TCM Schedule for Thursday, January 13, 2022 -- What's on Tonight: True Crime

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, it's a Day at the Opera, though without a single Marx Brother. Then in prime time, it's the second week of True Crime. Enjoy!


6:15 AM -- Stars over Broadway (1935)
1h 30m | Musical | TV-G
An aggressive agent turns a hotel porter into an overnight sensation.
Director: William Keighley
Cast: Pat O'brien, Jane Froman, James Melton

Marie Wilson's first credited screen role.


8:00 AM -- That Midnight Kiss (1949)
1h 36m | Musical | TV-PG
A singing truck driver battles snobbery to become a star.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Kathryn Grayson, José Iturbi, Ethel Barrymore

The last film appearance of José Iturbi. He left Hollywood because his movie appearances were doing damage to his career as a conductor and concert pianist, as music critics were accusing him of "cheap exhibitionism" for appearing in Hollywood films.


9:45 AM -- Romance (1930)
1h 16m | Romance | TV-G
An opera singer leaves her wealthy lover for a young priest.
Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Greta Garbo, Lewis Stone, Gavin Gordon

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Greta Garbo, and Best Director -- Clarence Brown

Leading man Gavin Gordon was hit by another vehicle while driving his car to the set the first day of shooting. He was flung onto the pavement and fractured a collarbone, as well as dislocating his shoulder. Gordon was determined to play alongside Greta Garbo and feared his part might be recast if he went to the hospital, therefore proceeding to the set in spite of great pain. He managed to get through the first scene, whereupon he fainted. Garbo visited his bedside at the hospital and told him, production would wait for him. Director Clarence Brown therefore had to shoot all the scenes first in which Gordon didn't appear.


11:15 AM -- Kiss Me Again (1931)
1h 17m | Musical | TV-G
A French army officer and a cabaret singer chase each other across Europe.
Director: William A. Seiter
Cast: Bernice Clair, Edward Everett Horton, Walter Pidgeon

The musical play opened on Broadway in New York City, New York, USA on 25 September 1905 and closed 16 June 1906 after 202 performances. After the hot summer months, it reopened on 1 September 1906 for another 22 performance. Considered a big hit, it went on tour for 3 years.


12:30 PM -- Because You're Mine (1952)
1h 43m | Musical | TV-PG
After being drafted, an opera star falls for his sergeant's sister.
Director: Alexander Hall
Cast: Mario Lanza, Doretta Morrow, James Whitmore

Nominee for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Nicholas Brodszky (music) and Sammy Cahn (lyrics) for the song "Because You're Mine"

Owing to his limited acting ability, most of Mario Lanza's films were based on his own life experiences, including this one: Lanza did in fact meet his future wife while he was in the army, and she was the sister of a fellow serviceman he'd befriended in basic training.


2:15 PM -- For the First Time (1959)
1h 37m | Musical | TV-G
While vacationing in disguise, an opera star falls in love with a deaf girl.
Director: Rudolph Maté
Cast: Mario Lanza, Johanna Von Koczian, Kurt Krasznar

Final film of Mario Lanza.


4:00 PM -- Grounds for Marriage (1950)
1h 31m | Comedy | TV-G
An opera singer and her ex-husband find that their romance refuses to die with their marriage.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Van Johnson, Kathryn Grayson, Paula Raymond

Van Johnson replaced Robert Walker in the Dr. Lincoln I. Bartlett role.


5:45 PM -- Maytime (1937)
2h 12m | Musical | TV-G
An opera star's manager tries to stop her romance with a penniless singer.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard
Cast: Jeanette Macdonald, Nelson Eddy, John Barrymore

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD), and Best Music, Score -- Nat W. Finston (head of department) with score by Herbert Stothart

When filming began in 1936 (in color), the original opera finale was also recorded, staged and shot. This was to have been Act II of Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca", one of the few operatic works with major roles for baritone (Scarpia) and soprano as equals (Tosca). It also allowed Jeanette MacDonald to sing the famous aria "Vissi D'arte". By the time shooting recommenced in black and white, this idea was scrapped and replaced with an elaborate fake Russian opera "Czaritza" created by Herbert Stothart to music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, presumably to allow for a big Duet (in "Tosca", she murders Scarpia by stabbing him through the heart!). The rewritten story of "Maytime" presumably demanded it. Sadly, the Technicolor "Tosca" sequence does not appear to have survived, which is a pity as it would have been fascinating to see MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in a major operatic sequence and in color.



WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- TRUE CRIME



8:00 PM -- In Cold Blood (1967)
2h 14m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-14
Two vagrants try to outrun the police after committing a savage crime in this real-life shocker.
Director: Richard Brooks
Cast: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe

Nominee for Oscars for Best Director -- Richard Brooks, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium -- Richard Brooks, Best Cinematography -- Conrad L. Hall, and Best Music, Original Music Score -- Quincy Jones

The Clutter house is located on a large patch of real estate at the end of a private gravel road, approximately 1/3 of a mile west from the end of Oak Avenue in the rural community of Holcomb, Kansas, and is isolated from other homes. The fourteen-room, four-bedroom, two-story home was built in 1948 at the cost of $40,000, which would equate to approximately $434,000 in 2021. This was an impressive home, especially considering that, at the time, not all of the homes in Holcomb had running water. One could understand why the perpetrators might think that the family was cash rich, but as this was a working farm; most of the Clutter income was put back into the farm and would have served no purpose - and generated no revenue - from being hidden in a fictional safe. As with other businessmen, Herb Clutter ran his business via a checking account. The killers' belief that they would find a huge amount of cash in the house was a childish fantasy that revealed an obvious lack of understanding of the real world.


10:30 PM -- The Boston Strangler (1968)
1h 56m | Suspense/Mystery | TV-14
Federal and local law officers try to catch a deadly serial killer.
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, George Kennedy

In reality, DeSalvo confessed to the Boston Strangler murders, and told police facts of the crimes no one but the actual murderer or police would know. There was no physical evidence linking him to the murders however, so DeSalvo was actually convicted on a number of non-murder robbery and sex crimes that still ended up being a life sentence. Many people thought DeSalvo was innocent of the Strangler murders, and continued to believe this, until in 2013, almost 50 years after the last murder, DNA testing confirmed that DeSalvo (who had been murdered in prison in 1973) was the murderer of the last victim, Mary Sullivan. thus linking him conclusively to the murders of the other victims.


12:45 AM -- River's Edge (1986)
1h 40m | Drama | TV-MA
Based on a true story, a group of apathetic high school students learn that a friend has killed a girlfriend.
Director: Tim Hunter
Cast: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye

Although it is a work of fiction, the movie was inspired by the murder of Marcy Conrad, who was killed by her boyfriend Anthony Jacques Broussard in Milpitas, California, in 1981. Neal Jimenez read the story in the newspaper while visiting friends, wrote a script, and turned it in to his instructor, while he was an English major at Santa Clara University. Jimenez said "that the incident is merely the inspiration for the screenplay".


2:30 AM -- The Onion Field (1979)
2h 2m | Crime | TV-MA
When his partner is killed by a disturbed ex-con, a policeman struggles to regain his confidence.
Director: Harold Becker
Cast: John Savage, James Woods, Franklyn Seales

This was Ted Danson's feature film debut.


4:45 AM -- 10 Rillington Place (1971)
1h 49m | Crime | TV-14
A serial killer frames a mentally challenged man.
Director: Richard Fleischer
Cast: Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, John Hurt

The whole of Rillington Place (renamed Ruston Close in Ladbroke Grove) was due for demolition when filming took place, but was put off until filming had been completed. As soon as movie crews and equipment had been removed, demolition crews went in under police guard. The whole of the street remained under guard until the whole street had been demolished, and rubble removed, to prevent trophy hunters attempting to remove any building debris belonging to Number 10 for souvenirs. Number 7 was used for interior shots, as number 10 had been gutted to stop souvenir hunters.