TCM Schedule for Saturday, November 27, 2021 -- What's On Tonight: Space Stowaways

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in prime time, we get a pair of films about evil aliens hiding aboard spaceships. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942)
1h 56m | Comedy | TV-G
A radio correspondent tries to rescue a burlesque queen from her marriage to a Nazi official.
Director: Leo Mccarey
Cast: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Walter Slezak

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Stephen Dunn (RKO Radio SSD)

O'Toole (Cary Grant) ends his coerced radio broadcast with the phrase, "Tell it to the Marines." In the English usage of that day, the retort "Tell it to the Marines" meant, "Everything you just said is total bull, and cannot be believed for one minute." So by ending the speech that way, he was telling his American listeners that everything he had just said in the broadcast was untrue. Presumably his Nazi captors did not get the nuance, but the moviegoing audience would have.


8:00 AM -- The Milky Way (1940)
7m | Animation | TV-G
Three kittens aren't given any milk as punishment for misbehaving so they sail to the Milky Way in a hot air balloon.
Director: Rudolf Ising
Cast: Bernice Hansen

Winner of an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Cartoons -- Fred Quimby, Rudolf Ising and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Was the first non-Disney cartoon to win an Oscar for Best Short Subject.


8:10 AM -- Lions on the Loose (1941)
8m | Short | TV-G
In this short film, two lion cubs escape from the zoo and go on an adventure.
Director: Marjorie Freeman
Cast: Marjorie Freeman, Pete Smith, Philip Anderson


8:19 AM -- Scholastic England (1948)
8m | Short | TV-G
This short film focuses on the history of England's historic colleges and the towns that surround the campus.
Cast: James A. Fitzpatrick


8:28 AM -- Desert Passage (1952)
1h | Western | TV-PG
A cowboy doesn't realize the man he's been hired to drive to Mexico is an outlaw.
Director: Lesley Selander
Cast: Tim Holt, Joan Dixon, Walter Reed

This was the very last of Tim Holt's RKO B Westerns. Fittingly it was directed by Lesley Selander, one the best and most prolific B western directors, and of course, co-starred Richard Martin as Chito Rafferty, Tim's long time sidekick.


9:30 AM -- Batman and Robin: The Fatal Blast (1949)
16m | Short | TV-G
Batman's investigation of a criminal mastermind leads him to a deadly encounter with a railroad magnate.
Director: Spencer Gordon Bennet.
Cast: Robert Lowery, Johnny Duncan, Jane Adams

Muckraking radio talk show host Barry Brown is likely a play on controversial New York and Miami radio talk show host Barry Gray.


10:00 AM -- A Balmy Swami (1949)
6m | Animation | TV-PG
Popeye and Olive Oyl attend a vaudeville show. The magician is Bluto in Swami's clothing.
Director: Izzy Sparber
Cast: Jack Mercer, Jackson Beck, Mae Questel


10:08 AM -- Torchy Blane in Chinatown (1938)
59m | Crime | TV-G
A daring female reporter sets out to catch a blackmailer.
Director: William Beaudine
Cast: Glenda Farrell, Barton Maclane, Tom Kennedy

Although the onscreen credits state this is an original story, it is actually a remake of Murder Will Out (1930), which has a virtually identical plot and uses many of the same character names.


11:30 AM -- Swingtime in the Movies (1938)
19m | Short | TV-G
A director making a western struggles to find a good lead actress.
Director: Crane Wilbur
Cast: Frank Mayo, Katherine Kane, Rosemary Lane

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Short Subject, Two-reel

The scene in which John Carroll sings a love song to Kathryn Kane as they row in a canoe is a satirical reference to the then recent M-G-M Jeanettte MacDonald /Nelson Eddy hit Rose Marie.


12:00 PM -- David Copperfield (1935)
2h 13m | Drama | TV-G
Charles Dickens' classic tale of an orphaned boy's fight for happiness and the colorful characters who help and hinder him.
Director: George Cukor
Cast: W. C. Fields, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew

Nominee for Oscars for Best Film Editing -- Robert Kern, Best Assistant Director -- Joseph M. Newman, and Best Picture

Freddie Bartholomew was discovered after an extensive casting search in both the US and the UK. Louis B. Mayer was pushing hard for his young star, Jackie Cooper, but David O. Selznick was determined to cast someone less American. Bartholomew traveled to America with his aunt who - some say - effectively kidnapped him and took him to America against his parents' wishes.


2:30 PM -- A Bridge Too Far (1977)
2h 55m | War | TV-MA
The story of the Allied defeat at Arnhem in 1944.
Director: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Michael Caine

Daphne Du Maurier, the widow of Lieutenant General Browning, complained that her husband had been "made the fall guy" for the failure of Operation Market Garden by this movie. Browning, and the unseen Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, who are shown as responsible for the failure, had died by the time this movie opened in 1977 (unlike the other commanders involved). Sir Richard Attenborough defended his depiction of Browning, by pointing to the final scene, where he says, "As you know, I've always thought we were going a bridge too far." Browning did actually say something very similar to this (hence the title of Cornelius Ryan's original book, and this movie), but he said it well before the operation started.


5:45 PM -- 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 Mexican mountains.
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 Bogarts portrayal of 'Dobbs' in this film was cited by Steven Spielberg as the main inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.


WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- SPACE STOWAWAYS



8:00 PM -- It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)
1h 8m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-PG
A blood-sucking monster stalks the crew of a U.S. spaceship.
Director: Edward L. Cahn
Cast: Marshall Thompson, Shawn Smith, Kim Spalding

The mask of the monster suit was altered considerably. When Ray Corrigan was fitted for the suit, the mask was initially too tight. Paul Blaisdell, who made the suit, had to remove and rebuild the monster's lower jaw so the mask would fit better. Unfortunately, Corrigan's chin stuck out through the opening made in the mask. Blaisdell made up his chin to look like the monster's tongue. The mask's original eyes (large and catlike, a Blaisdell trademark) were also removed; the eyes you see behind the mask are actually Corrigan's.


9:30 PM -- Alien (1979)
2h 4m | Horror/Science-Fiction | TV-MA
The crew of a broken down space ship accidentally picks up a deadly alien life form.
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm

Winner of an Oscar for Best Effects, Visual Effects -- H.R. Giger, Carlo Rambaldi, Brian Johnson, Nick Allder and Dennis Ayling

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian and Ian Whittaker

To get Jones the cat to react fearfully to the descending Alien, a German Shepherd was placed in front of him with a screen between the two, so the cat wouldn't see it at first. The screen was then suddenly removed to make Jones stop advancing and start hissing.


12:00 AM -- Tight Spot (1955)
1h 37m | Crime | TV-14
A district attorney tries to get a hardboiled woman to testify against the mob.
Director: Phil Karlson
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Edward G. Robinson, Brian Keith

The story was inspired by Senator Estes Kefauver's tactics in coercing Virginia Hill to testify in the Bugsy Siegel prosecution.


2:00 AM -- Lost in America (1985)
1h 31m | Comedy | TV-MA
A discontented yuppie couple quit their jobs to rediscover America on the road.
Director: Albert Brooks
Cast: Albert Brooks, Julie Hagerty, Tom Tarpey

Considered a "yuppie" version of Easy Rider (1969). The picture uses that film's famous song "Born to Be Wild" in the movie whilst the favorite film of the motorcycle-cop who pulls over the Howards is also Easy Rider (1969). Albert Brooks has said that the film intentionally plays on on the notion of the 1960s Easy Rider (1969) generation dropping out again in the 1980s but this time as "yuppies" not "hippies". The David Howard character actually says in the film that they should drop-out "like in Easy Rider (1969)".


4:00 AM -- The Long, Long Trailer (1954)
1h 36m | Comedy | TV-G
Life on the road isn't what it's cracked up to be when a honeymooning couple invests in an oversized trailer.
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Marjorie Main

Although M-G-M contract players Marjorie Main and Keenan Wynn have billing just below Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the film's credits, neither of them is seen for more than a minute or two in the movie, suggesting that they may have been cast as "box office insurance."