March 2020 – Mariah's Musings

We are back with our regularly scheduled programming with a first-timer for Star of the Month, films focusing on the sea, a 24-hour memorial tribute to Kirk Douglas, a weekend starring the Mankiewicz brothers, and tributes for Women’s History Month including a night of films directed by pioneer Alice Guy-Blanche and the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment which finally gave women the right to vote.

STAR OF THE MONTH: JOE E. BROWN (WEDNESDAYS IN MARCH)

Joseph Evans Brown is March’s Star of the Month. Today’s viewers probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup, even though he said one of the funniest lines in film history-“Nobody’s perfect” from Some Like it Hot (March 25 @ 8PM/7PM). Surprisingly, Brown was one of the top 10 box-office stars in the mid-1930s. His films were made cheaply and always made back their money which afforded his studio, Warner Bros., to make more financially-riskier movies.

Joe E. Brown was born in Holgate, Ohio on July 28, 1891. He spent most of his childhood in Toledo, OH and eventually joined a circus tumbling troupe called the Five Marvelous Ashtons. Brown would later joke that he was the only kid who ran away to join the circus with the blessing of his parents.

Joe also had a talent for baseball and apparently turned down a chance to play for the New York Yankees because he wanted to be an entertainer! Still, he loved the sport so much that he made several baseball-themed films, including his “pastime trilogy” he made during the mid-1930s, which all three will be airing on March 11. They are Fireman Save My Child (8PM/7PM), Elmer the Great (9:15PM/8:15PM), and Alibi Ike (10:45PM/9:45PM), co-starring a young Olivia de Havilland. Brown also would organize a studio baseball team and was a sometime announcer for Yankees games during the 1950s.

Brown’s film career waned during the 1940s but spent a lot of the time entertaining the troops during WWII. He also suffered a loss when his son, Dan, was killed in an airplane crash in 1942. As noted above with Hot, Joe appeared in several A-movies during the 1950s and 1960s such as Around the World in 80 Days (March 25 @ 5:30AM/4:30AM) and It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1AM/midnight).

Joe E. Brown died in 1973.

TCM SPOTLIGHT: LIFE AT SEA (MONDAYS IN MARCH)

March’s TCM spotlight focuses on films set on or around the high seas. Every Monday this month is devoted to movies separated into eight categories starting with OCEAN WONDERS during the daytime hours of March 9 including the Technicolor documentary The Sea Around Us (6:15AM/5:15AM), The Most Dangerous Game (12:15PM/11:15AM), and the box-office disaster sequel Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (3:30PM/2:30PM). The evening hours are filled with DISASTERS AT SEA starting with The Poseidon Adventure (8PM/7PM), the 1941 adaptation of Jack London’s novel The Sea Wolf (10:15PM/9:15PM), the film where they sunk a real liner, The Last Voyage (12:15AM/11:15PM), and Britain’s take on the Titanic disaster, A Night to Remember (2AM/1AM).

March 16 starts with SEA ADVENTURES such as Spencer Tracy’s Oscar-winning role in Captains Courageous (8:15AM/7:15AM) and the Battleship Potemkin (11:45AM/10:45AM), which the most famous scenes take place on land. The evening is all about PIRATE TALES beginning with Errol Flynn’s star-making role Captain Blood (8PM/7PM), followed by Flynn in The Sea Hawk (10:15PM/9:15PM).

March 23 starts with ACTION ON THE SEA, mostly set in WWII with films such as Mister Roberts (6AM/5AM) and They Were Expendable (8:15AM/7:15AM). The evening goes underwater with SUBMERGED starting with Destination Tokyo (8PM/7PM), followed by Torpedo Run (10:30PM/9:30PM), then Ice Station Zebra (12:30AM/11:30PM), and Operation Pacific (3:15AM/2:15AM).

Finally, on March 30, we start with LOVE AT SEA. What is it about the sea that makes people want to fall in love? Is it the air? Films on the docket include Buster Keaton’s The Navigator (6AM/5AM), the romance One Way Passage (1PM/noon), and Doris Day’s film debut in Romance on the High Seas (6PM/5PM). In the evening hours, we go back underwater with UNDER THE SEA with Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (midnight/11PM) and the Don Knotts comedy The Incredible Mr. Limpet (10PM/9PM).

NOIR ALLEY (SATURDAY NIGHTS @ midnight/11PM & ENCORES ON SUNDAY @ 10AM/9AM)

Noir Alley makes it return with a new season

On March 21 and 22, Noir Alley crosses over with TCM Imports during the early hours of Sunday morning (technically, Monday morning-TCM’s schedule runs from 5AM to 5AM) for two nights of international noir films including the French noir Elevator to the Gallows (March 21 @ midnight/11PM) the Spanish noir Death of a Cyclist (March 22 @ 2AM/1AM), and the Japanese noir Pale Flower (March 22 @ 3:45AM/2:45AM).

The American noir films airing this month are Ride the Pink Horse (March 7), I Wake Up Screaming (March 14), and Crime Wave (March 28).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEAN HARLOW (MARCH 3-DAYTIME)

March 3rd is the 109th anniversary of Jean Harlow’s birth. Sadly, she was taken from us too soon at the age of 26 from kidney failure. Who knows what her career would have been like if she had lived longer.

TCM starts the celebration with Bombshell (8AM/7AM), based on an unproduced play about a star who is exploited by her family. The play was a tragedy, but the film is a comedy. Next is Red-Headed Woman (9:45AM/8:45AM), a comedy about a homewrecker. Other films airing today include the shockingly violent The Beast of the City (11:15AM/10:15AM), the screwball comedy Libeled Lady (12:45PM/11:45AM), and her final film, Saratoga (6PM/5PM).

AAFCA PRESENTS: THE BLACK EXPERIENCE ON FILM (MARCH 3-EVENING)

TCM once again partners up with the African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) for a night of documentaries featuring the Oscar-nominated documentary Freedom on My Mind (8PM/7PM), Crisis: Behind a Presidental Commitment (10PM/9PM), which focuses on the decision to integrate the University of Alabama, the TCM premiere of Say Amen, Somebody (11:30PM/10:30PM),which tells the story of the gospel music scene, and You Got to Move (1:30AM/12:30AM), where a group of individuals fight to desegregate the South.

KIRK DOUGLAS MEMORIAL TRIBUTE (MARCH 5)

One of the last surviving stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age left this world on February 5.

Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916, to Russian Jewish immigrants Herschel and Bryna (whom he named his production company after), the only boy of seven siblings. The family anglicized its name to Demsky. Herschel worked as a junk dealer and the Demsky family lived in abject poverty as detailed in Douglas’ autobiography The Ragman’s Son, published in 1988. Douglas managed to land a wrestling scholarship to St. Lawrence University and then received another scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where his classmates included actress Lauren Bacall and his future first wife, Diana Dill. WWII interrupted Douglas’ career and he enlisted in the Navy. He married Dill in 1943 and they had two sons, Michael (who would win Oscars for producing and acting) in 1944 and Joel in 1947. The couple divorced in 1951 due to Douglas’ chronic infidelity. In 1954, Douglas married producer Anne Buydens and they had two sons, Peter in 1955 and Eric in 1958. Eric would predecease his parents in 2004. The Douglases were married for 65 years until Kirk’s death.

TCM celebrates the actor with 11 films and one documentary. Highlights include Out of the Past (2PM/1PM), Lust for Life (5:45PM/4:45PM), the anti-war Paths of Glory (8PM/7PM), and his iconic role, Spartacus (9:45PM/8:45PM).

UNAPPRECIATED SONGWRITERS (MARCH 10)

Friend of TCM Michael Feinstein hosts a night of films featuring songwriters who many don’t know about. First, we start with the TCM premieres of It’s Love Again (8PM/7PM) and Three Little Girls in Blue (10PM/9PM)

REMEMBERING ANNE FRANK (MARCH 13)

This April it will be 75 years since Anne Frank became one of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. TCM remembers her with the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank (8PM/7PM) and then with the TCM premiere of the award-winning documentary Anne Frank Remembered (11:15PM/10:15PM).

ST. PATRICK’S DAY (MARCH 17)

TCM celebrates St. Paddy’s day with their annual airing of John Ford’s The Quiet Man (8PM/7PM) and Young Cassidy (6PM/5PM).

DIRECTED BY ALICE GUY-BLANCHE (MARCH 24)

TCM celebrates the first female to direct a film (also one the first of either sex to direct a narrative film) with a night of her films and the TCM premiere of the 2018 documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice-Guy Blanche (8PM/7PM) and a night of her film shorts.

A MANKIEWICZ FAMILY WEEKEND (MARCH 27-29)

The final weekend in March will be taken over by the Mankiewicz family. Ben (grandson of Herman) co-hosts with cousin(?) Alex Mankiewicz (daughter of Joseph) and Sydney Ladensohn Stern, who wrote the 2019 biography The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics. Friday night focuses on the brothers’ early successes such as Joseph’s early story Million Dollar Legs (March 27 @ 8PM/7PM), Herman’s Dinner at Eight (9:15PM/8:15PM), and Joe’s Manhattan Melodrama (11:15PM/10:15PM).

Saturday, March 28, is all about Joseph’s directorial career with A Letter to Three Wives (8PM/7PM), where he won the Best Director Oscar and People Will Talk (10PM/9PM), starring Cary Grant.

Herman gets his day on Sunday evening with the classic Citizen Kane (8PM/7PM) and The Pride of the Yankees (10:15PM/9:15PM).

CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT (MARCH 31)

100 years ago, groups of brave women fought for their right to vote. TCM honors the anniversary with a night of films featuring suffragettes such as Betty Grable in TCM premiere of The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (8PM/7PM), Shirley Temple in Adventures in Baltimore (9:45PM/8:45PM), and Olivia de Havilland in The Strawberry Blonde (11:30PM/10:30PM).