TCM Schedule for Friday, December 10 -- TCM Prime Time Feature: Christmas Classics

[Staph]

More Christmas movies this evening, and a day full of Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films. Enjoy!


5:30am -- Words And Music (1948)
Songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart search for love while rising to the top.
Cast: Perry Como, Mickey Rooney, Ann Sothern, Tom Drake
Dir: Norman Taurog
C-121 mins, TV-G

The song "I Wish I Were In Love Again" was the last time Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney appeared on screen together.


7:45am -- The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Naval officers begin to suspect their captain of insanity.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
C-125 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Tom Tully, Best Film Editing -- William A. Lyon and Henry Batista, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner, Best Sound, Recording -- John P. Livadary (Columbia SSD), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Stanley Roberts, and Best Picture

Humphrey Bogart's tour de force performance in the climactic courtroom scene was so powerful that it completely captivated the onlooking film technicians and crewmen. After the scene's completion, the company gave Bogart a round of thunderous applause.


10:00am -- The Talk Of The Town (1942)
An escaped political prisoner and a stuffy law professor vie for the hand of a spirited schoolteacher.
Cast: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Edgar Buchanan
Dir: George Stevens
BW-117 mins, TV-G

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lionel Banks, Rudolph Sternad and Fay Babcock, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ted Tetzlaff, Best Film Editing -- Otto Meyer, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Friedrich Hollaender and Morris Stoloff, Best Writing, Original Story -- Sidney Harmon, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Buchman and Irwin Shaw, and Best Picture

Lloyd Bridges' tiny role was one of 20 film appearances he made in 1942 alone.


12:00pm -- Operation Petticoat (1959)
During World War II, the crew of a decrepit submarine takes on a team of Navy nurses.
Cast: Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Joan O'Brien, Dina Merrill
Dir: Blake Edwards
C-121 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen -- Paul King (story), Joseph Stone (story), Stanley Shapiro (screenplay) and Maurice Richlin (screenplay)

Nurse Barbara (Dina Merrill), the love interest for Tony Curtis' character, was played in the 1977 remake by Curtis' daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis.


2:15pm -- The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone (1961)
A fading stage star gets caught up in the decadent life of modern Rome when she hires a male companion.
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya, Coral Browne
Dir: José Quintero
BW-104 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lotte Lenya

According to his memoirs Oliver Reed was interviewed by Elia Kazan for a role in the movie.


4:00pm -- A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
A black woman uses her late husband's life insurance to build a better world for her children.
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands
Dir: Daniel Petrie
BW-128 mins, TV-PG

Louis Gossett Jr.'s film debut.


6:15pm -- Lilies of the Field (1963)
An itinerant handyman in the Southwest gets a new outlook on life when he helps a group of German nuns build a chapel.
Cast: Sidney Poitier, Lilia Skala, Lisa Mann, Isa Crino
Dir: Ralph Nelson
BW-94 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Sidney Poitier

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Lilia Skala, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller and Ralph Nelson, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- James Poe, and Best Picture

Since the story's action was tied to the chapel's construction, crew had to work through the night to keep up with it "progress" in the film. The actual building was real and could have stood for decades, but because it was built on rented property, it had to be demolished immediately after the filming was completed.


8:00pm -- A Christmas Carol (1938)
In this adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale, an elderly miser learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve.
Cast: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Terry Kilburn
Dir: Edwin L. Marin
BW-69 mins, TV-G

The word "humbug" is misunderstood by many people, which is a pity since the word provides a key insight into Scrooge's hatred of Christmas. The word "humbug" describes deceitful efforts to fool people by pretending to a fake loftiness or false sincerity. So when Scrooge calls Christmas a humbug, he is claiming that people only pretend to charity and kindness in an scoundrel effort to delude him, each other, and themselves. In Scrooge's eyes, he is the one man honest enough to admit that no one really cares about anyone else, so for him, every wish for a Merry Christmas is one more deceitful effort to fool him and take advantage of him. This is a man who has turned to profit because he honestly believes everyone else will someday betray him or abandon him the moment he trusts them.


9:30pm -- Scrooge (1970)
A miser faces the ghosts of his past on Christmas Eve.
Cast: Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, Kenneth More
Dir: Ronald Neame
C-113 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Terence Marsh, Robert Cartwright and Pamela Cornell, Best Costume Design -- Margaret Furse, Best Music, Original Song -- Leslie Bricusse for the song "Thank You Very Much", and Best Music, Original Song Score -- Leslie Bricusse, Ian Fraser and Herbert W. Spencer

Scrooge (played by then 34-year old Albert Finney) is actually younger than his nephew Fred (played by then 46-year old Michael Medwin).


11:30pm -- The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in with a midwestern family.
Cast: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley, Richard Travis
Dir: William Keighley
BW-113 mins, TV-G

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, authors of the play from which this film was adapted, were good friends with Alexander Woollcott, a famous critic, radio personality, and lecturer at the time. Woollcott requested that they write a play FOR him, but they never came up with a plot. One day Woollcott came to visit Hart unexpectedly and turned his house upside down, taking over the master bedroom, ordering Hart's staff around and making a general nuisance of himself. When Moss Hart told George S. Kaufman of the visit, he asked, "Imagine what would have happened if he broken his leg and had to stay?" They looked at each other and knew they had a play.


2:00am -- The Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray (2010)
Interviews and archival footage trace the career of the pioneering exploitation filmmaker.
Cast: Stephen Chiodo, Germán Robles, Kevin Wagner Murphy, William Grefe
Dir: Daniel Griffith.
BW-81 mins

Towards the end of his life Murray got in tax trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which seized all his films and took them out of circulation. Before the case could come to a conclusion, Murray died of a heart attack.


3:30am -- Santa Claus (1959)
Santa Claus enlists Merlin to help him save Christmas from the devil.
Cast: Jose Elias Moreno, Cesareo Quezadas 'Pulgarcito', Jose Luis Aguirre 'Trotsky'.
Dir: K. Gordon Murray
C-95 mins

This film did not receive a general release in the United States. The U.S. distributor, K. Gordon Murray, booked the film as a special children's matinée attraction in which the film would only be shown once or twice.


5:15am -- Short Film: Visit to Santa (1963)
Two children dreaming of Christmas visit Santa at the North Pole.
Dir: Clem Williams
BW-12 mins


5:30am -- The Relaxed Wife (1957)
The modern miracle of tranquilizers helps working men and their wives deal with life's little problems.
C-13 mins, TV-G


5:45am -- Short Film: The Golden Years (1960)
In this instructional film, bowling is made respectable and appealing to middle-class Americans through modernization and design.
BW-14 mins, TV-G