TCM Schedule for Fri, Jan 9, 2026: Johnny Mack Brown / Flashback Fridays (Film Noir)

Johnny Who?

John Brown (September 1, 1904 – November 14, 1974) was an American college football player and film actor billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career. He acted and starred mainly in Western films.

Brown was a prominent halfback on his university's Crimson Tide football team. Pop Warner called him "one of the fastest football players I've ever seen." Brown's good looks and powerful physique saw him portrayed on Wheaties cereal boxes and in 1927, brought an offer for motion picture screen tests that resulted in a long and successful career in Hollywood. That same year, he signed a five-year contract with Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM). He played silent film star Mary Pickford's love interest in her first talkie, Coquette (1929), for which Pickford won an Oscar.

He appeared in minor roles until 1930 when he was cast as the star in a Western entitled Billy the Kid directed by King Vidor. An early widescreen film (along with Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail starring John Wayne, produced the same year), the movie also stars Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett. Brown was billed over Beery, who would become MGM's highest-paid actor within the next three years.

Also in 1930, Brown played Joan Crawford's love interest in Montana Moon. Brown went on to make several more top-flight movies under the name John Mack Brown, including The Secret Six (1931) with Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable, as well as the legendary Lost Generation celebration of alcohol, The Last Flight (1931), and was being groomed by MGM as a leading man until being abruptly replaced on Laughing Sinners in 1931, with all his scenes reshot, substituting rising star Clark Gable in his place. MGM and director Woody Van Dyke screen tested him for the lead role of Tarzan the Ape Man but Van Dyke did not feel he was tall enough.

Rechristened "Johnny Mack Brown" in the wake of this extremely serious career downturn, he made a number of low-budget westerns for independent producers though never regained his former status. Eventually he became one of the screen's top B-movie cowboys, and became a popular star at Universal Pictures in 1937. After starring in four serials, in 1939 he launched a series of 29 B-westerns over the next four years, all co-starring Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick, and the last seven teaming him with Tex Ritter. This is considered the peak of his B-western career, thanks to the studio's superior production values.

Altogether, Brown appeared in more than 160 movies between 1927 and 1966, as well as a smattering of television shows, in a career spanning almost 40 years.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mack_Brown





DAYTIME (EST)

6:00 AM A Lady of Chance (1928)
In this silent film, a female con artist lures men to her apartment so she can blackmail them.
Dir: Robert Z. Leonard Cast: Norma Shearer, Lowell Sherman, Gwen Lee

7:30 AM Jazz Heaven (1930)
A struggling songwriter finds love at his boarding house.
Dir: Melville Brown Cast: John Mack Brown, Sally O'Neil, Clyde Cook

9:00 AM The Secret Six (1931)
A secret society funds the investigation of a bootlegging gang.
Dir: George Hill Cast: Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, John Mack Brown

10:30 AM The Last Flight (1931)
Four disillusioned Army buddies roam post-WWI Europe.
Dir: William Dieterle Cast: Richard Barthelmess, David Manners, John Mack Brown

12:00 PM Female (1933)
A female CEO who's used to buying love meets her match in an independent young executive.
Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast: Ruth Chatterton, George Brent, Lois Wilson

1:15 PM Billy the Kid (1930)
A town marshal struggles to capture a rebellious kid turned outlaw.
Dir: King Vidor Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery, Kay Johnson

3:00 PM The Gentleman from Texas (1946)
Wells Fargo sends Johnny Macklin to Rimrock to investigate stage hold-ups and general lawlessness which, according to local agent Tom Jamison, is caused by saloon owner Steve Corbin and his henchman Duke Sprague.
Dir: Lambert Hillyer Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Claudia Drake, Raymond Hatton

4:00 PM Land of the Lawless (1947)
Rambling cowhand Johnny Mack learns that his friend Henry Blake has been killed, and he agrees to help law-abiding citizens clean up Medicine Flats.
Dir: Lambert Hillyer Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Raymond Hatton, Christine McIntyre

5:00 PM The Law Comes to Gunsight (1947)
Mayor Jim Blaine sends for Pecos, a notorious two-gun killer, to run Brad Foster and his henchmen out of Gunsight.
Dir: Lambert Hillyer Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Raymond Hatton, Reno Browne

6:00 PM Colorado Ambush (1951)
When three Wells Fargo messengers are killed, Ranger Johnny is sent, incognito, to Booneville to investigate. He is welcomed by Sheriff Ed Lowery, Wells Fargo agent Ben Williams, the latter's daughter Janet and his son Terry, who supplies horses for the Wells Fargo riders.
Dir: Lewis D. Collins Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Myron Healey, Lois Hall

7:00 PM Blazing Bullets (1951)
When rancher John Roberts refuses to let his daughter Carol marry cowhand Bill Grant, he is kidnapped, and Bill is hunted for the crime. Carol abandons the ranch which soon earns a reputation of being haunted. Marshal Johnny Mack Brown starts an investigation and finds a trail of clues.
Dir: Wallace Fox Cast: Johnny Mack Brown, Lois Hall, House Peters Jr.


PRIME TIME, LATE NIGHT, EARLY MORNING

8:00 PM The Locket (1946)
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.
Dir: John Brahm Cast: Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum

10:00 PM Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client's death.
Dir: Billy Wilder Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

12:00 AM The Killers (1946)
An insurance investigator uncovers a string of crimes when he tries to find a murdered boxer's beneficiary.
Dir: Robert Siodmak Cast: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien

2:00 AM Mildred Pierce (1945)
A woman's ambitions for her daughter drastically impact her life.
Dir: Michael Curtiz Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott

4:00 AM D.O.A. (1950)
The victim of a slow-acting poison tracks down his own killer.
Dir: Rudolph Maté Cast: Edmond O'Brien, Pamela Britton, Luther Adler