TCM Schedule for Saturday, November 10

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10 Saturday



6:00 AM Four Daughters (1938)
A small-town family's peaceful life is shattered when one daughter falls for a rebellious musician. Cast: Claude Rains, John Garfield, Priscilla Lane. Dir: Michael Curtiz. BW-90 mins, TV-G, CC

7:30 AM Mr. Skeffington (1944)
A flighty beauty marries a stockbroker for convenience and almost ruins both their lives. Cast: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel. Dir: Vincent Sherman. BW-146 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS

10:00 AM Killer's Kiss (1955)
When he rescues a girl from her gangster lover, a prizefighter is marked for death. Cast: Frank Silvera, Irene Kane, Jamie Smith. Dir: Stanley Kubrick. BW-67 mins, TV-PG

11:15 AM The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
A dangerous madman kidnaps two businessmen on a hunting trip. Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman. Dir: Ida Lupino. BW-71 mins, TV-PG

12:30 PM Dark Command (1940)
A Western sheriff takes on a Civil War renegade. Cast: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Walter Pidgeon. Dir: Raoul Walsh. BW-93 mins, TV-G, CC

2:15 PM The Spoilers (1942)
An Alaskan prospector fights a crooked federal agent for a beautiful saloon singer. Cast: Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne, Randolph Scott. Dir: Ray Enright. BW-87 mins, TV-PG, CC

3:45 PM Run Silent, Run Deep (1958)
Officers on a WWII submarine clash during a perilous Pacific tour. Cast: Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden. Dir: Robert Wise. BW-93 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

5:30 PM The Train (1965)
French resistance fighters try to stop the Nazis from taking a trainload of art treasures to Germany. Cast: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau. Dir: John Frankenheimer. BW-133 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format

7:56 PM Short Film: U.S. Savings Bond (Eva Marie Saint) (1959)
BW-1 mins,

What's On Tonight: TCM GUEST PROGRAMMER: DANNY DEVITO

8:00 PM The Battle Of Algiers (1965)
Algiers revolts against the French Foreign Legion. Cast: Brahim Haggiag, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi. Dir: Gillo Pontecorvo. BW-121 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format

10:15 PM The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)
The Japanese Army forces World War II POWs to build a strategic bridge in Burma. Cast: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa. Dir: David Lean. BW-162 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

1:00 AM The Devil Doll (1936)
A Devil's Island escapee shrinks murderous slaves and sells them to his victims as dolls. Cast: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton. Dir: Tod Browning. BW-78 mins, TV-PG, CC

2:30 AM Shampoo (1975)
A hairdresser expresses his fear of commitment by seducing his female clients. Cast: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn. Dir: Hal Ashby. C-110 mins, TV-MA, CC, Letterbox Format

4:30 AM Stand by Me (1986)
Four friends share a rite of passage on a long walk to view a dead body. Cast: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman. Dir: Rob Reiner. C-89 mins, TV-MA, Letterbox Format

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1. Bette Davis in 'Mr. Skeffington'-- one of my 10 most favorite movies!

This background information is from Turner Classic Movies:

Mr. Skeffington
"Nobody's as good as Bette when she's bad!" screamed the ads for one of Bette Davis' last films at Warner Bros. The line would have also fit her 1944 hit Mr. Skeffington just as well, as it encompassed both her on-screen character and her off-screen behavior.

On-screen, Davis played a character who ages from headstrong debutante to withered crone, marrying banker Claude Rains for his money along the way. To capture the character's youthfulness in early scenes, she pitched her voice an octave higher than usual. For later scenes, after the character loses her looks to diphtheria, she spent four-hours in the makeup chair while Perc Westmore created an amazingly accurate preview of what she would look like in later years.

Off-screen, Davis was even more of a terror. She had turned the role down when Warner's first bought the property in 1940. The original novel was told mostly in flashbacks, with long scenes of Fanny Skeffington as an old woman discussing her past. Davis didn't think she could play the older woman convincingly. After the role was turned down by everyone from Irene Dunne to Greta Garbo, Davis read a revised treatment that convinced her she could make it work.

A week into pre-production, however, Davis faced personal tragedy when her husband, Arthur Farnsworth, suddenly died. She insisted on returning to work after only one week of mourning, but it was a very different Bette Davis who showed up on the set. Although she was teamed with one of her favorite directors, Vincent Sherman, she started arguing with him the first day of shooting and never quit. When Jack Warner sent a memo to first-time producers Philip and Julius Epstein asking why the picture was falling behind schedule, they shot back, "Because Bette Davis is a slow director."

For his part, Sherman was so miserable that he considered faking a back injury to get out of finishing the film. Instead, he resumed an affair with Davis they had started while making their previous film together, Old Acquaintance(1943). When Sherman confessed the dalliance to his wife, she quipped, "That's one way to solve it , but be careful."

The affair didn't really solve anything. Mr. Skeffington finally finished production in February 1944, six months after its start date and 59 days behind schedule. That didn't bother Davis' legions of fans, who made the picture one of the top grossers of its year. It also brought Davis her seventh Oscar® nomination for Best Actress.