TCM Schedule for Friday, June 25 -- TCM Spotlight -- Under The Sea

[Staph]

More of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, then tonight, we continue the celebration of Jacques-Yves Cousteau's 100th birthday, with three more films from Under the Sea -- Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953), Flipper (1963) and The Deep (1977). Enjoy!


5:15am -- Tank Battalion (1958)
Four soldiers pilot their tank behind enemy lines during the Korean War.
Cast: Don Kelly, Frank Gorshin, Marjorie Hellen, Regina Gleason
Dir: Sherman A. Rose
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

Also in the cast -- Edward G. Robinson's only child, Edward G. Robinson Jr.


6:45am -- Mission Over Korea (1953)
A rookie pilot in the Korean War wants to avenge his brother's death.
Cast: John Hodiak, John Derek, Audrey Totter, Maureen O'Sullivan
Dir: Fred F. Sears
BW-85 mins, TV-G

In South Korea the war is usually referred to as the 6𣇿 War (yuk-i-o jeonjaeng), reflecting the date of its commencement on June 25. In North Korea the war is officially referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War (Choguk haebang chǒnjaeng). Alternately, it is called the Chosǒn chǒnjaeng ("Joseon war", Joseon being what North Koreans call Korea). Meanwhile, in the People's Republic of China the war is called the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea (traditional Chinese: 抗美援朝戰爭; simplified Chinese: 抗美援朝战争; pinyin: K鄋gměiyu醤ch醥 zh鄋zhēng. The "Korean War" (traditional Chinese: 朝鮮戰爭; simplified Chinese: 朝鲜战争; pinyin: Ch醥xiǎn zh鄋zhēng), with the word "Chao Xian" a general term for Korea, and officially North Korea, is more commonly used today. (Thank you, Wikipedia!)


8:15am -- Battle Taxi (1955)
A hotshot jet pilot joins a helicopter rescue team during the Korean War.
Cast: Sterling Hayden, Arthur Franz, Marshall Thompson, Leo Needham
Dir: Herbert L. Strock
BW-80 mins, TV-PG

This film was showing on the screen as photographer O. Wilson Link snapped this iconic photo of a Norfolk and Western freight train passing an Iaeger, WV drive-in theater. According Smithsonian Magazine: "The explosion of light washed out what was on the movie screen at the moment; he had to print the image of the plane from a negative he'd made separately of that night's showing."





9:45am -- The Bamboo Prison (1954)
An undercover agent investigates atrocities at a Koran P.O.W. camp.
Cast: Robert Francis, Dianne Foster, Brian Keith, Jerome Courtland
Dir: Lewis Seiler
BW-80 mins, TV-14

The Bamboo Prison opened in Chicago on January 12, 1954 as the bottom-half of a double-bill; the top half featured Audie Murphy's Destry, from Universal.


11:15am -- All the Young Men (1960)
A black sergeant is forced to take command when his lieutenant is killed during the Korean War.
Cast: Charles Quinlivan, Alan Ladd, Ingemar Johansson, Sidney Poitier
Dir: Hall Bartlett
BW-86 mins, TV-PG

Filmed in Glacier National Park in Montana, and near Mount Hood in Oregon.


12:45pm -- Take the High Ground! (1953)
A tough drill sergeant prepares green recruits for service in the Korean War.
Cast: Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Elaine Stewart, Russ Tamblyn
Dir: Richard Brooks
C-101 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- Millard Kaufman

Filmed on location at Fort Bliss, Texas.


2:30pm -- Time Limit (1957)
An officer is court-martialed under suspicion of collaborating with the North Koreans.
Cast: Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart, Dolores Michaels, June Lockhart
Dir: Karl Malden
BW-97 mins, TV-PG

Karl Malden's directorial debut.


4:30pm -- The Rack (1956)
A Korean War veteran is accused of cracking under enemy torture.
Cast: Paul Newman, Wendell Corey, Walter Pidgeon, Edmund O'Brien
Dir: Arnold Laven
BW-100 mins, TV-14

Oscar winning Art Director Cedric Gibbons' last feature film.


6:30pm -- Hell in Korea (1956)
A small platoon fights to keep control of a small hill during the Korean war.
Cast: George Baker, Harry Andrews, Stanley Baker, Michael Medwin
Dir: Julian Amyes
BW-82 mins, TV-14

Michael Caine's film debut


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


8:00pm -- Beneath The 12-Mile Reef (1953)
Love brings together two families of rival sponge fishers.
Cast: Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, Gilbert Roland, J. Carrol Naish
Dir: Robert D. Webb
C-101 mins, TV-G

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- Edward Cronjager

Narrated by Rock Hudson.


10:00pm -- Flipper (1963)
A fisherman in the Florida Keys opposes his son's friendship with a dolphin.
Cast: Chuck Connors, Luke Halpin, Kathleen Maguire, Connie Scott
Dir: James B. Clark
C-90 mins, TV-G

Flipper the dolphin was played by "Mitzi" (1958-1972), a female trained at the Santini Porpoise School (later the Dolphin Research Center), by Milton and Virginia Santini, who are credited in the film. Mitzi died in 1972 at age fourteen. She is buried at the Dolphin Research Center, where her grave is the first stop on the center's public tours.


11:45pm -- The Deep (1977)
A vacationing couple runs afoul of modern pirates.
Cast: Robert Shaw, Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Louis Gossett Jr.
Dir: Al Giddings
C-124 mins

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound -- Walter Goss, Rick Alexander (as Dick Alexander), Tom Beckert and Robin Gregory

In the beginning of the movie while Gail is diving, she reaches under a part of the shipwreck and gets her arm yanked by the giant green moray, which causes her to scream in pain. In real life, her stunt-double, Jackie Kilbride, dislocated her shoulder doing this scene. A diver was told to pull the stick attached to her wrist from inside the wreck. When the stick appeared he pulled with all his might (as instructed). The scene was done in one take with multiple cameras as there was no chance (or need) for repeating it.


2:00am -- Deep End (1971)
A 15-year-old's obsession with a co-worker leads to a deadly string of crimes.
Cast: Jane Asher, John Moulder Brown, Karl Michael Vogler, Christopher Sandford
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
C-91 mins, TV-MA

Jane Asher was Paul McCartney's muse for much of the 1960s; "Here, There And Everywhere" and many other songs were written with Jane in mind. They were engaged for seven months until finally separating in July 1968. She is also the younger sister of Peter Asher of the singing duo Peter and Gordon.


3:45am -- The Shout (1979)
A married man protects his marriage from a mysterious traveler who can kill with a shout.
Cast: Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, Robert Stephens
Dir: Jerzy Skolimowski
C-86 mins, TV-14

The first cinema film of Jim Broadbent. He won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as devoted husband John Bayley to Judi Dench's Iris Murdoch, the British novelist who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. The film hit home with Jim, since his own mother had passed away from Alzheimer's in 1995.


5:15am -- Perversion For Profit (1965)
This anti-porn documentary shows a floodtide of filth engulfing the country in the form of newsstand obscenity
Cast: George Putnam narrates.
BW-31 mins, TV-MA

Think of this movie as Reefer Madness, but about porn instead of marijuana.

[Staph]

1. Flipper (1963)

Who knew that Hollywood's most famous dolphin was inspired by a dog? "As I was watching Lassie on television with my kids, I thought, wouldn't it be great to do an animal show similar to Lassie with a boy and a dolphin?" said Ricou Browning, an underwater stuntman, who collaborated with a friend to write the book Flipper. But Browning's attempts to find a publisher were met with rejections, until he contacted television producer Ivan Tors, with whom he had previously worked. The producer, an animal trainer himself, immediately took to Browning's tale, telling him, "Let's make a movie of Flipper, that story of yours," and set Browning to the task of casting their title star. Due to her willingness to swim with humans, "Mitzi" was selected over the other dolphins being considered for the role.

The story of Flipper (1963) involves a young boy who befriends an injured dolphin and forms a special bond with the creature. The boy's father wants the animal returned to the wild, but is convinced of the inter-species friendship when Flipper ends up saving the young lad's life. Chuck Connors was cast in the role of the father; best known as the star of the television series The Rifleman (1958-63), his athletic build provided for a strong, paternal image. It was well earned: Connors was a professional player for three sporting teams in his career, the Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Boston Celtics. Child actor Luke Halpin won the role of devoted son, and Flipper remains his sole claim to fame: he starred not only in the original, but also the sequel, Flipper's New Adventure (1964), and the television series that ran from 1964-68. He even had a bit part as "Bounty Fisherman #3" in the 1996 remake starring Elijah Wood and Paul Hogan!

Sometimes the film's action sequences with Flipper look easier than they were to perform: even the seemingly simple act of carrying young Luke on her back proved difficult for Mitzi. Browning used his son, Ricky, to help perfect this stunt. An account from Amazing Animal Actors, by Pauline Bartel, details how the effect was finally achieved: picked up his son, ordered Mitzi to fetch, then threw the boy in to the water about four feet from the dock. Mitzi swam to him, grabbed an unbuckled strap on the back of the child's cut off blue jeans, and pulled Ricky until she lost her grip on the strap. Ricky placed his arm over the top of Mitzi's fin and she pushed him to the dock. Browning rewarded her then threw Ricky in again. 'This time she swam to him and she immediately put her fin into his arm where his elbow bends. I yelled to him, 'Grab her fins!' He did, and she immediately pulled him back to me. As far as I know, that's the first time a trained dolphin had ever done that.' Browning said."

Flipper was an immediate hit with families, and what one critic dubbed, "a kind of bubbly variation on Androcles and the Lion." As mentioned it spawned not only a sequel and a television series, but a remake almost thirty years later, as well as an inspired syndicated series starring a young Dark Angel star Jessica Alba in 1996. Many of the dolphins used in the latter productions were recruited from the Miami Seaquarium, causing it to dub itself, "The Home of Flipper." Mitzi herself died at the ripe old age of twenty-two, of a heart attack in 1971. But the legend of the devoted dolphin lives on.

Producer: Ricou Browning, Harry Redmond, Jr., Ivan Tors
Director: James B. Clark
Screenplay: Arthur Weiss, Ricou Browning (story), Jack Cowden (story)
Cinematography: Lamar Boren, Joseph C. Brun
Film Editing: Warren Adams
Music: Henry Vars
Cast: Chuck Connors (Porter Ricks), Luke Halpin (Sandy Ricks), Connie Scott (Kim Parker), Jane Rose (Hettie White), Joe Higgins (Mr. L.C. Parett), Robertson White (Mr. Abrams).
C-91m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video.

by Eleanor Quin