TCM Schedule for Saturday, September 25, 2021 -- What's On Tonight - Joan Crawford Double Feature

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. If you're a spaghetti Western fan, in the afternoon TCM is showing the Dollars Trilogy - A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966). Then in primetime, we get a Joan Crawford Double Feature, Daisy Kenyon (1947) and Harriet Craig (1950). Get out your oversized shoulder pads and enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)
1h 52m | Romance | TV-G
A hotel bellboy is the unlikely choice to escort a visiting princess, over the protests of his invalid girlfriend.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, June Allyson

Despite his portrayal of the cheerful and optimistic Jimmy Dobson in this film, Robert Walker was enduring severe bouts of stress and depression. During production he was embroiled in divorce proceedings with his estranged wife, Jennifer Jones, who had left Walker and their children for producer David O. Selznick. The situation left a lasting impression on Walker, who never quite recovered, and battled depression and alcoholism for the rest of his short life. The cast and crew of this film marveled at Walker's ability to portray the chipper Jimmy while he was experiencing such sadness and hardships in real life.


8:00 AM -- Papa Gets the Bird (1940)
7m | Animation | TV-G
Papa Bear, in an effort to prove he is worthwhile, decides to give Mama Bear's pet canary a bath.
Director: Hugh Harman
Cast: Rudolf Ising, Frank Elmquist, Martha Wentworth

One of a short series of Bear Family shorts.


8:09 AM -- Six Hits and a Miss (1945)
8m | Short | TV-G
This presents musical performances by such talents as Six Hits and a Miss and Rudolph Friml.
Director: Jean Negulesco
Cast: Bobby Connolly, Paul Draper, Louis Hesse

Edited from the film Colleen (1936).


8:18 AM -- Glimpses of Java and Ceylon (1937)
8m | Short | TV-G
This focuses on the land, people and customs of Java and Ceylon.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick



8:28 AM -- Midnight Alibi (1934)
1h | Crime | TV-G
An elderly recluse shelters a gambler on the run from bogus murder charges.
Director: Alan Crosland
Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Ann Dvorak, Helen Chandler

The production featured in a real-life murder case when shots fired during the making at the Warner Brothers studio were mistaken for the shots fired when Nellie Madison shot her husband across the street from the lot thus giving Mrs. Madison time to briefly escape.


9:30 AM -- Batman: The Executioner Strikes (1943)
15m | Adventure | TV-PG
Episode 14 of 15 of the Batman serial.
Director: Lambert Hillyer
Cast: Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, J. Carrol Naish

By the time the sequel Batman and Robin (1949) was made, Lewis Wilson and Douglas Croft had moved on. Croft had even retired entirely from acting. So their roles were recast with Robert Lowery as Batman and Johnny Duncan as Robin.


10:00 AM -- Olive Oyl for President (1948)
6m | Animation | TV-PG
Olive Oyl takes over as President and rams through some unique legislation.
Director: Izzy Sparber
Cast: Jack Mercer, Mae Questel, Jackson Beck

Little Audrey makes a cameo in this cartoon. However, her own cartoon series would not premiere until June 1948.


10:08 AM -- The Case of the Lucky Legs (1935)
1h 17m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
Perry Mason tries to stay on the wagon while investigating the murder of a crooked beauty contest promoter.
Director: Archie L. Mayo
Cast: Warren William, Genevieve Tobin, Patricia Ellis

Of all actresses who played Della Street, either in movies or in TV, Genevieve Tobin was the only Della Street with a very strong sense of humor.


11:30 AM -- Plane Nuts (1933)
19m | Comedy | TV-PG
Ted Healy and His Stooges alternate mildly risque vaudeville routines with semi-elaborate Berkeleyesque musical numbers with beautiful chorines.
Director: Jack Cummings
Cast: Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Curly Howard

The Stooges were to appear in a segment where they fly around the world backward, but it was cut from the final version. This footage is discussed, with production photos, in Leonard Maltin's television documentary The Lost Stooges (1990).


12:00 PM -- A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
1h 36m | Western | TV-14
A lone drifter wanders into a Western town torn apart by two feuding families.
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch

When Clint Eastwood arrived on the set, he was struck by how little the Italian crew and writers knew about the American West they were filming. For example, he had to point out that coonskin caps were worn by frontiersmen and trappers in the Davy Crockett era, circa 1820s, not by gunfighters and townsmen in the American West and Mexico of the 1870s, as the scriptwriters had written.


2:15 PM -- For a Few Dollars More (1965)
2h 10m | Western | TV-14
Two rival bounty hunters form a shaky alliance to capture a wanted bandit.
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè

The town of El Paso, designed by Carlo Simi in Almería, Spain, was the biggest set for which writer and director Sergio Leone was responsible at the time. It was reused for several scenes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), in which it stood as several different towns. It's still standing to this day and is called "Mini Hollywood".


4:30 PM -- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
3h | Western | TV-14
Three men seek hidden loot during the Civil War.
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

According to Eli Wallach, when it came time to blow up the bridge, Sergio Leone asked the Spanish Army Captain in charge to trigger the fuse, as a sign of gratitude for the Army's collaboration. They agreed to blow up the bridge when Leone gave the signal "Vai!" (Go!) over the walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, another crew member spoke on the same channel, saying the words "vai, vai!", meaning "it's okay, proceed" to a second crew member. The Captain heard this signal, thought it was for him, and blew up the bridge. Unfortunately, no cameras were running at the time. Leone was so upset that he fired the crewman, who promptly fled from the set in his car. The Captain was so sorry for what happened that he proposed to Leone that the Army would rebuild the bridge to blow it up again, with one condition: that the fired crewman be re-hired. Leone agreed, the crewman was forgiven, the bridge was rebuilt, and the scene was successfully shot.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- JOAN CRAWFORD DOUBLE FEATURE



8:00 PM -- Daisy Kenyon (1947)
1h 39m | Romance | TV-PG
On the rebound from a married man, a woman marries a veteran, just as her lover becomes available.
Director: Otto Preminger
Cast: Joan Crawford, Dana Andrews, Henry Fonda

Joan Crawford later said about this film, "If Otto Preminger hadn't directed it, the picture would have been a mess. It came off. Sort of."


10:00 PM -- Harriet Craig (1950)
1h 34m | Drama | TV-PG
Harriet Craig enjoys the married life but constantly tries to control those around her.
Director: Vincent Sherman
Cast: Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, Lucile Watson

In this film, Harriet recounts to several people her negative experiences working in a laundry in her youth. In her own life, Joan Crawford also had to work in a laundry because of her family's poverty, and hated it. Crawford's adopted daughter, Christina, theorized that this hatred led to the alleged "wire hangers" incident described by her in Mommie Dearest.


12:00 AM -- Hell Bound (1957)
1h 9m | Crime
A criminal gang plots the robbery of a ship carrying $2 million worth of surplus narcotics left over from WWII.
Director: William J. Hole Jr.
Cast: John Russell, June Blair, Stuart Whitman

Feature film directorial debut of actor William J. Hole, Jr.


1:45 AM -- Major Dundee (1965)
2h 14m | Western | TV-PG
Cavalry misfits cross the Mexican border to destroy an Indian outpost.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton

Charlton Heston wrote in his autobiography that he, Sam Peckinpah and Columbia Pictures all had different ideas on what the film should be: "Columbia, reasonably enough, wanted a cavalry and Indians film, as much like (John Ford's) best as possible. I wanted to be the first to make a film that really explored the Civil War. Sam, though he never said anything like this, really wanted to make The Wild Bunch (1969). That's the movie that was steaming in his psyche."


4:15 AM -- The Man from Laramie (1955)
1h 44m | Western | TV-PG
A wandering cowboy gets caught in the rivalry between an aging rancher's sons.
Director: Anthony Mann
Cast: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp

The film has been described as a western version of King Lear.