TCM Schedule for Friday, October 25, 2019 -- TCM Spotlight: Monster of the Month: Godzilla

In the daylight hours, TCM seems to be determined to insult me, with a day of films about "hillbillies", "hayseeds" and "hicks". As a West Virginian, I'm tired of this! Then in prime time, TCM finishes their month-long salute to that awesome Japanese lizard, Godzilla. Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- KENTUCKY KERNELS (1935)
Two musicians try to get an orphaned heiress through hillbilly country to claim her inheritance.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Mary Carlisle
BW-75 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Bert Kalmer and Harry Ruby.


8:00 AM -- FEUDIN' FOOLS (1952)
The Bowery Boys get caught in a hillbilly feud when one of them inherits a Kentucky farm.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Dorothy Ford
BW-63 mins, CC,

The 27th of 48 Bowery Boys movies.


9:15 AM -- THE REAL MCCOY (1930)
Charley Chase pretends to be a hillbilly to impress a country girl in this short film.
Dir: Warren Doane
Cast: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, Nelson McDowell
BW-21 mins,


10:00 AM -- MOUNTAIN JUSTICE (1937)
A young lawyer defends a hillbilly girl who killed her father in self defense.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Josephine Hutchinson, George Brent, Guy Kibbee
BW-83 mins,

Loosely based on the case of Edith Maxwell (1914-1979), a 21 year-old schoolteacher in Pound, Virginia. She was convicted of murdering her father in 1935 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She was pardoned by Governor James H. Price (D) in 1941 and moved to Indiana under a new name.


11:30 AM -- PROFESSIONAL SWEETHEART (1933)
A radio star's pure image leads to a fake engagement to a hayseed.
Dir: William A. Seiter
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, ZaSu Pitts
BW-73 mins, CC,

"Professional Sweetheart" was Ginger Rogers' first film for RKO and - ironically, since so much of the plot revolves around getting Rogers' character to sign a radio contract - she had not yet signed a long-term contract with RKO when she made this film.


1:00 PM -- THE PRODIGAL (1931)
A wealthy southern boy takes to the road as a hobo.
Dir: Harry Pollard
Cast: Lawrence Tibbett, Esther Ralston, Roland Young
BW-76 mins,

Filmed in 1930, released in 1931, after considerable editing.


2:30 PM -- ELMER THE GREAT (1933)
A country hick bats his way to baseball stardom.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Patricia Ellis, Frank McHugh
BW-72 mins, CC,

Gale Gordon's first film.


4:00 PM -- KISSIN' COUSINS (1964)
A singing military officer gets mixed up with his look-alike hillbilly cousin.
Dir: Gene Nelson
Cast: Elvis Presley, Arthur O'Connell, Glenda Farrell
C-96 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Elvis Presley supposedly loathed the "strawberry blond" wig he had to wear as the hillbilly cousin in this film, in part because it made him look as he had before deciding to dye his hair black in the mid-fifties.


5:45 PM -- A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957)
A female television executive turns a folk-singing drifter into a powerful media star.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa
BW-126 mins, CC,

When it came to casting, Elia Kazan selected several "people from Nashville; Lonesome Rhodes' friend who twitches his toes, he's from the Grand Ole Opry, a regular comedian there. We went around a lot of clubs, picking up entertainers. I had heard Andy Griffith on record, then I saw him on TV . . . He was the real native American country boy and that comes over in the picture. I had him drunk all through the last big scene because it was the only way he could be violent. In life, he wants to be friends with everybody."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: MONSTER OF THE MONTH: GODZILLA



8:00 PM -- GODZILLA VS. MEGALON (1973)
Dir: Jun Fukuda
Cast: Katsuhiko Sasaki, Hiroyuki Kawase, Yutaka Hayashi
BW-82 mins, Letterbox Format

Jet Jaguar was the earliest example of a fan-service in a Godzilla film, the result of a contest Toho had in mid-to-late 1972 for children to come up with a new hero for them to use (to capitalize on the many tokusatsu and anime superhero and super robot shows that were all the rage at the time). The winner of the contest was an elementary school student, who submitted the drawing of a robot called Red Arone, which superficially resembled both Ultraman and Mazinger Z (1972) (both of which were very popular at the time). The robot was renamed "Jet Jaguar" and was set to star in a film vehicle for him, titled "Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon," which pitted him against Megalon (a previously unused Godzilla enemy design). However, Toho figured Jet Jaguar would not be able to carry the film on his own, either in screen appearance or marketing value (which was very important to Toho), so they shut the project down during pre-production after doing some tests and storyboards. Less than a month later, screenwriter Shin'ichi Sekizawa was called in to rewrite the script to add Godzilla and Gigan, providing more marquee value (especially since Godzilla was still very popular with children). After revised pre-production, shooting took a hasty three weeks to make up for lost production time. Due to this delay, the total production time, from planning to finish, was six months.


9:30 PM -- GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA (1974)
Dir: Jun Fukuda
Cast: Masaaki Daimon, Kazuya Aoyama, Reiko Tajima
BW-84 mins, Letterbox Format

This was the first Godzilla film, in its original Japanese version, to finally give onscreen credit to the suitmation actors with the names of the respective monsters they played. (Up to that point, suitmation actors did receive onscreen credit, but just as regular cast members). All Toho-produced Godzilla films have since maintained this practice.


11:00 PM -- TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (1975)
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Katsuhiko Sasaki, Tomoko Ai, Toru Kawane
BW-83 mins, Letterbox Format

While filming the scene where a revived Godzilla vengefully charges towards Mechagodzilla (who unleashes his entire arsenal of weapons on him), the back of the Godzilla suit accidentally caught fire in one shot. This shot nonetheless remained in the final film.


12:30 AM -- THE WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS (1966)
Dir: Ishiro Honda
Cast: Russ Tamblyn, Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara
BW-88 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Russ Tamblyn reportedly hated working on the movie and often disobeyed the film crew's orders, causing much frustration to his peers. He considered the original script dreadful and rewrote or improvised a lot of his dialogue, at times confounding his Japanese interpreter. Nevertheless, he has warmed up to the film decades later and now claims that he likes it.


2:15 AM -- BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1970)
Dir: Russ Meyer
Cast: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom
BW-109 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Originally intended as a sequel to Valley of the Dolls (1967). Jacqueline Susann submitted a screenplay for a sequel, but when Fox found it unsatisfactory, their contract gave them the right to produce a separate version. Susann was reportedly so offended by the results that she threatened to sue 20th Century-Fox. As part of a settlement, Fox inserted the disclaimer "This is not a sequel to VALLEY OF THE DOLLS" in all advertising.


4:15 AM -- THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE (1968)
An obsessed movie director grooms an unknown to play his deceased movie-star wife.
Dir: Robert Aldrich
Cast: Kim Novak, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine
C-130 mins, CC,

When Kim Novak walks along Hollywood Boulevard, a theater she passes by is playing The Dirty Dozen (1967), a film Director Robert Aldrich made a year earlier, and whose commercial success made it possible for him to start his own production company, and make movies like this.