TCM Schedule for Saturday, May 16, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: The Essentials: Buster Keaton

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM finally returns to the Essentials. Tonight, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird are showing what is arguably Buster Keaton's best film, The General (1927), followed by a documentary on The Great Stone Face himself. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- THE WHEELER DEALERS (1963)
Texas tycoons try to mix love with finance on a trip to New York.
Dir: Arthur Hiller
Cast: James Garner, Lee Remick, Phil Harris
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The building shown as the "Cotten Mather Inn" is actually on MGM's lot, known as the "Girl's School", probably because it served that purpose for the films Forty Little Mothers (1940) and Three Daring Daughters (1948). The structure was notably used in Tea and Sympathy (1956) and The Cobweb (1955), where it was a psychiatric clinic.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: BEAR RAID WARDEN (1944)
Barney takes his air-raid warden post too seriously, telling first an owl (shining eyes) and then a firefly to put their lights out.
Dir: George Gordon
Cast: Billy Bletcher
BW-7 mins, CC,

This cartoon is included as an extra on the 2007 Warner Home Video DVD of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944).


8:08 AM -- THE EYES HAVE IT (1931)
In this comedic short, an eye doctor examines a "boy" who has been curiously absent from school.
Dir: Alfred J. Goulding
Cast: Christina Graver, Edgar Bergen,
BW-10 mins,

First Episode in the 1931-1932 Pepper Pot one reel comedy series.


8:19 AM -- CALLING ON COSTA RICA (1947)
This documentary short film presents the life, geography, and historical aspects of Costa Rica.
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-10 mins,

The narrator mentions that Costa Rica was the second smallest republic in the Americas. Due to independence movements and subsequent statehood in Central and South America, this is no longer the case.


8:30 AM -- STRAIGHT IS THE WAY (1934)
A small-time gangster wants to go straight until he loses his girl to a rival hood.
Dir: Paul Sloane
Cast: Franchot Tone, May Robson, Karen Morley
BW-59 mins, CC,

MGM originally announced Clark Gable for the lead and Mae Clarke for the role of "Shirley", but neither was in the movie. A contemporary news item also listed Christian Rub and Henry Wadsworth as cast members, but these actors were also not in the movie.


9:30 AM -- TERRY AND THE PIRATES: THE MOUNTAIN OF DEATH (1940)
Dr. Herbert Lee, an archaeologist seeking to decipher ancient Mara inscriptions, is aided by his son, Terry, Terry's pal, Pat Ryan, and Normandie Drake.
Dir: James W. Horne
Cast: William Tracy, Jeff York, Joyce Bryant
BW-18 mins, CC,

Episode three of fifteen.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: FLIES AIN'T HUMAN (1941)
Popeye is trying to take a nap, but he's plagued by house flies that keep landing on him.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Thomas Johnson (uncredited)
Cast: 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 -- FEUDIN' FOOLS (1952)
The Bowery Boys get caught in a hillbilly feud when one of them inherits a Kentucky farm.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Dorothy Ford
BW-63 mins, CC,

First film in the series where the gang consists of only four members, and it would remain that size until the end of the series.


11:30 AM -- RUFUS JONES FOR PRESIDENT (1933)
Rufus Jones, a black child, is elected president of the USA in this short musical comedy. Vitaphone Release 1553-1554.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Sammy Davis Jr., Edgar Connor, Dusty Fletcher
BW-21 mins,

A song lyric predicts that [African-Americans] "will be Democrats" instead of Republicans. In 1933, when this film was released, the American Democratic Party was heavily associated with racism. This lyric would come to pass in the decades to come, as more African-Americans would be associated with the Democratic Party, including America's first African-American president, Barack Obama.


12:00 PM -- CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935)
After being unjustly sentenced to prison, a doctor escapes and becomes a notorious pirate.
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Lionel Atwill
BW-119 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Michael Curtiz (This was a write-in candidate, who came in second on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Writing, Screenplay -- Casey Robinson (This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director), Best Music, Score -- Leo F. Forbstein (head of department) (Score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. This was a write-in candidate, who came in third on the final ballots. It was not an official nomination.), and Best Picture

His work on the film infected Basil Rathbone with the fencing bug. He became dedicated to the sport, took lessons and competed away from his onscreen roles and, within a couple of years, was acknowledged to be the finest fencing actor in Hollywood. However, since he always played the villain in costume dramas, he always lost his duels. Some famous losses were to Errol Flynn in "Captain Blood" and in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1939), to Danny Kaye in The Court Jester (1955) and to Tyrone Power in The Mark of Zorro (1940). Rathbone would always say that Power was much more skillful than Flynn. Rathbone does win his duel with John Barrymore in Romeo And Juliet (1936), however; his only screen victory in a duel.


2:15 PM -- OUT OF THE PAST (1947)
A private eye becomes the dupe of a homicidal moll.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas
BW-97 mins, CC,

Jane Greer recalled that the laconic Robert Mitchum projected an equally cavalier attitude off camera. She got the impression that he came to the set unprepared, in order to give a more spontaneous performance. She explained, "I remember him saying 'What are the lyrics?' to the script person. 'I never know the lyrics,' he'd say, and she would give him the lines. I said, 'You don't learn your lines beforehand?' and he'd said, 'Naah.' Gosh, I learned mine a week ahead of time. I thought that might be part of why he seemed so much more spontaneous, why he was so easy and underplayed. I decided I'd do that, not be letter-perfect. So I tried learning my lines under the dryer in the morning. I hoped I'd look as though I was thinking. But I blew take after take, and he was letter-perfect. Well, I figured out later that, of course, he knew the lines."


4:00 PM -- THE NAKED SPUR (1953)
A captive outlaw uses psychological tactics to prey on a bounty hunter.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Janet Leigh, Robert Ryan
C-92 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Sam Rolfe and Harold Jack Bloom

When this film was released in Spain, its title was changed to "Colorado Jim" and the name of James Stewart's character was also changed from "Howard Kemp" to "Colorado Jim", for unknown reasons.


5:45 PM -- THE HILL (1965)
Prisoners fight to survive the grueling conditions in a North African military stockade.
Dir: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Sean Connery, Harry Andrews, Ian Bannen
BW-123 mins, CC,

Sidney Lumet used three wide-angle lenses: a 24mm, a 21mm, and an 18mm. He deliberately wanted distortion in the faces, even the close-ups.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: BUSTER KEATON



8:00 PM -- THE GENERAL (1927)
In this silent film, a Confederate engineer fights to save his train and his girlfriend from the Union army.
Dir: Buster Keaton
Cast: Marion Mack, Glen Cavender, Jim Farley
BW-79 mins,

Based on a true incident during the Civil War. In April 1862 Union agent James J. Andrews led a squad of 21 soldiers on a daring secret raid. Dressed in civilian clothes, Andrews and his men traveled by rail into the Southern states. Their mission was to sabotage rail lines and disrupt the Confederate army's supply chain. At the town of Big Shanty, GA (now known as Kennesaw), the raiders stole a locomotive known as "The General". They headed north, tearing up track, burning covered bridges and cutting telegraph lines along the way. William Fuller and Jeff Cain, the conductor and engineer of "The General," pursued the stolen train by rail and foot. They first used a hand-cart (as Buster Keaton does in the film), then a small work locomotive called "The Yonah," which they borrowed from a railroad work crew, and finally a full-sized Confederate army locomotive called "The Texas," which pursued "The General" for 51 miles--in reverse. During the chase Confederate soldiers were able to repair the sabotaged telegraph wires and send messages ahead of the raiders. Andrews and his men were intercepted and captured near Chattanooga, TN, by a squad of Confederate troops led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (who, after the war, was one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan). Tried as spies, Andrews and seven of his raiders were hanged (a special gallows was built to hold all eight men). The rest of the raiders were traded in a prisoner exchange. In 1863 the survivors of the mission were awarded the first Medals of Honor (Andrews and the raiders who had been hanged later received the medal posthumously). (A personal point - my great-grandfather was a child in Ringold, Georgia, at the time of the real event. Ringold is on the train route that The General followed.)


9:45 PM -- THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION (2018)
Documentary on the life and works of comic genius Buster Keaton, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.
Dir: Peter Bogdanovich
BW-101 mins, CC,

Features highlights from The Butcher Boy (1917) (Short), One Week (1920) (Short), The Saphead (1920), Convict 13 (1920) (Short), The Scarecrow (1920) (Short), Neighbors (1920) (Short), The Haunted House (1921) (Short), Hard Luck (1921) (Short), The 'High Sign' (1921) (Short), The Goat (1921) (Short), The Play House (1921) (Short), The Boat (1921) (Short), The Paleface (1922) (Short), Cops (1922) (Short), My Wife's Relations (1922) (Short), The Blacksmith (1922) (Short), The Frozen North (1922) (Short), The Electric House (1922) (Short), Daydreams (1922) (Short), The Balloonatic (1923) (Short), The Love Nest (1923) (Short), Three Ages (1923), Our Hospitality (1923), Sherlock Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The Freshman (1925), Go West (1925), Battling Butler (1926), The General (1926), College (1927), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), The Cameraman (1928), Spite Marriage (1929), Free and Easy (1930), Doughboys (1930), Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931), What-No Beer? (1933), Jail Bait (1937) (Short), Pest from the West (1939) (Short), A Southern Yankee (1948), In the Good Old Summertime (1949), What's My Line? (1950) (TV Series), Sunset Blvd. (1950), The Buster Keaton Show (1950) (TV Series), Limelight (1952), Rheingold Theatre: The Awakening (1954) (TV Episode), This Is Your Life: Buster Keaton (1957) (TV Episode), The Buster Keaton Story (1957), The 32nd Annual Academy Awards (1960) (TV Special), Candid Camera (1960) (TV Series), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), The Railrodder (1965) (Short), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), Film (1965) (Short), Buster Keaton Rides Again (1965), The Scribe (1966) (Short), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).


12:00 AM -- THE CRIMSON KIMONO (1959)
Two detectives clash over the hunt for a stripper's killer in Los Angeles' Japanese district.
Dir: Samuel Fuller
Cast: Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta
BW-81 mins, CC,

One of the few films of its era that actually used Asians in Asian roles. Even more remarkable, one of the lead actors involved in the interracial love triangle, James Shigeta, was, in fact, Japanese, rather than a Caucasian actor made up to look Asian.


1:45 AM -- THE FLAME AND THE ARROW (1950)
Roman rebels fight against invading barbarians.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Robert Douglas
C-88 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Ernest Haller, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Max Steiner

Nick Cravat, who plays Piccolo, was an acrobat who was teamed with Burt Lancaster before Lancaster became a star. He appears in many of Lancaster's movies. In this one, and in The Crimson Pirate (1952), he plays a mute. The reason was that his thick Brooklyn accent, which he could not lose, would have been wildly out of place in such period pieces.


3:30 AM -- THE CRIMSON PIRATE (1952)
A pirate gets mixed up in a Caribbean revolution.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Nick Cravat, Eva Bartok
C-104 mins, CC,

Co-Producers Burt Lancaster and Harold Hecht were not fans of the witch hunts then taking place of Communists in Hollywood, led by the House Un-American Activities Committee. This movie was a sly slap at those activities, starting with the title, "The Crimson Pirate", during the "red scare" of the fifties, and continuing with the plotline, of a government denying the rights of the people. They got away with it, as almost nobody noticed the political content of a pirate comedy-adventure movie.


5:30 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #1 (1955)
Judy Garland sings "You Made Me Love You" in a clip from "Broadway Melody of 1938"; Cyd Charisse introduces a clip from "It's Always Fair Weather." Hosted by George Murphy.
BW-25 mins,