TCM Schedule for Thursday, November 27, 2014 -- What's On Tonight - Mischief and Mayhem

[Staph]

During the day, TCM is featuring films for and about kids, including the first Muppet movie that I remember showing on TCM. Prime time is full of troublemaking teens and tweens and younguns. Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Flipper (1963)
A fisherman in the Florida Keys opposes his son's friendship with a dolphin.
Dir: James B. Clark
Cast: Chuck Connors, Luke Halpin, Kathleen Maguire
C-90 mins, CC,

In an interview in 2012 Flipper writer and associate producer Ricou Browning said in 1961 he used his last $100 to write a book telling the boy and dolphin story and persuaded movie producer Ivan Tors to read the book. Tors like it so much he made the Flipper movie.


7:54 AM -- The Tree In A Test Tube (1943)
Laurel and Hardy demonstrate the various uses of wood in this short film.
Dir: Charles McDonald
C-6 mins,


8:00 AM -- Jack And The Beanstalk (1952)
A baby-sitter dreams himself and his best friend into the famous fairy tale.
Dir: Jean Yarbrough
Cast: (Bud) Abbott, (Lou) Costello, Buddy Baer
C-78 mins, CC,

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made an independent, two-picture deal in which they agreed that this was to be "Lou's film" and the next to be "Bud's". They retained individual ownership of the respective films.


9:30 AM -- The Little Princess (1939)
When her father is reported dead in war, his daughter fights harsh conditions at her boarding school.
Dir: Walter Lang
Cast: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise
C-93 mins, CC,

The reason Shirley Temple hadn't made a movie in Technicolor until this one was that the Technicolor company insisted that 1,000 foot-candle lights be used to get proper exposure on their film. These incredibly bright lights produced so much heat that the staff at Fox thought a child Temple's age would be hurt working under such conditions. So, with the cooperation of the Technicolor company, cinematographer Arthur C. Miller worked on a series of tests using lower levels of light, and finally discovered that 400 to 500 foot-candle lights would produce a satisfactory Technicolor image without generating so much heat to risk injuring Temple and the other children in the film's cast.


11:05 AM -- Little Pioneer (1937)
A young girl has several adventures in South Africa in this short film. Vitaphone Release 8157-8158.
Dir: Bobby Connolly
Cast: Jane Wyman, Carlyle Moore Jr., Bodil Rosing
C-18 mins,


11:30 AM -- Little Women (1949)
The four daughters of a New England family fight for happiness during and after the Civil War.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: June Allyson, Peter Lawford, Margaret O'Brien
C-122 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Cedric Gibbons, Paul Groesse, Edwin B. Willis and Jack D. Moore

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Robert H. Planck and Charles Edgar Schoenbaum

In the novel, Amy is the youngest sister, but in order to use Margaret O'Brien, as Beth, Beth was made the youngest.


1:45 PM -- The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
A World War II 4-F saves the U.S. Navy when he's transformed into a dolphin.
Dir: Arthur Lubin
Cast: Don Knotts, Carole Cook, Jack Weston
C-99 mins, CC,

Stephen Hillenburg studied the film's backgrounds for Spongebob Squarepants.


3:30 PM -- The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984)
Kermit and his friends try to get their musical produced on Broadway.
Dir: Frank Oz
Cast: Bruce Edward Hall, James J Kroupa, David Rudman
C-94 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song Score -- Jeff Moss

In an interview, Juliana Donald (Jenny) recalled how filming of the jogging scene in the park was temporarily delayed by a camera problem. In wide eyed amazement, a little boy passing by approached and started talking to Kermit the Frog, oblivious to Jim Henson operating him. Despite the surrounding commotion of technicians trying to fix the camera issue, Jim started interacting with the boy. Moments later, Jim found himself doing an impromptu performance with Kermit for an entire group of children who had gathered around to watch. Juliana said, "It was so memorable to me because time just stopped. It was a wonderfully magical moment where you experience someone's true joy with their work."


5:09 PM -- The King Of The Duplicators (1968)
This short film highlights the work of master make-up artist William Tuttle.
C-12 mins,


5:30 PM -- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
An eccentric inventor uses his flying car to free a kingdom of children from oppression.
Dir: Ken Hughes
Cast: Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries
BW-145 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman for the song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"

The film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" has a different story than the original book by James Bond creator Ian Fleming. The screen story was a creation of children's-book author Roald Dahl (of James and the Giant Peach (1996), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), etc.), who had recently written the screen story of You Only Live Twice (1967), the first Bond film to deviate severely from the original Fleming book. Fleming's "Chitty" story was about the Potts family and their flying motorcar who rescue a French candy maker and his family from ordinary gangsters led by Joe the Monster. The story of "Vulgaria" is entirely a Dahl creation, full of his distinctive stock characters and situations. Dahl also came up with the character name Truly Scrumptious, which is possibly a tribute to Fleming's stock of female characters with playful names such as Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore, and Kissy Suzuki.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: MISCHIEF AND MAYHEM



8:00 PM -- The Trouble With Angels (1966)
Two free spirits cause problems at a convent school.
Dir: Ida Lupino
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Binnie Barnes, Camilla Sparv
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Producer William Frye personally offered his friend Greta Garbo $1 million to play the Mother Superior in the film. When she declined, he offered the role to Rosalind Russell at a much lower salary.


10:00 PM -- Bright Eyes (1934)
Society snobs get more than they bargained for when they take in their late housekeeper's orphaned daughter.
Dir: David Butler
Cast: Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Jane Darwell
BW-85 mins, CC,

In the 1970's, Jane Withers told author Marjorie Rosen that she had got the part in "Bright Eyes" as a result of an open audition. All the other girls who auditioned had been carefully coached by their parents to act sweet and nice, trying to out-Shirley Temple Shirley Temple. Withers' parents were smarter; they realized that if Fox wanted another girl Temple's age for a Temple film, it would be to play a bad girl to Temple's good girl. So they coached Withers to play bad, and she got the part.


11:30 PM -- The Courtship Of Eddie's Father (1963)
A young boy plays matchmaker for his widowed father.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Glenn Ford, Shirley Jones, Stella Stevens
C-119 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Previously Ron Howard and Shirley Jones had played sister and brother in The Music Man (1962) while in this movie they probably become stepmother and stepson.


1:45 AM -- With Six You Get Eggroll (1968)
A widow and a widower have to contend with hostile children when they fall in love.
Dir: Howard Morris
Cast: Doris Day, Brian Keith, Pat Carroll
C-95 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Jamie Farr and William Christopher play supporting roles in this film as two hippie bikers. Five years later the two would co-star as Corporal Maxwell Q. Klinger and Lt. Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy on the television series M*A*S*H (1972-1983).


3:30 AM -- Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor
C-113 mins, CC,

Won a Juvenile Oscar Award for Margaret O'Brien for outstanding child actress of 1944

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- George Stoll, and Best Music, Original Song -- Ralph Blane and
Hugh Martin for the song "The Trolley Song"

Director Vincente Minnelli worked hard to make the movie as accurate to the times as possible. Not only did its novelist, Sally Benson, give explicit directions as to the decor of her home down to the last detail, but the movie's costume designer took inspiration for many of the movies costumes right out of the Sears & Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and Marshall Fields catalogs from the time period.


5:30 AM -- The Lady Vanishes (1938)
A young woman on vacation triggers an international incident when she tries to track an elderly friend who has disappeared.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas
BW-96 mins, CC,

In Hitchcock/Peter Bogdanovich Interview, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that Lady Vanishes was inspired by that legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880's, at the time of the Great Exposition. The woman was taken sick and they sent the girl across Paris to get some medicine, in a horse-vehicle, so it took about four hours, and when she came back she asked, "How's my mother?" "What mother?" "My mother. She's here, she's in her room. Room 22." They go up there. Different room, different wallpaper, everything. And the payoff of the whole story is, so the legend goes, that the woman had Bubonic plague and they dare not let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied. That was the original situation and pictures like Lady Vanishes were all variations on it.