TCM Schedule for Saturday, June 7, 2020 -- What's On Tonight: The Essentials: Lawrence of Arabia

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, TCM finally returns to the Essentials. Tonight, Ben Mankiewicz and special co-host Brad Bird have a single film, but one that should be a part of everyone's cinematic experience - Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Watch it on the biggest screen you own and enjoy!


6:00 AM -- BEDEVILLED (1955)
A novice priest offers sanctuary to a girl on the run from gangsters.
Dir: Mitchell Leisen
Cast: Anne Baxter, Steve Forrest, Simone Renant
C-86 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Greg and Tony's hotel rate of 1,100 francs would equal $3.15 at the time or nearly $30 in 2018.


8:00 AM -- MGM CARTOONS: DANCE OF THE WEED (1941)
A clumsy yokel of a male weed courts a delicate female flower ballerina by trying to dance with her.
Dir: Rudolf Ising
BW-9 mins, CC,

Scott Bradley composed and recorded the music score before the cartoon was written, a reversal of the usual procedure.


8:10 AM -- AQUA BABES (1956)
This short film shows a swim teacher assisting a group of three- and four-year-olds how to swim in a pool.
Dir: Ernest Corts
Cast: Harry Wismer, Lissa Bengston
BW-8 mins,


8:19 AM -- CHILE "LAND OF CHARM" (1937)
Chile's history, culture, and customs are the star in this short film.
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins,


8:29 AM -- THE FIGHTING GRINGO (1939)
A cowboy tries to clear an innocent Mexican rancher of murder charges.
Dir: David Howard
Cast: George O'Brien, Lupita Tovar, Lucio Villegas
BW-59 mins,

Film debut of Ben Johnson.


9:30 AM -- TERRY AND THE PIRATES: AT THE MERCY OF THE MOB (1940)
Dr. Herbert Lee, an archaeologist seeking to decipher ancient Mara inscriptions, is aided by his son, Terry, Terry's pal, Pat Ryan, and Normandie Drake.
Dir: James W. Horne
Cast: William Tracy, Jeff York, Joyce Bryant
BW-17 mins, CC,

Episode five of fifteen.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: OLIVE'S BOITHDAY PRESINK (1933)
Popeye wants to get Olive a fur coat, but after a run-in with dishonest furrier Geezil, decides the best way is to go hunting for a bear himself.
Dir: Dave Fleischer, Dave Tendlar (uncredited)
Cast: Jack Mercer
BW-6 mins, CC,

This is the second time George W. Geezil, makes an appearance in a Popeye cartoon. Unlike his first appearance in A Clean Shaven Man (1936) which was a non-speaking cameo this is a fairly big role.


10:07 AM -- JALOPY (1953)
The Bowery Boys enter an auto race when one of them invents a new super gas.
Dir: William Beaudine
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey
BW-62 mins, CC,

The 29th of 48 Bowery Boys movies released by Monogram/Allied Artists from 1946 to 1958. This is the first film to be released by Allied Artists, the successor to Monogram.


11:30 AM -- OLD HICKORY (1940)
This short film presents four key incidents in the public life of Andrew Jackson. Vitaphone Release 9590-9591.
Dir: Lewis Seiler
Cast: Jack Mower, Bert Stevens, Georges Renavent
C-17 mins,


12:00 PM -- THE WOMAN IN GREEN (1945)
Sherlock Holmes investigates a series of seemingly unrelated murders.
Dir: Roy William Neill
Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke
BW-67 mins, CC,

The Breen Office ordered two cuts from the original script. First, the victims were supposed to be young girls. That was ordered to be changed to young women although Dr. Simnell's bizarre doll fetish may be a leftover from the initial concept. In addition, during the scene in the Mesmer Club, Watson was supposed to take off his pants, not just roll up his pant leg.


1:15 PM -- M (1951)
When the police hunt for a child killer cramps their style, the criminal underworld tries to track him down.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: David Wayne, Howard Da Silva, Luther Adler
BW-88 mins,

Before signing Joseph Losey as director, producer Seymour Nebenzal approached fellow German expatriate Douglas Sirk and offered him the job. Sirk said he would do the film only if he could scrap the original story and write a new one about a psychopathic murderer of children. When Nebenzal approached Losey, he too wanted to scrap the original story and do a new one about a child-murderer, and Nebenzal told him that the Production Code Administration (PCA) had agreed to allow him to make the film only if the original story and script were kept. The PCA had approved "M" as a remake of an acknowledged classic, but if the story were changed, their approval would be withdrawn.


3:00 PM -- ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959)
A small-town lawyer gets the case of a lifetime when a military man avenges an attack on his wife.
Dir: Otto Preminger
Cast: James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara
BW-161 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Stewart, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Arthur O'Connell, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George C. Scott, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Wendell Mayes, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Sam Leavitt, Best Film Editing -- Louis R. Loeffler, and Best PIcture

The part played by Lee Remick was first offered to Lana Turner, who agreed to take it on the condition that she would wear gowns designed exclusively by her personal couturier, Jean Louis. When director Otto Preminger objected that such gowns were not suitable for the role, Turner turned down the part. Columbia was ready to give in to Turner's demands but Preminger resisted and gave the role to Remick, then almost a beginner.


6:00 PM -- D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE (1956)
An American and a British soldier in love with the same woman head for the Normandy Invasion.
Dir: Henry Koster
Cast: Robert Taylor, Richard Todd, Dana Wynter
C-106 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

A parachutist during World War II, Richard Todd actually took part in the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944. He later played his former commanding officer Major John Howard in The Longest Day (1962), another dramatisation of the Normandy landings.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: LAWRENCE OF ARABIA



8:00 PM -- LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
A British military officer enlists the Arabs for desert warfare in World War I.
Dir: David Lean
Cast: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn
C-227 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Director -- David Lean, Best Cinematography, Color -- Freddie Young, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- John Box, John Stoll and Dario Simoni, Best Sound -- John Cox (Shepperton SSD), Best Film Editing -- Anne V. Coates, Best Music, Score - Substantially Original -- Maurice Jarre, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Peter O'Toole, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Omar Sharif, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson (The nomination for Wilson was granted on 26 September 1995 by the Academy Board of Directors, after research at the WGA found that the then blacklisted writer shared the screenwriting credit with Bolt.)

The first time Peter O'Toole tried riding a camel, blood oozed from his jeans. "This is a very delicate Irish arse", he warned his instructor. He finally mastered his camel-riding technique by adding a layer of sponge rubber under the saddle to ease his bruised backside--a practical innovation quickly adopted by the actual Bedouin tribesmen acting as extras during the desert location filming. O'Toole was nicknamed "ab al-'Isfanjah" ("father of the sponge&quot by the Bedouin.


12:00 AM -- THE UNDERWORLD STORY (1950)
A corrupt newspaperman, blacklisted from his big-city paper, becomes involved with a murder case for a small town paper.
Dir: Cyril Endfield
Cast: Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm
BW-91 mins, CC,

The story is about an African American servant who is wrongfully charged with murder. Molly is played by Mary Anderson, who is unquestionably white. Proof of this is that she attended Howard College (Samford University since 1965), a private, segregated institution near Burmingham, Alabama that accepted its first black student in 1967.


2:00 AM -- HOPSCOTCH (1980)
A retired CIA agent threatens to publish an embarrassing book of memoirs about his colleagues.
Dir: Ronald Neame
Cast: Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Mike Gwilym
C-105 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The film featured a number of second-generation actors including Yolanda King, daughter of Martin Luther King; Lucy Saroyan, daughter of novelist William Saroyan, and Walter Matthau's son, David Matthau.


4:00 AM -- OUR MAN IN MARRAKESH (1966)
One of six travelers on a bus is carrying $2 million to pay a local operator to fix United Nations votes... but which one?
Dir: Don Sharp
Cast: Tony Randall, Senta Berger, Herbert Lom
C-94 mins,

The picture has a number of titles in English-speaking territories that include "Bang, Bang, Bang! Marrakesh"; "I Spy You Spy"; "Marrakesh"; "Bang Bang!"; "Our Man in Marrakesh"; and "Bang! Bang! Your Dead!'."

[rusty quoin]

1. I see several good ones there like Anatomy of a Murder,

But my favorite for ever is Lawrence of Arabia. (Since I was a boy and saw it on the big screen.)

I have many times thought that it is the greatest film in history. Let me just say that it is my favorite.

[fierywoman]

2. Try to see the director's cut of Lawrence of Arabia. Even bettr if you can see it

in one of those very fancy theaters that have arm chairs and a superb sound system ...