TCM Schedule for Saturday, June 19, 2021 -- Daytime and Primetime Theme: Juneteenth

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then from noon to midnight, TCM is taking a cinematic look at Juneteenth. Tell us more, Frank!

Juneteenth
By Frank Miller
June 2, 2021
7 Movies / June 19 at Noon

On June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger proclaimed the end of slavery in Texas, the last of the Southern states in which slaves were liberated. In the 156 years since then, that moment’s remembrance has grown from a local celebration to a national commemoration recognized in 47 of the 50 states and parts of Mexico, with campaigns to make the date an official national holiday. Juneteenth celebrations recognize not just freedom but also African-American contributions to the arts.

TCM marks Juneteenth this year with a festival of seven films celebrating black music and musicians, starting at noon on Saturday, June 19 and running through midnight and consisting of five documentaries and two narrative features. TCM host Jacqueline Stewart will be joined by musician Jon Batiste, scholar Daphne Brooks and actresses Loretta Devine and Phylicia Rashad to commemorate the day and discuss the lineup.

Say Amen, Somebody (1982), named Best Documentary by the Boston Society of Film Critics, traces the history and development of gospel music, with a special focus on Willie Mae Ford Smith, the “Mother of Gospel Music,” “Father of Gospel Music” Thomas A. Dorsey and the singers they trained and mentored. Along with performances by Smith and Dorsey, the soundtrack features the voices of Mahalia Jackson, The O’Neal Twins, Delois Barrett Campbell and the Barrett Sisters, and Sallie Martin.

Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959) has been hailed as the first jazz concert film. Over four days, Bert Stern filmed the performances at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, capturing acts encompassing jazz, rock, pop and gospel. Among the artists captured on film are Thelonious Monk, Dinah Washington, Big Maybelle, Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong and Mahalia Jackson. The film was voted on to the National Film Registry in 1999.

Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988) draws on a treasure trove of archival material discovered in the 1980s and featuring the great bebop pianist and composer. Director Charlotte Zwerin, an expert on films about musicians and other artists, combined that footage with interviews and vintage recordings to create the definitive picture of the innovative musician. Included on the soundtrack are such classics as “’Round Midnight,” “Blue Monk” and “Ruby, My Dear.” The film joined the National Film Registry in 2017.

Jimi Hendrix (1973) follows one of the most influential guitarists in music history through concert performances over the course of three years, from his gig at London’s Marquee Club in 1967 through his final British performance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. Contemporaries like Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed and Little Richard discuss Hendrix’s influence. Performances include such classics as “Purple Haze, “Wild Thing” and “Machine Gun.”

Krush Groove (1985) presents a fictionalized version of the early days of Def Jam Recordings, with Blair Underwood, in his film debut, starring as Russell Walker, a fictionalized version of Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons. The film features performances by LL Cool J, Sheila E., Beastie Boys and Run-D.M.C.

Also screening: Shake!: Otis at Monterey (1987), a short featuring Otis Redding’s performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and Sparkle (1976), a musical about the rise and fall of a girl group, starring Philip Michael Thomas, Irene Cara and Lonette McKee.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
1h 42m | Musical | TV-G
A vaudeville team breaks up when both men fall for the same gorgeous hoofer.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy

It had been reported that Fred Astaire was intimidated by Eleanor Powell because she was one of the few female tap dancers capable of out-performing him.


8:00 AM -- Buried Treasure (1938)
8m | Animation
Captain Kidd's buried treasure is the prize as a group of characters try to outdo one another to claim it.
Director: Robert Allen
Cast: Mel Blanc, Billy Bletcher, Robert Winkler

One of fifteen Captain and the Kids short films from MGM.


8:10 AM -- A Way in the Wilderness (1940)
10m | Short | TV-G
This short film focuses on Joseph Goldberger, the physician who found a cure for an endemic disease in the South of the 1910s.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: John Nesbitt, Shepperd Strudwick, Barbara Bedford

Number 14 in the Passing Parade series.


8:21 AM -- Seattle: Gateway to the Northwest (1940)
9m | Short | TV-G
A tour of the growing city of Seattle.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick


8:31 AM -- Kid Nightingale (1939)
57m | Musical | TV-G
A waiter becomes a singing prizefighter.
Director: George Amy
Cast: John Payne, Jane Wyman, Walter Catlett

Based on a story by Lee Katz.


9:30 AM -- Batman: The Living Corpse (1943)
17m | Crime | TV-G
Batman and Robin go undercover to protect a new plane from Japanese spies.
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Cast: Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, J. Carol Naish.

The Batmobile, despite having first appeared in 1941, does not appear in this serial. In the first appearances of Batman in "Detective Comics" in 1939, Batman (or The Bat Man as he was called then) often drove a nondescript convertible.


10:00 AM -- Abusement Park (1947)
7m | Animation | TV-PG
Popeye takes Olive to the carnival where he starts demonstrating his prowess on the bell-ringing machine.
Director: Izzy Sparber (as I. Sparber), Dave Tendlar (uncredited)
Cast: Jackson Beck, Harry Welch, Mae Questel

Final short in which Harry Foster Welch voices Popeye.


10:09 AM -- The Falcon and the Co-eds (1944)
1h 8m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
A society sleuth investigates murder at a girls' school.
Director: William Clemens
Cast: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Rita Corday

The use of a "stable" of actors was an accepted practice among movie studios and production companies. This concept was common to stage performances and radio programming as well. Orson Welles had his Mercury Theater performers revolving through his films and on-air dramatizations. In fact, all the studios used this concept, as did RKO in the "Falcon" series. It was nothing exceptional to audiences to see familiar faces in various episodic roles.


11:30 AM -- Give Till It Hurts (1937)
20m | Crime | TV-G
This short film focuses on charity fraud.
Director: Felix E. Feist
Cast: Janet Beecher, Clay Clement, Howard Hickman

Episode twelve of MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series.


12:00 PM -- Say Amen, Somebody - The Good News Musical (1982)
1h 40m | Documentary | TV-G
The lives and music of early gospel artists are documented.
Director: George T Nierenberg
Cast: Rhodessa Barrett Porter, Edgar O'Neal, Zella Jackson

The film focuses on two of gospel music's pioneers, Thomas A. Dorsey and Willie May Ford Smith.


2:00 PM -- Shake!: Otis at Monterey (1987)
20m | Documentary | TV-PG
Unreleased footage from the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival highlights this compilation on the legendary Otis Redding.
Director: D.A. Pennebaker
Cast: Otis Redding, Booker T. & the M.G.s, Steve Cropper

Edited from Monterey Pop (1968).


2:30 PM -- Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
1h 24m | Documentary | TV-PG
An incredible collection of classic live performances includes Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, and many others performing at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.
Director: Bert Stern
Cast: Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Gerry Mulligan

Features one of the rare film appearances of two of the greatest jazz artists of all times: New Orleans-born trumpeter Louis Armstrong and Texas-born trombonist Jack Teagarden. When Armstrong formed his six-piece All Stars in 1946, Jack, who was white, was asked to join. The obvious affection these two great performers felt for each other's singing, clowning, and playing is particularly evident in their classic performance of "Old Rocking Chair." After Armstrong was invited to return his home town after many years away, he insisted Teagarden join him on the stage. The city refused to let a white man and a Negro play together. Armstrong eventually returned to his native New Orleans and performed at the very first New Orleans Jazz Festival - coincidentally, along with Mahalia Jackson, his co-star in this film.


4:15 PM -- Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1989)
1h 29m | Documentary | TV-MA
A portrait of the legendary jazz great Thelonious Sphere Monk, featuring previously unseen footage from the 1960s.
Director: Charlotte Zwerin
Cast: Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Jimmy Cleveland

Produced by Clint Eastwood - what ever you think of his politics, the man knows jazz!


6:00 PM -- Jimi Hendrix (1973)
1h 42m | Documentary | TV-14
Jimi Hendrix's life and career is explored through interviews and concert footage.
Director: Gary Weiss
Cast: Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Peter Townshend

This documentary was made three years after Jimi Hendrix's untimely death. The film contains concert footage spanning the Marquee in 1967 to his last UK performance at the third Isle of Wight festival in 1970; along the way we see classic performances at Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969), Fillmore East (1969/70), and Berkeley (1970). A double album was released to tie-in with the film, containing the complete performances in the film, along with interviews with people in the film (not necessarily the same interviews). The film is worth seeing for Jimi's performances, and to hear what his contemporaries have to say about him (Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, and others).



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAYTIME & PRIMETIME THEME -- JUNETEENTH



8:00 PM -- Sparkle (1976)
1h 38m | Drama | TV-PG
The three Williams sisters start out singing in their church choir in Harlem in the late 1950s.
Director: Sam O'Steen
Cast: Philip Michael Thomas, Irene Cara, Lonette Mckee

Was Whitney Houston's favorite movie. She would later gain remake rights for the film around 2000. Her original plan was to have the late R&B artist Aaliyah star as the title character before she passed away. The film was eventually released a decade later as Sparkle (2012) starring Houston herself and Jordin Sparks.


10:00 PM -- Krush Groove (1985)
1h 37m | Musical
Russell Walker is a young, successful manager of rap performers, handling acts for the Krush Groove label.
Director: Michael Schultz
Cast: Michael Bivins, Darryl McDaniels, Ronald De Voe

Spike Lee inquired about the possibility of working as an assistant director to help fund his film She's Gotta Have It (1986) but didn't get the job.


12:00 AM -- The Blue Gardenia (1953)
1h 30m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
A telephone operator kills in self-defense but can't remember the details of the encounter.
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern

Director Fritz Lang and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca developed a revolutionary dolly for the camera that allowed for sustained tracking shots and intimate close-ups while shooting this film. Lang preferred the practice of tracking into a close-up shot of an actor as opposed to cutting to a close-up in editing. He believed the tracking close-up captured more of the actors' intimacy and emotions.'


2:00 AM -- Every Which Way but Loose (1978)
1h 54m | Comedy | TV-14
Philo Beddoe is a bare-knuckle boxer who travels to his fights with his friend Orville, and a pet orangutan.
Director: James Fargo
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Geoffrey Lewis

Just as production was wrapping up in June 1978, Sondra Locke learned that she was pregnant. Locke, then 34, had had her IUD removed some years prior because Clint Eastwood complained it was uncomfortable for him, and the couple had been using the rhythm method. Sondra reluctantly agreed to an abortion, "a hard and painful decision" in her words. When she became pregnant again in 1979, Clint voiced concerns for her health and suggested sterilization. "I think it would be the best thing for our life together. Aren't I enough for you?" Locke's autobiography quotes Eastwood as saying. Then she began to cry. "Funny how it never even crossed my mind to ask HIM to have surgery." She underwent a second abortion and subsequent tubal ligation at UCLA Medical Center. To console her, Eastwood sold their Sherman Oaks bungalow and bought a dream house in Bel-Air. "This home would be my baby," wrote Locke. Though they remained together another decade (towards the end of which Clint sired someone else's two children, unbeknownst to Sondra), from her perspective their relationship never fully recovered from the abortions.


4:00 AM -- White Line Fever (1976)
1h 29m | Action | TV-14
In the 1970s Arizona, a young married man becomes an independent long-haul driver and risks his life fighting the corruption in the local long-haul trucking industry.
Director: Jonathan Kaplan
Cast: Jan-Michael Vincent, Kay Lenz, Slim Pickens

In a telephone conversation, one character says, "Go get Joe Dante". Director Joe Dante is an old friend of the film's director, Jonathan Kaplan, and, like Kaplan, is one of the legion of directors given his start by producer Roger Corman.