TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 14, 2015 -- TCM Special Theme - Disaster Movies!

[Staph]

In the daylight hours, TCM is showing horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, with a lot of radiation-created and other sorts of monsters. And in prime time, it's the end of the world as we know it -- caused by natural disasters, including fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and volcanoes. Enjoy!


7:30 AM -- Five Million Years To Earth (1968)
Subway excavations unearth a deadly force from beyond space and time.
Dir: Roy Ward Baker
Cast: James Donald, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley
C-98 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

When Dr. Roney is picking at the eyeball of the dead Martian creature in his laboratory the pupils of the compound eye are a rectangular slot shape rather then round like a human eye. This is reminiscent of a goat's eye, a creature that has for centuries been associated with witchcraft and sorcery.


9:15 AM -- Village Of The Damned (1961)
After a mysterious blackout, the inhabitants of a British village give birth to emotionless, super-powered offspring.
Dir: Wolf Rilla
Cast: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens
BW-77 mins, CC,

The source novel, by John Wyndham, is called The Midwich Cuckoos. This is because when cuckoo birds lay eggs, they deposit these eggs in the nests of other birds, who then raise the cuckoo chicks as their own. Compounding the insidious nature of this process, the cuckoo chicks often murder their nestmates in competition for food and parental attention.


10:45 AM -- The Cosmic Monsters (1958)
A scientist's experiments open the doorway to a strange and deadly world.
Dir: Gilbert Gunn
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Gaby Andre, Martin Benson
BW-72 mins,

Co-star Gaby André was French and spoke English with a pronounced French accent. All of her dialogue was dubbed over by an actress with a British accent.


12:00 PM -- The Giant Behemoth (1959)
A radioactive dinosaur plots a deadly path to London.
Dir: Eugene Lourie
Cast: Gene Evans, Andre Morell, John Turner
BW-80 mins, Letterbox Format

Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson completed a significant amount of the stop motion animation on a table in Peterson's garage.


1:30 PM -- First Men in the Moon (1964)
A scientist's experimental space craft puts him in the path of an intergalactic invasion.
Dir: Nathan Juran
Cast: Edward Judd, Lionel Jeffries, Martha Hyer
C-103 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

In the book, the large monster which the Selenites hunt is called a Mooncalf. This is an old English term for idiot, since it was believed that being out under a full moon could cause madness (think also "lunatic&quot , but is also a clever pun on H.G. Wells' part, as the Selenites also hunt this beast like cattle, the young of which is called a calf.


3:15 PM -- These Are the Damned (1962)
Children bred to survive a nuclear holocaust escape from a top-secret military facility.
Dir: Joseph Losey
Cast: MacDonald Carey, Shirley Field, Viveca Lindfors
BW-95 mins,

The film was delayed for two years and was not shown in Britain until the Spring of 1963, when it was released as the lower half of a Hammer Films double-bill with Maniac (1963). It had been cut by Hammer (against Joseph Losey's wishes) from 96 minutes to 87 minutes, and it was cut by ten minutes more again when it was finally shown in America in 1965. However, the missing footage has been restored to the film for its DVD version and for 21st-century television showings.


5:00 PM -- X The Unknown (1956)
A radioactive ooze terrorizes a remote Scottish village.
Dir: Leslie Norman
Cast: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern
BW-80 mins, CC,

The movie began under the direction of Joseph Losey (working as Joseph Walton), exiled to England because of the Hollywood blacklist. However, when Dean Jagger arrived he refused to work with a director he thought of as a Communist sympathizer, and Losey was replaced by Leslie Norman before shooting began. Losey's departure was publicly attributed to "illness". It has also been reported that Losey simply didn't want to make the film and left the project, to be replaced by Norman, who also didn't want to make the film, but did anyway.


6:30 PM -- Satellite in the Sky (1956)
Astronauts are trapped on a space station with a ticking bomb.
Dir: Paul Dickson
Cast: Kieron Moore, Lois Maxwell, Donald Wolfit
C-84 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

The feisty female reporter is played by Lois Maxwell, best known as Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films. Her macho male lead is Kieron Moore who played the bully in a small Irish town in 'Darby O'Gill and the Little People'.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPECIAL THEME: DISASTER MOVIES!



8:00 PM -- In Old Chicago (1938)
Two Irish brothers become political and romantic rivals.
Dir: Henry King
Cast: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche
BW-111 mins, CC,

Won Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Alice Brady (Alice Brady's trophy was swiped by an impostor who came onstage to accept the award on the absent actress' behalf. It has never been never recovered and the imposter could never be tracked down. Before the Academy could do justice and issue a copy of the award, Alice Brady passed away.), and Best Assistant Director -- Robert D. Webb

Nominated for Oscars for Best Writing, Original Story -- Niven Busch, Best Sound, Recording -- Edmund H. Hansen (20th Century-Fox SSD), Best Music, Score -- Louis Silvers (head of department) (No composer credit.), and Best Picture

A lantern manufacturer wrote to the studio insisting that the fire must have been started by a lamp, not a lantern. They claimed a lantern would extinguish itself if tipped over, but that claim was found to be false by an actual experiment performed by two assistants at Twentieth Century-Fox. Soon after the fire started, the barn where the fire was supposed to have originated was thoroughly investigated, and no evidence of a lamp or lantern was found.


10:00 PM -- Earthquake (1974)
Los Angelenos fight to survive a massive earthquake that cripples the city.
Dir: Mark Robson
Cast: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy
C-122 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Won an Oscar for Best Sound -- Ronald Pierce and Melvin M. Metcalfe Sr.

Won an Oscar Special Achievement Award for Frank Brendel, Glen Robinson and Albert Whitlock for visual effects.

Nominated for Oscars for Best Cinematography -- Philip H. Lathrop, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration -- Alexander Golitzen, E. Preston Ames and Frank R. McKelvy, and Best Film Editing -- Dorothy Spencer

The producer, Jennings Lang, offered a cameo role to his friend Walter Matthau, which Matthau accepted without compensation, on the condition that he be billed under his "real name" (which its not), "Walter Matuschanskyasky". Matthau's role was originally scripted as "a drunk sits at the end of the bar", which was expanded by writer George Fox, giving the character lines of dialogue (involving toasts to celebrities). When the film was completed, as agreed by Lang and Matthau, "The Drunk" was credited as "Walter Matuschanskayasky". This lead to a long-standing, but false, rumoor that "Matuschanskayasky" was Matthau's real name.


12:15 AM -- San Francisco (1936)
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the big earthquake.
Dir: W. S. Van Dyke
Cast: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy
BW-115 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Douglas Shearer (M-G-M SSD)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Spencer Tracy, Best Director -- W.S. Van Dyke, Best Writing, Original Story -- Robert E. Hopkins, Best Assistant Director -- Joseph M. Newman, and Best Picture

Al Shean (born Adolph Schoenberg), who plays the Professor in the film was once half of one of the most popular teams in vaudeville - Gallagher and Shean. He was also the younger brother of Minnie Marx, the matriarch of The Marx Brothers clan, and was instrumental in writing many of the first sketches that his madcap nephews first performed on the vaudeville circuit before their enormous success on Broadway and in Hollywood.


2:15 AM -- The Hurricane (1937)
A Polynesian escapes prison to return home during a raging storm.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall, Mary Astor
BW-104 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton (United Artists SSD)

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Thomas Mitchell, and Best Music, Score -- Alfred Newman (head of department) with score by Alfred Newman.

John Ford insisted that no actor could possibly recreate the pain of a real flogging. Jon Hall agreed to undergo the real thing, finding himself horsewhipped until his back bled. Unfortunately his quest for verisimilitude went unnoticed as the censors found the sequence to be far too realistic and insisted that it be cut from the final film.


4:06 AM -- Colorful Islands Madagascar And Seychelles (1936)
This short film focuses on the customs and culture of Madagascar and Seychelles.
C-8 mins,


4:15 AM -- The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
A blacksmith's rise to wealth and power is jeopardized by his son's Christianity and the eruption of Vesuvius.
Dir: Ernest B. Schoedsack
Cast: Preston Foster, Alan Hale, Basil Rathbone
BW-96 mins,

According to the book The RKO Story, this film cost $237,000 more than it grossed in its original release, but finally broke even with the box office from a 1949 re-release, paired with She (1935).