Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of August 17-23, 2015. The Packers have gotten through the first of their preseason games relatively unscathed, so while we're arguing about little things like who should should be the #7 WR and which castoffs Minnesota will pick up, why not spend some time watching some good movies instead? As always I've got a classy list of movies here that will be sure to delight you. All times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Monday on TCM is devoted to Lee J. Cobb, the antagonist of 12 Angry Men (9:45 PM) and the corrupt union boss in On the Waterfront (11:30 PM). The movie I'd like to recommend, however, is one that I think is a TCM premiere: Thieves' Highway, at 8:00 PM. Richard Conte plays Nick, a Greek-American man who returns from World War II to find that his trucker father has been injured in an accident and lost both of his legs. Unfortunately, it wasn't really an accident, but caused by the dishonest fruit dealer Figlia (Lee J. Cobb, again the bad guy). So Nick gets into the trucking business himself, as an attempt to get back at Figlia for what Figlia did to his dad. Of course, it's not going to be that easy, as Figlia uses a prostitute (Valentina Cortese) to try to distract Nick, as well as make Nick stray from his fiancÉe Polly (Barbara Lawrence). The rest of the trucking business is pretty cutthroat, too. Atmospheric, and there's a lot of location shooting at an Oakland produce market and the orchards of northern California.
Over on Encore Westerns, you're going to have several chances to catch Warpath, the first of which is at 6:00 AM Tuesday. Edmond O'Brien stars as John Vickers, a man whose fiancÉe was murdered by three men. So he's been tracking them down, finally killing one of them. However, the guy he kills also tells him the other two men joined the cavalry. So Vickers enlists in the army himself, winding up in the 7th Cavalry, which just happens to be General Custer's unit. Of course, Vickers has no idea what the other two killers look like. And he also has the problem that he doesn't exactly have a lot of personal freedom being in the Army. There are also the Indians. Last, but not least, Vickers meets young Molly Quade (Polly Bergen), and begins to fall in love with her, despit the fact that her father Sam (Dean Jagger) may be one of the killers.
Tuesday brings a day of Vivien Leigh's films to TCM. I could mention the 1940 version of Waterloo Bridge, which is airing at 10:00 AM, but more on that later. Leigh is most famous for playing Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, which will be on at 10:15 PM, after a two-hour documentary on the making of Gone With the Wind. After the success of that movie, Columbia bought the rights to the movie 21 Days Together, which Leigh had made back in Britain but which hadn't been released yet. Leigh plays Wanda, a woman in love with Larry (Laurence Olivier). However, Wanda is actually married to another man who left her several years earlier. Except the suddenly shows up, tries to blackmail Larry, and then attacks him, leading Larry to kill the guy in self-defense! Sure it's an obvious self-defense case, but Larry isn't going to go to the police, since his brother Keith (Leslie Banks) is up for a judgeship and controversy will scupper that. Unfortunately, another man gets accused of the crime, so Larry and Wanda have to figure out what they're going to do, since they can't let an innocent man go to prison....
Wednesday is 24 hours of John Wayne on TCM. Several weeks back they ran a bunch of his 1970s films, which gave me the chance to see McQ, which will be on at 4:00 PM. Wayne stars as Seattle police detective Lon McQ, whose partner is killed along with two uniformed officers. Lon wants to do more than the police department does to investigate the death, so he starts investigating on his own time and using methods the police surely wouldn't approve of. It turns out there's a good reason for the police department's lack of approval. They're as corrupt as the day is long, and it seems as though they're heavily involved in all the drug dealing that's going on. On top of that, two of his police colleagues are spying on him, and his dead partner's wife (Diana Muldaur) may be in on the drug dealing as well! This wasn't well-received, largely because the subject matter is pretty much a downer, but it's better than it's been given credit for.
I mentioned Vivien Leigh in Waterloo Bridge is airing on Tuesday. You have another chance to catch Waterloo Bridge, at 8:00 PM Thursday on TCM. Only, this isn't the Vivien Leigh version, but an earlier 1931 movie starring Mae Clarke (the star being honored on Thursday and best remembered for getting a grapefruit to the face in The Public Enemy which you can see at 2:45 AM Friday). Clark plays Myra, an American chrous girl in London during World War I whose show closes leaving her with no options to find work. So she becomes a prostitute, seducing the soldiers going to and from Waterloo station. She meets one named Roy (Douglass Montgomery) and falls in love with him. Roy, for his part, doesn't realize what she really is, taking her to his family in the country (watch for his sister, played by a young Bette Davis before she became a star). Myra, meanwhile, can't bring herself to tell him the truth.
Alan Arkin is the man of the day on TCM on Friday. He did an interview with Robert Osborne at the TCM Film Festival in 2014, and that's being shown at 7:00 PM. The feature movie I'd like to recommend is The In-Laws, at 12:15 AM Saturday. Arkin plays Sheldon, a dentist whose daughter Barbara is about to get married to Tommy. However, Sheldon has never met the groom's parents. He may wish afterwards he never did, because the groom's father is a seeming nutcase. Dad Vince (Peter Falk) claims to be a government agent, and that there are people after him, something having to do with a plot to steal the plates that print US currency and take them to one of those Latin American dictatorships. Words, Vince thinks that because Sheldon is just a dentist, nobody would expect him to be engaging in any spying, so Vince ropes Sheldon into the plot. What a way to celebrate your kids' wedding. This is a wild comedy all the way, and a darn enjoyably one.
Saturday brings a full 24 hours of Marlene Dietrich. I think I've mentioned all of her movies that are airing on Saturday, but I'll give another shout out to this week's Essential: Witness for the Prosecution at 8:00 PM. Charles Laughton is Sir Wilfrid, a barrister who should retire for his health. But there's a spectacular murder case, and the accused, Vole, (Tyrone Power) comes to him for help. It seems that Vole befriended a lonely old lady and may have murdered her for her money. The only person who might be able to provide an alibi for him is his wife Christine (Dietrich), whom he met just after the war in Germany and whom he brought over to England. But it's not a happy marriage, as he never has enough money and there's a question of whether he's got a girlfriend on the side. The trial scenes crackle; the scenes with Wilfrid outside the court are pretty good; there's an ending the producer wishes us not to talk about; and there's a nice supporting cast including Elsa Lanchester, the real life Mrs. Charles Laughton, as Wilfrid's nurse, and Una O'Connor as a hard-of-hearing witness.
This is another week in which pretty much everything that's running on FXM Retro is stuff that I've recommended her fairly recently. Probably the least recent recommendation would be The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, which is airing at 9:05 AM Tuesday. Betty Grable stars as Miss Pilgrim, who graduates from one of the nation's first schools for typists in the late 19th century. This gets her a job at a Boston shipping office, but her boss, John Pritchard (Dick Haymes), was expecting a man. So Miss Pilgrim really has to prove herself. Apparently, being a lady typist back in those days was supposed to be considered shocking, since women in those days worked as servants, teachers, or nurses. Not so shocking is that Pritchard begins to fall in love with her, because that's one of the oldest plot devices out there. But the Miss Pilgrim goes and complicates things by joining the women's suffrage movement, which could cost her her job and the love of Mr. Pritchard. This is a musical, with old songs by George Gershwin given new lyrics by his brother Ira.
Last but not least amongst the features, on Sunday we get a day filled with the films of Debbie Reynolds. Unsurprisingly, Singin' in the Rain is the "Movie Camp" feature for families at 8:00 PM, but I'd like to mention a movie that's not quite as well known: The Tender Trap, airing at 12:15 PM Sunday on TCM. Reynolds only gets second billing; the actual star here is Frank Sinatra. Here, he plays Charlie Reader, a New York theatrical agent who seems to have a girl for every night of the week and then some. But then he's introduced to aspiring actress Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds). She's got plans for life, and one of them is to get married and make a commitment out of it. She could have Charlie, but only if he gives up all those other women. Yeah right. Complicating matters is a visit from an old friend of Charlie's, Joe, who has just left his wife. Julie winds up engaged to another man and Charlie proposes to another woman, but somehow you know that's not the way the movie should end. It's all fairly predictable but reasonably pleasant. And you have to love the vintage 50s sets.
And for the shorts, there's not all that much exciting this week. Those of you who are into the Traveltalks shorts may enjoy Playlands of Michigan, airing at 7:50 PM Monday on TCM. It's a look at where Michiganders go to enjoy their time off, or at least where they did this back in the late 1940s. My knowledge of Michigan geography is a bit limited, but I think this one completely ignores getting a cabin in the UP. Sorry, Yoopers. Perhaps they should show James FitzPatrick's early 1940s visit to Mackinac Island instead.
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