TCM Schedule for Saturday, September 12, 2015 -- The Essentials - A Night In The Congo

Tonight's Essentials features a trio of films that take place in the Congo, though only one (The Nun's Story (1959)) was actually filmed there. Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- Edison, The Man (1940)
Thomas Edison fights to turn his dreams into reality.
Dir: Clarence Brown
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Rita Johnson, Lynne Overman
BW-107 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Hugo Butler and Dore Schary

This was one of the films that Spencer Tracy really believed in and actively supported not because he starred in it, but because he was a great admirer of Thomas A. Edison. This was unusual as Tracy was known throughout most of his career to disparage his own gifts as well as the importance of motion pictures. Also, prior to this film Spencer Tracy had been a very active member of the "Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". He even hosted the awards show on at least one occasion. However when the nominations came out for the best films of 1940, Tracy was appalled that "Edison the Man" was so overlooked in the nominations. It was only nominated for best writing. Tracy swore he would never attend another academy award ceremony again. He never did. Not without irony is that although he was nominated another 6 times over the next 28 years, Tracy never won another Oscar after that after winning two in a row in the previous two years.


8:00 AM -- Treasure Island (1934)
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of a young boy out to foil pirates and find a buried treasure.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore
BW-103 mins, CC,

Jackie Cooper did not like his performance, writing in his autobiography that he felt an older English boy should have played Jim Hawkins.


9:44 AM -- A Day On Treasure Island (1939)
This short film visits the Golden Gate International Exposition, the "World's Fair of the West."
C-10 mins,


10:00 AM -- Batman and Robin: Target - Robin! (1949)
Batman and Robin fight to escape a criminal mastermind's deadly gas trap.
BW-17 mins,


10:30 AM -- Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1937)
A rock thrown through his window sets a gentleman adventurer on a search for enemy agents.
Dir: Norman Lee
Cast: John Lodge, Dorothy Mackaill, Victor Jory
BW-74 mins,

Final film of Dorothy Mackaill.


11:46 AM -- Dexterity (1937)
This short film showcases people with a highly developed sense of balance or timing.
Dir: David Miller
BW-9 mins,


12:00 PM -- The Mouse That Roared (1959)
An impoverished nation declares war on the U.S. hoping to lose and score foreign aid.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Cast: Peter Sellers, Jean Seberg, William Hartnell
C-83 mins, CC,

Jack Arnold did not ask the studio's permission to make fun of the Columbia logo, convinced they would say no. At the film's opening, "Miss Columbia" discovers a mouse under her skirts and runs off screaming. At the end she returns to her pedestal. Studio executives first heard of the joke when they attended the New York previews, where it got a huge laugh. After that, there was no thought of cutting it, though it is absent from some television prints.


1:30 PM -- The Hunters (1958)
Three American pilots are assigned to dogfight during the Korean War.
Dir: Dick Powell
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, Richard Egan
C-108 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

One scene in the film quite realistically realizes author James Salter's description of Seville's (Connell in the novel) first sight of the fighter pilots in their club at the base in Korea. Salter wrote that "It looked like a lumberjack camp. No two pilots dressed alike." In the film, Seville eventually wears a WWII sheepskin-lined leather cap and a sage green flight jacket over a blue flight suit, while Pell wears a flap-eared winter hat and a blue flight jacket over a green flight suit. Other pilots wear similar mixes of uniform clothing from both the WWII and Korean War eras.


3:30 PM -- Triple Cross (1966)
A safecracker turns double agent during WWII.
Dir: Terence Young
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard
C-126 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

While the movie ending implies that Baron Von Grunen (Yul Brynner) dies after being shot in the back (or allows the viewer to infer such), actually Chapman and Von Grunen remained friends after the war. Von Grunen even attended the wedding of Chapman's daughter.


5:45 PM -- No Time For Sergeants (1958)
A hillbilly draftee turns the Air Force upside down.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Andy Griffith, Myron McCormick, Nick Adams
BW-119 mins, CC,

This was Don Knotts' film debut. He met Andy Griffith when Knotts had a small part in Broadway's "No Time For Sergeants". Griffith remembered Knotts when he was looking for someone to play bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show (1960). The two formed a lifelong friendship. After Knotts left Andy Griffith Show, he later made guest appearances on it and another Andy Griffith TV series, Matlock (1986). In 2006, Griffith even broke the news of Knotts' passing to the media.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: A NIGHT IN THE CONGO



8:00 PM -- The Nun's Story (1959)
A headstrong girl fights the strictures of the Catholic church in Europe and the Belgian Congo.
Dir: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Dame Edith Evans
C-152 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Audrey Hepburn, Best Director -- Fred Zinnemann, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Anderson, Best Cinematography, Color -- Franz Planer, Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD), Best Film Editing -- Walter Thompson, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Franz Waxman, and Best Picture

The film was shot on location in Rome, Bruges, Stanleyville and a real leper colony in the Congo.


10:45 PM -- The Sins of Rachel Cade (1960)
A female doctor in the Congo is torn between two loves.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Angie Dickinson, Peter Finch, Roger Moore
C-123 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Based on the novel by Charles Mercer.


1:00 AM -- Dark Of The Sun (1968)
A mercenary band fights to get refugees and a fortune in diamonds out of the Congo.
Dir: Jack Cardiff
Cast: Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Peter Carsten
C-100 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Showbusiness trade paper Variety erroneously reported in its review that this Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie was shot in Africa but in fact this movie was filmed out of Africa. The picture's exteriors were lensed in Jamaica in the Carribean as it could not be shot on the dark continent due to political unrest. Ironically, around the same, another picture from MGM, Graham Greene's The Comedians (1967), was set in the Carribean, but filmed in Benin, West Africa.


2:45 AM -- It's Alive (1974)
A couple's use of an experimental fertility drug produces a monstrous infant.
Dir: Larry Cohen
Cast: Guy Stockwell, Sharon Farrell, Andrew Duggan
C-91 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Bernard Herrmann titled the music cue where the milkman meets his demise "The Milkman Goeth."


4:30 AM -- Spider Baby (1964)
Greedy relatives try to repossess the decaying mansion of an inbred Southern family.
Dir: Jack Hill
Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn Redeker
BW-84 mins, Letterbox Format

The studio where the bulk of the film was shot was not equipped with air conditioning, only fans. With temperatures in the triple digits outside, the crew were all uncomfortable, but none more than Lon Chaney Jr., who was often dripping with sweat by the end of his takes. A bucket of ice water was brought in so Chaney could be mopped down with a cold, wet towel after each take.