TCM Schedule for Thursday, September 1, 2022 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month Humphrey Bogart

In the daylight hours, TCM is celebrating consumate comedian Marjorie Main. Then in prime time, it's the first night of Star of the Month Humphrey Bogart. Tonight we will see the collaberations between Bogie and director John Huston, with the first of the Bogie and Bacall films at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. I'll post the official TCM information about Bogart next week. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Susan and God (1940)
1h 55m | Comedy | TV-PG
A flighty socialite neglects her family to promote a new religious group.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Joan Crawford, Fredric March, Ruth Hussey

The play was originally bought as a starring vehicle for Norma Shearer, who balked at playing a mother again so soon after The Women (1939) and instead set her cap on the role of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940), an assignment studio chief Louis B. Mayer ultimately bestowed upon Greer Garson.


8:00 AM -- The Women (1939)
2h 12m | Comedy | TV-PG
A happily married woman lets her catty friends talk her into divorce when her husband strays.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell

Marjorie Main's performance here as Lucy, the rough-mannered proprietress of the Reno ranch where all of this film's characters stay while awaiting their divorce decrees, was a major factor in her being cast as Ma Kettle in 1948's The Egg and I. She would later reprise the role in a series of "Ma & Pa Kettle" films, which became one of Universal Pictures' most reliably profitable franchises of the 1950s.


10:30 AM -- Heaven Can Wait (1943)
1h 53m | Comedy | TV-PG
An old roué arrives in Hades to review his life with Satan, who will rule on his eligibility to enter the Underworld.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Cast: Gene Tierney, Don Ameche, Charles Coburn

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Ernst Lubitsch, Best Cinematography, Color -- Edward Cronjager, and Best Picture

Gene Tierney recalled that during production, "Lubitsch was a tyrant on the set, the most demanding of directors. After one scene, which took from noon until five to get, I was almost in tears from listening to Lubitsch shout at me. The next day I sought him out, looked him in the eye, and said, 'Mr. Lubitsch, I'm willing to do my best but I just can't go on working on this picture if you're going to keep shouting at me.' 'I'm paid to shout at you', he bellowed. 'Yes', I said, 'and I'm paid to take it - but not enough.' After a tense pause, Lubitsch broke out laughing. From then on we got along famously."


12:30 PM -- Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
1h 53m | Musical | TV-G
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Judy Garland, Margaret O'brien, Mary Astor

Winner of an Oscar Juvenile Award for Margaret O'Brien for outstanding child actress of 1944

Nominee for Oscars for Best Writing, Screenplay -- Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Best Cinematography, Color -- George J. Folsey, Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- George Stoll, and Best Music, Original Song -- Ralph Blane and Hugh Martin for the song "The Trolley Song"

Katie (Marjorie Main) disappears from the film after the backyard confrontation between Lon and Rose at the start of the winter sequence.


2:30 PM -- The Harvey Girls (1946)
1h 41m | Musical | TV-G
Straitlaced waitresses battle saloon girls to win the West for domesticity.
Director: George Sidney
Cast: Judy Garland, John Hodiak, Ray Bolger

Winner of an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Harry Warren (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the song "On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe"

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture -- Lennie Hayton

The Harvey House restaurants were established by Fred Harvey in 1870 to provide good, inexpensive food and lodging in clean, elegant surroundings for travellers in the western United States. At the chain's peak, there were around eighty-four Harvey Houses throughout seven states, all operated in conjunction with the Santa Fe Railroad.


4:15 PM -- Rationing (1943)
1h 33m | Comedy | TV-G
A small-town butcher has problems coping with meat rationing.
Director: Willis Goldbeck
Cast: Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, Donald Meek

By the "A" sticker on Ben's windshield, he was classified as "non-essential" to the war effort and was allotted only three to four gallons of gasoline per week. The reason behind gas rationing was not so much to save gas, but rubber tires, as Japan had cut off ninety percent of the world's natural rubber supply and synthetic rubber production could not meet the demands of the times. In addition to gas rationing there was also a 35 mph national speed limit.


6:00 PM -- Gentle Annie (1944)
1h 20m | Western | TV-G
A frontierswoman turns her family into a band of bank robbers.
Director: Andrew Marton
Cast: James Craig, Donna Reed, Marjorie Main

Production of the movie actually began in October 1942 with W.S. Van Dyke as director and Robert Taylor, Susan Peters, Spring Byington, Charley Grapewin, Van Johnson, Morris Ankrum and James Craig. The production was halted and finally shelved when Van Dyke became ill after 4 weeks of shooting, and when it was revived in 1944, only Ankrum and Craig remained in the cast, but in different roles.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- STAR OF THE MONTH HUMPHREY BOGART



8:00 PM -- The African Queen (1951)
1h 45m | Adventure | TV-PG
A grizzled skipper and a spirited missionary take on the Germans in Africa during World War I.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Humphrey Bogart

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Katharine Hepburn, Best Director -- John Huston, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- James Agee and John Huston

While filming the "leeching" scene, Humphrey Bogart insisted on using rubber leeches. John Huston refused, and brought a leech-breeder to the London studio with a tank full of them. It made Bogart queasy and nervous, qualities Huston wanted for his close-ups. Ultimately, rubber leeches were placed on Bogart, and a close-up of a real leech was shot on the breeder's chest.


10:00 PM -- The Maltese Falcon (1941)
1h 40m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-PG
Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the murderous search for a priceless statue.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Sydney Greenstreet, Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston, and Best Picture

There is an inordinate amount of smoking done by the main actors in this film. According to then-studio employee (and future screenwriter) Stuart Jerome, this resulted in a feud between studio head Jack L. Warner and stars Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. Warner hated to see actors smoking on the screen, fearing it would prompt smokers in the movie audience to step out into the lobby for a cigarette. During filming, he told director John Huston that smoking should be kept to a minimum. Bogart and Lorre thought it would be fun to annoy Warner by smoking as often as possible, and got their co-stars, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet, to go along with the joke. During the initial filming of the climactic confrontation, all four actors smoked heavily. After seeing the rushes, Warner furiously called Huston to his office and threatened to fire him from the picture if he didn't tell Bogart and Lorre to knock it off. Realizing their prank had backfired, Bogart and Lorre agreed to stop smoking on camera. However, when the next series of rushes came back, it was obvious that the "lack" of smoking by the actors was taking away from the sinister mood of the scene. Huston went back to Warner and convinced him that the smoking added the right amount of atmospheric tension to the story, arguing that the characters would, indeed, smoke cigarettes while waiting nervously for the Maltese Falcon to arrive.


12:00 AM -- Across the Pacific (1942)
1h 37m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-G
An American agent tries to keep Axis spies from blowing up the Panama Canal.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet

Humphrey Bogart's character, Rick Leyland, calls Mary Astor's character "Precious" and "Angel", names that he calls her in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Bogart's character's name, Rick, is also his name in Casablanca (1942).


1:45 AM -- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
2h 6m | Adventure | TV-PG
Three prospectors fight off bandits and each other after striking it rich in the mountains of Mexico.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Walter Huston, Best Director -- John Huston, and Best Writing, Screenplay -- John Huston

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture

Humphrey Bogart was quite fond of working with director John Huston and enjoyed his experience working on this film. However, Bogart found Huston to be quite the perfectionist, which led to some grueling and exhausting days on location. Bogart sarcastically recalled that "John wanted everything perfect. If he saw a nearby mountain that could serve for photographic purposes, that mountain was not good; too easy to reach. If we could get to a location site without fording a couple of streams and walking through snake-infested areas in the scorching sun, then it wasn't quite right."


4:00 AM -- Key Largo (1948)
1h 41m | Crime | TV-G
A returning veteran tangles with a ruthless gangster during a hurricane.
Director: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall

Winner of an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Claire Trevor

Although they played on-screen enemies, off-screen Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson treated each other with great respect. Bogart insisted Robinson be treated like a major star, and he would not come to the set until Robinson was ready. Often, he would go to Robinson's trailer to personally escort him to the set.