TCM Schedule for Saturday, March 7, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Harvard Law

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2020, 06:37 PM - Edit history (1)

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, The Essentials is back! (or should that be The Essentials are back?), with trailblazing producer, director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who will join primetime host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films she has chosen. Tonight's theme features films about surviving Harvard Law School, including the original film version of The Paper Chase (1973). Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960)
College coeds go looking for love during spring break in Fort Lauderdale.
Dir: Henry Levin
Cast: Dolores Hart, Yvette Mimieux, Barbara Nichols
C-99 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Dolores Hart left Hollywood shortly after this movie and became a Benedictine nun, and has been a Mother Superior for many years.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: NORTHWEST HOUNDED POLICE (1946)
A wolf convict makes his escape, but is pursued by a diminutive Mountie who seems to be everywhere.
Dir: Tex Avery (Fred)
Cast: Bill Thompson, Tex Avery, Frank Graham
BW-7 mins, CC,

The title, "Northwest Hounded Police," is a reference to the Northwest Mounted Police, which patrolled the Canadian West from 1873. The Northwest Mounted Police later became the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, and after merging with the Dominion Police in 1920 become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).


8:09 AM -- CLUES TO ADVENTURE (1949)
This short film presents how separate events led to the creation of three of the rights in the American Constitution.
Cast: John Nesbitt, Mary Gordon, John Hubbard
BW-10 mins,

Includes archive footage from Nursery Rhyme Mysteries (1943), The Story That Couldn't Be Printed (1939) and The Face Behind the Mask (1938).


8:20 AM -- HOLLAND IN TULIP TIME (1934)
This short film focuses on Holland's culture, customs, and those famous tulips.
Dir: Ruth FitzPatrick
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 mins,

First Traveltalk in Technicolor. All titles for the new fall 1934-35 season were in color.


8:29 AM -- LIGHTS OF NEW YORK (1928)
A chorus girl gets mixed up with gangsters.
Dir: Bryan Foy
Cast: Helene Costello, Cullen Landis, Mary Carr
BW-57 mins,

Filmed in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system, it is the first all-talking full-length feature film, released by Warner Bros., who had introduced the first feature-length with sound The Jazz Singer in the previous year. The film, which cost $23,000 to produce ("B" picture), grossed over $1,000,000. The enthusiasm with which audiences greeted the talkies was so great that by the end of 1929, Hollywood was producing sound films exclusively.


9:30 AM -- THE MYSTERIOUS MR. M.: STRANGE COLLISION (1946)
An evil scientist known as "Mr. M." uses a drug he has developed called "hypnotreme" to help steal submarine equipment.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins, Vernon Keays
Cast: Dennis Moore, Pamela Blake, Richard Martin
BW-18 mins, CC,

Seventh of thirteen episodes.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: WIMMIN HADN'T OUGHTA DRIVE (1940)
Popeye has a new car; Olive wants a driving lesson. Things don't go well.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Orestes Calpini (uncredited)
Cast: Margie Hines, Jack Mercer
BW-6 mins, CC,

One of a number of Popeye shorts which were sent off to Asia in the 80's to undergo the infamous redraw and colorization process.


10:07 AM -- PRIVATE EYES (1953)
The Bowery Boys open a detective agency when one of them develops mind-reading talents.
Dir: Edward Bernds
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey
BW-65 mins, CC,

The thirty-second of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.


11:30 AM -- MOVIE-MANIA (1937)
In this short film, a producer becomes a one-man production staff for a show.
Dir: Joseph Henabery
Cast: Dave Apollon, Tommy Rafferty, Clark & Halliday
BW-21 mins,


12:00 PM -- THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (1960)
Seven American gunmen hire themselves out to protect a Mexican village from bandits.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen
C-128 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Elmer Bernstein

The "bandit gang" hired for Calvera adopted Eli Wallach as one of their own. In the mornings before shooting started, but after Wallach was in costume, he and the group would go riding together for an hour. Additionally, members of the gang insisted on doing the final checks for Wallach's horse tack and prop gun before he was allowed to use either.


2:15 PM -- FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940)
An American reporter covering the war in Europe gets mixed up in the assassination of a Dutch diplomat.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall
BW-121 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Albert Bassermann, Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Charles Bennett and Joan Harrison, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Rudolph Maté, Best Art Direction, Black-and-White -- Alexander Golitzen, Best Effects, Special Effects -- Paul Eagler (photographic) and Thomas T. Moulton (sound), and Best Picture

In a 1972 interview on The Dick Cavett Show (1968), Sir Alfred Hitchcock revealed that the plane crash scene was filmed by using footage shot from a stunt plane diving on the ocean, rear projected on rice paper in front of a cockpit set. Also, behind the rice paper were two chutes aimed at the cockpit's windshield connected to large tanks of water. With the press of a button at the right moment, water came crashing through the rice paper, into the plane simulating the plane crashing into the sea from the cockpit view.


4:30 PM -- THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (1958)
An outlaw forces his reformed buddy to lead him to buried loot.
Dir: John Sturges
Cast: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens
C-87 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film was shot on location in California's High Sierra mountain range, Lone Pine and Death Valley.


6:15 PM -- TEN LITTLE INDIANS (1966)
Party guests at a remote mansion have been brought together to pay for past crimes.
Dir: George Pollock
Cast: Hugh O'Brian, Shirley Eaton, Fabian
C-87 mins, CC,

All movie versions of "Ten Little Indians" are based on the stage play by Dame Agatha Christie and not the novel. While the identity of the murderer is the same in each version, who survives the murderer's plot is different.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: HARVARD LAW



8:00 PM -- THE PAPER CHASE (1973)
A law student discovers that his girlfriend is the daughter of his toughest professor.
Dir: James Bridges
Cast: John Houseman, Timothy Bottoms, Lindsay Wagner
C-111 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Houseman

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- James Bridges, and Best Sound -- Donald O. Mitchell and Larry Jost

Director James Bridges once said of actor John Houseman, who also established the acting department at New York's famous Julliard School for the Arts: "Almost every major theater in America is run by a Houseman protégé. Before there was [Professor] Kingsfield there was John Houseman. He was the Kingsfield to many of the actors, producers, directors on the American stage today".


10:00 PM -- LOVE STORY (1970)
Students from opposite sides of the tracks fight for their love.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: Ali MacGraw, Ryan O'Neal, John Marley
C-100 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Score -- Francis Lai

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ryan O'Neal, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ali MacGraw, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- John Marley, Best Director -- Arthur Hiller, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced -- Erich Segal, and Best Picture

Film debut of Tommy Lee Jones, a Harvard graduate. Erich Segal based Ryan O'Neal's character on Jones, and on his Harvard roommate, future Vice-President Al Gore.


12:00 AM -- RIDE THE PINK HORSE (1947)
A con man tries to blackmail a Mexican gangster.
Dir: Robert Montgomery
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Thomas Gomez, Rita Conde
BW-101 mins,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Thomas Gomez

Thomas Gomez was nominated for an Oscar--for Best Supporting Actor--for his role in this film, marking the first time a Latino got an Oscar nomination.

And this film is directed and stars the patron saint of the Classic Films Group, Robert Montgomery!




3:00 AM -- MURDER, SHE SAID (1961)
When nobody will believe she witnessed a murder, elderly sleuth Miss Marple takes a job as a maid to ferret out clues.
Dir: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Arthur Kennedy, Muriel Pavlow
BW-86 mins, CC,

The name of the manor house where Miss Jane Marple conducts her inquiries was called Rutherford Hall in Dame Agatha Christie's novel. This was changed to Ackenthorpe in this movie to avoid comparison with the surname of Dame Margaret Rutherford (Miss Jane Marple).


3:45 AM -- MURDER MOST FOUL (1964)
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple joins a small-town theatre to investigate a murder.
Dir: George Pollock
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Charles Tingwell
BW-91 mins, CC,

While inspecting the contents of the victim's suitcase, Miss Jane Marple finds flyers for a theatrical production of Dame Agatha Christie's "Murder She Said": this is the title of the first movie in which Dame Margaret Rutherford appeared as Miss Marple and is an in-joke as - despite Jim Stringer's (Stringer Davis') claim that it's "an excellent play" - Christie wrote no such work. Some foreign-language prints give the play's title as "4:50 From Paddington", though this was similarly was never adapted for the stage.