TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 28, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Star of the Month - Edward G. Robinson

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films of Don Defore, prolific cinema actor who is today best remembered as George Baxter, the boss of in the television series Hazel, and Thorny in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriett (1952-1957). Then in prime time, it's the end of TCM's salute to Star of the Month, Edward G. Robinson. Enjoy!

P.S. And my profound apologies for getting this out so late. Real life got in my way.



6:00 AM -- THE MALE ANIMAL (1942)
A college professor fights censorship and an amorous football player who's after his wife.
Dir: Elliott Nugent
Cast: Henry Fonda, Olivia De Havilland, Joan Leslie
BW-101 mins, CC,

Two of the "college students" in the cast went on to be well-known TV dads in the 1960s: Herbert Anderson (Dennis the Menace (1959)) and Don DeFore (Hazel (1961)).


7:45 AM -- ONE SUNDAY AFTERNOON (1948)
A dentist in turn-of-the-century New York thinks he may have married the wrong girl.
Dir: Raoul Walsh
Cast: Dennis Morgan, Janis Paige, Don DeFore
C-91 mins, CC,

Previously filmed as One Sunday Afternoon (1933) with Gary Cooper and Fay Wray, and as The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland.


9:30 AM -- IT HAPPENED ON 5TH AVENUE (1947)
Two homeless men move into a mansion while its owners are wintering in the South.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth
Cast: Don DeFore, Ann Harding, Charles Ruggles
BW-115 mins, CC,

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

The men are getting paid $1.00 an hour for shoveling snow. One dollar in 1947 is worth $11.50 in 2020. The minimum wage in New York City in 2020 is $15.00 (though NYS will not reach $15.00/hour until December 31, 2020). (Although the character doesn't state whether that is $1 each or for both men together.)


11:30 AM -- TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949)
A married woman's discovery of stolen money changes her character for the worse.
Dir: Byron Haskin
Cast: Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea
BW-101 mins, CC,

Jimmie Dodd, the leader of the original Disney Mouseketeers, appears as one of the car thieves right after Jane abandons the car on the beach. He's the one who gets into the driver's seat.


1:13 PM -- MOVIE PESTS (1944)
This comedic short looks at annoying movie-going habits that disrupt the viewing experience.
Dir: Will Jason
Cast: Celia Travers, Harry Tyler, Heinie Conklin
BW-10 mins,


1:30 PM -- A GUY NAMED JOE (1943)
A downed World War II pilot becomes the guardian angel for his successor in love and war.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson
BW-120 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Story -- David Boehm and Chandler Sprague

The P-38 Lightning, featured in this film, was considered one of the best planes of WW2 since it was faster than most Japanese planes, highly maneuverable and could accept heavy damage and still fly. It featured forward firing guns, including a 20mm cannon, rather than the angled wing guns on most planes. It had one bad feature. When bailing out a pilot had to roll the plane and fall out rather than crawling out and jumping since the horizontal stabilizer between the two tails frequently would hit the pilot as he jumped.


3:33 PM -- THE HORSE WITH THE HUMAN MIND (1946)
This short film focuses on Bess, considered to be the smartest horse in the movies, as she works with her trainer.
Dir: Harry Loud
BW-8 mins,


3:45 PM -- THE STORK CLUB (1945)
A hat-check girl gets rich quick when she saves a millionaire's life.
Dir: Hal Walker
Cast: Betty Hutton, Barry Fitzgerald, Don DeFore
BW-98 mins, CC,

The movie included as a character Sherman Billingsley, the owner of the real stork club. During the movie, he talks to Danny, Judy's fiancée, telling him that his wife and two daughters were the only women in his life. This is contradictory to the real life Sherman, who had a longtime affair with Ethel Merman.


5:30 PM -- RETURN FROM NOWHERE (1944)
In this short film, a man recovers his lost memories when he is forced to relive events in his dreams.
Dir: Paul Burnford
Cast: Donald Curtis, Morris Ankrum, Naomi Scher
BW-10 mins,


5:30 PM -- MEN OF THE SKY (1942)
This short film, produced in cooperation with the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII, focuses on a group of fledgling pilots receiving their wings.
Dir: B. Reeves Eason
Cast: Tod Andrews, Eleanor Parker, Don DeFore
C-20 mins,

Second of over 400 films produced by the U.S. Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit released through Warner Bros. under the auspices of the Office of War Information.


6:07 PM -- PURITY SQUAD (1945)
This short film focuses on the USFDA's efforts to ensure drugs are properly tested before sold to the public.
Dir: Harold F. Kress
Cast: Selmer Jackson, Byron Foulger, Paul Langton
BW-20 mins,


6:30 PM -- A GIRL IN EVERY PORT (1952)
Two sailors invest in a racehorse.
Dir: Chester Erskine
Cast: Groucho Marx, Marie Wilson, William Bendix
BW-86 mins, CC,

Groucho Marx was 62 years old when this movie was released in 1952 by Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer making him a truly old sea dog as the sailor Benjamin Franklin "Benny" Linn.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: STAR OF THE MONTH: EDWARD G. ROBINSON



8:00 PM -- OUR VINES HAVE TENDER GRAPES (1945)
A Norwegian farmer tries to raise two children in the Midwest.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Margaret O'Brien, James Craig
BW-106 mins, CC,

When Martinius and Bruna have gone over the revenue from the potato harvest, talk turns to the new barn and the needed lumber being controlled by the "WPB". Audiences at the time would know that meant the War Production Board. Established in January 1942, this agency of the federal government was tasked with converting the economy to war production and controlled vital materials and their distribution via rationing, ran scrap drives, controlled wages and prices, and more.


10:00 PM -- THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944)
A seductive woman gets an innocent professor mixed up in murder.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey
BW-99 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Hugo Friedhofer and Arthur Lange

Former Our Gang members George "Spanky" McFarland and Robert Blake (Mickey Gubitosi) both have cameo appearances which are uncredited. They did not have any scenes together. Spanky, (who is 16) plays a bespectacled Boy Scout on a newsreel who discovers Manzard's corpse, while Blake appears early on in the picture as Professor Wanley's little boy Dickie departing the train station with his mother and sister Elsie.


11:45 PM -- SCARLET STREET (1945)
A middle aged wouldbe painter falls into the clutches of an unscrupulous woman.
Dir: Fritz Lang
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea
BW-102 mins, CC,

Robinson's character talks loving about art and says he wishes he owned a Cezanne. In real life, Robinson was a great collector of fine art and was considered an expert.


1:45 AM -- FIVE STAR FINAL (1931)
An unscrupulous newspaper editor searches for headlines at any cost.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H. B. Warner
BW-89 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar as Best Picture

Upon the film's release, press baron William Randolph Hearst deemed the film to be an assault upon his Hearst-owned newspapers known for their muck-raking stories and vicious tactics. Hearst pressured the mayor of Boston to ban the film and to issue a public statement decrying its "false" depiction of journalism.


3:30 AM -- DR. EHRLICH'S MAGIC BULLET (1940)
True story of the German scientist who devoted his life to curing syphilis.
Dir: William Dieterle
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger
BW-103 mins, CC,

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay -- Norman Burnstine, Heinz Herald and John Huston

Paul Ehrlich's cure for syphilis, Salvarsan 606, became the most prescribed drug in the world until the discovery of penicillin in the 1940s, when it became the preferred treatment for the disease.


5:30 AM -- SILVER DOLLAR (1932)
A farmer strikes it rich out West, then leaves his wife for a young beauty.
Dir: Alfred E. Green
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels, Aline MacMahon
BW-83 mins, CC,

The character of Yates Martin is based on Colorado's "Silver King", Horace A.W. Tabor, who was a United States Senator for one month and built Denver's opera house in the late 1800s. Lily Owen's character is based on Elizabeth "Baby" Doe Tabor, who Tabor married after creating a huge scandal by leaving his wife, Augusta Tabor.