TCM Schedule for Tuesday, March 31st: 50s Sci-Fi.

[CBHagman]

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009.

12:00 AM Parallax View, The (1974)
A reporter uncovers the deadly conspiracy behind a political assassination. Cast: Warren Beatty, Hume Cronym, Paula Prentiss. Dir: Alan J. Pakula. C-102 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

2:00 AM Bugsy (1991)
The famed gangster running the mobs in Los Angeles tries to turn Las Vegas into a vacation paradise. Cast: Warren Beatty, Annette Benning, Joe Mantegna. Dir: Barry Levinson. C-136 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format



4:30 AM Mickey One (1965)
A comic tries to escape his mob connections. Cast: Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield. Dir: Arthur Penn. BW-93 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

6:15 AM Union Station (1950)
A secretary gets caught up in the hunt for kidnappers. Cast: William Holden, Nancy Olson, Barry Fitzgerald. Dir: Rudolph Mate. BW-81 mins, TV-PG, CC

7:45 AM Born Yesterday (1950)
A newspaper reporter takes on the task of educating a crooked businessman's girlfriend. Cast: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden. Dir: George Cukor. BW-102 mins, TV-PG, CC

9:30 AM All the King's Men (1949)
A backwoods politician rises to the top only to become corrupted. Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge. Dir: Robert Rossen. BW-110 mins, TV-PG, CC

11:30 AM Johnny Guitar (1954)
A lady saloon owner battles a female rancher out to frame her for murder. Cast: Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden, Mercedes McCambridge. Dir: Nicholas Ray. C-110 mins, TV-PG, CC

1:24 PM Short Film: Darkness Into Light (1956)
C-20 mins,

1:45 PM Marty (1955)
A lonely butcher finds love despite the opposition of his friends and family. Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti. Dir: Delbert Mann. BW-94 mins, TV-PG, CC



3:30 PM Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
A crooked press agent stoops to new depths to help an egotistical columnist break up his sister's romance. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Martin Milner. Dir: Alexander Mackendrick. BW-96 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

5:08 PM Short Film: Golden Equator, The (1956)
BW-18 mins,

5:30 PM Elmer Gantry (1960)
A young drifter finds success as a traveling preacher until his past catches up with him. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Shirley Jones. Dir: Richard Brooks. C-147 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format



What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: 50'S SCI-FI

8:00 PM I Married A Monster From Outer Space (1958)
A young bride suspects her husband has been replaced by a space invader. Cast: Tom Tryon, Gloria Talbott, Peter Baldwin. Dir: Gene Fowler, Jr. BW-78 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

9:30 PM Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Soulless pods take over the inhabitants of a small California town. Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones. Dir: Don Siegel. BW-80 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format

11:00 PM 27th Day, The (1957)
Aliens give five people from different nations the power to destroy their enemies. Cast: Gene Barry, George Voskovec, Stefan Schnabel. Dir: William Asher. BW-76 mins, TV-PG

12:30 AM H-Man, The (1958)
Nuclear tests create a radioactive man who can turn people into slime. Cast: Yumi Shirakawa, Kenji Sahara, Akihiko Hirata. Dir: Ishiro Honda. C-79 mins, TV-PG

1:58 AM Short Film: Walter Pigeon Announcement (1955)
Walter Pidgeon makes an on-screen announcement at the opening of a new Metro Twin Drive-In. Cast: Walter Pidgeon BW-2 mins,

2:00 AM Forbidden Planet (1956)
A group of space troopers investigates the destruction of a colony on a remote planet. Cast: Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen. Dir: Fred M. Wilcox. C-99 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS



3:45 AM Lost Missile, The (1958)
Scientists try to stop a mysterious missile from destroying the Earth. Cast: Robert Loggia, Ellen Parker, Phillip Pine. Dir: William Berke. BW-71 mins, TV-PG

5:00 AM Hidden Values: The Movies of the '50s (2001)
A look at some of the movies that defined the decade and what they said about Americans and American culture. BW-47 mins, TV-PG, CC

[lavenderdiva]

1. I always wondered whatever happened to Betsy Blair

after she made 'Marty' with Ernest Borgnine. It is one of the sweetest love stories, with two unlikely love interests. I didn't realize that she was married to Gene Kelly for 16 years.

snip from Wikipedia:

Blair was featured in such films as A Double Life (1947), Another Part of the Forest (1948), and The Snake Pit (1948). She continued to hold left-wing political views and admittedly attempted to join the Communist Party.<1> In her autobiography, she revealed her application was rejected as the Party felt she would be more valuable as the wife of the progressive Kelly.<1> Kelly himself was not a Communist and his status as a valuable star provided the couple some protection.

In the 1950s, Blair was under investigation from HUAC and blacklisted for several years. She almost lost one of her signature roles, that of Marty's girlfriend in Marty (1955), but was restored to the role after Kelly threatened to pull out of It's Always Fair Weather.<1> For her performance, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and prizes from the Cannes Film Festival.

[CBHagman]

2. And of course she died very recently.

The obituary thread contains material on her career and her interesting marriages -- to Gene Kelly and later to Karel Reisz! Here's a snippet:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/16/betsy-blair-obituary

Despite being blacklisted, she was made less vulnerable by her marriage to fellow socialist Gene Kelly who, by the early 1950s, was virtually untouchable thanks to such succesful movies as On the Town, An American in Paris and Singin' in the Rain. Eventually she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in the 1955 film Marty.

Blair began acting in films in the late 1940s, with small roles in sturdy dramas such as The Guilt of Janet Ames, George Cukor's A Double Life and Another Part of the Forest, from the play by Lillian Hellman. She fell out of favour for activities that included substantial fundraising for leftwing causes. After Kind Lady (1951), where she nearly lost the part, she found herself unemployable. But, cushioned by wealth and a highly intelligent, inquisitive mind, she coped – still in her early 20s – with "committee" work, as wife to a superstar and mother to their five-year-old daughter.

(SNIP)

Blair decided to stay in London where, in 1963, she met and married Karel Reisz, then established – via the Free Cinema movement and his feature debut Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – as an important director.

There's a lot more in the obit -- for instance, she won a BAFTA for her role in Marty. And I do remember that she appeared as Ellyn's mother in the TV show thirtysomething.

[lavenderdiva]

3. I'm sorry that I missed her obit-

even though she didn't have a huge repertoire of films, the ones that she made, and her work behind the screen were marvelous...