TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 27 -- TCM Spotlight -- Race and Hollywood [View All]

Today we have a day full of movies about today...and about tomorrow...and about yesterday and Saturday and Sunday and, well, you get the picture. It's a day about days. And tonight we have a series of documentaries and docu-dramas about Native Americans. Enjoy!


4:00am -- Thousands Cheer (1943)
An egotistical acrobat joins the Army and falls in love with his commander's daughter.
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Mary Astor, John Boles
Dir: George Sidney
C-125 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Daniel B. Cathcart, Edwin B. Willis and Jacques Mersereau, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Herbert Stothart

Eleanor Powell's first color film and last MGM film.


6:15am -- Today We Live (1933)
An aristocratic English girl's tangled love life creates havoc during World War I.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young, Franchot Tone
Dir: Howard Hawks
BW-113 mins, TV-G

Variety reported in its review that director Howard Hawks used footage from the movie Hell's Angels (1930) for the big bomber expedition sequence, the main dogfight, and the head-on collision of two airplanes.


8:15am -- Tomorrow We Live (1942)
A master criminal uses mind control to force an ex-con to commit crimes.
Cast: Ricardo Cortez, Jean Parker, Emmett Lynn, William Marshall
Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer
BW-63 mins, TV-PG

"Latin lover" Ricardo Cortez was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1899, as Jacob Krantz! He started in Hollywood shortly after the death of Rudolph Valentino, so Paramount tried to turn him into the next Valentino. Cortez would be the only actor to ever have his name above Greta Garbo when she appeared with him in her first American movie, Torrent (1926).


9:30am -- Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.
Cast: Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Giuffrè, Agostino Salvietti
Dir: Vittorio De Sica
C-114 mins, TV-14

Won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film -- Italy

The Italian name of the film is Leri, Oggi, Domani.


11:30am -- Wednesday's Child (1934)
After testifying at his parents' divorce trial, a young boy is shipped off to military school when neither parent wants him around.
Cast: Karen Morley, Edward Arnold, Frankie Thomas, Robert Shayne
Dir: John Robertson
BW-68 mins, TV-G

The play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 16 January 1934 and closed in March 1934 after 56 performances. The opening night cast included Frankie Thomas, who originated his movie role in the play, and Mona Bruns. Both made their motion picture debuts in this film.


12:45pm -- Saturday's Children (1940)
A young inventor's new marriage is jeopardized by financial problems.
Cast: John Garfield, Anne Shirley, Claude Rains, Roscoe Karns
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-102 mins, TV-PG

James Stewart was to play "Rims Rosson" but was replaced by John Garfield. Jane Bryan was to play "Boby Halevy", but she retired to get married and was replaced by Olivia de Havilland, who was suspended when she refused the part. Una Merkel had the role of "Florrie Sands" but was replaced by Lee Patrick when she became ill.


2:30pm -- Saturday's Heroes (1938)
A college football star rebels against the exploitation of the game and its players.
Cast: Van Heflin, Marian Marsh, Richard Lane, Minor Watson
Dir: Edward Killy
BW-60 mins, TV-G

Van Heflin was 27 years old when he played the college football star in this film.


3:45pm -- Sunday Punch (1942)
A young girl copes with a boarding house full of boxers.
Cast: William Lundigan, Jean Rogers, Dan Dailey Jr., Guy Kibbee
Dir: David Miller
BW-76 mins, TV-G

Based on a story by Fay Kanin, wife of writer/producer Michael Kanin and sister-in-law of writer/director Garson Kanin and his wife, actress Ruth Gordon. Family get-togethers would have been truly entertaining with this family!


5:30pm -- Sunday In New York (1963)
A philandering pilot gets real moral, real fast when his sister contemplates a premarital fling.
Cast: Rod Taylor, Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp
Dir: Peter Tewksbury
C-105 mins, TV-PG

Despite signs that read Idlewild International Airport (later renamed Kennedy International Airport after the assassination of JFK), the airport scenes were filmed at the clearly recognizable Los Angeles International Airport, including the long corridor of mosaic tile that Cliff Robertson runs down, and - reflected in a window of a door when Robertson leaves the terminal and walks downstairs to the tarmac - the famous Theme Building.


7:30pm -- Now Playing June (2010)
A preview of the films showing on TCM in the month of June.


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: RACE AND HOLLYWOOD


8:00pm -- Nanook of the North (1922)
This pioneering documentary depicts the harsh life of an eskimo and his family.
Cast: Personages:, Nanook, Nyla, Al Lee
Dir: Robert Flaherty
BW-65 mins, TV-G

The film was sponsored by French fur company Revillon Freres which provided $50,000 for Flaherty's 16-month expedition halfway to the North Pole. Despite being rejected by five distributors, the film opened in New York City in 1922, after its success in Paris and Berlin, and grossed well over $40,000 in its first week.


9:15pm -- The Exiles (1961)
Three young Native Americans feel lost and isolated when they leave the reservation for the big city.
Cast: Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish, Tommy Reynolds
Dir: Kent Mackenzie
BW-73 mins, TV-PG

Tragically, this moving and brilliantly shot collaboration between filmmaker Mackenzie and the young men and women whose lives he documented never received a commercial release. For years the film was almost impossible to find. So, when filmmaker Thom Andersen included glowing night scenes from THE EXILES in his 2003 compilation documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, viewers were enthralled with the poetry of the images.


11:00pm -- Incident at Oglala (1992)
When two federal agents are killed in a shootout with Native Americans, only one man stands trial, although many are convinced of his innocence.
Cast: Leonard Peltier, John Trudell, Robert Redford
Dir: Michael Apted
C-91 mins, TV-14

Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) was convicted and sentenced in 1977 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Two others seen near the scene of the crime were never tried. Peltier is currently incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. His projected release date is October 11, 2040.


1:00am -- Broken Rainbow (1985)
The government relocation of 10,000 Navajo sheds light on continuing mistreatment of Native Americans.
Cast: Burgess Meredith, Martin Sheen
Dir: Victoria Mudd.
C-69 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Documentary, Features -- Maria Florio and Victoria Mudd

Behind the scenes, argues the film, it was all about mining rights as Peabody Coal used the Hopi tribal council through its attorney, John Boyden, to evict Diné families who had lived in peace with Hopi people for centuries. As context, the film discusses the Long Walk, arbitrary reservation boundaries, the advent of Indian schools, the formation of compliant tribal councils, excavation contracts for coal, uranium, oil and natural gas that paid impoverished tribes pennies on the dollar, and the apologetics of elected officials, including Morris Udall.


2:15am -- The Silent Enemy (1930)
The story of the Ojibway Indians before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
Cast: Chief Yellow Robe, Chief Long Lance, Chief Akawanush, Spotted Elk
Dir: H. P. Carver
BW-84 mins, TV-PG

Contains one of the very first zoom lens shots in cinema.


3:45am -- The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976)
An English lord who had once lived among the Indians returns to save his tribe from ruthless trappers.
Cast: Gale Sondergaard, Richard Harris, Geoffrey Lewis, William Lucking
Dir: Irvin Kershner
C-126 mins, TV-14

On account of this film, which George Lucas found to be better than its predecessor, he hired Irvin Kershner to direct Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980).