Thanks for posting the list, Christopher. Looks like the Dick Tracy serial will be replacing Batman on Saturday mornings. That should be interesting. Speaking of Ghost-Busters, I watched the Disney cartoon Lonesome Ghosts when it aired on TCM the other night and Goofy actually says, "I ain't afraid of no ghosts!" Surreal.
That cartoon is on On Demand, but I haven't watched yet. Probably today. It will be interesting to see Frankenstein 1970 again. I haven't seen it since it was on TV in the early 70s. It's possible that it might have even been a TV movie, but I can't really remember.
No, it's not the 1937 Republic serial, but the RKO movie series that began in 1945. TCM will be showing all four films in the series on Saturday mornings from November 28 through December 19. Well, sure. The phrase has been part of the pop-culture lexicon for a very long time; the Ghostbusters theme song was referencing a well-known meme, not coining it.
Okay. Thanks for the correction, Christopher, on the Dick Tracy series. I had no idea that it was a meme. The theme song and this cartoon are the only places I'd ever heard or read that phrase previous to the movie's release. What a cool thing to learn on Halloween!
And now we finish out 2015. I predict there will be a lot of versions of A Christmas Carol on this list... FRI 12/4 1:00 AM: The Picture of Dorian Gray ('45) SAT 12/5 9:15 AM: Dick Tracy vs. Cueball ('46): The second in the RKO film series, with Morgan Conway returning as Tracy. 2:30 PM: Jack and the Beanstalk ('52): Abbott & Costello version. SUN 12/6 2:00 AM: Shock ('77): Italian ghost/possession film. 3:45 AM: Haxan ('22): Silent occult/Satanism film they've shown several times. 8:30 AM: A Christmas Carol ('38): Yup, there's one. THU 12/10 6:00 PM: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ('47) FRI 12/11 10:00 PM: Scrooge ('70): That's two. SAT 12/12 Midnight: A Christmas Carol ('38): The first one again. 7:15 AM: Between Two Worlds ('44): That "cruise ship to the afterlife" movie again. 9:15 AM: Dick Tracy's Dilemma ('47): Third RKO picture, with Ralph Byrd (from the earlier Republic serials) reprising the role of Tracy. SAT 12/12-SUN 12/13: "Afterlife Adventures" marathon. 8:00 PM: Here Comes Mr. Jordan ('41) 10:00 PM: Heaven Can Wait ('43): Not the '78 remake of Mr. Jordan, but the unrelated Ernst Lubitsch comedy. Midnight: A Matter of Life and Death ('47): David Niven sues a Heavenly court to overturn his death. With Kim Hunter. 2:00 AM: The House by the Cemetery ('84): Italian haunted-house film. Apparently pretty gory. 3:30 AM: The Walking Dead ('36): Karloff as a dead man resurrected by science. Sounds familiar... SUN 12/13 8:30 AM: Scrooge ('35): That's three. TUE 12/15 8:00 PM: One Million B.C. ('40): Start of a Carole Landis marathon. 9:30 PM: Topper Returns ('41): Next in the marathon. WED 12/16 1:00 AM: Turnabout ('40): Fourth in the Landis marathon, the bodyswitching comedy that unfortunately inspired Star Trek's "Turnabout Intruder." THU 12/17-FRI 12/18: A Disney marathon -- I'll only list the ones that are genre or animated. 9:30 PM: Three consecutive shorts: The Grasshopper and the Ants ('34), Chip N' Dale in Corn Chips ('51), and Pluto in Rescue Dog ('47). 10:00 PM: Babes in Toyland ('61): Musical with Ray Bolger. 3:30 AM: Polar Trappers ('38): Donald Duck/Goofy cartoon, a fitting lead-in to: 3:45 AM: The Island at the Top of the World ('74): A lost-civilization movie set in the Arctic, with Donald Sinden and Mako. SAT 12/19 9:15 AM: Dick Tracy meets Gruesome ('47): Final RKO Tracy film, with Karloff as the villain. SUN 12/20 2:00 AM: Possession ('81): Very adult French/German horror film, with Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill. 4:15 AM: Black Moon ('75): Louis Malle film about a girl retreating into surreal fantasy worlds. I'm not sure that counts as genre, but just in case. 8:00 AM: Scrooge ('70) again. 2:00 PM: The Blue Bird ('40): Fairy tale with Shirley Temple on a quest for the Bluebird of Happiness. FRI 12/25 8:45 AM: Scrooge ('70) again??? Come on, TCM, you've got a lot more Christmas Carol movies in your vault -- where the heck are they? And this is the only one actually showing on Xmas day, one they've already shown twice this month! Bah, I say, and humbug. SAT 12/26 Noon: Clash of the Titans ('81): Harryhausen for Boxing Day. 2:15 PM: 2001: A Space Odyssey ('68) SUN 12/27 3:30 AM: It's Alive ('74) 10:00 AM: The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) TUE 12/29: Harryhausen marathon! 6:30 AM: It Came From Beneath the Sea ('55) 8:00 AM: 20 Million Miles to Earth ('57) 9:45 AM: The Valley of Gwangi ('69) 11:30 AM: One Million Years B.C. ('66) 1:15 PM: Mysterious Island ('61) 3:00 PM: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers ('56) 4:30 PM: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad ('58) 6:15 PM: Jason and the Argonauts ('63)
ty sir! ...and last year they ran 4 Carols in a row on Xmas IIRC, they must be looking to switch things up this time.
January, just in time: FRI 1/1/16: Sci-fi marathon! 6:45 AM: Things to Come ('36) 8:30 AM: Soylent Green ('73) 10:15 AM: The Fly ('58) Noon: Them! ('54) 1:45 PM: Time After Time ('79) 3:45 PM: The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) 5:30 PM: Close Encounters of the Third Kind ('77): Run time suggests the theatrical cut. SUN 1/3 2:00 AM: Night Train to Terror ('85): Apparently this is an infamously bad horror anthology film, actually a "clip show" framing segments from three different Z-grade horror films. Richard Moll and John Phillip Law are in it. 3:45 AM: Stephen King's Cat's Eye ('85): Another horror anthology, this time written by King and featuring two adaptations of his stories and one original tale. With Drew Barrymore and James Woods. TUE 1/5 8:00 PM: King Kong ('33) THU 1/7 - FRI 1/8 9:45 PM: Chandu the Magician ('32): Adaptation of a Doctor Strange-like radio hero, your standard Westerner who mastered Eastern mysticism to fight evil (in this case, Bela Lugosi with a death ray). 11:00 PM: Alice in Wonderland ('33): Live-action adaptation blending Wonderland and Looking Glass, with W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Cary Grant as the Mock Turtle, and Gary Cooper as the White Knight. 12:30 AM: The Thief of Bagdad ('24): Original silent version w/ Douglas Fairbanks. SUN 1/10 2:15 AM: Phase IV ('74): Cult film about ants taking over the world. Only directorial effort of title designer Saul Bass. Featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 in its original local-cable run. 4:00 AM: Them! again, for an ant-horror double feature. MON 1/11 6:00 AM: The Time Machine ('60) FRI 1/15 Midnight: Things to Come again. (Come again?) SAT 1/16 2:00 PM: From the Earth to the Moon ('58) 4:00 PM: Sleeper ('73): Woody Allen's cryo-comedy. 5:45 PM: Knights of the Round Table ('53): More romance than fantasy, but what the heck. 8:00 PM: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ('47) SUN 1/24 2:00 AM: The Church ('89): Or La Chiesa or Cathedral of Demons, an Italian demonic-horror film. 4:15 AM: The Devil's Bride('68): AKA The Devil Rides Out. Hammer horror with Christopher Lee, written by Richard Matheson. Noon: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court ('49): Bing Crosby in a musical version of Mark Twain's time-travel tale. MON 1/25: A Tod Browning marathon including the following that fit this thread: Noon: The Thirteenth Chair ('29): With Lugosi. 2:45 PM: Freaks ('32) 5:15 PM: Mask of the Vampire('35): With Lionel Barrymore and Lugosi. TUE 1/26 Midnight: Our Man Flint ('66): James Coburn spy-fi spoof. WED 1/27: Fred Macmurray double-feature: 8:00 PM: The Absent-Minded Professor ('61) 10:00 PM: The Shaggy Dog ('59) TUE 1/28 4:45 AM: The Swarm ('78): Killer-bee horror. 2:30 PM: Heaven Can Wait ('43) FRI 1/29 1:00 AM: Around the World in 80 Days ('56)
Thanks for posting the list, Christopher. I'm not so sure Greg Cox will be happy that you mentioned Richard Matheson's script for the Devil's Bride. That's information that usually falls under his aegis (Gary Seven pun intended) to dispense.
To the contrary, I'm happy to see that I have Christopher well-trained at this point. Speaking of Chandu, btw, Stan Lee has indeed cited Chandu as one of his inspirations for Doctor Strange.
I always get Chandu and Norgil confused. I've never heard any Chandu radio episodes, but I've read a few Norgil short stories by "Maxwell Grant." Must be the Grant/Shadow pulp/radio con-fusion.
Interesting. I don't think I've heard of Norgil, so I'll have to do some research there. I've got a couple of Chandus around on MP3 somewhere, I think, but there's none on my OTR iPhone app. I've definitely never seen the movie, so I'll try to catch it this time.
The gauntlet has been thrown down! As far as I know, THE DEVIL'S BRIDE was the only Hammer movie written by Matheson. There had been talk earlier of Hammer doing a film version of I AM LEGEND, to be scripted by Matheson, but the project fell through and Hammer sold the rights to another company, who eventually produced the original Vincent Price version. A shame. I would have liked to have seen Hammer's take on I AM LEGEND. (With maybe Peter Cushing as Neville?)
As soon as I saw Greg had the last post, I thought "wonder which Matheson movie it is?" Nice to see a Flint movie, I always tell my friends that those are why Austin Powers never impressed me much.... I prefer deadpan, and Coburn is world-class at that. btw Greg, thanks for Child of Two Worlds, looking forward to the anniversary trilogy.
Just to tide you over, there's always STAR TREK: MIASMA in February. Getting back OT: TCM really needs to schedule a Matheson film festival . . ...
The logical day would be Feb. 20, his birthday -- but he shares it with Sidney Poitier and Robert Altman, so there's stiff competition there. [I'm assuming Sandy Duncan is less of an issue] Pre-ordered Miasma.
Thanks! Hope you like it. And lord knows that between the movies based on Matheson's books, the movies he scripted, and the movies he scripted based on his books or stories, you could easily fill up a day's programming . . . and then some!