TCM Schedule for Thursday, May 4, 2017 -- TCM Spotlight - Creature Features

[Staph]

During the daylight hours, TCM is featuring films about Broadway? Then in prime time:

In this Spotlight, TCM pays homage to all those creatures that go bump in the night... also during the day, in water, on land and in the sky! Our roundup includes five TCM premieres, introducing us to a quintet of creepy crawlies that are guaranteed to haunt our dreams, chill our spines and occasionally even tickle our funny bones. Reptilicus (1961) is a prehistoric reptile that is discovered in Denmark after regenerating itself from a portion of its tail, and begins a rampage on the panic-stricken streets of Copenhagen. (This Danish-American production was released in different versions in the two countries; we're screening the U.S. version.) The Deadly Mantis (1957) follows another millions-year-old creature that begins to stir--this time a 200-foot long praying mantis that terrorizes Canada and New York City!

Empire of the Ants (1977), loosely based on a story by H.G. Wells, concerns another variety of giant insects--marauding ants created by a toxic spill in the Florida Everglades--with top-billed Joan Collins among those battling the pesky creatures. Return of the Fly (1959) was the first sequel to the well-regarded 1958 sci-fi horror pic The Fly, about a scientist who mutates into a giant housefly. Vincent Price is the only cast member returning from the original film. Other creatures include such classics as Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), King Kong (1933), Mothra (1962), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), Rodan (1958, English-language version), Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956), The Wasp Woman (1960) and Swamp Thing (1982).

Enjoy!


6:00 AM -- MGM PARADE SHOW #29 (1955)
Walter Pidgeon introduces Part Three of "Captains Courageous" and a clip from "Tribute to a Badman."
BW-29 mins, CC,


6:45 AM -- VARSITY SHOW (1937)
A Broadway producer puts on a show at his alma mater.
Dir: William Keighley
Cast: Dick Powell, Fred Waring, Ted Healy
BW-80 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Busby Berkeley for "The Finale"

When Fred Waring was approached to play a starring role in this film, he brought his famous glee club, The Pennsylvanians, to the shoot and planned on using the college glee club from Pomona College for additional singers. When he arrived at the campus he found the Glee Club conductor was ill but his replacement was a young, energetic man named Robert Shaw. After the movie was finished, Shaw followed Waring to New York, where he founded the Collegiate Chorale and the Robert Shaw Chorale. Robert Shaw went on to be one of the most important personalities in American choral music in the 20th century.


8:25 AM -- MASKS AND MEMORIES (1934)
In this short musical, three individuals try to entice their uncle to join the festivities during Mardi Gras. Vitaphone Release 1671-1673.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Lillian Roth, Weldon Heyburn, Queenie Smith
BW-32 mins,


9:00 AM -- GOLD DIGGERS OF 1937 (1936)
A group of insurance salesmen try to get into show business.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell
BW-101 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Busby Berkeley for "Love and War"

When JJ's supposed medical report comes in by teletype, he is said to have, among other ailments, "gastrohelcosis" - an obsolete term for a stomach ulcer; "cephalemia" - which means congestion of the brain; "St. Vitus Dance" - an obsolete term for what is now known as Sydenham's chorea (or chorea minor), which is a disorder that displays uncoordinated and jerky motions of the hands, feet and face; and, finally "catarrh", another quaint term meaning inflammation of the mucous membranes in a body cavity, usually with discharge - the common cold being an example.


10:45 AM -- GOLD DIGGERS OF 1935 (1935)
A socialite is bamboozled into producing a stage show in her home.
Dir: Busby Berkeley
Cast: Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Gloria Stuart
BW-95 mins, CC,

Won an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics) for the song "Lullaby of Broadway"

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Dance Direction -- Busby Berkeley for "Lullaby of Broadway" and "The Words Are in My Heart"

About half way through the production piece "The Words Are in My Heart," one can see men's legs underneath the pianos, explaining how the pianos are moving.


12:32 PM -- RAMBLING 'ROUND RADIO ROW 1B (SYD GARY) (1934)
A newspaper editor visits a radio station to finish an article and listen in on various musical acts in this short film. Vitaphone Release 1408.
BW-11 mins,


12:45 PM -- GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933 (1933)
Three chorus girls fight to keep their show going and find rich husbands.
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon
BW-98 mins, CC,

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director)

At 5:55 PM PST on March 10, 1933, the Long Beach earthquake hit southern California, measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale. When the earthquake hit, Busby Berkeley was filming the "Shadow Waltz" dance sequence on a sound stage on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. The earthquake caused a blackout on the sound stage and short-circuited some of the neon-tubed violins. Berkeley was almost thrown from a camera boom, and dangled by one hand until he could pull himself back up. Since many of the chorus girls in the dance number were on a 30-foot-high scaffold, Berkeley yelled for them to sit down and wait until the stage hands and technicians could open the sound stage doors and let in some light.


2:30 PM -- DAMES (1934)
A reformer's daughter wins the lead in a scandalous Broadway show.
Dir: Ray Enright
Cast: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler
BW-91 mins, CC,

In the "Dames" number, Dick Powell as a Broadway producer doesn't want to see composer George Gershwin, but when asked by his secretary about seeing Miss Dubin, Miss Warren and Miss Kelly, he lets them enter his office. This is an inside joke, referring to Al Dubin and Harry Warren, who wrote the music for this film, and Orry-Kelly, who was the costume designer.


4:15 PM -- FOOTLIGHT PARADE (1933)
A producer fights labor problems, financiers and his greedy ex-wife to put on a show.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler
BW-103 mins, CC,

Three and a half minutes into FOOTLIGHT PARADE, Chester (James Cagney), Si (Guy Kibbee), and others watch the ending of the Fox film THE BIG TRAIL (1930) in a movie theater, during which John (John Wayne) hugs Ruth (Marguerite Churchill) as Zeke (Tully Marshall) looks on.


6:03 PM -- THAT'S THE SPIRIT (1933)
In this musical short film, two night watchmen hear music performed in a haunted pawn shop. Vitaphone Release 1491.
Dir: Roy Mack
Cast: Cora La Redd, Mantan Moreland, F. E. Miller
BW-11 mins,


6:15 PM -- 42ND STREET (1933)
The definitive backstage musical, complete with the dazzling newcomer who goes on for the injured star.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon
Cast: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent
BW-89 mins, CC,

Nominated for Oscars for Best Sound, Recording -- Nathan Levinson (sound director), and Best Picture

This film, released on March 9, 1933, single-handedly rescued the movie musical, which had been considered a money-losing proposition since mid-1930. Early "all talking, all dancing" musicals typically suffered from severe camera restrictions coupled with poor musical staging, and soured the public on the genre in general (Universal's huge losses from the lively King of Jazz (1930) had put an unofficial moratorium on the musical) and no other studio wanted to risk producing one. Warners, at the time of the film's release, had Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) nearing completion and pre-production plans were well underway for Footlight Parade (1933), all utilizing the talents of Busby Berkeley. The success of this film would convince Radio Pictures to produce Flying Down to Rio (1933) (released that December). Other major studios would continue to shy away from musicals throughout 1933, although Paramount would proceed with plans to produce the lavish Murder at the Vanities (1934) toward the end of the year.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: TCM SPOTLIGHT: CREATURE FEATURE



8:00 PM -- CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
Scientists track a prehistoric monster in the South American jungle while it tracks them.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Cast: Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning
BW-79 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Forrest J. Ackerman, a horror and science fiction writer for Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, bought the mask and claws of the Creature's costume from a young man who had once used them as a Halloween costume. The costume pieces were discarded by Universal after production had finished on the three films (Creature from the Black Lagoon and its two sequels) and were later recovered from the studio's dumpster by a janitor, who thought the ensemble would make a good Halloween costume for his son. Other costume pieces were recently sold at auction by Bud Westmore, who was an assistant to Milicent Patrick, the original designer of the costume.


9:30 PM -- REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (1955)
Men capture the creature from the Black Lagoon and make him an aquarium attraction, from which he escapes.
Dir: Jack Arnold
Cast: John Agar, Lori Nelson, John Bromfield
BW-82 mins, CC,

A young Clint Eastwood makes his first screen appearance as a lab technician. He discusses with Professor Ferguson (John Agar) about an experiment involving a cat and several mice sharing the same cage. He points out that one of the mice in the cage is missing and accuses the cat of eating it, but discovers that the missing mouse was in his lab coat pocket.


11:06 PM -- STARS ON HORSEBACK (1943)
In this short film, a master blacksmith makes house calls to Hollywood stars' homes to pamper their horse's hooves. Vitaphone Release 1107A.
Dir: Myron J. Swartz
BW-7 mins,


11:15 PM -- KING KONG (1933)
A film crew discovers the "eighth wonder of the world," a giant prehistoric ape, and brings him back to New York, where he wreaks havoc.
Dir: Merian C. Cooper
Cast: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot
BW-104 mins, CC,

Producer/director/writer Merian C. Cooper's first vision for the film was of a giant ape on top of the world's tallest building fighting airplanes. He worked backward from there to develop the rest of the story.


1:15 AM -- MOTHRA (1962)
After Godzilla kills a legendary giant moth, its offspring set out for revenge.
Dir: Inoshiro Honda
Cast: Franky Sakai, Hiroshi Koizumi, Kyoko Kagawa
C-101 mins, Letterbox Format

This movie is thought to have popularized the notion of presenting giant monsters in Japanese movies as their own individual, identifiable characters, rather than menaces who are meant to be defeated. Tellingly, Mothra is presented as more of a hero than an evil or mindless beast. This change in characterization would carry over to other famous giant monster characters, most notably Godzilla, as they would become similar to the early Western monster movie characters made popular in the Universal horror films (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, etc.) rather than the bestial and often interchangeable, generic Western notion of giant monsters.


3:15 AM -- THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (1953)
Nuclear tests set a dormant prehistoric monster on a path of destruction.
Dir: Eugene Lourié
Cast: Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Cecil Kellaway
BW-80 mins, CC,

While visiting his friend Ray Harryhausen on the set, Ray Bradbury was given a copy of the script (which was going under the working title "Monster From the Sea&quot and was asked if he could possibly do some rewriting on it. After reading the script, Bradbury remarked about a scene in the story (which featured the monster destroying a lighthouse) that seemed very similar to a short story that he had published in "The Saturday Evening Post" several years earlier called "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". Bradbury's story was about a dinosaur that destroys a lighthouse. The next day Bradbury received a telegram offering to buy the film rights to the story. After the sale, the film's title was changed to "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms". When Bradbury's story was reprinted years later, he changed its title to "The Fog Horn".


4:48 AM -- AMALFI WAY (1955)
A short film that looks at the sights, sounds, and customs along Italy's Amalfi Coast.
Dir: Richard Wright
BW-10 mins,


5:00 AM -- REPTILICUS (1961)
A prehistoric reptile with deadly venom attacks Denmark.
Dir: Sidney Pink
Cast: Carl Ottosen, Ann Smyrner, Mimi Heinrich
C-81 mins, CC,

Two versions were filmed: One was the original Danish version, and the other was filmed with the actors speaking English. All actors were in both versions, except for actress Bodil Miller, who was unable to speak English. Her character of Connie Miller was played in the English-speaking version by Marlies Behrens. American International Pictures used the English version for the US release, and not only heavily edited it, but dubbed over the Danish actors.

FYI -- the newly restarted Mystery Science Theater 3000 featured this film in their first episode, released on Netflix in April. Having watched the MST3K version, I suspect it will be much more enjoyable than the straight version on TCM!