TCM Schedule for Saturday, January 14, 2017 -- What's On Tonight - Starring Warren Oates

[Staph]

Tonight's not-quite-the-Essentials features films starring quintessential character actor, Warren Oates. Enjoy!


6:30 AM -- CLEOPATRA (1912)
In this silent film, Cleopatra shakes the Roman Empire with her legendary affair with Marc Antony.
Dir: Charles L. Gaskill
Cast: Helen Gardner, Mr. Sindelar, Harley Knoles
BW-88 mins,

William Shakespeare's play was produced in London circa 1606-7; Victorien Sardou's play, "Cléopatre", opened in Paris on 23 October 1890.


8:00 AM -- NORTHWEST PASSAGE (1940)
True story of Rogers' Rangers and their fight to open up new frontiers for Colonial America.
Dir: King Vidor
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Walter Brennan, Robert Young
C-127 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Sidney Wagner and William V. Skall

The most demanding scene for the actors involved the filming of the "human chain" employed by the Rangers to cross a treacherous river. The actors themselves had to do the shots without the benefit of stunt doubles. The sequence was begun at Payette Lake in Idaho but had to be completed in the studio tank because the lake was far too dangerous. For Spencer Tracy, who once complained that the physical labors required of actors "wouldn't tax an embryo," it was his most difficult shoot to that point, surpassing even the taxing ocean scenes of his Oscar-winning Captains Courageous (1937).


10:15 AM -- THE MILLION DOLLAR NICKEL (1952)
This propaganda short focuses on how the war against Communism can be fought by the purchase of a stamp.
BW-9 mins,


10:30 AM -- SPOOK CHASERS (1957)
The Bowery Boys go after crooks hiding in a haunted house.
Dir: George Blair
Cast: Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Darlene Fields
BW-61 mins, CC,

The forty-fifth of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.


11:47 AM -- NOSTRADAMUS AND THE QUEEN (1953)
In this short film, an elderly Catherine de Medici reflects back on how the prophecies of Nostradamus accurately predicted her fate.
Cast: Forrest Taylor, Grandon Rhodes, Maria Palmer
BW-11 mins,


12:00 PM -- MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID (1952)
True story of Annette Kellerman, the world's first great swimming star.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Esther Williams, Victor Mature, Walter Pidgeon
C-110 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey

Esther Williams broke her neck diving off a 50-foot tower during the sequence in which she wears a golden swimming costume. She spent six months in a body cast before recovering to complete the film.


2:00 PM -- QUENTIN DURWARD (1955)
A gallant Scots knight falls in love with his uncle's future wife.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Robert Taylor, Kay Kendall, Robert Morley
C-101 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The lead was first offered to Grace Kelly, who declined.


4:00 PM -- THE SEARCHERS (1956)
An Indian-hating Civil War veteran tracks down the tribe that slaughtered his family and kidnapped his niece.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles
C-119 mins, CC,

A significant portion of the film's labyrinthine plot is revealed on a throwaway prop that most casual viewers rarely notice. Just before the Indian raid on the Edwards homestead, the tombstone (of Ethan's mother) that Debbie hides next to reveals the source of Ethan's glaring hatred for Comanches. The marker reads: "Here lies Mary Jane Edwards killed by Commanches May 12, 1852. A good wife and mother in her 41st year."


6:15 PM -- THE TARNISHED ANGELS (1958)
A newsman falls for the wife of a barnstorming pilot whose work he's covering.
Dir: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone
BW-91 mins, Letterbox Format

During the location shooting in San Diego of this film, Robert Stack's wife was about to have their first child. While filming the tense scene where Stack propositions his own wife (played by Dorothy Malone), suddenly a plane flew right by the cameras with letters tailing four feet tall proclaiming IT'S A GIRL! Rock Hudson had arranged to have the hospital call immediately when the news came and hired a stunt pilot to tow the message behind the plane. Stack was deeply moved by Hudson's generosity, saying in his autobiography, "It's a moment I've never forgotten. Anybody who tells me that Rock Hudson isn't a first-class gent had better put up his dukes."



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STARRING WARREN OATES



8:00 PM -- IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)
A black police detective from the North forces a bigoted Southern sheriff to accept his help with a murder investigation.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates
C-110 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rod Steiger, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Stirling Silliphant, Best Sound, Best Film Editing -- Hal Ashby, and Best Picture

Nominated for Oscars for Best Director -- Norman Jewison, and Best Effects, Sound Effects -- James Richard

This was the first major Hollywood film in color that was lit with proper consideration for an actor with dark skin. Haskell Wexler recognized that standard lighting used in filming produced too much glare on most black actors and others of dark complexion. Wexler toned down the lighting to feature Sidney Poitier with better results.


10:00 PM -- PRIVATE PROPERTY (1960)
Two young criminals set out to seduce an unhappy married woman.
Dir: Leslie Stevens
Cast: Corey Allen, Warren Oates, Kate Manx
BW-80 mins,

Shot in ten days.


11:30 PM -- DILLINGER (1973)
The famed bank robber becomes a folk hero while rising to become Public Enemy Number One.
Dir: John Milius
Cast: Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Michelle Phillips
C-107 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

While drinking in the bar, Billie comments that John Dillinger looks like Douglas Fairbanks. While Dillinger looks nothing like Fairbanks, it is a reference to Dillinger's admiration of Fairbanks. In real life, Dillinger, a movie buff, loved Fairbanks in The Mark of Zorro (1920) and its sequels. In the films one of Fairbanks's stunts was to leap over mesa walls. Dillinger supposedly loved the stunt so much that in early robberies, Dillinger used to vault over teller cages, imitating Fairbanks's moves from the movies.


1:30 AM -- THE DISTANT DRUMMER: A MOVABLE SCENE (1970)
An education short film that exposes drug use and drug culture.
Dir: William Templeton
C-22 mins,


2:00 AM -- TERMINAL ISLAND (1973)
Civil War breaks out between the inmates on an island prison.
Dir: Stephanie Rothman
Cast: Phyllis Davis, Don Marshall, Ena Hartman
C-88 mins, Letterbox Format

The film has the same premise as later films Escape from New York (1981), No Escape (1994) and Escape from L.A. (1996).


3:30 AM -- PENITENTIARY (1980)
A man wrongly convicted of murder enters the prison boxing tournament.
Dir: Jamaa Fanaka
Cast: Leon Isaac Kennedy, Thommy Pollard, Hazel Spears
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The fight in the jail cell between Badja Djola and Leon Isaac Kennedy took three days to film. Neither Djola nor Kennedy used stunt doubles for this brutal and lengthy fight set piece.


5:15 AM -- DUCK AND COVER (1951)
In this short film, a monkey's prank on a turtle demonstrates how to survive a nuclear attack.
Dir: Anthony Rizzo
Cast: Leo M. Langlois III, Ray J. Mauer,
BW-9 mins,


5:15 AM -- TEAR GAS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT (1962)
Vintage training short film used by police to show tear gas techniques.
C-27 mins,