TCM Schedule for Thursday, December 23, 2021 -- What's on: Classic Christmas Marathon

Throughout the day and night, there's more of TCM's Classic Christmas Marathon. Enjoy!


5:30 AM -- Bundle of Joy (1956)
1h 38m | Musical | TV-PG
A recently fired shop girl is mistaken for a single mother when she finds an abandoned baby.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Adolphe Menjou

In her autobiography, Carrie Fisher says that her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was pregnant with her whilst making this film. This accounts for several shots where Reynolds is hidden behind a shop display or wearing a cloak-style coat.


7:30 AM -- Big Business (1929)
18m | Silent | TV-G
A quarrel between two salesmen and a potential customer leads to an orgy of destruction.
Director: Leo McCarey, James W. Horne
Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, James Finlayson

The scene at Finlayson's house was planned to be the second of several stops, but when Laurel, Hardy, and Fin began improvising there was no stopping them, and director James Horne just let the cameras roll.


8:00 AM -- The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady (1950)
1h 44m | Musical | TV-G
Against her widowed father's wishes, a vaudeville star's daughter takes to the stage.
Director: David Butler
Cast: June Haver, Gordon MacRae, James Barton

James Barton (Dennis O'Grady) was an actual vaudeville song and dance man before breaking into movies.


10:00 AM -- The World of Henry Orient (1964)
1h 46m | Comedy | TV-PG
Two poor little rich girls dog the steps of a womanizing pianist.
Director: George Roy Hill
Cast: Peter Sellers, Tippy Walker, Merrie Spaeth

The pianist's unusual surname - Orient - was inspired by real-life concert pianist Oscar Levant. The word "levant" means orient in French. Nora Johnson, who wrote the novel on which the movie was based (and co-wrote the screenplay with her father, Nunally Johnson), said that she and a friend had a crush on Levant when they were schoolgirls.


12:00 PM -- A Carol for Another Christmas (1964)
1h 25m | Drama | TV-G
Three ghosts teach an industrialist the importance of international peacekeeping.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Eva Marie Saint, Ben Gazzara

In Rod Serling's original script, the lead character's name was Barnaby Grudge--i.e., B. Grudge, a play on the word "begrudge". ABC censors thought that viewers would miss that allusion and instead believe the name was chosen as a slap at U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, a man associated with nuclear war, and ordered the author to change the character's name. Serling settled on Daniel Grudge. (Serling's original name would also have made more sense, because it is a play on another Dickens novel, "Barnaby Rudge."


1:45 PM -- Desk Set (1957)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-G
An efficiency expert introduces his amazing new machine that can answer anything to a TV research department.
Director: Walter Lang
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young

Improvised Scene: Sumner is leaving Bunny's apartment, shortly after Mike leaves and Peg arrives, when Bunny and Sumner are recapping the afternoon's events for Peg. Tracy puts on the ruined shoes and grimaces as he tries to walk in them, which causes Bunny to laugh. He hobbles off stage and returns with his hat pulled down over his ears, his shirt dangling out of his pants, staggering as though drunk and talking crazy. This moment, including the women's hysterical laughter and Katharine Hepburn's literally falling out of her chair, is spontaneous and not in the script.


4:00 PM -- Susan Slept Here (1954)
1h 38m | Comedy | TV-PG
A Hollywood screenwriter takes in a runaway girl who's more woman than he can handle.
Director: Frank Tashlin
Cast: Dick Powell, Debbie Reynolds, Anne Francis

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- John Aalberg (RKO Radio), and Best Music, Original Song -- Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers for the song "Hold My Hand"

This picture marked the last of Dick Powell's 58 feature-film appearances (plus one voice over) between 1932 and 1954. A recording artist since 1927, Dick's final two commercial sides on a Bell single were tunes from the movie score: the title song (music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence) and the Oscar-nominated "Hold My Hand" (music and lyrics by Jack Lawrence and Richard Myers). Neither ditty was sung by Mr. Powell in the film. However, he danced a bit in a pantomime segment dreamed by Debbie Reynolds.


6:00 PM -- Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
1h 43m | Comedy | TV-PG
A beautiful witch puts a love spell on an unknowing publisher.
Director: Richard Quine
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon

Nominee for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color -- Cary Odell and Louis Diage, and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White or Color -- Jean Louis

This was James Stewart's final appearance as a romantic lead. This was because many of the leading ladies that were playing his romantic interest were becoming younger and a few were half his age. The critics in 1958 felt that Stewart was miscast as a suave New York businessman, and he apparently agreed. After this film he would concentrate more on roles that portrayed him as an everyman or as a father figure.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: DAYTIME & PRIMETIME THEME -- CLASSIC CHRISTMAS MARATHON



8:00 PM -- It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)
1h 55m | Comedy | TV-G
Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.
Director: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Don Defore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- Herbert Clyde Lewis and Frederick Stephani

Originally planned to be directed by Frank Capra, he chose to do It's a Wonderful Life (1946) instead.


10:15 PM -- The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
1h 52m | Comedy | TV-G
An acerbic critic wreaks havoc when a hip injury forces him to move in with a Midwestern family.
Director: William Keighley
Cast: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, authors of the play from which this film was adapted, were good friends with Alexander Woollcott, a famous critic, radio personality, and lecturer at the time. Woollcott requested that they write a play FOR him, but they never came up with a plot. One day Woollcott came to visit Hart unexpectedly and turned his house upside down, taking over the master bedroom, ordering Hart's staff around and making a general nuisance of himself. When Hart told Kaufman of the visit, he asked, "Imagine what would have happened if he broke his leg and had to stay?" They looked at each other and knew they had a play.


12:15 AM -- The Cheaters (1945)
Drama | TV-G
An unemployed actor tries to save a young innocent from greedy relations.
Director: Joseph Kane
Cast: Joseph Schildkraut, Billie Burke, Eugene Pallette

Paramount originally acquired the rights as a vehicle for Carole Lombard and John Barrymore. After Lombard's tragic death the property was sold to Republic as a potential vehicle for Binnie Barnes.


2:00 AM -- All That Heaven Allows (1955)
1h 29m | Drama | TV-G
A lonely widow defies small-town gossip when she falls for a younger man.
Director: Douglas Sirk
Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead

The house Jane Wyman's character lives in (on Universal's "Colonial Street" backlot) was built on rented Universal property by Paramount Pictures for 1955's "Desperate Hours"; Universal left it standing after filming, altering its appearance for "All That Heaven Allows." Four years later, it was altered again, for use as the house of the Cleaver family in TV's "Leave it to Beaver," beginning with the show's move from CBS to ABC for the 1959 season. The house continued as the Cleaver house until the end of the series in 1962, but was known at Universal as the "Paramount House," not the "Cleaver House."


3:45 AM -- Auntie Mame (1958)
2h 23m | Comedy | TV-G
An eccentric heiress raises her nephew to be a free spirit.
Director: Morton Dacosta
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Rosalind Russell, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Peggy Cass, Best Cinematography, Color -- Harry Stradling Sr., Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White or Color -- Malcolm C. Bert and George James Hopkins, Best Film Editing -- William H. Ziegler, and Best Picture

This is a rare instance of a book, adapted into a stage play, then filmed as a movie, which was turned into a Broadway musical, and finally was filmed again as a movie musical.