TCM Schedule for Friday, November 19, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Dean Martin, Part I

In the daylight hours, we're spending time in the land of make believer with Fairy Tales. Then in prime time, it's the first of two nights with the King of Cool, Dean Martin.

4 Movies, 1 Documentary | November 19 & 26, 8 p.m.

Steve McQueen might take exception to his title being hijacked, but if it had to be applied to anybody else, who better than this laidback singer, actor, TV star and integral member of the Rat Pack, those 60s paragons of ultra hip? TCM is showing four essential Dean Martin films in support of its premiere of King of Cool (2021), a documentary intended as “a nuanced portrait of a man that everyone love [sic] but no one ever really knew,” according to its producers, Creative Chaos. Directed by Tom Donahue (Guest of Cindy Sherman, 2008), the film claims to be inspired by Citizen Kane (1941) and seeks to challenge “the limits of what we can know about an iconic figure.”

Martin was certainly iconic, from his earliest days as the smooth-crooning stage and screen partner of Jerry Lewis, who appears in the documentary, to his first solo film appearances in the late 1950s to his, well, iconic roles (essentially versions of himself, or at least the public’s perception of him) with fellow Rat Packers Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and their muse, Angie Dickinson, also interviewed in Donahue’s film.

Martin and Lewis started out in the mid-1940s as a nightclub act, whose patented mix of handsome straight man and manic comic (later copied by such teams as Rowan and Martin and Allen and Rossi) brought them early fame and popularity on TV and movies. The Caddy (1953) falls roughly in the middle of the 16 features they headlined between 1949 and 1956. It was directed, as many of the pair’s pictures were, by Norman Taurog, who later helmed nine Elvis Presley movies. This is the film where Martin introduced one of his most enduring signature tunes, “That’s Amore.”

After splitting with Lewis, Martin sought meatier roles and found them opposite Sinatra in Vincent Minnelli’s Some Came Running (1958) and with John Wayne in Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo (1959). His sensitive performance in the latter, as a maligned drunk who proves himself when criminals threaten his town, received widespread critical praise and is often considered his finest film work.

Martin tended to walk through his Rat Pack pictures with a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other and an unruffled demeanor, but audiences were no less enthralled by his presence. In Ocean’s 11 (1960), remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2001, he’s part of a team pulling off an intricate Las Vegas heist. In an even more lighthearted romp, Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), he’s part of a gang fighting rivals for control of the rackets in Prohibition-era Chicago. The film also stars Sinatra, Davis Jr. and Bing Crosby, so naturally there are plenty of songs for the cast to perform.

The King of Cool documentary will be screened on both nights of the special tribute programming.

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- The Glass Slipper (1955)
1h 34m | Musical | TV-G
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Director: Charles Walters
Cast: Leslie Caron, Michael Wilding, Keenan Wynn

Tommy Rall, Jacques d'Amboise and James Mitchell were all considered for the role of Prince Charles. Michael Wilding, despite having no professional dance training, was cast due to the rash of publicity surrounding his marriage to fellow MGM contract player Elizabeth Taylor.


7:45 AM -- Jack and the Beanstalk (1952)
1h 27m | Comedy | TV-G
A baby-sitter dreams himself and his best friend into the famous fairy tale.
Director: Jean Yarbrough
Cast: [bud] Abbott, [lou] Costello, Buddy Baer

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made an independent, two-picture deal in which they agreed that this was to be "Lou's film" and the next to be "Bud's". They retained individual ownership of the respective films.


9:15 AM -- Beauty and the Beast (1946)
1h 35m | Romance | TV-G
A mysterious monster forces a young innocent to share his life in an enchanted castle.
Director: Jean Cocteau
Cast: Jean Marais, Josette Day, Mila Parely

Walt Disney was interested in adapting the fairytale "Beauty and the Beast" into an animated feature, but when this film released he felt discouraged and believed it wouldn't be as good as what Jean Cocteau did. Eventually Disney Pictures would adapt the fairytale as Beauty and the Beast (1991), to great acclaim; however that feature is greatly influenced by this film.


11:00 AM -- tom thumb (1958)
1h 38m | Musical | TV-G
A six-inch-tall boy takes on a pair of comical crooks.
Director: George Pal
Cast: Russ Tamblyn, Alan Young, June Thorburn

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Special Effects -- Tom Howard

In addition to being an accomplished dancer, Russ Tamblyn also studied acrobatics and gymnastics. It is Tamblyn, not a stunt double, doing the many athletic moves.


12:45 PM -- Gulliver's Travels (1939)
1h 14m | Adventure | TV-G
An English sailor is washed ashore in the land of Liliput, where everyone is about two inches tall.
Director: Dave Fleischer
Cast: Jessica Dragonette, Lanny Ross, Pinto Colvig

Nominee for Oscars for Best Music, Original Song -- Ralph Rainger (music) and Leo Robin (lyrics) for the song "Faithful Forever", and Best Music, Original Score -- Victor Young

This was the first animated film in which any actor's voice is credited. Disney did not give screen credit to any of the actors who voiced the characters in their animated films.


2:15 PM -- The Phantom Tollbooth (1970)
1h 30m | Musical | TV-G
A bored boy enters a fantasy world where letters and numbers are at war.
Director: Chuck Jones
Cast: Butch Patrick, Hans Conried, Mel Blanc

MGM's first full-length animated film, and the last film the studio released to include live action and animation. MGM's animation studio closed soon after this film's release.


3:45 PM -- The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962)
2h 9m | Epic | TV-G
Fanciful biography of the German fairy-tale collectors, with reenactments of three of their stories.
Director: Henry Levin
Cast: Laurence Harvey, Karl Boehm, Claire Bloom

Winner of an Oscar for Best Costume Design, Color -- Mary Wills

Nominee for Oscars for Best Cinematography, Color -- Paul Vogel, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- George W. Davis, Edward C. Carfagno, Henry Grace and Richard Pefferle, and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment -- Leigh Harline

Although Buddy Hackett sang in "The Music Man", he had what could be described as a "funny" singing voice which would have seemed out of place in the eerie "flute-playing" scenes of "The Singing Bone". So his singing was dubbed by Clinton Sundberg, the actor who played the Prime Minister in the film, and who rarely sang onscreen. Although Sundberg did not have a trained singing voice, it had the right gravitas for the somber fairy tale.


6:15 PM -- Watership Down (1978)
1h 32m | Adventure | TV-PG
When their home is destroyed, a group of rabbits fight to survive in a violent world.
Director: Martin Rosen
Cast: John Hurt, Richard Briers, Ralph Richardson

The British Board of Film Classification is still receiving complaints about this movie four decades after its release, due to the board's decision to classify it U (suitable for all). The BBFC admitted in 2012 that it had "received complaints about the suitability of Watership Down at U almost every year since its classification".



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- DEAN MARTIN - KING OF COOL, PART 1



8:00 PM -- King of Cool (2020)
The story of Dean Martin.
Director: Tom Donahue
Cast: Jerry Lewis, Bob Newhart, Angie Dickinson

Rumors circulated for years that much of the "booze" he drank on stage during his famous "Rat Pack" performances was really apple juice. Son Dean Paul Martin confirmed these rumors after the variety show ended production, stating that his father could not have performed if he had really drank that much liquor.


9:30 PM -- The Caddy (1953)
1h 35m | Comedy | TV-G
A master golfer suffering from performance anxiety caddies for a man he's taught everything.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Donna Reed

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Harry Warren (music) and Jack Brooks (lyrics) for the song "That's Amore"

"That's Amore", sung by Dean Martin, became a multi-million seller and one of his signature songs. The tune also appeared in the closing credits of "Rear Window (1954)" and is regarded as the theme song to "Moonstruck (1987)." An instrumental version can be heard in "Houseboat (1958)." And it's the punchline to the joke about what sort of an eel is that -- it's a moray!


11:15 PM -- Rio Bravo (1959)
2h 21m | Western | TV-14
A sheriff enlists a drunk, a kid and an old man to help him fight off a ruthless cattle baron.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson

Dean Martin's agent approached Howard Hawks to consider his client for the role of the drunken deputy Dude. Hawks agreed to meet with Martin at 9:30 the next morning. When Hawks learned that Martin had done a show in Las Vegas until midnight, and hired a plane to fly him to the meeting, he was so impressed that he simply sent Martin to get a costume and told him he had the part.


2:00 AM -- The Loveless (1982)
1h 22m | Action
Trouble ensues when a motorcycle gang stops in a small southern town while heading to the races at Daytona.
Director: Monty Montgomery, Kathryn Bigelow
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Robert Gordon, Marin Kanter

The film was originally titled "US 17" after the highway in Georgia where it takes place. Distributors renamed it "Breakdown" for its worldwide premiere at a film festival in Switzerland, but director Kathryn Bigelow didn't like the title, feeling it was too generic.


3:30 AM -- Wild at Heart (1990)
2h 7m | Adventure | TV-MA
The mother of a young woman hires a gunman to track down her daughter and her daughter's male companion.
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Nicholas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Diane Ladd

Nic Cage states that Wild at Heart helped him get away from method acting. David Lynch's spontaneous re-writes and the film's odd characters helped him to be more playful with the craft.