TCM Schedule for Friday, December 14, 2018 -- What's On Tonight: TCM Spotlight: Songs on Screen

In the daylight hours, TCM is going island-hopping. Then in prime time, TCM continues their month-long celebration of songs that began in films and became a part of American pop musical culture. Enjoy!



7:00 AM -- SAFE IN HELL (1931)
On the run from the police, a New Orleans prostitute gets stranded in a tropical haven for outlaws.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook, Ralf Harolde
BW-73 mins, CC,

At a time when most African-Americans were stereotyped, both Nina Mae McKinney and Clarence Muse were the two most reputable characters in the movie. Although their parts in the script are written in dialect, both spoke normally.


8:30 AM -- ISLE OF FURY (1936)
A man on the run in the South Seas gets caught up in a romantic triangle.
Dir: Frank McDonald
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods
BW-60 mins,

The instrument upon which the musician is playing the Wedding March in the first scene is a type of Chinese violin called an Erhu.


9:45 AM -- MEN IN EXILE (1937)
Gun smugglers clash with an island dictator.
Dir: John Farrow
Cast: Dick Purcell, June Travis, Victor Varconi
BW-58 mins,

General Alcatraz quotes Feeble in Shakespeare's "The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth", Act 3, Scene 2, "...let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next".


11:00 AM -- STRANGE CARGO (1940)
A prostitute and some prisoners attempt to escape from a penal colony in French Guiana.
Dir: Frank Borzage
Cast: Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Ian Hunter
BW-113 mins, CC,

Director Frank Borzage said Joan Crawford was a trouper but did not mention a particular day in the jungle when Crawford, preceded by Clark Gable passed under a tree with an eight-foot python coiled on a branch overhead. "That son-of-a-b-h is alive!" screamed Crawford, looking upward. "Yes, but its jaws are shut tight with a rubber band," Borzage explained. "What happens if the f-king rubber band snaps?" Crawford asked, and refused to repeat the scene.


1:00 PM -- THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)
A big game hunter decides to stalk human prey.
Dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Cast: Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong
BW-63 mins, CC,

The trophy room scenes were much longer in the preview version of 78 minutes; there were more heads in jars. There was also an emaciated sailor, stuffed and mounted next to a tree where he was impaled by Zaroff's arrow, and another full-body figure stuffed, with the bodies of two of the hunting dogs mounted in a death grip. Preview audiences cringed and shuddered at the head in the bottle and the mounted heads, but when they saw the mounted figures and heard Zaroff's dialog describing in detail how each man had died, they began heading for the exit - so these shots disappeared. The film, even in its shortened version, is believed to have inspired the Zodiac killer.


2:15 PM -- ISLAND OF LOST WOMEN (1959)
Two downed fliers find themselves trapped in a reclusive scientist's island home.
Dir: Frank W. Tuttle
Cast: Jeff Richards, Venetia Stevenson, John Smith
BW-67 mins, CC,

Final film of director Frank Tuttle, perhaps best remembered for his two Alan Ladd films from 1942: This Gun for Hire (1942) (the film that made Ladd a star) and Lucky Jordan (1942).


3:30 PM -- FROM HELL IT CAME (1957)
After he's framed for murder and executed, a South Seas prince returns as a vengeful tree spirit.
Dir: Johnny Greenwald
Cast: Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, Linda Watkins
BW-71 mins, CC,

The movie poster shows red blood dripping from the spot on Tabanga where the knife is lodged in his heart. However, in the movie itself, the monster's blood is described as being green.


4:45 PM -- ENCHANTED ISLAND (1958)
Two 19th-century sailors jump ship only to discover their tropical paradise is a cannibal stronghold.
Dir: Allan Dwan
Cast: Dana Andrews, Jane Powell, Don Dubbins
C-94 mins, CC,

According to a 1987 "Films in Review" article Powell said, "It was a terrible movie. Dwan had no interest in it; and Dana Andrews was drinking at the time. It was really a fiasco! The best thing about it was that it gave the family a great vacation in Acapulco."


6:30 PM -- THE LOST CONTINENT (1968)
When a tramp steamer is attacked by a mass of living seaweed, the occupants are forced to take refuge on a strange island.
Dir: Michael Carreras
Cast: Eric Porter, Hildegard Knef, Suzanna Leigh
C-83 mins, CC,

This film was rated G in the USA (suitable for unaccompanied children) but in the UK it received an X certificate (over 18s only).



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: SONGS ON SCREEN



8:00 PM -- BLACKBOARD JUNGLE (1955)
An idealistic teacher confronts the realities of juvenile delinquency.
Dir: Richard Brooks
Cast: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern
BW-101 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Richard Brooks, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Russell Harlan, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Cedric Gibbons, Randall Duell, Edwin B. Willis and Henry Grace, and Best Film Editing -- Ferris Webster

This film launched the rock and roll era, especially in American movies, by using "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets as its theme. The song was chosen for the titles after it was heard among records owned by Peter Ford, son of the film's star, Glenn Ford (proving phony the original belief that the producer's daughter had discovered the song.) "Rock Around the Clock" had been largely ignored until it was heard in the movie, after which it soon shot to number one around the world, and eventually sold an estimated twenty-five million copies. In an embarrassing miscalculation, MGM could have owned the complete rights to the song, but it ignored Writer and Director Richard Brooks' advice to buy it outright; instead, being penny-wise and pound-foolish, for a few dollars less, the studio merely purchased the film-use rights to the mega-hit song.


10:00 PM -- TO SIR, WITH LOVE (1967)
A substitute teacher changes the lives of the slum children in his class.
Dir: James Clavell
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Christian Roberts, Judy Geeson
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Lulu's title song, "To Sir With Love" finished the year number one on the Billboard Top One-Hundred List. "Talk to the Animals" won the Academy Award and none of the songs nominated for Best Original Song Oscars broke into the year '67 top 100. Only the nominated "The Look of Love" was number 36 in the following year's Billboard List.


12:00 AM -- SHAFT (1971)
A slick black detective enlists gangsters and African nationals to fight the mob.
Dir: Gordon Parks
Cast: Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi
C-100 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Isaac Hayes for the song "Theme from Shaft"

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score -- Isaac Hayes

Isaac Hayes auditioned for the title role. Producers cast Richard Roundtree, but were so impressed with Hayes that they asked him to write the now legendary score to the film.


2:00 AM -- THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY (1978)
Show biz hopefuls flock to the local disco in pursuit of their dreams.
Dir: Robert Klane
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Donna Summer, Valerie Landsburg
C-89 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Paul Jabara for the song "Last Dance"

This movie represents the only ever on-screen appearance of the group The Commodores in a theatrically released film.


3:45 AM -- RAPPIN' (1985)
An ex-con gathers a group of his friends to help save their neighborhood through rap.
Dir: Joel Silberg
Cast: Mario Van Peebles, Tasia Valenza, Charles Flohe
C-93 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Mario Van Peeble's rapping sequences were re-voiced by Ice-T.


5:30 AM -- GANG BOY (1954)
In this short film, a police officer tries to prevent a gang war by bringing the rival groups together over dinner.
Dir: Arthur Swerdloff
Cast: Curly Riviera,
C-27 mins,

Based on a true story of a truce between Anglo and Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, California in the early 1950s. The Anglo and Mexican gangs are played by the actual Anglo and Mexican gangs who reached the truce. The gangs had script supervision, went by their own actual names and nicknames, and chose who would play which role.