Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” thread, for the week of August 1-7. 2016. Packer training camp, also known as the Jeff Janis! Show as we all debate him too much on the message boards is in full swing but will be taking a bit of time off for a meaningless exhibition game. So why not use that time off to catch up on some good movies? As always, I've used my good taste to select a bunch of movies that I know you'll like. As usual, times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Monday is August 1, which means the first day of this year's Summer Under the Stars on TCM. Every day brings a different star to TCM, with 24 hours of their movies. Monday sees a full day of Edward G. Robinson. I've recommended Five Star Final (9:00 AM) before, but it's good enough that it's worth another watch. Robinson plays Randall, the editor of a New York City tabloid. He'd like to make the paper more high-brow, but circulation is falling, and he has to get a story. And one falls right in his lap. Jenny Townsend (Marian Marsh) is the daughter of Nancy (Frances Starr) who 20 years ago was involved in a notorious murder case. Nancy was adjudged to have committed justifiable homicide, and since the case has been living in relative anonymity. But with Jenny's wedding to a prominent local figure, Randall figures now would be a good time to bring up Nancy's past, especially since it would make a good story. Nancy and her husband Michael (H.B. Warner) plead with Randall not to. Boris Karloff plays an amoral reporter who does much of the dirty legwork.
A movie returning to FXM Retro after an absence is The Alligator People, which you can catch at 1:40 PM Monday and 4:45 AM Tuesday. Beverly Garland plays Joyce, who recently got married to Paul (Richard Crane) and is about to go on her honeymoon with him. Except that on the train in the middle of nowhere, he gets off at a stop, makes a phone call, and never returns! Joyce obviously gets off too to figure out what's happened to her husband. Her search eventually leads her to one of those grand old mansions, which is now occupied by Dr. Sinclair (George Macready), who has been doing experiments on people by using a serum derived from alligators, which helps repair their broken bodies. However, Paul feels that something has gone wrong with the therapy, which is why he's back at Dr. Sinclair's place. And as the movie goes on, we find that something indeed has gone wrong. This is a really fun low-budget thing that is fun because of, not despite, its flaws.
Tuesday is given over to the films of Lucille Ball, which is a bit surprising considering that Saturday marks the anniversary of her birth. I'm not certain if I've recommended Forever, Darling before; that one comes on at 4:15 PM. This is the last of three films Lucy made with Desi Arnaz. Here, they play a married couple in which he's a research scientist preoccupied with finding a formula for an improved insecticide. This preoccupation is affecting their marriage for the worse. What's a wife to do? Well, she's fortunate enough to be visited by her guardian angel, who she thinks looks amazingly like James Mason (probably because the angel is played by James Mason). The angel tries to get his charge to put some romance back in the marriage, by taking an interest in what her husband does. However, when the two go on a camping trip to test the insecticide, her attempts to help only seem to make things worse.
On Wednesday we get a bunch of Bing Crosby movies, if that's your thing. I can't stand Going My Way, so instead I'll recommend The Country Girl, coming on at 10:15 PM Wednesday. Crosby gets a chance to do straight-up drama, playing Frank, an aging actor whose career is on the rocks thanks to his drinking problem. However, stage director Bernie (William Holden) needs an actor for his new play, and a sober Frank would be just the part. So Bernie hires Frank. Frank, meanwhile, has been letting his wife Georgie (Grace Kelly, who won an Oscar for this) more or less run the show in the family. Bernie is desperate for the show to be a success, so when things start going wrong, Bernie immediately thinks it's Georgie who is to blame. It doesn't help that she reminds him of his ex-wife. Frank, unsurprisingly, encourages this, but what's really going on in that marriage?
If you only think of Fay Wray as the woman carried up the Empire State Building by King Kong, tune in to TCM on Thursday to have those notions dispelled. You can see other of her oeuvre, such as The Clairvoyant, which comes on at 3:45 PM Thursday. The title character is played by Claude Rains, here a fake music-hall psychic named Maximus whose wife Rene (Fay Wray) is part of the act. But one day, he comes across the heiress Christine (Jane Baxter) and finds that he starts having real premonitions that come up whenever Christine is around. Maximus' use of these premonitions for profit, as well as Christine's presence, causes problems for his marriage with Rene, who wants him to stop. And then he gets the premonition that there's going to be a mining disaster, so he goes to the mine to stop it, which only gets him in more trouble. Rains is good as always, and although the production values are a bit lower with this being a British movie, it's still well worth a watch.
I don't think I've selected any westerns on TCM this week, so you'll have to get your fix on StarzEncore Westerns with something like Ride a Crooked Trail, at 7:05 AM Friday. Audie Murphy plays outlaw Joe Maybe, who comes riding into town after having been chased by the marshal, who died in an accident during the chase. The town's Judge Kyle (Walter Matthau) mistakes Maybe for the marshal, which basically forces Maybe to take on the role of the marshal. That goes OK until Tessa (Gia Scala) shows up. She knew Maybe, so when she shows up in town she immediately calls him by that name, threatening to bollix the whole thing. So he has to pretend to be Maybe's wife, which is a problem in that she's got a boyfriend who's also an outlaw in Sam (Henry Silva). And Sam is planning to rob the bank, which really is a big problem.
For those who like something a little more recent, you could do worse than to watch Raging Bull, which will be on StarzEncore Classics at 2:15 AM Saturday. This is the story of boxer Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), who was middleweight boxing champion for two years around 1950. But it's not really a boxing movie, since it's really about LaMotta the person, who just happened to be a world champion-caliber boxer. In life outside the ring, LaMotta was volatile and self-destructive. He marries Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), but is constantly worried that she's cheating on him, which leads him to treat her violently. Not only that, but he accuses her of having a relationship with his own brother (Joe Pesci)! Because of all of this, once his time in the boxing ring comes to an end, it's not going to be a glamorous life for him. The real-life LaMotta was a consulant on the movie, which is part of what gives such a distinctive look to the boxing scenes.
On Saturday, TCM is going to give us a day of Montgomery Clift's movies, including Suddenly, Last Summer at 11:45 AM. Clift plays Dr. Cukrowicz, who works at a sanatorium and has been brought in by Mrs. Venable (Katharine Hepburn). It seems that Venable's son died while on vacation in Europe, and that her niece Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor), who was accompanying the son on that vacation, has been scarred for life as a result. So Venable wants Cukrowicz to approve a lobotomy for her niece. To that end, she's offering to make a very large donation to the sanatorium, but only if they perform the lobotomy. Well, that's her story. Cukrowicz stars talking to Catherine, and it turns out that Catherine is saying nasty things about her cousin, except those things may well be true! Which, of course, implies that Venable has ulterior motives in lobotomizing her niece, to with she wants the niece to shut up about the dead son. It's based on a Tennessee Williams play, but it's one I find more accessible than his other works.
Speaking of Tennessee Williams, you'll also have a chance to catch A Streetcar Named Desire at 10:00 PM Friday, as part of a day of movies dedicated to Karl Malden, who won an Oscar for his role.
Finally, on Sunday, we have 24 hours of Jean Harlow on TCM. Harlow of course died tragically young, and her brief life is chronicled in the documentary Harlow: the Blonde Bombshell, which TCM is running at 3:00 PM. I think I've recommended all of the features running, but I'll make another mention of Beast of the City at 10:00 AM. The star here is Walter Huston, playing Jim Fitzpatrick, a prominent policeman who is given the task of “doing something” about the gangland crime plaguing the city. So he uses his younger brother Ed (Wallace Ford) to infiltrate the gang by pursuing Daisy (Jean Harlow), who has been connected with various gang members as a moll. Ed winds up becoming corrupted by Daisy, much to the chagrin of his older brother, making police work harder as the gang gets off the hook from a murder they clearly committed. Jean Hersholt plays the gang leader; one of Huston's kids is played by a young Mickey Rooney.