TCM Schedule for Friday, October 29, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Happy Halloween

In the daylight hours, it's a continuation of Star of the Month Lucy, with a side trip to Small Town Justice. Then in prime time, it's the beginning of the Annual Halloween Marathon. I hate horror films, but you go ahead and Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Without Love (1945)
1h 51m | Comedy | TV-PG
A World War II housing shortage inspires a widow to propose a marriage of convenience with an inventor.
Director: Harold S. Bucquet
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Lucille Ball

Spencer Tracy hated making this movie, but did it as a favor to Katharine Hepburn, who had starred in the play.


8:00 AM -- Easy Living (1949)
1h 17m | Drama | TV-G
An aging football star risks his health when his greedy wife won't let him retire.
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Cast: Victor Mature, Lucille Ball, Lizabeth Scott

The white football seen in the warm-ups for the night game at the end of the film was used in the NFL for such games from 1929 to 1955. It was considered to be more visible to the players and fans than the typical brown football. By 1956 better stadium lighting, especially needed for television, made the white football obsolete.


9:30 AM -- Marines Fly High (1940)
1h 8m | Adventure | TV-G
Two Marines compete for the love of a Central American plantation owner.
Director: George Nichols Jr.
Cast: Richard Dix, Lucille Ball, Chester Morris

Benjamin Stoloff took over direction of the film when George Nichols Jr. was killed in an automobile accident during production.


10:45 AM -- Best Foot Forward (1943)
1h 35m | Musical | TV-G
A movie star wreaks havoc when she accepts an invitation to a military academy dance.
Director: Edward Buzzell
Cast: Lucille Ball, William Gaxton, Virginia Weidler

Lana Turner was going to star in this movie, but once she discovered she was pregnant Lucille Ball was given her role.


12:30 PM -- Having Wonderful Time (1938)
1h 11m | Comedy | TV-G
A New York girl finds love at a summer resort.
Director: Alfred Santell
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks, Peggy Conklin

Red Skelton's first film.


1:45 PM -- Lawless Valley (1939)
59m | Western | TV-G
After doing time for a crime he didn't commit, a cowboy tries to find the men who framed him.
Director: David Howard
Cast: George O'Brien, Kay Sutton, Walter Miller

First credited acting role for Chill Wills. His previous appearances were as part of singing groups and an uncredited voiceover.


3:00 PM -- The Boy from Oklahoma (1954)
1h 28m | Western | TV-G
Mild mannered law student Will Rogers, Jr. doesn't know what he's in for when he gets himself elected sheriff.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Will Rogers Jr., Nancy Olson, Lon Chaney [jr.]

The first motion picture in his adult career in which Will Rogers, Jr. did not portray his famous father.


4:30 PM -- A Lion Is in the Streets (1953)
1h 28m | Drama | TV-PG
A peddler from the bayou becomes a major force in local politics.
Director: Raoul Walsh
Cast: James Cagney, Barbara Hale, Anne Francis

The film is based on a 1945 novel which was a fictionalized account of assassinated Louisiana politician Huey Long by Adria Locke Langley. A film based on a similar roman à clef by à, My Country, My Kitchen: Rafih Benjelloun (2001), won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1949. That b/w film shot on location with non-professional extras had a gritty realism that this studio-bound movie did not have, and the latter film suffered by comparison.


6:00 PM -- Flamingo Road (1949)
1h 34m | Drama | TV-PG
A stranded carnival dancer takes on a corrupt political boss when she marries into small-town society.
Director: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet

Famed German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder often named it as one of his ten favorite films, praising its director Michael Curtiz as "cruelly overlooked." Curtiz was often cited as one of his greatest influences and the opening scene of "Flamingo Road" is directly homaged in the opening of Fox and His Friends (1975), his own 1975 film.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- HAPPY HALLOWEEN



8:00 PM -- The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
1h 34m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-14
After a woman dies on the operating table, her husband exacts revenge on the doctor.
Director: Robert Fuest
Cast: Vincent Price, Joseph Cotten, Virginia North

Joseph Cotten would grumble on the set that he had to remember and deliver lines, while Vincent Price's were all to be post-dubbed. Price responded, "Yes, but I still know them, Joe." In fact, Price was well-known in Hollywood for his ability to memorize all of the characters' lines in a given production, not just his own.


10:00 PM -- Night of the Living Dead (1968)
1h 36m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
A space probe unleashes microbes that turn the dead into flesh-eating zombies.
Director: George A. Romero
Cast: Judith O'Dea, Russell Streiner, Duane Jones

When the zombies are eating the bodies in the burnt-out truck, they were actually eating roast ham covered in chocolate sauce. The filmmakers joked that it was so nausea-inducing that it was almost a waste of time putting the makeup on the zombies as they ended up looking pale and sick anyway.


12:00 AM -- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
1h 55m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
Alien spores replace the people of San Francisco with emotionless pod people.
Director: Philip Kaufman
Cast: Donald Sutherland, Leonard Nimoy, Sam Conti

Siskel and Ebert both liked this movie and gave it two thumbs up on "At The Movies" in 1978; but they both wondered aloud as to why Phillip Kauffman remade the 1956 Don Seigel classic. The critical consensus since then is that the 1978 remake is actually better than the original: the best of the bunch in terms of the 4 iterations of this story.


2:00 AM -- Hell Night (1981)
1h 42m | Horror
On Hell Night, the sorority and fraternity pledges at the local college face the initiation ritual of a night in Garth Manor.
Director: Tom Desimone
Cast: Linda Blair, Peter Barton, Vincent Van Patten

Actress Linda Blair said in an interview that after her head turning role in the feature film, The Exorcist (1973), she was unable to break free of the young girl as a victim role. So she wanted to revitalize her image after she finished this film. She wanted to show the world she was a grown woman capable of adult roles, which is why she posed for nude photos in the October 1982 issue of Oui magazine. Unfortunately, the photoshoot had an unintended consequence. Instead of big Hollywood pictures, Linda would go on to appear in more exploitation B-films like this one or smaller television roles for most of her career.


3:45 AM -- Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
1h 57m | Horror | TV-14
A teenage girl once possessed by a demon finds that it still lurks within her.
Director: John Boorman
Cast: Linda Blair, Richard Burton, Louise Fletcher

The original cast and crew of The Exorcist (1973) were very much opposed to a sequel. William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty actually met to discuss ideas at one point, but when they failed to develop a suitable premise, they abandoned the project. Both Linda Blair and Ellen Burstyn turned down repeated offers by the studio, though Blair eventually agreed to return when presented with what she considered a good script. However, according to Blair, due to various rewrites the script ended up a total mess. By that point, however, she was contractually bound to a sequel, and unable to drop out of the project.


5:45 AM -- Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961)
1h | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A killer blames a legendary sea monster for his deeds and is surprised when the real beast shows up.
Director: Roger Corman
Cast: Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Edward Wain

The scene of the Cuban officers saluting as the little boat they are floating in sinks was not planned; it actually began sinking as they were completing the shot. Roger Corman told the actors to stand and salute as the boat sank and filmed every moment, later stating that it "wasn't very deep" there. He also gave high praise for the Mexican actors who played the officers for taking direction so well.