TCM Schedule for Friday, July 31, 2015 -- TCM Spotlight - Summer of Darkness

Tonight is the end of TCM's special program, Summer of Darkness, featuring 24 hours of film noir. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- The Big Heat (1953)
A police detective whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a scarred gangster's moll to bring down a powerful gangster.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando
BW-90 mins, CC,

Columbia wanted to borrow Marilyn Monroe from 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Debby Marsh, but Fox's asking price was too high. Gloria Grahame was cast instead.


7:35 AM -- Glimpses Of Western Germany (1954)
A short tour of still WWII-ravaged Western Germany, visiting Hamburg, Bremen, Munich, and Heidelburg.
Dir: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 mins,


7:45 AM -- Suddenly (1954)
Gunmen take over a suburban home to plot a presidential assassination.
Dir: Lewis Allen
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, James Gleason
BW-77 mins, CC,

This is the film that Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly watched just a few days before assassinating President John F. Kennedy.


9:13 AM -- Football Headliners (1955)
This short film highlights thirteen important college football games played during the 1955 season.
BW-16 mins,


9:30 AM -- I Died A Thousand Times (1955)
An ex-con dreaming of one last heist faces dissension within his gang.
Dir: Stuart Heisler
Cast: Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson
C-109 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Dennis Hopper makes an early acting appearance as the boy that Shelley Winters dances with at the house party in L.A.


11:30 AM -- Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (1956)
A novelist frames himself for murder to prove the fallibility of circumstantial evidence.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer
BW-80 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The last film that Fritz Lang made in the USA before returning to Germany.


1:00 PM -- The Harder They Fall (1956)
A cynical press agent exposes inhuman conditions in the boxing game.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling
BW-109 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Burnett Guffey

Humphrey Bogart's last film.


3:00 PM -- While The City Sleeps (1956)
Reporters compete to catch a serial killer.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders
BW-100 mins, CC,

The sequence depicting the New York subway was actually filmed in the Los Angeles subway.


4:45 PM -- The Blue Gardenia (1953)
A telephone operator kills in self-defense but can't remember the details of the encounter.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern
BW-88 mins, CC,

Sally (Jeff Donnell) enjoys reading bloody thrillers written by Mickey Mallet - a spoof on Mickey Spillane, whose novels featuring Mike Hammer are just as gruesome as those Sally describes.


6:15 PM -- Party Girl (1958)
A showgirl and a crooked lawyer try to break with a powerful mob boss.
Dir: Nicholas Ray
Cast: Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Director Nicholas Ray was certainly impressed with Robert Taylor's commitment. "He worked for me like a true Method actor," said Ray, who remembered Taylor going to an osteologist, poring over X-rays and asking probing questions so that he would have an understanding of where in his body the pain would be from his character's crippled leg.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: SUMMER OF DARKNESS



8:00 PM -- Criss Cross (1949)
A man tries to save his fickle ex-wife from her criminal lover.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea
BW-88 mins, CC,

Cameo - Tony Curtis: In a dance sequence, Yvonne De Carlo is dancing with a young Curtis in an uncredited role. This was one of six bit parts he played in 1949, before his first big budget film role in Winchester '73 (1950).


9:45 PM -- Brute Force (1947)
Tough, disgruntled prisoners plan a daring, possibly bloody escape while on a drain pipe detail.
Dir: Jules Dassin
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford
BW-98 mins, CC,

When the Group Theater (1931-1940)--the first American acting company to attempt to put the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski's principles into action--disbanded, many of the actors who had participated in its revolutionary realistic productions on Broadway ("Awake and Sing" "Waiting for Lefty&quot made their way to Hollywood in search of work. Two of them--Roman Bohnen ("Warden&quot and Art Smith ("Dr. Walters&quot can be seen in this film. As several of the actors in The Group were members of the Communist Party or leftist organizations, they would soon be blacklisted during the "Red Scare" era of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's search for "subversives" in the entertainment industry, one of whom was the director of this film, Jules Dassin. A year before this film was released, Kazan--who had appeared before the McCarthyite House Unamerican Activities Committee and "named names", happened to be in Hollywood and saw a production of one of Tennessee Williams's early plays, "Portrait of a Madonna" directed by Hume Cronyn--who plays the sadistic Capt. Munsey in this film. Kazan was so impressed by the work of Cronyn's wife, Jessica Tandy, that he offered her the role of Blanche Dubois in his Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire."


11:30 PM -- Desperate (1947)
An innocent trucker takes it on the lam when he's accused of robbery.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr
BW-73 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Dorothy Atlas and Anthony Mann.


1:00 AM -- The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
A gang of small time crooks plots an elaborate jewel heist.
Dir: John Huston
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen
BW-112 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sam Jaffe, Best Director -- John Huston, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Ben Maddow and John Huston, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Harold Rosson

John Huston first met Sterling Hayden in Washington, D.C. during a protest against the House of Un- American Activities Committee investigation. When the pair met to discuss the project, Huston said to Hayden, "I've admired you for a long time, Sterling. They don't know what to make of a guy like you in this business." Huston was honest with Hayden about his chance for the lead role. Hayden recounts in his biography Huston's pitch: "Now, Sterling, I want you to do this part. The studio does not. They want a top name star. They say you mean nothing when it comes to box office draw-I told them there aren't five names in this town (that) mean a damn thing at the box office. Fortunately, they're not making this picture. I am. Now let me tell you about Dix Handley....Dix is you and me and every other man who can't fit into the groove." Rumored to be fighting severe alcohol and psychiatric problems, Hayden landed Dix Handley, his first major starring role, over the objection of MGM executive Dore Schary. Hayden's gritty performance proved many Hollywood naysayers flat wrong. For instance, Hayden himself was nervous about the climactic scene in the picture, when Dix breaks down in tears in front of Jean Hagen. According to the director though, Hayden did not have anything to worry about. After the actor delivered the scene beautifully, Huston took Hayden aside and said, "The next time somebody says you can't act, tell them to call Huston."


3:00 AM -- The Wrong Man (1956)
A musician is mistaken for a vicious thief, with devastating results.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle
BW-105 mins, CC,

The scene where Henry ("Manny&quot Fonda is taken to prison was filmed in a real prison. As he is led to his cell , you can hear one of the inmates yell out "What'd they get ya for, Henry??", and a bunch of other prisoners laughing.


4:56 AM -- 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (International) (1955)
This short features theatrical trailers of original musicals released by MGM in 1955 and visits the sets of films still in production.
C-18 mins,


5:15 AM -- MGM Parade Show #8 (1955)
Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant perform in a clip from "The Philadelphia Story"; George Murphy introduces a clip from "The Tender Trap." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-26 mins,


5:48 AM -- Dogs 'N Ducks (1953)
In this short film, a boy trains his new golden retriever for a duck retrieving competition, much to the chagrin of his first dog.
Dir: Norman Wright
BW-10 mins,