TCM Schedule for Friday, October 23, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Fright Favorites

Based on the TCM descriptions of today's daylight selections, the theme is "tycoons". Then in prime time, it's the last of this month's Fright Favorites. Argh! Enjoy, if you can!


6:00 AM -- Inside Straight (1951)
1h 29m | Drama | TV-PG
A tycoon rises to the top in 19th-century San Francisco through greed and corruption.
Director: Gerald Mayer
Cast: David Brian, Arlene Dahl, Barry Sullivan

The main character's name is . . .

wait for it . . .

Rip McCool!


7:30 AM -- Absolute Quiet (1936)
1h 7m | Drama | TV-PG
Murder follows when a plane filled with shady characters is forced to land on a tycoon's ranch.
Director: George B. Seitz
Cast: Lionel Atwill, Irene Hervey, Raymond Walburn

The radio at Axton's ranch is an extremely rare 1935 Zenith model 1000Z. Only 350 were made and it was priced at $750 ($13,900 in 2018). In 2018 these radios, completely restored, can fetch over $50,000. It is the "holy grail" for radio collectors and museums.


8:45 AM -- Chain Lightning (1950)
1h 34m | Drama | TV-PG
A reckless jet pilot goes to work for a demanding aviation tycoon.
Director: Stuart Heisler
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Parker, Raymond Massey

Humphrey Bogart's character was in the 323rd Bomb Squadron that flew out of Bassingbourn Air Base. This base was given to the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) by the RAF (Royal Air Force) as the first home of the B-17s in the UK. This base was the home of The Memphis Belle and was visited by the royal family on two occasions. Clark Gable even flew out of Bassingbourn once, though he was not stationed here during his tour as a side gunner.


10:30 AM -- Tycoon (1947)
2h 8m | Romance | TV-PG
While building a tunnel through the Andes, an engineer falls in love with his possessive boss's daughter.
Director: Richard Wallace
Cast: John Wayne, Laraine Day, Sir Cedric Hardwicke

James Agee's review of this movie included one of the most famous critical quotes of all time: "Several tons of dynamite are set off in this film, none of it under the right people."


12:45 PM -- No Marriage Ties (1933)
1h 5m | Drama | TV-PG
After drinking himself out of a job, a newspaperman turns himself into a tycoon.
Director: J. Walter Ruben
Cast: Richard Dix, Elizabeth Allen, Doris Kenyon

From the play The Ad Man, by Arch Gaffney and Charles W. Curran.


2:00 PM -- Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
1h 59m | Comedy | TV-PG
A Czech refugee uses women to advance his business interest.
Director: Charles Martin
Cast: George Sanders, Yvonne De Carlo, Zsa Zsa Gabor

Loosely based on the mysterious death of Serge Rubinstein, a Russian-born financial wizard and stock manipulator who was found murdered in his New York apartment in 1955. The murder remains unsolved.


4:15 PM -- Assignment To Kill (1968)
1h 42m | Drama | TV-PG
A private eye gets too involved in his investigation of a crooked shipping magnate.
Director: Sheldon Reynolds
Cast: Patrick O'neal, Joan Hackett, John Gielgud

This American movie seems to have been released in Europe far earlier than in the U.S. In Great Britain, it was released in the Spring of 1968, and was shown as the lower half of a double-bill with Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). However, it was savagely cut to a length of only one hour and thirteen minutes.


6:00 PM -- The Drowning Pool (1975)
1h 46m | Crime | TV-PG
A private eye's investigation of an anonymous letter leads to murder.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg
Cast: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Tony Franciosa

On the set, Joanne Woodward told the then seventeen-year-old Melanie Griffith, who was playing her daughter, that she had three goals in life: Marry a movie star (Paul Newman), have beautiful babies (she had three), and win an Oscar (which she did in 1958). Melanie said that she adopted those goals for herself by marrying a movie star (Antonio Banderas), having beautiful babies (she also has three), but expressed frustration that she hasn't won an Oscar, even though she was nominated in 1989 for the Best Actress Academy Award for Working Girl (1988).



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: FRIGHT FAVORITES - HORROR ANTHOLOGIES



8:00 PM -- Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
1h 19m | Horror | TV-PG
Scientists track a prehistoric monster in the South American jungle while it tracks them.
Director: Jack Arnold
Cast: Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning

Julie Adams noted that making the film was an extremely pleasant process, and that the cast and crew got along quite well. She also explained that she felt sympathetic toward the monster. Adams said, "There always is that feeling of compassion for the monster. I think maybe it touches something in ourselves, maybe the darker parts of ourselves, that long to be loved and think they really can't ever be loved. It strikes a chord within us."


9:30 PM -- The Blob (1958)
1h 25m | Horror | TV-PG
A misunderstood teen fights to save his town from a gelatinous monster from outer space.
Director: Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
Cast: Steven Mcqueen, Aneta Corseaut, Earl Rowe

The actual Blob, a mixture of red dye and silicone, has never dried out and is still kept in the original five-gallon pail in which it was shipped to the production company in 1958 from Union Carbide. It was put on display over the years as a part of the annual Blobfest, held over a three-day period each summer in Phoenixville, PA, which provided a number of the shooting locales for the film. In addition to displaying the Blob and miniatures used in the shooting, the event features a reenactment of the famous scene in which panicked theatergoers rush to exit the town's still-functioning Colonial Theater, as well as several showings of the film.


11:15 PM -- The Tingler (1959)
1h 20m | Horror | TV-PG
A scientist discovers an organism that lives on fear.
Director: William Castle
Cast: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman

You may recognize Judith Evelyn, who plays the mute, terrified silent movie theatre owner here - five years earlier, she had played James Stewart's romantically frustrated neighbor "Miss Lonelyhearts" in the Hitchcock classic Rear Window.


12:45 AM -- The Thing from Another World (1951)
1h 27m | Horror | TV-PG
The crew of a remote Arctic base fights off a murderous monster from outer space.
Director: Christian Nyby
Cast: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite

The skeleton crew at the South Pole Telescope station have a tradition every winter-over of watching this movie, and the other two adaptations on the very first night after the departure of the final plane of the season.


2:30 AM -- Ninja III--The Domination (1984)
1h 35m | Action | TV-14
An evil ninja arrives from Japan and wreaks havoc on a golf course until the police pump him full of bullets in a sandtrap.
Director: No Director: Available
Cast: Lucinda Dickey, Sho Kosugi, Jordan Bennett

Despite being the third and final entry in the Ninja trilogy, this film has nothing to do with the first two films Enter the Ninja (1981) or Revenge of the Ninja (1983), despite the fact that they all star Shô Kosugi (but playing a different character in each film).


4:15 AM -- Heavenly Bodies (1985)
1h 29m | Comedy | TV-MA
A small dance studio fights for its existence against the unscrupulous owner of a rival club.
Director: Lawrence Dane
Cast: Cynthia Dale, Richard Rebiere, Walter George Alton

Lawrence Dane's first and only credited directorial and writing project.