TCM Schedule for Friday, June 13, 2014 -- Friday Night Spotlight - Pirate Pictures

In the daylight hours, TCM is hoping for good luck by featuring movies with "thirteen" in the title. And in prime time, they are continuing this month's Friday Night Spotlight, Pirate Pictures, starring Burt Lancaster, Gene Kelly, Bob Hope, and Abbott and Costello. An interesting swathe of pirates - arrr! Enjoy!



8:00 AM -- Written On The Wind (1957)
A young woman marries into a corrupt oil family then falls for her husband's best friend.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Dorothy Malone

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Robert Stack, and Best Music, Original Song -- Victor Young (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Written on the Wind". Victor Young's nomination was posthumous.

Douglas Sirk wanted it to be stated that Kyle Hadley (played by Robert Stack) was gay in the film. However this could not be mentioned directly due to the Hay's Code. Nevertheless it is still implied that Hadley is secretly in love with Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson). One of those bits of trivia that is highly ironic in hindsight.


9:45 AM -- Sea Devils (1953)
A fisherman-turned-smuggler agrees to transport a beautiful British agent to the French coast.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Yvonne de Carlo, Rock Hudson, Maxwell Reed
C-87 mins,

The story and screenplay were written by Borden Chase. Prior to his career as a writer, Chase was employed as chauffeur for notorious prohibition-era gangster Frankie Yale -- until Yale was 'rubbed out' by Al Capone's mob in July 1928. Chase, then still going by the more prosaic name Frank Fowler, as well Yale's other regular driver, James Caponi, were lucky to be alive: Yale, having received a strange phone call, was in a panic about something that had happened to his wife Lucy, and decided to drive his coffee-coloured Lincoln himself. The car was machine-gunned near Tenth Avenue by the occupants of a black Nash and crashed into a curb. For good measure, one of the gunmen jumped out and shot Yale in the head with a .45. After that adventure, Chase went in for tamer pursuits, first working as a digger on the Holland Tunnel and then as a taxi driver.


11:15 AM -- Thirteen Women (1932)
A mysterious Eurasian tries to murder the 12 boarding school roommates who treated her like an outsider.
Dir: George Archainbaud
Cast: Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond
C-60 mins, CC,

Peg Entwistle, who played Hazel Clay Cousins, committed suicide on the same day of the film's American release. She jumped off the "H" of the Hollywood sign, then "Hollywoodland."


12:30 PM -- The Hour Of 13 (1952)
A gentleman thief in Victorian England tries to reform and do one good deed.
Dir: Harold French
Cast: Peter Lawford, Dawn Addams, Roland Culver
BW-80 mins,

Based on Philip MacDonald's novel X v. Rex - Mystery of the Dead Police.


2:00 PM -- The Woman On Pier 13 (1950)
Communists blackmail a shipping executive into spying for them.
Dir: Robert Stevenson
Cast: Laraine Day, Robert Ryan, John Agar
BW-73 mins, CC,

According to Daniel Mainwaring, author of the beloved noir "Out of the Past," RKO head Howard Hughes used the film "I Married a Communist" (the pre-release title for this film) to get rid of a lot of writers, directors and actors. If you refused to work in this project, you got fired from the studio.


3:15 PM -- Dementia 13 (1963)
Members of an Irish family are being killed off by one of their own who wishes to inherit the family fortune.
Dir: Francis Coppola
Cast: William Campbell, Luana Anders, Bart Patton
BW-75 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Francis Ford Coppola was assisting Roger Corman on the set of The Young Racers (1963) in Ireland. Corman allowed Coppola to use the same set, crew and actors Luana Anders, William Campbell and Patrick Magee for this film if he could shoot around the shooting schedule of Corman's film. This was Coppola's first director credit.


4:45 PM -- 13 Ghosts (1960)
A family inherits a house haunted by 13 ghosts and a living killer.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow, Martin Milner
BW-82 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

William Castle was able to get popular child actor Charles Herbert to play Buck by offering to give him top billing. Charles Herbert would appear in this and two other features in this year before roles in features completely dried up. He would complete his career in television roles.


6:15 PM -- Thirteen Frightened Girls (1963)
A diplomat's daughter gets mixed up in international intrigue and murder.
Dir: William Castle
Cast: Murray Hamilton, Kathy Dunn, Lynne Sue Moon
C-88 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The Teenage Diplomats were girls who won a publicized contest to have roles in the movie. Most of the Teenage Diplomats use their own names as the character names. The exceptions are the pivotal roles played by Kathy Dunn (Candy Hull the American), Lynne Sue Moon (Mai Ling the Chinese), and Gina Trikonis (Natasha the Russian).



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIDAY NIGHT SPOTLIGHT: PIRATE PICTURES



8:00 PM -- The Crimson Pirate (1952)
A pirate gets mixed up in a Caribbean revolution.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok
C-104 mins, CC,

Ojo (Nick Cravat) is mute because Cravat had a thick East Coast accent.


10:00 PM -- The Pirate (1948)
An actor poses as a notorious pirate to court a romantic Caribbean girl.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Walter Slezak
C-102 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Lennie Hayton

The 1948 film's musical production final sequence, "Be a Clown", composed by Cole Porter, featured the acrobatic and dancing talents of the Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, with Gene Kelly. Gene Kelly choreographed the dance number. Judy Garland (Manuela) joins Gene Kelley's (Serafin) act and the film ends with the two of them singing a reprise of "Be a Clown." The dance sequence was the first time The Nicholas Brothers had danced onscreen with a Caucasian, while it was Kelly's insistence that they perform with him. The Nicholas Brothers were the ones punished. When released to the feature movie theater circuit distribution, this Nicholas Brothers sequence was deleted by MGM when screened in the Southern States, such as Memphis, because it featured black performers, the result of racial bigotry in the South. Only in the Northern States' movie theaters, were audiences allowed to view the entire end production presentation. Essentially blackballed, Fayard and Harold moved to Europe and did not return until the mid-60's making a comeback appearance on the ABC TV variety show "The Hollywood Palace" hosted by Roy Rogers and Trigger, (#2.22, air date 27 Feb 1965).


12:00 AM -- The Princess And The Pirate (1944)
A cowardly knight rescues a disguised princess from pirates.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Bob Hope, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan
C-94 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Ernst Fegté and Howard Bristol, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- David Rose

Samuel Goldwyn paid Paramount $133,500 to borrow Bob Hope for twelve weeks. During that time, Hope made this film and They Got Me Covered (1943).


1:45 AM -- Abbott And Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)
Two waiters stumble on a treasure map and land in hot water with pirates.
Dir: Charles Lamont
Cast: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Charles Laughton
BW-71 mins, CC,

In the opening scene of It Started with Eve (1941), an assistant newspaper editor comments that if Jonathan Reynolds Sr. had lived two centuries earlier, he would have made a great pirate - "Captain Kidd himself." Three years later, Charles Laughton, who played Jonathan Reynolds Sr., played the title role in Captain Kidd (1945) and again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952).


3:15 AM -- The Pirates of Blood River (1961)
Pirates force a young prisoner to join their bloodthirsty crew.
Dir: John Gilling
Cast: Kerwin Mathews, Glenn Corbett, Christopher Lee
BW-87 mins, Letterbox Format

According to Christopher Lee, the pond fording at Black Park was a horrible experience. The water was polluted and the bottom consisted of three or four feet of mud, sludge, broken trees and branches, stench, and such general filth that the stunt men refused to do it. Michael Ripper nearly drowned, Oliver Reed contracted an eye and ear infection, and Lee claims he couldn't walk upstairs for nearly six months because of the after-effects.


4:45 AM -- Seven Seas to Calais (1962)
Sir Francis Drake fights to take over Spain's treasure routes for Queen Elizabeth I.
Dir: Rudolph Maté
Cast: Rod Taylor, Keith Michell, Irene Worth
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Made in Italy, in Italian, with an original title of Il dominatore dei 7 mari. Think of it as a spaghetti pirate movie!