TCM Schedule for Friday, June 11 -- TCM Spotlight -- Under The Sea

[Staph]

Have I mentioned how much I adore TCM? Today they are featuring the works of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. While the oil is still gushing from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, this is a perfect time to look at the beauties of the world's oceans and to realize what we may lose to the greed of the petroleum companies and to our insatiable need for energy. Enjoy!


The Cousteau Odyssey:
6:00am -- The Nile - Part One (1977)
7:00am -- The Nile - Part Two (1977)
8:00am -- Calypso's Search For Atlantis - Part One (1977)
9:00am -- Calypso's Search For Atlantis - Part Two (1977)
10:00am -- Time Bomb at Fifty Thousand Fathoms (1977)
11:00am -- Mediterranean - Cradle or Coffin? (1977)
12:00pm -- Calypso's Search for the Britannic (1977)
1:00pm -- Diving for Roman Plunder (1977)
2:00pm -- Blind Prophets of Easter Island (1977)
3:00pm -- Clipperton - The Island That Time Forgot (1977)
4:00pm -- Lost Relics of the Sea (1977)
5:00pm -- The Warm Blooded Sea - Mammals... (1977)


6:00pm -- Jacques Cousteau: The First 75 Years (1986)


7:39pm -- One Reel Wonders: Sea Spiders (1932)
A look at the everyay life of Tahitian natives.
Cast: Gayne Whitman (narrator)
BW-9 mins

Sea spiders are actually boats used by pearl divers.


7:51pm -- One Reel Wonders: Around The World, Under The Sea (Long Vers.) (1966)
This short film serves as a promo reel for the feature film 'Around the World Under the Sea'.
Cast: Lloyd Bridges, Shirley Eaton, Brian Kelly, David McCallum
C-8 mins

There are clips from the movie, as well as behind the scenes footage depicting underwater technical experts at work. A trained dolphin is shown at work, and crew members are shown cavorting with animals such as a shark, a manta ray, and a turtle.


What's On Tonight: TCM SPOTLIGHT: UNDER THE SEA


The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau:
8:00pm -- Sharks (1966)
9:00pm -- Whales (1966)
10:00pm -- Sunken Treasure (1966)
11:00pm -- Mystery of the Hidden Reef (1966)
12:00am -- A Sound of Dolphins (1966)
1:00am -- The Flight of the Penguins (1966)


2:00am -- Performance (1970)
A wounded mobster holes up in a reclusive rock star's decaying mansion.
Cast: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michèle Breton
Dir: Donald Cammell
C-105 mins, TV-MA

Most of the audience walked out of the first preview screening. The release was delayed for two years while it was re-edited three times. Editor Frank Mazzola used montage of images and time jumps which later became his trademark style.


4:00am -- Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)
A religious fanatic imprisons her late son's sinful fiancee.
Cast: Tallulah Bankhead, Stefanie Powers, Peter Vaughan, Maurice Kaufmann
Dir: Silvio Narizzano
C-96 mins, TV-14

The producers considered replacing Tallulah Bankhead during filming when she became ill and was unable to work. However, Bankhead put up her salary for the film as a guarantee she'd finish the film if she wouldn't be replaced. This was her last theatrical performance, though she went on to appear in several television shows and a voice role in a children's film before her death in 1968.


5:45am -- Short Film: Don't Get Angry (1953)
A social guidance film on anger management.
C-11 mins

[Staph]

1. Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Defense of the environment

Jacques-Yves Cousteau superimposed the geonymic vision of the sea and Earth elaborated in the 1930s by Jacques Grob and Philippe Tailliez with a conqueror's mentality. A cultivated explorer in the spirit of Jules Verne, he fed the public's taste for wonder. "One protects what one likes.", Cousteau repeated, "and one likes what enchanted us." As Cousteau's oceanographic and cinematographic campaigns took place over more than 50 years (1945–1997), he was able to measure the degradation of the in-situ mediums: the conqueror-explorer, sure of his technical prowess and finding it natural to drive out marine animals gradually morphed into an ardent conservationist who leveraged his worldwide notoriety to promote the idea of the Earth as a limited and fragile spaceship that needed to be preserved. He was the only non-politician to take part in the 1992 Rio Summit.

After 1975, he briefly considered founding worldwide "Cousteau Clubs" for young people, but eventually abandoned this idea in its original form (which would have involved significant work with few direct rewards) and instead published a few fanzines (Calypso Log, Le Dauphin) and made a documentary film about a trip to the Antarctic with children. Towards the end of his life, he became pessimistic and even misanthropic: An ideal planet, he confided to Yves Paccalet, would be one in which humanity is limited to 100,000 people who are both educated and respectful of nature.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau's star power rested not only on his personal image, but on the image of a united team striving towards a common goal. Late in his life, however, highly-publicized intra-family conflicts, internal divisions, and consequent lawsuits chipped away at this image, and that of his successors: Son Jean-Michel and grandson Fabien on one side, and the Cousteau Team with his third wife Francine and their children of the other, do not have the public standing of the 20th century Cousteau Team.

On the other hand, the kind of underwater and adventure film that Jacques-Yves Cousteau launched has never been more popular: Each year, hundreds of increasingly beautiful documentaries are produced, thanks to improvement of photographic techniques. The idea of a fragile planet and sea has not only made its way into the public consciousness, but also affects the political class who were slower to come to environmental awareness.

Legacy

Cousteau's legacy includes more than 120 television documentaries, more than 50 books, and an environmental protection foundation with 300,000 members.

Cousteau liked to call himself an "oceanographic technician." He was, in reality, a sophisticated showman, teacher, and lover of nature. His work permitted many people to explore the resources of the oceans.

His work also created a new kind of scientific communication, criticised at the time by some academics. The so-called "divulgationism", a simple way of sharing scientific concepts, was soon employed in other disciplines and became one of the most important characteristics of modern television broadcasting.

Cousteau died on 25 June 1997. The Cousteau Society and its French counterpart, l'Équipe Cousteau, both of which Jacques-Yves Cousteau founded, are still active today. The Society is currently attempting to turn the original Calypso into a museum and it is raising funds to build a successor vessel, the Calypso II.

In his last years, after marrying again, Cousteau became involved in a legal battle with his son Jean-Michel over Jean-Michel licensing the Cousteau name for a South Pacific resort, resulting in Jean-Michel Cousteau being ordered by the court not to encourage confusion between his for-profit business and his father's non-profit endeavours.

In 2007 International Watch Company introduced the IWC Aquatimer Chronograph "Cousteau Divers" Special Edition. The timepiece incorporated a sliver of wood from the interior of Cousteau's Calypso research vessel. Having developed the diver's watch, IWC offered support to The Cousteau Society. The proceeds from the timepieces' sales were partially donated to the non-profit organization involved into conservation of marine life and preservation of tropical coral reefs.


From Wikipedia: Jacques-Yves Cousteau -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Cousteau

[Staph]

2. I need to pay more attention.

Today is the 100th anniversary of Jacques-Yves Cousteau's birthday! I would love to have his respected voice here today, speaking on the Gulf of Mexico gusher. His grandson Philippe, Chief Ocean Correspondent for Animal Planet and Planet Green, has appeared many times lately, especially on Countdown and the Rachel Maddow show.