TCM Schedule for Friday, Nov 8, 2024 - Hedy Lamarr/Damon Runyon
A major star under contract with MGM during the 1930s and 1940s, Hedy Lamarr gained international notoriety thanks to her taboo-breaking performance in the Austrian-made drama "Ecstasy" (1933), which featured the actress fully nude - practically unheard of at the time.
Lamarr later made her way to Hollywood and began appearing in a number of pictures, most notably "Algiers" (1938), "I Take This Woman" (1940), "Ziegfeld Girl" (1941), "Boom Town" (1940) and "White Cargo" (1942).
Despite her popularity and the success of her films, Lamarr was pegged as an actress of limited abilities and was therefore often cast as the desirable woman of mystery, which perfectly suited her strikingly dark exotic looks. In fact, she was hailed as the "world's most beautiful woman."
Despite that moniker, Lamarr gave a strong performance in King Vidor's "H.M. Pulhan, Esq." (1941), proving that she could deliver the goods if offered a good script and steady direction. After appearing in "The Conspirators" (1944) and "Her Highness and the Bellboy" (1945), her contract with MGM lapsed and she entered a career decline. Her only major highlight was starring in Cecil B. DeMille's epic "Samson and Delilah" (1949), though she failed to capitalize on that movie's huge success.
Full bio: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/107525|68054/Hedy-Lamarr#biography
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American journalist and short-story writer.
He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era.
To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan. The adjective Runyonesque refers to this type of character and the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicts.
He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid".
Full bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Runyon
Accurate and better written synopses, full cast, and trivia for all films available at https://www.imdb.com
--- DAYTIME (EST) ---
6:00 AM | Tortilla Flat (1942)
Inhabitants of a Southern California fishing village strive for the simple pleasures of life.
Dir: Victor Fleming | Cast: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield
8:00 AM | The Heavenly Body (1943)
An astronomer's neglected wife takes up astrology and a handsome astrologer.
Dir: Alexander Hall | Cast: William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, James Craig
9:45 AM | Lady of the Tropics (1939)
An American playboy in Saigon has to fight to get his Eurasian wife out of the country.
Dir: Jack Conway | Cast: Robert Taylor, Hedy Lamarr, Joseph Schildkraut
11:30 AM | The Strange Woman (1946)
An unscrupulous 19th-century woman will stop at nothing to control the men in her life.
Dir: Edgar Ulmer | Cast: Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders, Louis Hayward
1:15 PM | Crossroads (1942)
A French diplomat who's recovering from amnesia is blackmailed over crimes he can't remember.
Dir: Jack Conway | Cast: William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Claire Trevor
2:45 PM | Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)
A hotel bellboy is the unlikely choice to escort a visiting princess, over the protests of his invalid girlfriend.
Dir: Richard Thorpe | Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, June Allyson
4:45 PM | Come Live with Me (1941)
A Viennese refugee weds a struggling author platonically so she can stay in the U.S.
Dir: Clarence Brown | Cast: James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, Ian Hunter
6:15 PM | Experiment Perilous (1944)
A small-town doctor tries to help a beautiful woman with a deranged husband.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur | Cast: Hedy Lamarr, George Brent, Paul Lukas
--- PRIME TIME, LATE NIGHT, SATURDAY MORNING ---
8:00 PM | Guys and Dolls (1955)
Adaptation of the Broadway show and about two gamblers, their floating craps game, and a Salvation Army sergeant.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra
10:45 PM | Little Miss Marker (1934)
A bookie receives a little girl as an IOU.
Dir: Alexander Hall | Cast: Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell
12:15 AM | Lady for a Day (1933)
A gangster helps an old apple-vendor pose as a society woman to fool her visiting daughter.
Dir: Frank Capra | Cast: Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee
2:00 AM | A Slight Case of Murder (1938)
A gangster finds the straight life isn't so simple.
Dir: Lloyd Bacon | Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Jane Bryan, Allen Jenkins
3:30 AM | Stop, You're Killing Me (1952)
The surprise appearance of four corpses interferes with a beer baron's plans to crash high society.
Dir: Roy Del Ruth | Cast: Broderick Crawford, Claire Trevor, Virginia Gibson
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5:00 AM | A Day in the Country (1946)
(Short) Daughter of a Parisian shop-owner falls in love with a man at a country inn.
Dir: Jean Renoir | Cast: Sylvia Bataille, Jeanne Marken, Georges D'arnoux