Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of April 1-7, 2019. We're still three and a half weeks away from the NFL Draft, when the Packers select a new crop of prospective boyfriends for Goldie 
. None of our debating about it will amount to a hill of beans, so why not relax and spend the wait with some good movies? There's a new Star of the Month on TCM, and some good movies on other channels. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
TCM is running a bunch of Debbie Reynolds movies on Monday morning and afternoon, including The Tender Trap at 6:00 PM. Frank Sinatra stars as Charlie Reader, a successful theatrical agent in New York who has a ridiculous number of girlfriends, including orchestra violinist Sylvia (Celeste Holm). He's so busy juggling girlfriends that he completely overlooks the telegraph from old friend Joe (David Wayne), who is "taking a vacation" from his wife. As part of casting for a new play, Charlie meets Julie (Debbie Reynolds), who is certainly cute but has bizarre ideas on organizing her life: she knows the exact date she's getting married, that she's going to have three children, and live in a precise suburb. And she's extremely irritating about what she wants. But you just know that Charlie is going to fall in love with her, which is tough for Sylvia, except that Joe falls in love with her, overlooking the fact that he still has a wife and three kids back in Indiana. Watch also for Carolyn Jones as Charlie's dog-walker, and for the marvelous 1950s set decoration in Charlies ridiculously spacious apartment.
A film that's back on FXM Retro is Poor Little Rich Girl, which you can catch at 7:55 AM Monday. Shirley Temple plays Barbara Barry, daughter of widowed soap magnate Richard (Michael Whalen). She wants real friends instead of the sheltered life of luxury Dad gives her, so he decides to send her to boarding school. Unfortunately, her governess (Jane Darwell) gets in an accident at the train station, leaving Barbara along in the big city. Eventually she gets found by the Dolans (Alice Faye and Jack Haley), a married couple of unemployed entertainers. Of course since this is a Shirley Temple movie, we know her character can sing and dance, so she turns them into the three Dolans, bring them success that results in a spot on the radio show Simon Peck (Claude Gillingwater) sponsors. That's all well and good, except that Peck is the head of the rival soap company to Barbara's father.He's not going to be pleased, but then he's been seeing a woman (Gloria Stuart) who works for the advertising arm of Peck's company.
This month being the 25th anniversary of TCM, they're doing some things a bit differently in terms of programming. First is that this is one of those months where the Star of the Month is going to be five straight weeknights in prime time in one week. That's this week, and the star honored is Greta Garbo (who I believe was the channel's very first Star of the Month). One of her early talkies is Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise), at 1:15 AM Wednesday. Garbo plays Lenox, who is born an illegitimate child named Helga and raised by cruel foster father Karl (Jean Hersholt). Karl's plan is to marry Helga off to Jeb (Alan Hale), but before that can happen Helga runs off and winds up at the house of Rodney (Clark Gable). The two ought to fall in love and live happily ever after, but Rodney has to go away on business, meaning Karl will be able to find Helga again, forcing her to run off and join the circus and take the name Susan Lenox. Rodney runs into her and misunderstands, so Susan becomes the mistress of a politician, and ultimately winds up in South America! Bizarre little movie.
I don't think I've ever mentioned Morgan, The Pirate before. TCM will be running it at 1:15 PM Wednesday. An Italian/French co-production for an international market, the movie stars American bodybuilder Steve Reeves as Henry Morgan, who was captured and sold into slavery, purchased by Doña Inez (Valerie Lagrange), the daughter of the governor of the Spanish colony of Panama, Guzman. Henry, being a free-range a-hole, leads a slave revolt and takes over the slave transport ship, turning it into a pirate ship. Morgan and his men become the scourge of the Caribbean, with tacit support of the English. The English want to use Morgan's privateers as a counterweight to the Spanish, and Morgan really wants to destroy Panama what with the Governor's daughter having purchased him. Of course, Morgan begins to fall in love with her along the way. Sure these Italian epics aren't the greatest movies ever made, but they're always entertaining.
A search of the site suggests I haven't mentioned The Lawless Breed before. StarzEncore Westerns will be running it at 11:44 PM Wednesday. The movie is based very loosely on the memoirs of gunfighter John Wesley Hardin, played here by Rock Hudson. We see him at the beginning of the movie being released from prison after a long stretch for murder. During those years, he's written his life story, and when he takes it to a newspaper publisher, we get the inevitable flashback.... Young John was growing up in Texas just after the Civil War, with a strict preacher father (John McIntire). When Dad gets too strict, John goes off hoping to live on a ranch with girlfriend Jane (Mary Castle). But things don't go that way; John kills a man he swears drew on him first, and after a life of gambling and gunfighting, marries saloon girl Rosie (Julie Adams), has a son (Race Gentry) by her, and then gets sent to prison. Now that he's out he wants to tell his story in part as a warning to his son. But he's still too notorious.
If you want an enjoyable biopic, you could do far worse than to watch Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, at 10:45 AM Thursday. Edward G. Robinson plays Paul Ehrlich, a German doctor in the late 19th century who, at the start of the movie, is studying chemical staining to try to identify microorganisms causing various diseases. His colleague von Behring (Otto Kruger) is impressed, but Ehrlich's work on tuberculosis eventually causes him to contract the disease, leading to a recuperative trip to Egypt where he studies immunity and saves a bunch of Egyptians from diphtheria. Ehrlich then turns his attention to trying to find a cure for syphilis -- it's amazing that a film from those days could actually mention a venereal disease. Ehrlich's attempts to find a cure ultimately resulted in the drug Salvarsan and was pioneering work in the field of chemotherapy. But the work also resulted in some of the patients dying, and Ehrlich has to bring a libel suit to prove the effectiveness of his drug. Ruth Gordon plays Mrs. Ehrlich, and Albert Basserman plays the equally famous doctor Robert Koch.
Thursday bring The Killing Fields to MoreMax, at 4:20 AM. (It'll also be on MovieMax at 5:35 PM Friday.) New York Times journalist Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) is covering the volatile situation in Cambodia near the end of the Vietnam War, together with his interpreter Dith Pran (Haing Ngor). The war spills into Cambodia itself, and when the Khmer Rouge are on the verge of victory, all of the westerners get out and Cambodians try whatever they can to get out. Unfortunately, Dith Pran isn't able to get himself out, and when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge take over, the results are truly horrible: they decide to empty the cities in "Year Zero" and turn the country into an agrarian "paradise" which of course is hell for anybody not related to the Khmer Rouge. This includes "intellectuals" like people who can speak foreign language, or wear glasses. Dith Pran sets out on a difficult, dangerous journey across the Cambodian countryside to get to Thailand and the refugee camps there.
Next up is They Gave Him a Gun, at 9:15 AM Friday on TCM. Spence Tracy plays Fred, who gets drafted into World War I alongside his friend Jimmy (Franchot Tone), the latter considering himself not cut out to be a soldier. But wouldn't you know that he is good, pefroeming a heroic deed but getting himself injured in the process. This brings both Jimmy and Fred into contact with army nurse Rose (Gladys George), and both fall in love with her. Rose picks Jimmy, and after the war all three return to the States. Jimmy finds that the war changed him permanently, and for the worse, as his uses the marksmanship skills he learned in the war to become one of the top underworld hit men. Even more amazing, when Fred discovers this, he also learns that poor Rose knows nothing at all about her husband's true profession. Fred tries to get Jimmy to go back to the straight and narrow, but also has to tell Rose about Jimmy's secret life. A strange role for Franchot Tone.
Some of you old farts may enjoy American Graffiti, which is going to be on StarzEncore Classics at 5:14 AM Saturday. The time is the end of summer, 1962, in Modesto CA. Four friends who have gone to school together are facing what is probably going to be their final night together before they drift apart. Curt (Richard Dreyfuss) is the "most likely to succeed" type, having won a scholarship to an eastern college, but he's feeling uncertain of whether to go. His friend Steve (Ron Howard) has been in an uneasy relationship with Curt's sister Laurie (Cindy Williams), and encourages Curt to go before having his own second thoughts. John (Paul Le Mat) doesn't want anything to change, and Terry (Charles Martin Smith) is beginning to open up and explore his new-found independence. The four have various other crises during the night, mostly involving a gang and a mysterious young lady in a Thunderbird. The movie is known for its soundtrack of popular hits from the era, announced by DJ Wolfman Jack.
We'll conclude with this week's Noir Alley selection: 99 River Street, at 10:00 AM Sunday on TCM. John Payne plays Ernie, a washed-up boxer who is now making a living driving a taxi and has an extremely hot temper. This bothers his wife Pauline no end, as she expected the good life. So she responds by taking up with somebody who she thinks can give her the good life which, tough for her, means the criminal element in the form of Victor Rawlins (Brad Dexter). Pauline eventually winds up murdered, her body in the back seat of Ernie's cab, so we know who the prime suspect is. Meanwhile, a former friend, Linda (Evelyn Keys), an aspiring actress, tries to get Ernie into a play, but when his legal difficulties come to the fore, she decides to help him try to clear his name. This means finding Victor, which is going to be difficult because not only is the law on his tracks, the other criminals Victor double-crossed want to kill him to keep their unlawful deeds from coming to light; too bad if that means Ernie can't prove his innocence.