TCM Schedule for Thursday, August 27 -- Summer Under the Stars--Ida Lupino

[Staph]

Today's star of the day is Ida Lupino, actress, writer, director, the second woman to be admitted to the Director's Guild. Enjoy!


6:00am -- The Gay Desperado (1936)
A Mexican bandit kidnaps a singing cowboy star to learn American ways.
Cast: Nino Martini, Ida Lupino, Leo Carrillo, Harold Huber
Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
BW-87 mins, TV-G

Songs include The World Is Mine Tonight, Adios mi tierra/Farewell My Country, Las Alteñitas/A Gay Ranchero, Lamento Gitano/Gypsy Lament, and Estrellita.


7:30am -- The Lady And The Mob (1939)
A woman sets out to break a criminal gang controlling the dry cleaning business.
Cast: Fay Bainter, Ida Lupino, Lee Bowman, Henry Armetta
Dir: Ben Stoloff
BW-66 mins, TV-G

Fay Bainter is buried in Arlington National Cemetery -- her husband Reginald Venable, was a retired military officer.


8:45am -- The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (1939)
A spy forces a reformed jewel thief to crack the safe where plans for an anti-aircraft gun are stored.
Cast: Warren William, Ida Lupino, Rita Hayworth, Virginia Weidler
Dir: Peter Godfrey
BW-71 mins, TV-G

One of more than twenty Lone Wolf films, about Michael Lanyard, a former jewel thief turned private detective.


10:00am -- The Bigamist (1953)
A woman discovers her husband has another family in another city.
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund Gwenn, Edmond O'Brien
Dir: Ida Lupino
BW-79 mins, TV-PG

This would be the last feature film directed by Ida Lupino for more than 12 years until The Trouble with Angels (1966).


11:30am -- Out Of The Fog (1941)
A racketeer terrorizes a small fishing community until he falls in love with a fisherman's daughter.
Cast: John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie Albert
Dir: Anatole Litvak
BW-85 mins, TV-PG

Humphrey Bogart was originally chosen to play Harold Goff. However, Ida Lupino had just finished shooting They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941) with Bogart, and they had not gotten along. Lupino protested, and because she'd had a bigger name than Bogart at the time, she got her way, forcing an angry Bogart to shoot off a telegram to Jack L. Warner asking, "When did Ida Lupino start casting films at your studio?"


1:00pm -- On Dangerous Ground (1951)
A tough cop sent to help in a mountain manhunt falls for the quarry's blind sister.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper
Dir: Nicholas Ray
BW-82 mins, TV-PG

A hand-held camera was used in many scenes to give a "live action" feel to those sequences. This was extremely rare in feature films of the time.


2:30pm -- Women's Prison (1955)
A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Jan Sterling, Cleo Moore, Audrey Totter
Dir: Lewis Seiler
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

Continuity problems: during a sequence showing concurrent events at a co-ed prison (men on one side of wall, women on the other), the women are seen in the yard in sunny weather with short-sleeved uniforms, while the men's side is rainy, with prisoners in heavy coats.


4:00pm -- The Big Knife (1955)
An unscrupulous movie producer blackmails an unhappy star into signing a new contract.
Cast: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen
Dir: Robert Aldrich
BW-114 mins, TV-PG

Burt Lancaster turned down the role of Charles Castle, played by Jack Palance


6:00pm -- While The City Sleeps (1956)
Reporters compete to catch a serial killer.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff
Dir: Fritz Lang
BW-100 mins, TV-PG

Although Howard Duff and Ida Lupino were married in real life, they have no scenes together.


7:41pm -- Short Film: We Never Sleep (1956)
This RKO-Pathé Screenliner short highlights the work of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the USA's oldest private detective company.
Narrator: Peter Roberts
Dir: Larry O'Reilly
BW-8 mins

The title "We Never Sleep" is part of the Pinkerton company's logo.


What's On Tonight: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: IDA LUPINO


8:00pm -- They Drive by Night (1940)
Truck driving brothers are framed for murder by a lady psycho.
Cast: George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart
Dir: Raoul Walsh
BW-95 mins, TV-PG

The wife of producer Mark Hellinger, Gladys Glad, a former showgirl for Broadway producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., was responsible for getting this film made. Hellinger had brought home a large stack of scripts that he was to read for filming consideration. Hellinger had leafed through the script and read the summary, but felt that "nobody would pay money to see a bunch of truck drivers". His wife read this script, liked it, and pressured Hellinger to read it. Reluctantly, he did, the film eventually got made and became the sleeper hit of the year for Warners. It was made for an estimated $400,000 and grossed more than $4,000,000. (Source: Book "The Mark Hellinger Story" by Jim Bishop, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952)


9:39pm -- Short Film: Night Life In Chicago (1948)
In this "Traveltalk," we learn about the high-lights of Chicago's night life.
Cast: James A. FitzPatrick
C-9 mins

This Traveltalks visit to Chicago looks at some hotels known for their evening entertainment and for the rich and famous people who come to their dining rooms. Featured are the Walnut Room of the Bismarck Hotel, the Ambassador Hotel's Pump Room, and the boardwalk at the Edgewater Beach Hotel.


10:00pm -- The Hard Way (1942)
An ambitious woman doesn't care who she hurts in her drive to make her sister a star.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Jack Carson
Dir: Vincent Sherman
BW-109 mins, TV-G

Ida Lupino won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress.


12:00am -- Ladies in Retirement (1941)
A housekeeper tries to manage her actress employer and her own emotionally disturbed sisters.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Louis Hayward, Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester
Dir: Charles Vidor
BW-92 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lionel Banks and George Montgomery, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture -- Morris Stoloff and Ernst Toch Ida Lupino and Louis Hayward were married during the filming of the movie.


1:36am -- Short Film: Ladies Last (1930)
The boys get the men to boycott a local dance when the girls insist the men wear tuxedos.
Cast: Grady Sutton, Mickey Daniels, David Sharpe, Edgar Kennedy
Dir: George Stevens
BW-21 mins

The third in the Boy Friends two-reel comedy series.


2:00am -- High Sierra (1941)
An aging ex-con sets out to pull one more big heist.
Cast: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy
Dir: Raoul Walsh
BW-100 mins, TV-G

This was the last movie Humphrey Bogart made where he did not receive top billing. The studio thought that Ida Lupino should have top billing given the fact that she had been such a big hit in They Drive by Night (1940) and so her name ended up above Bogart's on the title card. Bogart was reportedly unhappy about receiving second billing but never complained.


3:45am -- Short Film: High Dive Kids (1956)
In this Sportscope short, children from preschool age through age 14 are shown diving from various heights into a swimming pool.
Narrator: Harry Wismer
BW-8 mins

Lissa Bengston, of the Royal Academy of Physical Education in Stockholm, Sweden, supervises the children's activities.


4:00am -- Junior Bonner (1972)
An aging rodeo rider tries to deal with his dysfunctional family.
Cast: Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino, Ben Johnson
Dir: Sam Peckinpah
C-100 mins, TV-PG

The yellow dog that you see in the movie is the grandson to Spike the dog, from the movie Old Yeller (1957).


5:41am -- Short Film: The Lion Roars Again (1975)
An MGM promotional featurette advertising its resurgence into the movie industry in the mid-1970s.
C-17 mins

References a bunch of upcoming MGM films, including The Fortune (1975), Hearts of the West (1975), The Sunshine Boys (1975), Sweet Revenge (1976), That's Entertainment, Part II (1976), Logan's Run (1976), and The Wind and the Lion (1975).

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