TCM Schedule for Thursday, July 23 -- TCM Spotlight - 1939

Today, murder is the subject of the day, including Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944). Tonight we continue the tribute to the films of 1939, through the night and continuing on Friday with five more films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Enjoy!


5:30am -- MGM Parade Show #19 (1955)
Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly perform in a clip from "Ziegfeld Follies"; George Murphy introduces a clip from "Ransom."
Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-25 mins, TV-G


6:00am -- Mystery in Swing (1940)
A newspaper reporter tries to solve a jazz musician's murder.
Cast: Monte Hawley, Marguerite Whitten, Tommie Moore, Edward Thompson
Dir: Arthur Dreifuss
BW-67 mins, TV-PG


7:15am -- My Favorite Brunette (1947)
A baby photographer mistaken for a private eye ends up framed for murder.
Cast: Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney
Dir: Elliott Nugent
BW-86 mins, TV-G


8:45am -- Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
A young girl fears her favorite uncle may be a killer.
Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey, Henry Travers
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-108 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Gordon McDonell


10:45am -- In a Lonely Place (1950)
An aspiring actress begins to suspect that her temperamental boyfriend is a murderer.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid
Dir: Nicholas Ray
BW-93 mins, TV-PG


12:30pm -- Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death.
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall
Dir: Billy Wilder
BW-108 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Barbara Stanwyck, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- John F. Seitz, Best Director -- Billy Wilder, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Miklós Rózsa, Best Sound, Recording -- Loren L. Ryder (Paramount SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture


2:30pm -- A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.
Cast: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward
Dir: Gerd Oswald
C-95 mins, TV-PG


4:15pm -- Toys In The Attic (1963)
Man finds trouble when he brings young bride back to his New Orleans home.
Cast: Dean Martin, Geraldine Page, Yvette Mimieux, Wendy Hiller
Dir: George Roy Hill
BW-91 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Bill Thomas


5:47pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: Sandpiper - The Big Sur (1965)
C-9 mins


6:00pm -- Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
A distraught mother searches for her seemingly non-existent daughter, bringing her sanity into question.
Cast: Keir Dullea, Carol Lynley, Lucie Mannheim, Noël Coward
Dir: Otto Preminger
BW-107 mins, TV-PG


7:48pm -- Short Film: From The Vaults: This Is...Geraldine Chaplin (1965)
BW-2 mins


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: 1939


8:00pm -- Of Mice and Men (1939)
A drifter and his slow-witted pal try to make their way in the West.
Cast: Burgess Meredith, Betty Field, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bickford
Dir: Lewis Milestone
BW-106 mins, TV-14

Nominated for Oscars for Best Music, Original Score -- Aaron Copland, Best Music, Scoring -- Aaron Copland, Best Sound, Recording -- Elmer Raguse (Hal Roach SSD), and Best Picture


10:00pm -- Dark Victory (1939)
A flighty heiress discovers inner strength when she develops a brain tumor.
Cast: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald
Dir: Edmund Goulding
BW-104 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner, and Best Picture


12:00am -- Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
A cold-hearted teacher becomes the school favorite when he's thawed by a beautiful young woman.
Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills
Dir: Sam Wood
BW-114 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Donat

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greer Garson, Best Director -- Sam Wood, Best Film Editing -- Charles Frend, Best Sound, Recording -- A.W. Watkins (Denham SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Eric Maschwitz, R.C. Sherriff and Claudine West, and Best Picture


2:00am -- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
An idealistic Senate replacement takes on political corruption.
Cast: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Dir: Frank Capra
BW-130 mins, TV-G

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Lewis R. Foster

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Harry Carey, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Claude Rains, Best Art Direction -- Lionel Banks, Best Director -- Frank Capra, Best Film Editing -- Gene Havlick and Al Clark, Best Music, Scoring -- Dimitri Tiomkin, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman, and Best Picture


4:15am -- The Old Maid (1939)
An unmarried mother gives her illegitimate child to her cousin.
Cast: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Jane Bryan
Dir: Edmund Goulding
BW-95 mins, TV-PG

Though it’s now universally revered as an ode to democratic ideals, Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was originally denounced by many Washington power-brokers. That may come as a bit of a shock if you haven’t seen this classic picture for several years. Jimmy Stewart’s lead performance made him a star, and is justly remembered as the key component of a beautifully constructed narrative. But Capra, for all his flag-waving and sometimes naive moralizing saved a great deal of bite for the hallowed halls of American government.

If not subversive, the movie is at least driven by a strong distaste for the misuse of power by our elected officials. This was an exceptionally gutsy message at a time when Americans were concerned with the rise of Nazism overseas, and Capra surely knew he would ruffle a few feathers. But he put his foot down and said exactly what he wanted to say, much like the film’s patriotic lead character. This is the kind of movie that makes you want to light up a sparkler.

Stewart plays Jefferson Smith, a young man who takes over after the unexpected death of a junior Senator. Smith is despised by his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur), and is quickly portrayed as an appointed yokel by the D.C. press. Undaunted, he tries to introduce a bill that would build a much needed boys’ camp in his state. When a powerful businessman named James Taylor (Edward Arnold) and the state’s senior Senator, Joseph Paine (Claude Raines), discover that the camp will be built on land that Taylor plans to sell for an enormous profit under the provisions of an impending bill, they try to bribe Smith.

Smith, of course, stands his ground, so the two men set about ruining him. This eventually leads to an unforgettable filibuster scene that solidified Stewart’s persona – the first persona of his multi-dimensional career, anyway - as a common man with bottomless reserves of backbone and dignity. (Stewart, in a move worthy of Robert De Niro, had a doctor administer dichloride of mercury near his vocal chords to give his voice the exhausted rasp he was looking for at the close of Smith’s filibuster.)

Capra nearly cast Gary Cooper, but finally settled on Stewart. “I knew he would make a hell of a Mr. Smith,” he said. “He looked like the country kid, the idealist. It was very close to him.” Stewart knew this was the role of a lifetime, one that could place him near the top of the Hollywood heap. Jean Arthur later remembered his mood at the time: “He was so serious when he was working on that picture, he used to get up at five o’clock in the morning and drive himself to the studio. He was so terrified something was going to happen to him, he wouldn’t go faster.”

Even in the classics-heavy year of 1939, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was a major achievement, arguably the finest picture of Capra’s storied career. It may wrap itself up a bit too easily, but you’d have to have a heart of stone to not be moved by the journey. Or, in lieu of that, you could be a U.S. Senator or Washington newspaper reporter circa 1939.

On October 17, 1939, the picture was previewed at Washington’s Constitution Hall. The preview was a major production featuring searchlights and a National Guard band playing patriotic tunes; The Washington Times-Herald even put out a special edition covering the event. Four thousand guests attended, 45 Senators among them. About two-thirds of the way through the film, the grumbling began, with people walking out. Some politicians were so enraged by how “they” were being portrayed in the movie, they actually shouted at the screen. At a party afterward, a drunken newspaper editor took a wild swing at Capra for including a drunken reporter as one of the characters!

Several politicians angrily spoke out against the film in newspaper editorials, which, in the long run, may have helped its box office. Sen. Alben W. Barkley viewed the picture as “a grotesque distortion” of the Senate, “as grotesque as anything ever seen! Imagine the Vice President of the United States winking at a pretty girl in the gallery in order to encourage a filibuster!” Barkley, who was lucky he didn’t get quoted on the film’s posters, also said, “...it showed the Senate as the biggest aggregation of nincompoops on record!”

Senator James F. Byrnes of South Carolina suggested that official action be taken against the film’s release...lest we play into the hands of Fascist regimes. And Pete Harrison, the respected editor of Harrison Reports, urged Congress to pass a bill allowing theater owners to refuse to show films – like Mr. Smith - that “were not in the best interest of our country.” And you thought the Dixie Chicks got a raw deal.

Not everyone, especially American moviegoers, saw Capra’s vision as an affront to democracy. Frank S. Nugent, a critic for The New York Times wrote, “(Capra) is operating, of course, under the protection of that unwritten clause in the Bill of Rights entitling every voting citizen to at least one free swing at the Senate. Mr. Capra’s swing is from the floor and in the best of humor; if it fails to rock the august body to its heels – from laughter as much as from injured dignity – it won’t be his fault but the Senate’s, and we should really begin to worry about the upper house.”

Produced/Directed by: Frank Capra
Screenplay: Sidney Buchman
Cinematography: Joseph Walker
Art Direction: Lionel Banks
Editors: Gene Havlick and Al Clark
Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Principal Cast: James Stewart (Jefferson Smith), Jean Arthur (Clarissa Saunders), Claude Raines (Sen. Joseph Paine), Edward Arnold (Jim Taylor), Harry Carey (President of the Senate), H.B. Warner (Sen. Fuller), Guy Kibbee (Gov. Hubert Hopper), Thomas Mitchell (Diz Moore), Eugene Pallette (Chick McGann), Beulah Bondi (Ma Smith).
BW-131m. Closed captioning.

by Paul Tatara