TCM Schedule for Tuesday, December 23rd: Van Johnson Tribute

[CBHagman]

The previously scheduled movies for Joseph Cotten's turn as Star of the Month have been cancelled so that TCM could pay tribute to Van Johnson.



Please note that there are two -- count 'em, two -- adaptations of Miklos Laszlo's Parfumerie: Ernst Lubitsch's classic The Shop Around the Corner and In the Good Old Summertime. You've also probably seen the same story as the musical She Loves Me and the movie You've Got Mail. I'm a Lubitsch partisan myself.

And American DUers, don't panic when you see Bush Christmas on the schedule. It's not what you think.

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008.

2:00 AM Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
In Russia before the revolution, a Jewish milkman tries to marry off his daughters who have plans of their own. Cast: Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey. Dir: Norman Jewison. C-181 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format



5:15 AM MGM Parade Show #15 (1955)
George Murphy hosts a special Christmas show featuring Judy Garland performing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in a clip from "Meet Me in St. Louis." BW-26 mins, TV-G

5:42 AM Short Film: Rocky Mountain Grandeur (1937)
The magnificent scenery of the Rocky Mountains is the star of this "Traveltalk." Dir: James H Smith C-8 mins,

6:00 AM Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
A small-town boy tries to juggle two girlfriends at once. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Lewis Stone, Judy Garland. Dir: George B. Seitz. BW-91 mins, TV-G, CC

7:33 AM Short Film: Loews Christmas Greeting (Hardy Family) (1939)
BW-3 mins,

7:45 AM Bachelor Mother (1939)
A fun-loving shop girl is mistaken for the mother of a foundling. Cast: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn. Dir: Garson Kanin. BW-82 mins, TV-G, CC

9:08 AM Short Film: Holiday Greetings 1941 - Lewis Stone (1941)
A Christmas greeting from Lewis Stone, sent specially to servicemen overseas and their families during the 1941 holiday season. BW-2 mins,

9:15 AM Tenth Avenue Angel (1948)
A child of the tenements helps an ex-con find a new life. Cast: Margaret O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, George Murphy. Dir: Roy Rowland. BW-74 mins, TV-G, CC

10:30 AM Period Of Adjustment (1962)
A newlywed couple's honeymoon is disrupted by their friends' marital problems. Cast: Tony Franciosa, Jane Fonda, Jim Hutton. Dir: George Roy Hill. BW-112 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

12:30 PM Scrooge (1970)
A miser faces the ghosts of his past on Christmas Eve. Cast: Albert Finney, Edith Evans, Kenneth More. Dir: Ronald Neame. C-113 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format



2:30 PM Bush Christmas (1947)
A group of children track down rustlers they accidentally helped steal their father's horses. Cast: Chips Rafferty, John Fernside, Stan Tolhurst. Dir: Ralph Smart. BW-77 mins,

4:00 PM 3 Godfathers (1948)
Three outlaws on the run risk their freedom and their lives to return a newborn to civilization. Cast: John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, Harry Carey, Jr. Dir: John Ford. C-106 mins, TV-G, CC

5:51 PM Short Film: Rural Hungary (1939)
C-9 mins,

6:00 PM Shop Around The Corner, The (1940)
Feuding co-workers don't realize they're secret romantic pen pals. Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan. Dir: Ernst Lubitsch. BW-99 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS



7:40 PM Short Film: Important News (1936)
A small town newspaper editor struggles with what to publish on his front page: the death of a cold-blooded gangster, or the more mundane but moral news about his home town. Jimmy Stewart guest stars in an early role as the editor's nephew and apprentice. Cast: Charles "Chic" Sale, James Stewart BW-10 mins,

7:52 PM Short Film: Silent Night: Judy Garland (1937)
BW-2 mins,

8:00 PM In The Good Old Summertime (1949)
In this musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, feuding co-workers in a small music shop do not realize they are secret romantic pen pals. Cast: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall. Dir: Robert Z. Leonard. C-103 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS



9:45 PM Guy Named Joe, A (1943)
A downed World War II pilot becomes the guardian angel for his successor in love and war. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson. Dir: Victor Fleming. BW-120 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS



12:00 AM Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)
General Jimmy Doolittle trains American troops for the first airborne attacks on Japan. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Robert Walker. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. BW-138 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS

2:30 AM Last Time I Saw Paris, The (1954)
A writer recalls his turbulent marriage to an expatriate heiress. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Van Johnson, Donna Reed. Dir: Richard Brooks. C-116 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

4:30 AM Thrill Of A Romance (1945)
A soldier returning from World War II finds love with a lady swimmer. Cast: Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Tommy Dorsey. Dir: Richard Thorpe. BW-105 mins, TV-G, CC

[lavenderdiva]

1. I love Van Johnson!

both 'Shop Around The Corner' and 'In the Good Old Summertime' are favorites of mine. Is it true that Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart were a couple for a time in real life? I think I read that somewhere....

[Matilda]

2. I've read that, too.

And is it just my imagination, or is there something very tender in the way he interacts with her
in the last couple of scenes? Seems to me there's a look of very affectionate amusement in his
eyes when he looks at her...

[lavenderdiva]

5. I think so too, Matilda-

I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice that! :hi:

[Matilda]

3. "Bush Christmas"

Definitely not THAT Bush! I've never seen this film, although I've heard of it. Typical of the
Australian cultural cringe that it's never screened here.

Of all the cast, I know of only three ... Chips Rafferty was one of our first "film stars" - he did
work outside Australia, but made his name here as the typical bushman of folklore, and created the
template for casting that kind of character.

John McCallum spent a couple of decades in England, working on stage and film, often with his wife,
who goes by the improbable name of Googie Withers. In later years, most of his work was in
production/direction. He's over 90 now - I had to look him up to make sure he was still alive.

And the third one I know is Nicky Yardley - he never did a great deal of work, but I remember him
as Tyltyl in "The Blue Bird", which I saw on stage when I was a child. For some reason, his name
stuck in my mind; but then the play as a whole had a tremendous impact on me, and was the beginning
of my lifelong love of the performing arts.

[CBHagman]

4. Reminds me of a line from Tom Stoppard.

I think it was in The Real Thing that one of the characters says something like "Debbie's into Australian films. Not Chips Rafferty -- real Australian films." The play came out back in the '80s, when we were all going to Bruce Beresford and Peter Weir and Fred Schepisi and Gillian Armstrong movies at the university student union or the art house theater.