TCM Schedule for Sunday, December 23 -- CHRISTMAS DOUBLE FEATURE

[Longhorn]

4:00am Where It's At (1969)
A Vegas casino owner teaches his son the gambling business.
Cast: David Janssen, Robert Drivas, Rosemary Forsyth. Dir: Garson Kanin. C-106 mins, TV-MA

6:00am Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The (1938)
An orphan in 1850 Missouri gets into a variety of scrapes, including a murder mystery.
Cast: Tommy Kelly, Jackie Moran, Victor Jory. Dir: Norman Taurog. C-91 mins, TV-G

7:36am Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Towed In A Hole (1932)
BW-21 mins

8:00am Dodsworth (1936)
A husband whose wife left him looks for new love in Europe.
Cast: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas. Dir: William Wyler. BW-101 mins, TV-PG

10:00am Wuthering Heights (1939)
A married noblewoman fights her lifelong attraction to a charismatic gypsy.
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon, Geraldine Fitzgerald. Dir: William Wyler. BW-104 mins, TV-PG

12:00pm All Mine to Give (1957)
Pioneer children fight to build a new family after their parents die.
Cast: Glynis Johns, Cameron Mitchell, Patty McCormack. Dir: Allen Reisner. C-102 mins, TV-G

2:00pm Yours, Mine And Ours (1968)
A widow with eight children marries a widower with ten, then gets pregnant.
Cast: Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, Van Johnson. Dir: Melville Shavelson. C-111 mins, TV-PG

4:00pm Lovers And Other Strangers (1970)
A young couple's wedding plans lead to comic complications for all involved.
Cast: Bonnie Bedelia, Richard S. Castellano, Bea Arthur. Dir: Cy Howard. C-104 mins, TV-14

6:00pm Facts of Life, The (1960)
Suburban marrieds are tempted to dabble in adultery.
Cast: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Ruth Hussey. Dir: Melvin Frank. BW-104 mins, TV-PG

What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: CHRISTMAS DOUBLE FEATURE

8:00pm Christmas In Connecticut (1945)
A homemaking specialist who can't boil water is forced to provide a family holiday for a war hero.
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet. Dir: Peter Godfrey. BW-102 mins, TV-G

9:45pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Bedtime For Sniffles (1940)
C-8 mins

10:00pm Holiday Affair (1950)
A young widow is torn between a boring businessman and a romantic ne'er-do-well.
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Janet Leigh, Wendell Corey. Dir: Don Hartman. BW-87 mins, TV-G

11:30pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Let'S Talk Turkey (1939)
It's turkey 101 in this Pete Smith Specialty showing the do's and don'ts of turkey carving.
Cast: Pete Smith Dir: Felix Feist BW-10 mins

11:49pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Greatest Gift, The (1942)
A French monastary takes in a juggler to care for whille they prepare gifts to offer to Our Lady.
Cast: Edmund Gwenn Dir: Harold Daniels BW-11 mins

12:00am King of Kings, The (1927)
In this silent film, Cecil B. DeMille directs an epic retelling of the life of Christ.
Cast: H.B. Warner, Dorothy Cumming, Ernest Torrence. Dir: Cecil B. DeMille. BW-112 mins, TV-G

2:00am Spirit of the Beehive, The (1973)
After seeing the classic Frankenstein, two naive young girls go searching for the mad doctor's monster.
Cast: Fernando Fernan Gomez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent. Dir: Victor Erice. C-99 mins, TV-PG

3:45am Hope and Glory (1987)
A young boy grows up in World War II London during the Blitz.
Cast: Sebastian Rice-Edwards, Sarah Miles, David Hayman. Dir: John Boorman. C-113 mins, TV-MA

[Longhorn]

1. Holiday Affair (1950)

Like It's a Wonderful Life (1946), another Christmas favorite released through RKO Studios, Holiday Affair (1949) was a box-office failure that went on to become a hit through repeated television airings. Though Holiday Affair has hardly achieved the cult status of the other film, it continues to charm audiences with its tale of a war widow (Janet Leigh) torn between her button-down fiance (Wendell Corey) and a free spirit (Robert Mitchum).

Mitchum may have seemed odd casting at the time for a whimsical family story. The tabloids were still abuzz with his 1948 arrest and prison sentence for possession of marijuana. But RKO's owner, aviation tycoon Howard Hughes, had faith in him and refused to drop him from contract. In fact, just before filming started on Holiday Affair, RKO paid $400,000 to acquire sole ownership of Mitchum's contract from independent producer David O. Selznick, who had shared the contract with RKO.

Like many who worked with Mitchum, co-star Janet Leigh was quick to discover that his devil-may-care image masked a dedicated actor who put a lot more into his craft than most people suspected. Mitchum loved to play practical jokes on her, but they always had a purpose. During a tense dinner scene, he and co-star Wendell Corey each slipped a hand onto her knee under the table. She started fidgeting in response, which turned out to be the perfect reaction for the scene. Later, when she and Mitchum shared their first kiss, he really kissed her, again getting just the right reaction for the scene.

Leigh wasn't as happy about her relationship with Hughes, who had arranged to borrow her from MGM for a series of pictures starting with Holiday Affair. But that didn't prevent a very strange encounter when he summoned her for a private meeting toward the end of production. Hughes presented her with a private eye's report on her activities, claiming her current boyfriend, Arthur Loew, Jr., had ordered the investigation out of jealousy. Leigh saw through the ruse at once - all of the people she was linked to in the report were members of Loew's family. Clearly Hughes had ordered the investigation himself. She informed him that their future meetings would be strictly business if he wanted her to keep making films at RKO.

Director/Producer: Don Hartman
Screenplay: Isobel Lennart, John D. Weaver (story Christmas Gift)
Cinematography: Milton R. Krasner
Editor: Harry Marker
Art Direction: Carroll Clark, Albert S. D'Agostino
Music: Roy Webb
Cast: Robert Mitchum (Steve Mason), Janet Leigh (Connie Ennis), Wendell Corey (Carl Davis), Gordon Gebert (Timmy Ennis), Griff Barnett (Mr. Ennis)
BW-87m. Close captioning.

by Frank Miller

[lavenderdiva]

2. This is one holiday film I haven't seen yet!

But I am going to DVR it, so I can enjoy it at leisure- I hadn't even heard about this one, but your background on it sounds interesting. Good to know Janet Leigh had a good head on her shoulders... :hi: