TCM Schedule for Thursday, December 18, 2014 -- What's On Tonight - Christmas Classics

In the daylight hours, it's a celebration of the birth of director Jules Dassin, born Julius Dassin on December 18, 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut. In prime time, TCM is continuing a look at classic Christmas cinema by showing a quartet of variations on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- MGM Parade Show #15 (1955)
George Murphy hosts a special Christmas show featuring Judy Garland performing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in a clip from "Meet Me in St. Louis."
BW-26 mins,


6:30 AM -- The Affairs of Martha (1942)
A servant's scandalous novel lands her employers in hot water.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Marsha Hunt, Richard Carlson, Marjorie Main
BW-67 mins, CC,

Based on an original screenplay called Once Upon A Thursday by Isobel Lennart and Lee Gold.


7:38 AM -- Minnesota "Land Of Plenty" (1942)
This short film explores the history, land, and culture of Minnesota.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
C-10 mins,


8:00 AM -- Nazi Agent (1942)
An Allied sympathizer discovers his twin brother is a Nazi spy.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Conrad Veidt, Ann Ayars, Frank Reicher
BW-84 mins,

Conrad Veidt, who plays the Nazi and his twin, was vehemently anti-Nazi and fled Germany in 1933 with his Jewish wife.


9:30 AM -- A Letter For Evie (1945)
A timid soldier sends his buddy's picture to a romantic pen pal.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Marsha Hunt, John Carroll, Hume Cronyn
BW-89 mins, CC,

Remake of Don't Write Letters (1922)


11:06 AM -- Speed Week (1957)
This short film chronicles the automobile races staged as part of Speed Week, held annually in Nassau, Bahamas.
Dir: Howard Winner
BW-8 mins,


11:15 AM -- Never On Sunday (1960)
An American scholar in Greece tries to reform a local prostitute.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, George Foundas
BW-93 mins, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Manos Hatzidakis for the song "Ta paidia tou Peiraia" ("Never on Sunday&quot .

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Melina Mercouri, Best Director -- Jules Dassin, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Jules Dassin, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Theoni V. Aldredge

About 20 minutes in, Homer says "Homer Thrace, of Middletown, Connecticut" to himself; That's the town where Jules Dassin was born.


1:00 PM -- Phaedra (1962)
A tycoon's restless wife seduces her stepson.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Melina Mercouri, Anthony Perkins, Raf Vallone
BW-116 mins, Letterbox Format

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Theoni V. Aldredge

Based loosely on Euripides' play "Hippolytus".


3:00 PM -- The Guns of Navarone (1961)
A team of Allied saboteurs fight their way behind enemy lines to destroy a pair of Nazi guns.
Dir: J. Lee Thompson
Cast: Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn
C-157 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Bill Warrington (visual) and Chris Greenham (audible)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- J. Lee Thompson, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Carl Foreman, Best Sound -- John Cox (Shepperton SSD), Best Film Editing -- Alan Osbiston, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin, and Best Picture

The plot went through so many twists that Gregory Peck finally submitted his own version to Carl Foreman: "David Niven really loves Anthony Quayle and Gregory Peck loves Anthony Quinn. Tony Quayle breaks a leg and is sent off to hospital. Tony Quinn falls in love with Irene Papas, and Niven and Peck catch each other on the rebound and live happily ever after."


5:45 PM -- Alexander The Great (1956)
Biography of the ancient warrior who conquered the known world.
Dir: Robert Rossen
Cast: Richard Burton, Fredric March, Claire Bloom
C-136 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Richard Burton was very dissatisfied with the final film. He was later reluctant to accept the role of Marc Antony in Cleopatra (1963) due to his low opinion of historical epics.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: CHRISTMAS CLASSICS



8:00 PM -- A Christmas Carol (1938)
In this adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale, an elderly miser learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart
BW-69 mins, CC,

The word "humbug" is misunderstood by many people, which is a pity since the word provides a key insight into Scrooge's hatred of Christmas. The word "humbug" describes deceitful efforts to fool people by pretending to a fake loftiness or false sincerity. So when Scrooge calls Christmas a humbug, he is claiming that people only pretend to charity and kindness in a scoundrel effort to delude him, each other, and themselves. In Scrooge's eyes, he is the one man honest enough to admit that no one really cares about anyone else, so for him, every wish for a Merry Christmas is one more deceitful effort to fool him and take advantage of him. This is a man who has turned to profit because he honestly believes everyone else will someday betray him or abandon him the moment he trusts them.


9:15 PM -- Scrooge (1970)
A miser faces the ghosts of his past on Christmas Eve.
Dir: Ronald Neame
Cast: Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans
C-114 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Terence Marsh, Robert Cartwright and Pamela Cornell, Best Costume Design -- Margaret Furse, Best Music, Original Song -- Leslie Bricusse for the song "Thank You Very Much", and Best Music, Original Song Score -- Leslie Bricusse, Ian Fraser and Herbert W. Spencer

Richard Harris rejected the role of Scrooge. Rex Harrison agreed to play the part, but had to back out due to a commitment to a difficult play. (Harrison was also having an affair with Harris' then-wife, who he would later marry.) Albert Finney, who had been offered the role before Harrison but had initially rejected it, reconsidered once he read the script and asked for the role. (He was a business associate of Michael Medwin, the co-writer who played his nephew in the film.)


11:15 PM -- Scrooge (1935)
The legendary miser searches his past, present and future to discover the true meaning of Christmas.
Dir: Henry Edwards
Cast: Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop, Robert Cochran
BW-78 mins,

This was the second time Seymour Hicks had portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge on film. The first was in Old Scrooge (1913) which was released in 1913, 22 years earlier.


12:45 AM -- A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
Three ghosts teach an industrialist the importance of international peacekeeping.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara
BW-86 mins, CC,

In Rod Serling's original script, the lead character's name was Barnaby Grudge--i.e., B. Grudge, a play on the word "begrudge". ABC censors thought that viewers would miss that allusion and instead believe the name was chosen as a slap at U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, a man associated with nuclear war, and ordered the author to change the character's name. Serling settled on Daniel Grudge. (Serling's original name would also have made more sense, because it is a play on another Dickens novel, "Barnaby Rudge.&quot


2:15 AM -- Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
A ghost tries to smooth the way for two young lovers he knew during his lifetime.
Dir: A. Edward Sutherland
Cast: Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger
BW-84 mins,

Re-released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in 2004 under the title "Beyond Christmas". DVD has both the restored B&W version plus a color version of the 1940 movie.


3:45 AM -- Fanny and Alexander (1982)
A widowed actress and her children suffer hardships when she mistakenly marries a conservative church leader.
Dir: Ingmar Bergman
Cast: Pernilla Allwin, Bertil Guve, Gunn Wallgren
C-189 mins, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Sven Nykvist, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Anna Asp and Susanne Lingheim, Best Costume Design -- Marik Vos-Lundh, and Best Foreign Language Film -- Sweden.

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Ingmar Bergman, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- Ingmar Bergman

All three of the Ekdahl sons are named after Swedish kings. In fact, if we assume that the characters are the same age as the actors who played them, then Oscar Ekdahl would have been born during the reign of Oscar I (reigned 1844- 1859), and Carl during the reign of Karl XV (reigned 1859 - 1872). Gustav Adolf would also have been born three years after Oscar, and thus during the reign of Oscar I as well, so he was presumably named after Gustav II Adolph (reigned 1611 - 1632), who made Sweden an international power during the Thirty Years' War, and who is possibly more famous to movie fans as the father of Queen Christina.