TCM Schedule for Friday, January 2 -- Randolph Scott

Whatever happened to Randolph Scott, riding the range alone? Whatever happened to Gene and Tex and Roy and Rex the Durango Kid? This morning we view the films of early independent black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. This afternoon we have some of the less well known films of Humphrey Bogart. And tonight we have the western stylings of the immortal RS. Enjoy!


5:00am -- Show People (1928)
In this silent film, a small-town girl tries to make it in Hollywood.
Cast: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson, Paul Ralli
Dir: King Vidor
BW-79 mins, TV-G

The well known faces appearing in the banquet scene are, in the order they appear on screen: Dorothy Sebastian, Louella Parsons, Estelle Taylor, Claire Windsor, Aileen Pringle, Karl Dane, George K. Arthur, Leatrice Joy, Renée Adorée, Rod La Rocque, Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Norma Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Marion Davies, and William S. Hart.


5:20am -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Goofy Movies #9 (1934)
Narrator: Pete Smith
BW-10 mins

One of ten Goofy Movies by documentarian Pete Smith. Not related to Mickey and Donald's friend Goofy Goof.


6:30am -- Within Our Gates (1920)
In this silent film, a black schoolteacher finds the battle against racism is everywhere when she goes North to raise money for better schools.
Cast: Evelyn Preer, Flo Clements, James D. Ruffin.
Dir: Oscar Micheaux
BW-78 mins, TV-14

This film was thought to be lost until it resurfaced in the early-1990s, in the Filmoteca Espanol in Madrid, Spain.


8:00am -- The Symbol of the Unconquered (1921)
In this silent film, a black heiress fights off the Ku Klux Klan to save her land.
Cast: Iris Hall, Walker Thompson, Lawrence Chenault
Dir: Oscar Micheaux
BW-59 mins, TV-PG

Oscar Micheaux was the first African-American to produce a feature film, The Homesteader (1919), and was the first African-American to produce a sound feature film, The Exile (1931).


9:00am -- Swing! (1938)
A seamstress tries to stop her husband from gambling and philandering.
Cast: Cora Green, Larry Seymour, Hazel Diaz.
Dir: Oscar Micheaux
BW-69 mins, TV-PG

The soundtrack includes Bei Mir Bist Du Schön, Heaven Help This Heart Of Mine, Once I Did, and I Got Rhythm, Boy.


10:15am -- Swing High, Swing Low (1937)
When success goes to his head, a bandleader could lose everything.
Cast: Carole Lombard, Fred MacMurray, Charles Butterworth
Dir: Mitchell Leisen
C-83 mins, TV-PG

The play, "Burlesque," opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 1 September 1927 and closed in July 1928 after 372 performances. The opening night cast included Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Levant and Charles D. Brown. It was revived in 1946 and ran for 2 seasons with Bert Lahr and Jean Parker.


11:45am -- Swing Your Lady (1938)
A wrestling promoter stranded in the South pits his star grappler against a lady blacksmith.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Louise Fazenda, Penny Singleton
Dir: Ray Enright
BW-77 mins, TV-G

Adapted from a Broadway play by Kenyon Nicholson and Charles Robinson. The original stage production opened at the Booth Theatre in New York on October 18, 1936 and ran for 105 performances. The opening night cast included John Alexander, Walter Baldwin, Hope Emerson, Matt McHugh and Dennie Moore.


1:03pm -- Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Streamlined Swing (1938)
A group of stable boys sing to encourage their racehorse.
Cast: The Original Sing Band
Dir: Buster Keaton
BW-9 mins

Buster Keaton was voted the 7th Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly, making him the highest rated comedy director. Charles Chaplin didn't make the list.


1:15pm -- It All Came True (1940)
A gangster hides out in a boardinghouse full of eccentrics.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Jeffrey Lynn, ZaSu Pitts, Ann Sheridan
Dir: Lewis Seiler
BW-97 mins, TV-PG

Producer Mark Hellinger's dislike for executive producer Hal B. Wallis became even stronger after this film was released. Though the film was critically acclaimed and made money for Warners, print ads at the time mentioned Hal B. Wallis as executive producer (though uncredited in the film), Jack L. Warner in charge of production and Lewis Seiler as director, but did not even mention Mark Hellinger, who had received screen credit as producer. This was one of the contributing factors to Hellinger soon leaving Warners for 20th Century Fox. (Source: "The Mark Hellinger Story" by Jim Bishop, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952)


3:00pm -- Dead Reckoning (1947)
A tough veteran sets out to solve his war buddy's murder.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Morris Carnovsky, Lizabeth Scott
Dir: John Cromwell
BW-100 mins, TV-PG

In the train scene, after they discover that Drake is to receive the Medal of Honor, Murdock (Bogart) quips that maybe the president will let Drake "sit on top of his piano". This is a reference to a then-scandalous photo of Harry Truman playing piano with a leggy blonde on top that was taken at the National Press Club in 1945. The blonde was Lauren Bacall.


4:45pm -- Knock On Any Door (1949)
A crusading lawyer fights to save a juvenile delinquent charged with murder.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, John Derek
Dir: Nicholas Ray
BW-100 mins, TV-PG

When Humphrey Bogart was told that director Nicholas Ray wanted to film the entire 'sentencing statement for the defense' sequence in a single take, Bogart was concerned because he had never delivered such a long speech without cuts and feared he couldn't do it. Ray calmed Bogart down, suggested several rehearsals, and much to Bogart's surprise, Ray rolled during the rehearsals filming most of what has become the famous and well played sentencing sequence.


6:30pm -- Battle Circus (1953)
A doctor fights for his life during the Korean War.
Cast: June Allyson, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Keith, Keenan Wynn
Dir: Richard Brooks
BW-90 mins, TV-PG

The film originally had a different title but the studio and the director thought that title would mislead audiences, so the title "Battle Circus" was instead chosen. The title that was rejected: "MASH".


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: RANDOLPH SCOTT


8:00pm -- The Tall T (1957)
An out-of-luck cowhand falls for a married woman being held hostage.
Cast: Richard Boone, Maureen O'Sullivan
Dir: Budd Boetticher
C-78 mins, TV-PG

Columbia Pictures released this film on a double bill with Hellcats of the Navy (1957) starring Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy Davis.


9:30pm -- Ride Lonesome (1959)
A bounty hunter tries to bring a murderer to justice through perilous territory.
Cast: Karen Steele
Dir: Budd Boetticher
C-73 mins, TV-PG

Feature film debut of James Coburn.


11:00pm -- The Cariboo Trail (1950)
A cattleman fights to establish a ranch in the middle of gold country.
Cast: Karin Booth, Victor Jory, Bill Williams, Randolph Scott
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
C-81 mins, TV-G

Final feature film appearance of George 'Gabby' Hayes.


12:30am -- Western Union (1941)
An outlaw goes straight to work for the telegraph company, which puts him in conflict with his lawless brother.
Cast: Virginia Gilmore, Dean Jagger, Randolph Scott, Robert Young
Dir: Fritz Lang
C-95 mins, TV-PG

Studio publicity noted that Fox contract star Henry Fonda had served as technical adviser on the film, due to his experience as a young man working as a lineman. Fonda's "technical advisory" capacity was most certainly a publicity fiction, and in any event Fonda was not credited on the film itself.


2:15am -- Sonny Boy (1990)
A small-town crook and his cross-dressing "wife" abuse their adopted son to make him the perfect criminal accomplice.
Cast: David Carradine, Paul L. Smith, Brad Dourif
Dir: Robert Martin Carroll
C-97 mins, TV-MA

Interesting casting -- Kwai Chang Caine of the TV series Kung Fu as the transvestite wife of the Beast Rabban of David Lynch's Dune (1984).


4:00am -- Spider Baby (1968)
Greedy relatives try to repossess the decaying mansion of an inbred Southern family.
Cast: Lon Chaney Jr., Sid Haig, Quinn K Redeker
Dir: Jack Hill
BW-84 mins, TV-PG

The film was shot in August and September of 1964 with the title "Cannibal Orgy, or The Maddest Story Ever Told", but its release was held up for years due to the producers going bankrupt. Independent producer David L. Hewitt acquired it for distribution in 1968 and changed the title to "Spider Baby" and then later "The Liver Eaters."


5:30am -- Festival of Shorts #30 (2000)
TCM promotes two MGM Passing Parade informational shorts;

A Way in the Wilderness (1940)
This Passing Parade entry tells the story of Dr. Joseph Goldberger (1874-1929), a Hungarian immigrant who devoted his life to finding the cause of pellagra.
Cast: Shepperd Strudwick
Dir: Fred Zinneman
BW-11 mins

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front and behind the camera. The dynamics of creating a successful short subject are completely different from those of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget and schedule, and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the studios' feature films.

Your Last Act (1941)
This short looks at the odd bequests that people have made in their wills over the years.
Cast: Vince Barnett, Edward Hearn, Claire McDowell
Dir: Fred Zinneman
C-23 mins, TV-G

Fred Zinneman really hit his stride in the late 1940s. He won Best Director Oscars for From Here to Eternity (1953) and A Man for All Seasons (1967), as well as for Best Documentary -- Benjy (1951). He was nominated as Best Director five times, for The Search (1948), High Noon (1952), The Nun's Story (1959), The Sundowners (1960), and Julia (1977).

Better known for his German epics of the silent era (Metropolis <1927> and Die Nibelungen <1924>) or his American films noir (Scarlet Street <1945> and The Big Heat <1953>), Fritz Lang was actually quite a fan of the traditional western. In fact he spent vacations traveling throughout the West, shooting dozens of home movies recording the landscape and people of the Old West as it faded into history. "All my life I've loved the American West," he once said.

Lang's interest in cowboy culture was not strictly a hobby. He made several westerns while working in Hollywood, including the Technicolor epic Western Union (1941).

When Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott), a fugitive from justice, encounters a wounded man in the wilderness, he tends the man's wounds and helps him to a town where he can receive medical attention. The wounded man is Edward Creighton (Dean Jagger), an engineer in charge of running a telegraph wire from Omaha to Salt Lake City. While hiring men for the difficult crusade, Creighton overlooks Shaw's criminal background and offers him a job as a scout to repay the debt. Shaw quickly becomes interested in Creighton's sister Sue (Virginia Gilmore), as does the tenderfoot Richard Blake (Robert Young), who joins the mission from back east, sporting fringed, tailored western attire. Blake soon earns the respect of his peers as they travel into the wilderness. But friendships grow strained when the group's supply of cattle is stolen. Creighton suspects Shaw knows something of the crime, which he does. Shaw recognizes the work of his own brother Jack Slade (Barton MacLane), whose gang rustles cattle dressed up as Native American warriors. Unwilling to betray his brother, Shaw searches for a way to avenge the crimes without jeopardizing Western Union's westward campaign.

Western Union was the final novel by Western writer Zane Grey. The book was published three days prior to the author's death of a heart attack on October 23, 1939. Grey had discussed with actor Gary Cooper the idea of an independent production of Western Union (to be released by either United Artists or RKO), but it failed to materialize. At one point Paramount Pictures was also interested in purchasing screen rights, but Fox ultimately won the property with a $25,000 offer.

In many ways Western Union is a relatively authentic depiction of life and work in the Old West, largely due to location shooting near Kanab, Utah and at Arizona's House Rock Canyon. The outstanding Technicolor photography, by Edward Cronjager and Allen M. Davey, made the most of the exotic settings, favoring muted colors and dusky earthtones, occasionally offset by bursts of vivid color, such as the warpaint or ceremonial feathers of the Native American characters. American Cinematographer called it "one of the most spectacularly beautiful examples of color cinematography we've seen in many months."

Western Union tried to avoid the artifice of the stereotypical western, and the scene in which Blake arrives dressed more like a stage dandy than a horseman seems to be a jab at the colorful (but not very genuine) cowboys who populated matinee screens of the era.

Lang discussed the film's authenticity with Peter Bogdanovich in 1965. "I got a letter from a club of Old Timers in Flagstaff which said, 'Dear Mr. Lang, We have seen Western Union and this picture describes the West much better than the best pictures that have been made about the West...' For a European director to get such a thing from Old Timers who knew about the West -- I was, naturally, very flattered; but I suppose what these gentlemen wrote was not quite correct. Because I don't think the picture really depicted the West as it was; maybe it lived up to certain dreams, illusions -- what the Old Timers wanted to remember of the old West."

One of Lang's departures from reality was in the casting of the Native Americans. Because the local Paiute tribesmen didn't fit the stereotype of the chiseled desert warrior, Lang (according to The New York Times), "ordered a shipment of Hollywood Indians from Central Casting -- tall, high cheek-boned fellows who look like aborigines are supposed to look." This order was soon canceled, after Lang discussed the matter with John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Collier allowed Lang to instead recruit 200 Navajos from a reservation, under the promise that they would be treated with dignity.

Lang was astute enough to realize that, no matter how well constructed and photographed, his West was just a higher grade of fantasy than the typical Hollywood oater. He had tried to inject some period detail into Western Union, but quickly encountered resistance at 20th Century-Fox. "I had found...that there were cowboys in those days who wore bowler hats. But this was already too much for the studio. Not that they didn't believe it, but they always preferred to give an audience the same old thing -- with some new trimming." When first offered the project, Lang thoroughly rewrote the script, presumably to give it more of a factual feel, but his draft was discarded by the studio. Still believing in the project, even if his ideas were largely ignored, he agreed to continue as planned and direct the film. Besides, maybe the true story of Western Union's westward expansion wouldn't have made such a great movie anyway.

"In reality, nothing happened during the entire building of the line except that they ran out of wood for the telegraph poles," Lang explained, "and the only other thing that disturbed the laying of the line was the ticks on the buffaloes; the buffaloes got itchy and rubbed themselves against the poles, and the poles tumbled. And that was all that happened."

Making a film about laying the telegraph line was apparently twice as complicated as the original task. A 1941 newspaper article reported that "In 1861 it cost $212,000 to extend the telegraph...and the crew took four months and eleven days, covering 1,100 miles. To reproduce their feat in 1940, a company of 300 traveled 2,000 miles in ten months, at a cost of more than $1,000,000."

Lang and company seem to have also doubled the amount of planning that went into the mission. Assistant editor Gene Fowler, Jr. recalled, "On Western Union I learned of the immense preparation that goes into a Lang picture...Models of sets were built and camera angles and focal lengths of lenses were selected. He believed that each shot must relate to the whole. The design of the shot (even the lighting) must relate to the dramatic concept. Details, no matter how good or how interesting, are only good if they fit into the overall pattern."

Director: Fritz Lang
Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck
Screenplay: Robert Carson, based on the novel by Zane Grey
Cinematography: Edward Cronjager and Allen M. Davey
Production Design: Richard Day and Albert Hogsett
Music: David Buttolph
Cast: Randolph Scott (Vance Shaw), Dean Jagger (Edward Creighton), Robert Young (Richard Blake), Virginia Gilmore (Sue Creighton), John Carradine (Doc Murdoch), Slim Summerville (Herman), Chill Wills (Homer Kettle), Barton MacLane (Jack Slade).
C-96m. Closed captioning.

by Bret Wood