TCM Schedule for Friday, April 16 -- Prime Time Feature -- Abrahams, Zucker & Abrahams

[Staph]

It's a day in heaven, with "heavenly" movies during the day, and an evening of the best comedies of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker. I'm not crazy about the wingnut politics of David Zucker, and I think that his creative output has suffered as he has turned to the extreme right (An American Carol (200) starring Kelsey Grammer!), but their early works in the 1980s are hilarious. Enjoy!


6:00am -- Heavenly Days (1944)
When they're named Mr. and Mrs. Average Man, a small-town couple embarks on a whirlwind tour of Washington.
Cast: Fibber McGee and Molly, Eugene Pallette, Gordon Oliver, Raymond Walburn
Dir: Howard Estabrook
BW-71 mins, TV-G

"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 10, 1947 with 'Fibber McGee & Molly' reprising their film roles.


7:30am -- One Heavenly Night (1930)
A flower seller goes into exile in place of a notorious opera singer.
Cast: Evelyn Laye, John Boles, Leon Errol, Lilyan Tashman
Dir: Geo. Fitzmaurice
BW-80 mins

Louis Bromfield, who wrote the story on which this film is based, later became a conservationist and farmer, and demonstrated the principles of grass-based, sustainable farming at Malabar Farm, near Mansfield, Ohio.


9:00am -- Chance At Heaven (1934)
A society girl steals a simple gas station attendant from his working-class girlfriend.
Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marion Nixon, Andy Devine
Dir: William Seiter
BW-71 mins, TV-G

Ginger before Fred -- though she does get to sing a duet of London Bridge Is Falling Down with Joel McCrea.


10:30am -- Pennies From Heaven (1936)
A singer gets mixed up with a grieving family and a haunted house.
Cast: Bing Crosby, Madge Evans, Edith Fellows, Louis Armstrong
Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
BW-81 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song -- Arthur Johnston (music) and Johnny Burke (lyrics) for the song "Pennies from Heaven (1936)".

Louis Armstrong was hired for this movie at Bing Crosby's insistence. Crosby also insisted that Armstrong receive prominent billing, the first time a black actor shared top billing with white actors in a major release film.


12:00pm -- Rage In Heaven (1941)
A jealous man plots to fake his death and incriminate his wife's suspected lover.
Cast: Robert Montgomery, Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders, Lucile Watson
Dir: Robert B. Sinclair
BW-85 mins, TV-PG

W.S. Van Dyke took over the direction of the movie from Robert B. Sinclair, who became ill shortly after shooting began. Van Dyke was in the Marines, but was granted a 14-day leave to finish the picture. Neither Sinclair nor Van Dyke was available for retakes, which were then directed by Richard Thorpe.

Starring the Patron Saint of the Classic Films Forum...



1:30pm -- All This, And Heaven Too (1940)
A French nobleman falls in love with his children's governess.
Cast: Bette Davis, Charles Boyer, Jeffrey Lynn, Barbara O'Neil
Dir: Anatole Litvak
BW-143 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Barbara O'Neil, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Ernest Haller, and Best Picture

Upon their first meeting, the Duchesse de Praslin asks Henriette how old she is, revealing the answer to be 25-years-old; the Duchesse considers this "so young". Amusingly enough in real life, Barbara O'Neil was twenty-nine years old at the time of filming, while Bette Davis was two years older.


4:00pm -- Heaven Only Knows (1947)
An angel lands in the wild West to save a gambler's soul.
Cast: Robert Cummings, Brian Donlevy, Marjorie Reynolds, Bill Goodwin
Dir: Albert S. Rogell
BW-98 mins, TV-G

John Litel who played Reverend Wainright would later play Bob Cummings' boss Mr. Thackery on the 50s TV sitcom "My Hero" (1952).


6:00pm -- The Heavenly Body (1943)
An astronomer's neglected wife takes up astrology and a handsome astrologer.
Cast: William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, James Craig, Fay Bainter
Dir: Alexander Hall
BW-95 mins, TV-G

Joan Crawford was offered the lead role but turned it down saying, "It was about a girl who stands around and does nothing. I told the studio to give the part to Hedy Lamarr."


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: ZUCKER, ABRAHAMS & ZUCKER


8:00pm -- The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
A dumb cop tries to thwart a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.
Cast: Leslie Nielsen, Ricardo Montalban, Priscilla Presley, George Kennedy
Dir: David Zucker
C-88 mins, TV-14

According to David Zucker in the DVD commentary, the studio insisted on the casting of an Oscar winner in one of the major roles. This led to the casting of George Kennedy, who had been actively campaigning for the role of Ed Hocken for months, saying that he was furious at having missed his chance to spoof himself in the movie Airplane! (1980).


9:30pm -- Top Secret! (1984)
An Elvis-like singer falls for a French resistance fighter during World War II.
Cast: Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Christopher Villiers, Omar Sharif
Dir: Jack Lowin
C-90 mins, TV-14

The scene where Hillary and Nick go into the Swedish bookstore was staged, shot and then run backwards to make the dialog sound "unique." If you record the scene and play it backwards, you will find all of the dialogue to be exactly what is shown in the subtitles except for the title of the book Hillary asks for. The title she actually asks for is "Europe On 5 Quaaludes A Day."


11:15pm -- Airplane! (1980)
When a flight crew falls ill, the only man who can land the plane is afraid of flying.
Cast: Robert Hays, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, Julie Hagerty
Dir: Jim Abrahams
C-88 mins, TV-MA

The film is mostly a parody of Zero Hour! (1957), a film that had a main character named Ted Stryker and such famous "not meant to be funny" lines like "We have to find someone who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner." The casting of professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a member of the flight crew was a reference to pro football player Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch's role as a pilot in Zero Hour! While Captain Oveur's suggestive (and therefore inappropriate) questions to Joey are a direct parody of similar scenes in "Zero Hour!", the fact that Peter Graves' portrayed a "father figure" to a troubled young boy also named Joey, in the '50s TV series "Fury", adds yet another level of satire.


1:00am -- The Silencers (1966)
In the first Matt Helm adventure, the over-sexed secret agent comes out of retirement to defend a nuclear testing ground.
Cast: Dean Martin, Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Victor Buono
Dir: Phil Karlson
C-102 mins, TV-PG

In the scene where Matt Helm (Dean Martin) is checking into the Phoenix Hotel and Andreyev (Roger Carmel) is lurking in the foreground, the hotel newsstand is immediately behind him. The newsstand shelf is lined with books from Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm series, on which the movie is based.


2:45am -- College Confidential (1960)
A professor's study of student lives and values erupts into scandal.
Cast: Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Walter Winchell, Mickey Shaughnessy
Dir: Albert Zugsmith
BW-91 mins, TV-PG

Down at the bottom of the cast list is Robert Montgomery Jr, son of our patron saint and brother to Elizabeth "Samantha the witch" Montgomery.


4:30am -- Get Yourself A College Girl (1964)
A music publisher courts a student songwriter at a ski resort.
Cast: Mary Ann Mobley, Chad Everett, Joan O'Brien, Nancy Sinatra
Dir: Sidney Miller
C-87 mins, TV-PG

Features lots of popular music from the early 1960s, including "The Swim", performed by The Standells, "Bony Moronie", performed by The Standells, "The Girl From Ipanema", performed by Astrud Gilberto, and "Around and Around", performed by The Animals.

[Staph]

1. Top Secret! (1984)

How many movie spoofs can you name which poke fun at World War II espionage dramas AND rock 'n' roll musicals? There's only one and it's also notable as Val Kilmer's screen debut - Top Secret! (1984). The follow-up film to Airplane! (1980), their enormously successful parody of disaster flicks, Top Secret! was the third collaboration between Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and his brother Jerry and employs the same anything goes style of that previous hit and their first film, The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). In other words, outrageous sight gags, terrible puns, anachronisms, broad slapstick, politically incorrect humor and silly pop culture parodies. As a result, the convoluted storyline which has rock star Nick Rivers (Kilmer) going behind enemy lines in West Germany to rescue an imprisoned scientist (Michael Gough), merely serves as the framework for serving up a running stream of blackout sketches periodically interrupted by rock 'n' roll numbers. Among the musical highlights are the opening credit sequence (a Beach Boys parody entitled "Skeet Surfing"), goofy original compositions like "Spend This Night With Me," and Kilmer performing cover versions of "Tutti Frutti" and "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

According to an interview with Janet Maslin for The New York Times, Kilmer auditioned for the lead role by showing up in an Elvis Presley outfit with a James Dean hairdo. Despite the fact that he wasn't a singer, dancer or musician and had only appeared previously in stage productions, he won the part and immediately threw himself into the spirit of things by watching Elvis movies and studying concert footage of fifties rock icons like Gene Vincent. As for Kilmer's on-set impressions of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker working relationship, he said it resembled "the Marx Brothers directing traffic." Jerry Zucker would serve as cameraman while Jim Abrahams and David Zucker would screen the action on a remote video screen. Kilmer recalled that "after each take, Jerry would say: 'Wonderful. Perfect. Wait a minute.' Then he'd go check with the others."

Yet out of indecision and chaos can emerge something unique and exhilarating. While Top Secret! didn't enjoy the commercial success of Airplane!, there are those who find its schizophrenic tone and scattershot approach irresistible. Depending on your sense of humor, you may find it screamingly funny or stare at it without cracking a smile. Among the renowned critics who succumbed to its sense of the absurd was Roger Ebert who probably said it best when he wrote, "This movie will cheerfully go for a laugh wherever one is even remotely likely to be found. It has political jokes and boob jokes, dog poop jokes, and ballet jokes...It contains a political refugee who fled America by balloon during the Carter administration, a member of the French underground named Escargot, and Omar Sharif inside a compacted automobile...The dance sequence in the East Berlin nightclub develops into something Groucho Marx would have been proud of. The malt shop musical number demolishes a whole tradition of Elvis Presley numbers. And how the ballerina makes her exit in Swan Lake will, I feel confident, be discussed for years wherever codpieces are sold."

Producer: Frederick Zollo, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jon Davison, Jim Abrahams, Hunt Lowry
Director: David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams
Screenplay: David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, Martyn Burke, Jim Abrahams
Art Direction: John Fenner, Michael Lamont
Cinematography: Jack Lowin, Christopher G. Challis
Editing: Bernard Gribble
Music: Maurice Jarre
Cast: Val Kilmer (Nick Rivers), Lucy Gutteridge (Hillary), Christopher Villiers (Nigel), Omar Sharif (Cedric), Peter Cushing (Bookstore Owner),Warren Clarke (Colonel Von Horst), Michael Gough ( Dr. Paul Flammond).
C-91m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.

by Jeff Stafford