TCM Schedule for Friday, January 11, 2013 -- What's On Tonight -- Epic Roadshow Comedies

[Staph]

Today we've got a day full of the films of George Raft, and in the evening we're watching epic roadshows. Get yer pies for the epic pie fight and enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Love Is A Racket (1932)
A beautiful girl convinces a reporter to cover up her involvement in a murder.
Dir: William A. Wellman
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ann Dvorak, Frances Dee
BW-71 mins, TV-G,

George Raft's scenes were deleted.


7:15 AM -- Each Dawn I Die (1939)
A crusading reporter becomes a hardened convict when he's framed.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan
BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC,

This was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's favorite American movie.


9:00 AM -- They Drive by Night (1940)
Truck driving brothers are framed for murder by a lady psycho.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino
BW-95 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The wife of producer Mark Hellinger, Gladys Glad, a former showgirl for Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., was responsible for getting this film made. Hellinger had brought home a large stack of scripts that he was to read for filming consideration. Hellinger had leafed through the script and read the summary, but felt that "nobody would pay money to see a bunch of truck drivers". His wife read this script, liked it, and pressured Hellinger to read it. Reluctantly, he did, the film eventually got made and became the sleeper hit of the year for Warners. It was made for an estimated $400,000 and grossed more than $4,000,000. (Source: Book "The Mark Hellinger Story" by Jim Bishop, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952)


10:45 AM -- Manpower (1941)
Power linemen feud over the love of a sultry nightclub singer.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marlene Dietrich, George Raft
BW-103 mins, TV-PG, CC,

While visiting his friend George Raft on the set, Bugsy Siegel was introduced to Virginia Hill. In the scene where Raft gets into a brawl with Barton MacLane, Hill appears as the hat-check girl to whom Raft gives a smashed chair as he leaves the nightclub. The brawl scene and Bugsy Siegel's first meeting with Virginia Hill on the gas station movie set are recreated in Bugsy.


12:30 PM -- Background To Danger (1943)
An American gets caught up in wartime action in Turkey.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet
BW-80 mins, TV-G, CC,

The three photographs of possible Roumanian secret agents which McNamara shows Joe were those of the Warner Bros. contract players 'Paul Panzer', Glen Cavender and Stuart Holmes. Those three are not actually in the movie. The fourth photograph was that of Leo White who is seen in an early scene whispering in someone's ear.


2:00 PM -- Johnny Angel (1946)
A sailor sets out to solve his father's murder.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: George Raft, Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso
BW-79 mins, TV-G, CC,

Based on a novel by Charles G. Booth.


3:30 PM -- Nocturne (1946)
A police detective refuses to believe a composer's death was suicide.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: George Raft, Lynn Bari, Virginia Huston
BW-87 mins, TV-PG,

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003).


5:00 PM -- Race Street (1948)
A night-club owner takes on the crooks who killed his best friend.
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
Cast: George Raft, William Bendix, Marilyn Maxwell
BW-79 mins, TV-PG,

George Raft was a close friend of notorious gangster Benjamin Bugsy Siegel since their childhood in New York. Siegel actually lived at Raft's home in Hollywood for a time while trying to make inroads for organized crime within the movie colony.


6:30 PM -- A Dangerous Profession (1950)
A bail bondsman is asked to raise money to free his girlfriend's husband.
Dir: Ted Tetzlaff
Cast: George Raft, Ella Raines, Pat O'Brien
BW-79 mins, TV-PG, CC,

The life of a bail bondsman is a lot more interesting in the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich!



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: EPIC ROADSHOW COMEDIES



8:00 PM -- It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
A group of greedy clowns tears up the countryside in search of buried treasure.
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar
C-159 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Walter Elliott

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Ernest Laszlo, Best Film Editing -- Frederic Knudtson, Robert C. Jones and Gene Fowler Jr., Best Music, Original Song -- Ernest Gold (music) and Mack David (lyrics) for the song "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World", Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Ernest Gold, and Best Sound -- Gordon Sawyer (Samuel Goldwyn SSD)

The billboard that the twin-engine Beechcraft flies through was made of thin balsa wood, except for a thicker frame for support. Stunt pilot Frank Tallman had to fly the aircraft directly through the center of the billboard or the thicker frame would shear off a wing. The billboard was located at the end of the runway of the Chino Airport(40 miles from L.A. and just southeast of Pomona, CA) which made it ideal and isolated enough for filming. It was placed at runway's end due to the fact that the plane's prop would come to a halt after crashing through the wood, making it necessary for the pilot to land immediately. He did just that, flying through the billboard and landing on the runway directly behind it.


11:00 PM -- The Great Race (1965)
A bumbling villain plots to win an early 20th-century auto race.
Dir: Blake Edwards
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood
C-160 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Effects, Sound Effects -- Treg Brown

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Russell Harlan, Best Film Editing -- Ralph E. Winters, Best Music, Original Song -- Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "The Sweetheart Tree", and Best Sound -- George Groves (Warner Bros. SSD)

Features the largest pie fight ever staged, with a running gag that The Great Leslie remains clean while everyone else is covered in pie. Tony Curtis was required to change clothes several times when he was accidentally splattered with debris from a pie that had hit someone else. The pies used during the pie throwing scene were real, containing fruit, custard, whipped cream and other ingredients. Following this scene the crew devoured more than 300 leftover pies.


2:00 AM -- The Psychopath (1966)
Four men who were involved in the investigation of a German millionaire at the end of WW II are found murdered with tiny dolls left next to their corpses.
Dir: Freddie Francis
Cast: Patrick Wymark, Margaret Johnston, John Standing
C-82 mins,

The final film role of Harold Lang.


3:30 AM -- Murders In The Rue Morgue (1971)
A Parisian theater owner producing a Grand Guignol play discovers a string of murders on set.
Dir: Gordon Hessler
Cast: Jason Robards [Jr.], Christine Kaufmann, Herbert Lom
C-98 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

Jason Robards thought he was miscast in this project.


5:00 AM -- Wonderful World of Tupperware (1959)
Industrial film showing the making of Tupperware.
C-29 mins, TV-G,


5:30 AM -- We Learn About the Telephone (1965)
A graphic artist teaches his nephew and niece how the telephone works through animation.
Dir: Jean Yarbrough
Cast: William Boyett, Pat Cardi, Pam Ferden
C-25 mins, TV-G,

[graham4anything]

1. It's a mad mad mad mad world

who would have thought Spencer Tracy would do a blockbuster like this.

This might have started the later trend of these type movies.