TCM Schedule for Friday, June 5, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: Marx Brothers Madness

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing films about dramatic, romantic triangles. Then in prime time, TCM knows what we need in time of pandemic and murder and protest -- we need the distraction of the Marx Brothers. My personal favorite is Duck Soup (1933), on at 12:30 am EDT. Laugh and enjoy!


6:00 AM -- SEA DEVILS (1937)
A feud between Coast Guardsmen heats up when one falls for the other's daughter.
Dir: Ben Stoloff
Cast: Victor McLaglen, Preston Foster, Ida Lupino
BW-88 mins, CC,

Keep a sharp eye on the scene when Mike O'Shay escapes from the brig by tricking a fellow seaman, the key was already in the cell lock - he could have gotten out at any time he wanted!


7:30 AM -- KING OF THE LUMBERJACKS (1940)
A northwoods lumberjack unwittingly marries his best friend's girl.
Dir: William Clemens
Cast: John Payne, Gloria Dickson, Stanley Fields
BW-59 mins, CC,

Based on a story by Robert E. Kent.


8:30 AM -- STEEL AGAINST THE SKY (1941)
Steel-worker brothers compete for the same woman.
Dir: A. Edward Sutherland
Cast: Alexis Smith, Lloyd Nolan, Craig Stevens
BW-68 mins, CC,

The Professor calls his secret formula "Samsonite," but there is no connection with the famous luggage brand. The Shwayder Trunk Manufacturing Company named one of its cases "Samson", after the Biblical strongman, and only began using the trademark "Samsonite" the same year this film was made.


9:45 AM -- STALLION ROAD (1947)
A veterinarian and a novelist compete for the heart of a lady rancher.
Dir: James V. Kern
Cast: Ronald Reagan, Alexis Smith, Zachary Scott
BW-97 mins, CC,

The role of Rory Teller (Alexis Smith) was intended for Lauren Bacall who turned it down and briefly incurred a studio suspension.


11:30 AM -- THE ANIMAL KINGDOM (1932)
An intellectual publisher can't choose between his society wife and his free thinking former love.
Dir: Edward H. Griffith
Cast: Ann Harding, Leslie Howard, Myrna Loy
BW-85 mins, CC,

This film was considered lost for many years. In the early 1980's, film historian Ronald Haver was searching for missing material for the restoration of A STAR IS BORN (1954) when he came across a long forgotten print and negative in the Warner Bros. vaults. The studio had purchased the remake rights for THE ANIMAL KINGDOM from RKO sometime in the mid-1940's and due to unreliable book-keeping misplaced the print and negative in their vaults.


1:00 PM -- FORGET ME NOT (1936)
A woman who has a failed romance becomes involved with a widowed opera singer.
Dir: Stanley Irving
Cast: Beniamino Gigli, Joan Gardner, Hugh Wakefield
BW-71 mins, CC,

Also known as Forever Yours. According to IMDB, the director was actually Zoltan Korda.


2:15 PM -- SERENADE (1956)
A rising opera star is torn between his wealthy benefactor and a poor innocent.
Dir: Anthony Mann
Cast: Mario Lanza, Joan Fontaine, Sarita Montiel
C-122 mins, CC,

Warner Brothers bought the screen rights to the book in February 1944 and over the next 10 years various people were associated with it. At one point Ann Sheridan and Dennis Morgan were set to co star and later Michael Curtiz was set to direct.


4:30 PM -- FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (1966)
A riverboat gambler has to choose between his true love and the woman who's his lucky charm.
Dir: Frederick De Cordova
Cast: Elvis Presley, Donna Douglas, Nancy Kovack
C-87 mins, CC,

Several retakes were required because Elvis' form fitting slacks were judged to be too revealing, but the cost of re-filming crowd scenes was considered to be too expensive, and so Elvis and his bulge were occasionally left intact.


6:00 PM -- MOONSTRUCK (1987)
When she tries to make peace in her new family, an engaged woman falls for her fiance's brother.
Dir: Norman Jewison
Cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia
C-102 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Cher, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Olympia Dukakis, and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- John Patrick Shanley

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Vincent Gardenia, Best Director -- Norman Jewison, and Best Picture

Norman Jewison has stated that the climactic kitchen sequence was the most difficult scene that he ever shot in his career. The crew were dismissed and Jewison rehearsed with the cast for some time, using a stage production approach. Only after the actors perfected their timing did he decide where to put the camera.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: MARX BROTHERS MADNESS



8:00 PM -- MONKEY BUSINESS (1931)
Four stowaways get mixed up with gangsters while running riot on an ocean liner.
Dir: Norman McLeod
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-78 mins, CC,

The Irish government banned the film thinking it might encourage "anarchic tendencies". The ban was only lifted in 2000.


9:30 PM -- HORSE FEATHERS (1932)
In an effort to beef up his school's football team, a college president mistakenly recruits two loonies.
Dir: Norman McLeod
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-67 mins, CC,

Professor Wagstaff's exclamation, "Jumpin' anaconda!" is actually a reference to a company, Anaconda Copper, in which Groucho Marx had invested heavily. When the stock market crash of 1929 occurred, Marx lost several hundred thousand dollars, hence the curse word in the movie.


10:45 PM -- ANIMAL CRACKERS (1930)
Three zanies try to recover a stolen painting during a madcap house party.
Dir: Victor Heerman
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-97 mins, CC,

Zeppo Marx, the youngest of the five brothers, was very skilled at impersonating his older siblings and occasionally performed in their place when one of them was ill or unavailable. The blackout that occurs when Ravelli and Professor are attempting to steal the painting was contrived so that Zeppo could play Captain Spaulding on a day that Groucho Marx was not on the set. (Zeppo played Spaulding several times during the show's live run; Groucho stated, "he was so good as Captain Spaulding that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience.&quot


12:30 AM -- DUCK SOUP (1933)
When he's named dictator of Freedonia, a con artist declares war on the neighboring kingdom.
Dir: Leo McCarey
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx
BW-69 mins, CC,

It was Leo McCarey's idea to film the mirror sequence, based on an old vaudeville routine. It reportedly took only two hours to film. Harpo Marx re-enacted the mirror gag opposite Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy: Lucy and Harpo Marx (1955).


2:00 AM -- SATANIS, THE DEVIL'S MASS (1970)
A documentary that takes a look inside the "Church of Satan", founded in California in the 1960s by Anton Szandor LaVey, a former circus lion tamer.
Dir: Ray Laurent
Cast: Anton Szandor LaVey,
BW-86 mins, CC,


3:30 AM -- DEVIL WITHIN HER (1976)
A pregnant woman learns she is about to give birth to Satan's child.
Dir: Peter Sasdy
Cast: Joan Collins, Eileen Atkins, Donald Pleasence
C-94 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

This was Ralph Bates' first non-Hammer movie. For me, Ralph Bates is and always shall be George Warleggan, from the 1975-1977 version of Poldark. And interestingly, Bates was the great, great-nephew of Louis Pasteur.


5:15 AM -- NARCOTICS PIT OF DESPAIR PART 1 (1967)
In this short film, a drug dealer seduces a high-school student into drug addiction.
Dir: Mel Marshall
Cast: Kevin Tighe, Gerald LeRoy, Julie Conners
C-29 mins,


5:15 AM -- THE TERRIBLE TRUTH (1951)
A juvenile court judge investigates the tragedy of marijuana addiction in this short film.
C-10 mins,