TCM Schedule for Saturday, December 14, 2019 -- The Essentials: Gandhi

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM has the usual Saturday matinee lineup of films and shorts. Then in primetime, The Essentials is back! (or should that be The Essentials are back?), with trailblazing producer, director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay, who will join primetime host Ben Mankiewicz to discuss the films she has chosen. Tonight's theme is films about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.The honorific Mahātmā (Sanskrit: great-souled, venerable), first applied to him in 1914 in South Africa, is now used throughout the world. Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- NIGHT MUST FALL (1937)
A charming young man worms his way into a wealthy woman's household, then reveals a deadly secret.
Dir: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Merle Tottenham, Kathleen Harrison, Dame May Whitty
BW-116 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Robert Montgomery, and



Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- May Whitty

Remade in 1964 with Albert Finney as Dan.


8:00 AM -- THE MGM CARTOONS: SCREWY TRUANT (1945)
Screwy Squirrel is pursued by a truant officer.
Dir: Tex Avery (Fred)
Cast: Wally Maher, Dick Nelson
BW-7 mins, CC,

Every time Screwy hits the truant officer dog with one of the "Assorted Swell Things to Hit Dog on Head," the dog's Stetson hat morphs into a hat of another kind. In this order, it becomes a pork pie hat, a sailor-boy cap, a police officer's cap, a top hat, an Indian war bonnet, a witch's conical hat, a bicorne, a crown, a bowler, a fireman's hat, a football helmet, and finally the Stetson once again.


8:08 AM -- HOW TO READ (1938)
This comedic short makes light of the proper reading technique.
Dir: Roy Rowland
Cast: Robert Benchley, Hal K. Dawson, Barbara Bedford
BW-9 mins,


8:18 AM -- GRAND CANYON, PRIDE OF CREATION (1944)
This short film takes the viewer to Arizona and offers several different views of the Grand Canyon.
Narrator: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins,


8:28 AM -- PRIVATE DETECTIVE (1939)
Rival detectives fall in love when they're forced to work together.
Dir: Noel Smith
Cast: Jane Wyman, Dick Foran, Gloria Dickson
BW-56 mins, CC,

When Myrna arrives at the Montequito Apartments, she sees the name "Mr. Donald Norton" on the row of doorbell buttons and mailboxes. To the left is the name "Lucian Croy" - which happens to be the name of a character played by Gordon Oliver in the second "Torchy Blane" film "Fly Away Baby" in 1937.


9:30 AM -- JUNGLE QUEEN: THE SECRET OF THE SWORD! (1945)
A young girl journeys to Africa to find her father, an explorer who vanished in the jungle.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins, Ray Taylor
Cast: Edward Norris, Eddie Quillan, Douglass Dumbrille
BW-15 mins, CC,

Thirteenth and final episode.


10:00 AM -- POPEYE: STEALIN AIN'T HONEST (1933)
Olive has a secret treasure map, but while she's showing it to Popeye, Bluto photographs it and gets there first.
Dir: Dave Fleischer
Cast: Margie Hines, Jack Mercer, Tedd Pierce
BW-6 mins, CC,

One of a number of Popeye shorts which were sent off to Asia in the 80's to undergo the infamous redraw and colorization process.


10:06 AM -- LOOSE IN LONDON (1953)
The Bowery Boys take on British crooks when one of them thinks he's inherited a title.
Dir: Edward Bernds
Cast: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey
BW-62 mins, CC,

The thirtieth of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.


11:30 AM -- A GIRL'S BEST YEARS (1937)
A woman reporter is hired by an author-songwriter to help him avoid additional breach-of-promise suits in this comedic short.
Dir: Reginald LeBorg
Cast: Mary Doran, Clarence Kolb, Sheila Terry
BW-19 mins,

Included in Warner Home Video's (WHV) 2006 DVD release of China Seas (1935). This disc is also in WHV's multidisc DVD collection "Clark Gable: The Signature Collection", released the same day.


12:00 PM -- RED DUST (1932)
A plantation overseer in Indochina is torn between a married woman and a lady of the evening.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond
BW-83 mins, CC,

During filming of the famous rainbarrel sequence, Jean Harlow reportedly stood up - topless - and called out something along the lines of "one for the boys in the lab!" Director Victor Fleming quickly removed the film from the camera to prevent any footage from reaching the black market.


1:45 PM -- MOGAMBO (1953)
In this remake of Red Dust, an African hunter is torn between a lusty showgirl and a married woman.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly
C-116 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Ava Gardner, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Grace Kelly

After each day's location shooting, Ava Gardner bathed in a canvas tub set up and filled by the native boy assigned to her. When the British colonial government complained about her appearing naked before the natives while bathing, she laughed, threw off her clothes and paraded naked through the camp.

Gardner was well-known for her bohemian lifestyle, but this display was more than tweaking the nose of propriety. In fact, this would have been alarmingly crude and the locals would have been outraged at this wanton display. Even in traditional remote settings where bare-chested women was the norm, if a white woman were to do the same, it would have been shocking.


4:00 PM -- GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
Classic tale of Scarlett O'Hara's battle to save her beloved Tara and find love during the Civil War.
Dir: Victor Fleming
Cast: Thomas Mitchell, Barbara O'Neil, Vivien Leigh
C-233 mins, CC,

Winner of an Honorary Oscar Award for William Cameron Menzies for outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood in the production of Gone with the Wind (plaque).

Winner of Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Vivien Leigh, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Hattie McDaniel (Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Oscar.), Best Director -- Victor Fleming, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Sidney Howard (Posthumously. Sidney Howard became the first posthumous Oscar nominee and winner.), Best Cinematography, Color -- Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan, Best Art Direction -- Lyle R. Wheeler, Best Film Editing -- Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom, and Best Picture

Winner of an Oscar Technical Achievement Award for R.D. Musgrave for pioneering in the use of coordinated equipment in the production Gone with the Wind.

Nominee for Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Clark Gable, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Olivia de Havilland, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (Samuel Goldwyn SSD), Best Effects, Special Effects -- Jack Cosgrove (photographic), Fred Albin (sound) and Arthur Johns (sound), and Best Music, Original Score -- Max Steiner

First color film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: THE ESSENTIALS: GANDHI



8:00 PM -- GANDHI (1982)
The legendary Indian leader uses peaceful means to free his homeland from British rule.
Dir: Richard Attenborough
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen, John Gielgud
C-191 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Ben Kingsley, Best Director -- Richard Attenborough, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen -- John Briley, Best Cinematography -- Billy Williams and Ronnie Taylor, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Stuart Craig, Robert W. Laing and Michael Seirton, Best Costume Design -- John Mollo and Bhanu Athaiya (Bhanu Athaiya became the first Indian-born person to win an Oscar.), Best Film Editing -- John Bloom, and Best Picture

Nominee for Oscars for Best Sound -- Gerry Humphreys, Robin O'Donoghue, Jonathan Bates and Simon Kaye, Best Music, Original Score -- Ravi Shankar and George Fenton, and Best Makeup -- Tom Smith

Over 300,000 extras appeared in the funeral sequence. About 200,000 were volunteers, and 94,560 were paid a small fee (under contract). The sequence was filmed on January 31, 1981, the 33rd anniversary of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's funeral. Eleven crews shot over 20,000 feet of film, which was pared down to two minutes and five seconds in the final release.


12:00 AM -- CRISS CROSS (1949)
A man tries to save his fickle ex-wife from her criminal lover.
Dir: Robert Siodmak
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea
BW-88 mins, CC,

Tony Curtis landed his first film role simply by walking through the Universal lot where he was spotted by director Robert Siodmak who asked him if he could dance.


2:00 AM -- THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971)
Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.
Dir: Jerry Schatzberg
Cast: Al Pacino, Kitty Winn, Alan Vint
BW-110 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Francis Ford Coppola showed this film to Paramount executives in order to convince them that Al Pacino was suitable for the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972).


4:00 AM -- STAKEOUT ON DOPE STREET (1958)
Three teens get into the drug business when they discover heroin in a stolen briefcase.
Dir: Irving Kershner
Cast: Yale Wexler, Morris Miller, Jonathon Haze
BW-83 mins, CC,

Feature film debut for director Irvin Kershner.

[mopinko]

1. have really enjoyed duvernay.

an amazing person, and a great critic.
super loved 'daughters of the dust' so much in it that it really took a second view to really get the whole story of everything going on. so beautiful, too.