TCM Schedule for Friday, December 3, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: From the Archives

In the daylight hours, we're being seduced by Femmes Fatales. Then in prime time, TCM is digging into the Archives for some cinematic documentaries. Enjoy!


6:45 AM -- Brother Rat (1938)
1h 30m | Comedy | TV-G
A military cadet and his friends try to keep his marriage a secret.
Director: William Keighley
Cast: Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris, Johnnie Davis

Ronald Reagan met his first wife Jane Wyman during the production of this film.


8:30 AM -- Night Parade (1929)
1h 11m | Drama | TV-G
A woman tries to seduce a champion boxer into throwing a fight for the mob.
Director: Malcolm St. Clair
Cast: Hugh Trevor, Lloyd Ingraham, Dorothy Gulliver

Based on the following Broadway production: Ringside (1928). Written by Edward E. Paramore Jr., Hyatt Daab and George Abbott. Directed by George Abbott. Broadhurst Theatre: 29 Aug 1928- Sep 1928 (closing date unknown/37 performances).


9:45 AM -- Journal of a Crime (1934)
1h 5m | Drama | TV-PG
Before she can confess to shooting her husband's mistress, a woman succumbs to amnesia.
Director: William Keighley
Cast: Ruth Chatterton, Adolphe Menjou, Claire Dodd

The source is credited to a play onscreen, but it is actually a remake of the French film Une vie perdue (1933), written by the same author. Perhaps "screen play" was meant, because "screenplay" in the 1930s was two separate words.


11:00 AM -- Satan Met a Lady (1936)
1h 15m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
In the second screen version of The Maltese Falcon, a detective is caught between a lying seductress and a lady jewel thief.
Director: William Dieterle
Cast: Bette Davis, Warren William, Alison Skipworth

The second of three film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon," this film has notable connections to both other versions. First, this film's screenwriter, Brown Holmes, was also credited as a screenwriter on The Maltese Falcon (1931), directed by Roy Del Ruth. Second, this film's cinematographer, Arthur Edeson, was also the director of photography for John Huston's The Maltese Falcon (1941). Third, Warren William, who plays the Sam Spade character (Ted Shane) in this film, also played Perry Mason in a series of films beginning in 1934, but was replaced in 1936 by Ricardo Cortez - who had played Sam Spade in the 1931 "Maltese Falcon". Finally, Bette Davis filled in for Raymond Burr when he had to have surgery in Perry Mason: The Case of Constant Doyle (1963).


12:30 PM -- Madame Satan (1930)
1h 55m | Musical | TV-G
A socialite masquerades as a notorious femme fatale to win back her straying husband.
Director: Cecil B. Demille
Cast: Kay Johnson, Reginald Denny, Lillian Roth

As things begin to go awry on board, one of the crew comments "Remember the the Shenandoah." This refers to the tragic crash in a sudden thunderstorm of the USS Shenandoah airship on September 3, 1925 in southeastern Ohio, which would have been a widely known event.


2:30 PM -- The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)
1h 21m | Crime | TV-PG
A woman in the process of divorce shoots her husband and gets her police lieutenant boyfriend to hide the body.
Director: Felix E. Feist
Cast: Lee J. Cobb, Jane Wyatt, John Dall

Jack Warner Jr. believed Lee J. Cobb would be able to carry off the romantic leading man role, as he was just coming off one of the most celebrated runs on Broadway, as Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". Warner believed this was a casting coup that would translate into "big box office". It didn't.


4:00 PM -- Madeleine (1950)
1h 55m | Crime | TV-PG
A beautiful young woman stands trial for poisoning her lover.
Director: David Lean
Cast: Ann Todd, Norman Woland, Ivan Desny

Ann Todd had portrayed the title character in a production of the play on which this movie was based, and had always wanted to play her in a movie adaptation. Shortly after she married director Sir David Lean, he agreed to make this movie and cast her as the lead as a "wedding present" of sorts.


6:00 PM -- The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
1h 56m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Years after a murder drove them apart, an heiress tries to win back her lost love.
Director: Lewis Milestone
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- John Patrick

Barbara Stanwyck had considerable influence on how she was lit, and was not shy about putting her fellow actors and actresses on notice that she did not like to be upstaged. When she saw the coin trick Van Heflin had learned - at Director Lewis Milestone's suggestion, to show that Heflin's character was a professional gambler - she informed him he should make sure he did not do it during any of her important lines, since she had a bit of business that would upstage him, if she had to. With that she raised her skirt high and adjusted her garter. The result was that Heflin only used the trick once in a scene with her.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- FROM THE ARCHIVES



8:00 PM -- AMIA Archival Screening Night Roadshow (2021)
Compilation
A collection of clips from movies throughout history ranging from documentary to art house.
Director: Brittan Dunham
Cast: John Canemaker


10:00 PM -- Image Makers: The Adventures of America's Pioneer Cinematographers (2019)
1h 31m | Documentary | TV-PG
Daniel Raim's documentary following the history of America's first cinematographers.
Director: Daniel Raim
Cast: John Bailey, Kevin Brownlow, Steve Gainer

Narrated by Michael McKean, of Spinal Tap and Lenny of Laverne & Shirley fame.


12:00 AM -- Fragments (2011)
1h 49m | Documentary | TV-PG
A collection of fragments and trailers from lost films.
Director: Constantine Giannaris

A collection of 19 unreleased short videos, shot in a span of 20 years, edited and presented for the first time from the director at the 2011 Thessaloniki International Film Festival.


2:00 AM -- She Freak (1967)
1h 23m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A diner waitress joins a traveling circus.
Director: Byron Mabe
Cast: Claire Brennen, Lee Raymond, Lynn Courtney

Felix Silla (Shorty) and his leading lady, Claire Brennen, met on the set of this movie. They began a nine-year relationship and managed to keep it secret for all of those years, despite the fact that it produced a son.


3:30 AM -- The Mutation (1974)
1h 31m | Horror
A scientist experiments with crossing humans and plants, for which he uses his students.
Director: Jack Cardiff
Cast: Donald Pleasence, Tom Baker, Brad Harris

According to Tom Baker, while filming he and Willie Ingram, who went by the stage name "Popeye" for his strange ability to make his eyes pop far out of their sockets, used to frequent a bar across the street between shooting scenes. During one such outing a waitress made it clear through her attitude that she didn't approve of Baker, who is white, being friends with Ingram who is black. So to get back at her Ingram would make his eyes pop out when she would pass the table causing her to completely freak out, and then go back to normal while he and Baker would pretend nothing happened as she tried to point it out to other waitresses and patrons.


5:15 AM -- Changing (1971)
28m | Short | TV-MA
A young family tries to cope with shifting social values in this short film.
Director: Hubert Smith
Cast: Gene Kopp, Edward Kutner, Kathy McGinnis


5:45 AM -- When You Grow Up (1973)
11m | Short | TV-G
In this short film, children learn about the world of fun that awaits them when they grow up and go to work.
Director: Jerry Kurtz
Cast: Robert Babcock, Linda Gries, Ingvar Grimsgaard