Skyjacked (1972)
A mad bomber forces a jet to re-route to Moscow.
Dir: John Guillermin
Cast: Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimieux, James Brolin
C-101 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The 'Global Airways' plane used in the movie was a World Airways Boeing 707 (N374WA). World Airways home base at the time was Oakland Metropolitan Airport, where just about all of the airport scenes in the movie were filmed.