Dewey Webb, one of the L.A. Daily Mirror regulars, wrote the other day about TCM’s intro to its late-night shows. Dewey was saying that he only recently realized that these are clipped from other movies and not original footage. So I thought it would be fun to use these as mystery photos. I don’t recognize any of these shots, so I am going to make the comments live as they come in, a bit different from the usual practice.
Here’s our first shot.
And here’s our second shot.
I think I’ll speed this up a bit, since everyone has seen this already.
Here’s our late-night ticket taker.
Our late-night ballroom.
Hobson Fur Co.
Robert Walker is a proponent of mass transit.
The diner is open.
Our lady of the mirror.
Parking the Ford.
Here’s your coffee.
And an evocation of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.”
ladailymirror.com 
Looks to me to be Henry Fonda in Stage Door although I know that never happened.
LikeLike
Is this from the Peter Lorre feature “Stranger on the Third Floor”?
LikeLike
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
LikeLike
I’VE ALWAYS WONDERED ABOUT THESE CLIPS AND WHAT MOVIES THEY’RE FROM.
LikeLike
Too easy! (Now watch me be wrong). This is Humphrey Bogart playing Philip Marlow badly playing a pansy stereotype to rope in a blackmailing pornographer in ‘The Big Sleep’. It’s all in the hat.
LikeLike
Lachlin Agency was a storefront set on the Hal Roach Studio back lot. It was used in a Twilight Zone in 1961.
LikeLike
I was thinking the Victor McLaglen film, THE INFORMER, though that’s not him. If you notice, theatre is spelled in the British way.
LikeLike
Not this shot but on TCM Silent Sunday Nights intro clip, my friend’s grandfather is the final shot. Gibson Gowland with a beard, a scene from “Greed”.
LikeLike
There are a lot of shots from “Greed” in that intro.
LikeLike
Gibson Gowland went back to England eventually and faded away, his career never took off after Greed, he got work but never the big breakthrough part. His son Peter stayed in L.A and became a great photographer of 50s models and actors,, calendars, magazine covers, classic cheesecake photos which are like high art today.. He invented cameras and was just a genius with a camera, I knew him somewhat through a relative and have kept in touch with his daughter. Peter passed away about 3 years ago. He could never find his father’s grave in England, Gibson Gowland became that much of a mystery. Every time I watch Greed I think about that.
LikeLike
The “overnight” TCM intro is the only one the station hasn’t changed in the last 14 years that I’ve been watching TCM — probably because it’s so well put together and perfectly captures that late night feeling.
LikeLike
I agree Dan. The scenes put me in a mood for old classic movies & take me back to an era when times were simpler.
LikeLike
Even though I do not know the answer, everytime I see it I think of John Garfield.
LikeLike
That tall lean guy looks like Michael Jackson
LikeLike
Just caught the intro again on TCM .The woman getting undressed in front of the mirror is from Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss I’m sure (I think his very first film). Haven’t watched it in years but remember her because I had no idea who she was but thought she was stunning. The guy selling tickets through the glass window and the dance hall shot are from it as well I’m like 99% sure because I remember a dance hall in Times Square she goes into to meet Frank Silvera, I like the film just for the shots of Times Square in the 50s in it. And for some reason I keep thinking the car by the bridge at night turning its headlights off is from Young Man with a Horn.. I have no idea why, I just remember Kirk Douglas by a bridge in a scene. Not as positive about the bridge as the other scenes. Could be a shot from The Naked City too. So many noir shots are like a Waring blender in my head, they run together. The brief color shot of the building looks like its from Farewell My Lovely with Mitchum, but that’s a complete guess.
LikeLike
The color shot I believe is from the original “Fame” (1980). It was an exterior of Montgomery MacNeil’s (played by Paul McCrane)apartment he shared with his ever-absent mother.
LikeLike
You’ve not gotten to this shot yet but the one where people are getting on the bus is from Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. You can see one of them is Robert Walker, stalking Farley Granger’s wife.
LikeLike
Respectfully, it is Strangers on a Train, but the character you can see is Laura Elliott, (in the glasses), as Miriam, the wife. She was heading to the amusement park with her friends. Laura Elliott changed her name to Kasey Rogers, and became Louise Tate on “Bewitched.”
LikeLike
And on looking further, of course Bruno is visible on the bus as well…
Boy, the wonder of the “pause” button.
LikeLike
Thanks for the detail – I only knew her as Farley Granger’s wife/problem.
LikeLike
The very last shot in the diner at night is from The Sting. Redford and the waitress who turned out to be the hitman having a cup of coffee. George Roy Hiill was going for a recreation of the famous Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks 1942.
LikeLike
Nope, it’s not from THE STING. I know what movie it’s from, but I’m going to hang back and save it for the end of the week (if nobody else guesses it first)..
LikeLike
Pennies From Heaven?
LikeLike
You got it, Dewey! Congrats!
LikeLike
They softened up all the clips in this intro to give it a gauzy, dreamlike effect. The original films were much sharper.
LikeLike
Don’t remember the movie, but the car parked by the bridge is at West 178th Street and Fort Washington Avenue in Upper Manhattan. That’s the George Washington Bridge in the background. I have actually parked in that spot when I was dating my wife 27 years ago-we’ve been married 25 years. She lived at 180th and Fort Washington Av at that time. I think about those times when they show that clip on TCM. I don’t believe it is Naked City. I don’t recall any scenes that far uptown in that picture.
LikeLike
I think that one is from ‘Young Man With a Horn’.
LikeLike
Actually, this scene is from another Alfred Hitchcock picture, THE WRONG MAN.
LikeLike
In following Louis’ lead, you haven’t gotten to this one yet, but the one with the man in the cardigan serving coffee in the diner is from The Wild One. Ray Teal serving coffee to Robert Keith and Mary Murphy. All three characters were Bleekers. Didn’t think Hollister was that “bleek”, but there you are. I think I first realized this because I recognized Ray Teal, who in my childhood was the iconic Sheriff Roy Coffee on Bonanza. Sheriff Coffee vied with Sheriff Micah Torrance on The Rifleman–the marvelous Paul Fix, as the wise dispensers of justice in the old television West. Never perfect, but dependable, and usually right there with Luca McCain or the Carwrights when the chips were down.
The more you look at old movies, the more you realize that the character actors, contract and otherwise, who filled out the casts behind the primary players, really were the meat, potatoes, heart and soul of Hollywood. Also, they seemed to transfer so readily to television.
I think Paul Fix once said (something like) “I never made more than $800 a week, but I worked steady for 50 years.” The numbers may be wrong, but you get the idea.
LikeLike
Forgive me, Lucas McCain.
LikeLike
Diner shot–Pennies From Heaven?
LikeLike
Ray Teal pours coffee to Robert Keith as they await The Wild One.
Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters spend a few Pennies from Heaven for some late night coffee.
Robert Walker is a stranger on a bus on his way to murder Miriam, who sits across the aisle from him.
LikeLike
I think the Hobson Fur Co. shot might also be from Pennies from Heaven. Steve Martin’s character convinces his wife to use her inheritence to set him up in a record shop in a lousy location below an elevated train trestle. While waiting for customers and foot traffic that never will come, he looks up at the second floor across the street where a tantalizing glamorous mannequin is modeling furs.
Or I could be totally misremembering the moment in the film.
LikeLike
Thanks very much, Larry, for posting this page. I’ve long wondered who the “lady of the mirror” was and what film her TCM intro clip is from. Thanks to the person who posted that the film was probably Kubrick’s KILLER’S KISS, I’ve identified the woman positively as Irene Kane, who died last October 31 at the age of 90. TCM’s website has some video clips from KILLER’S KISS in which Kane’s resemblance to the lady of the mirror is beyond question. She is such a stunning beauty in that TCM intro sequence that I often slow it down on my TV so I can admire her a little longer. I shall now watch out for that film, which I presume TCM will eventually air.
LikeLike
If you don’t feel like waiting for KILLER’S KISS to air on TCM, it’s available as an extra on the Criterion DVD of THE KILLING.
LikeLike
The entire film “KIller’s Kiss” can be seen online at Video Dailymotion. I’m to busy to watch the whole film right now, but I zipped through it quickly several times. Although I failed to find the “woman of the mirror” scene, I became even more convinced that Irene Kane is the woman in the TCM excerpt. I must simply have missed that scene because her hair style and other physical features closely match those of the woman of the mirror. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be another film in her sparse acting credits that could have had such a scene.
Incidentally, although the film ran fine on Video Dailymotion the first time I looked at it, my computer crashed after I restarted the film a few minutes ago. I don’t know whether that site caused the crash, but as my computer almost never crashes, the timing of the crash looks suspicious. All I can say is use caution if you go to that site.
The Criterion DVD of “The Killing” sounds tempting. That’s long been one of my favorite big-heist films I see that the Amazon.com listing for that DVD says that Amazon Prime members can see it for free online. Does anyone know if that offer would include “Killer’s Kiss” from the same DVD? Amazon’s separate listing for “Killer’s Kiss” offers the film for $2.99 online.
LikeLike
My computer has now crashed twice when I’ve tried to watch “Killer’s Kiss” on the Video Dailymotion site, so I definitely recommend avoiding that site. Trailers and clips from the film can be viewed on other sites, notably YouTube. This YouTube clip doesn’t include the “lady of the mirror” scene but shows enough of Irene Kane to make it certain she is that lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60PDxhI6y4g
LikeLike