Welcome to another edition of Fedya’s “Movies to Tivo” thread, for the week of August 23-29, 2021. Hurricane Henri, the free-range a**hole of tropical weather systems, is barreling down, and if I’m going to be stuck on generator power for a while, what better way to pass the hours than to watch some good movies? There are seven more stars in TCM’s Summer Under the Stars this week, including Eve Arden on Monday and Tony Randall on Thursday. But there’s also interesting stuff on other channels, including a pair of Charles Bronson movies. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Tyrone Power’s day in Summer Under the Stars continues into the wee hours of Monday morning, concluding with Abandon Ship!, at 4:00 AM Monday on TCM. Power plays Alec Holmes, first officer on a luxury cruise liner that’s sailing the South Atlantic but has just hit an old mine and sunk. Holmes sees a lifeboat and swims to it, but when he gets there he finds that it’s a small boat that’s only designed for about 10 people and instead has close to 30, with some clinging to the side because there’s not enough room for them in the boat itself. Worse, the captain was mortally injured in the explosion and eventually dies, leaving Holmes in command. The ship’s nurse, Julie White (Mai Zetterling), who is also Holmes’ girlfriend, tries to triage the remaining people on the lifeboat, but some of them are too far beyond saving. And there’s very limited rations, since rations for nine aren’t much to begin with, never mind trying to stretch it to two dozen people. How is Holmes going to solve the problems and get everyone rescued safely? It doesn’t help that some of the people aboard are questioning his command.
Lots of white actors got cast as Native Americans back in the studio era of Hollywood. One actor you might not imagine being in such a picture was Victor Mature, but in fact he’s the title character in Chief Crazy Horse, which will be on StarzEncore Westerns at 9:04 AM Monday. Mature falls in love with Little Fawn (tragic Suzan Ball, cousin of Lucille Ball), who brought an injured Army officer, Major Twist (John Lund) onto Lakota land. This results in Crazy Horse expelling his rival, Little Big Man (Ray Danton), who goes to Fort Laramie. Little Big Man wants to get revenge, so he tells the Americans that the rumors of there being gold on Lakota land are in fact true, leading to a bunch of whites encroaching onto Lakota territory in violation of the treaty. Crazy Horse leads the Lakota in battle against the Americans, and is a pretty skilled military leader, but the Americans have superior firepower so we know how it’s going to end for Crazy Horse. Watch for a young David Janssen and a young Dennis Weaver in small roles.
On Tuesday, TCM is giving us a day of Maurice Chevalier, which gives me a chance to mention Love in the Afternoon at 11:00 AM. Chevalier plays Claude Chavasse, a private detective in Paris living with his adult daughter Ariane (Audrey Hepburn), who’s studying cello at the conservatory. Dad’s latest client is a man (John McGiver) who finds out that his wife is stepping out on him with American playboy millionaire Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper), so he plans to shoot Frank. Ariane overhears this and goes to Frank’s suite at the Ritz to warn Frank and the woman, leaving the client to find Frank with Ariane. Frank falls in love with Ariane even though she’s never even told him her name; when he returns to Paris on business a year later, the two renew their relationship of meeting in the afternoon at the Ritz. But Frank always wonders about who this anonymous woman is, and when he runs into the McGiver character, it’s suggested he employ the services of excellent private detective… Claude Chavasse. Uncomfortable, but not as much as catching your parents having sex.
This week’s “film that’s showing up in the FXM rotation” is the melodrama Hilda Crane. You can see it at 6:00 AM Wednesday. Jean Simmons plays Hilda Crane, who at the start of the movie is returning to her home town of Winona after having spent time in New York where life didn’t go so well. She’s now twice divorced and lost her job, looking to start over, perhaps with some help from Mom (Judith Evelyn). Russell Burns (Guy Madison), who’s big in construction in Winona, has always been in love with Hilda, but his controlling mother (Evelyn Varden) thinks every woman is after him for his money and doesn’t want him to marry. Meanwhile, there’s a literature professor at the local college where Hilda went, Prof. Jacques de Lisle (Jean-Pierre Aumont) who has also had a flame for Hilda. Russell asks Hilda to marry him, and eventually Hilda gets so sick of Mrs. Burns’ hateful attitude that she marries Russell out of spite, to which Mrs. Burns responds by dropping dead. So it’s not a happy marriage for Hilda and Russell, and to make things worse, Jacques shows up in town again after having written a successful novel.
Wednesday’s honoree on TCM is Jane Wyman. She married fellow Warner Bros contract player Ronald Reagan in 1940; two years before that they appeared together in Brother Rat, on TCM at 9:30 AM Wednesday. Reagan plays Dan Crawford, who is one of a group of cadets at VMI. Dan is the voice of moderation, having to deal with other cadets who are threatening to get the group of friends in trouble. Wayne Morris is Billy Randolph, the sort of schemer who always has an angle along the lines of William Holden’s character in Stalag 17. And then there’s Bing Edwards (Eddie Albert in his screen debut), a guy who’s gone and broken the rules by eloping with his girlfriend Kate (Jane Bryan), and even gotten her pregnant. This could bring him expulsion if it’s discovered. Wyman plays Claire Adams, who is Dan’s love interest, while Billy has a love interest in Joyce Winfree (Priscilla Lane; Morris was the nominal male lead here which is why he gets the biggest star at the time as the romantic partner). Light comedy that ends well for all the good people.
A search of x4 suggests I haven’t mentioned Night Song before. It will be on TCM at 2:15 PM Friday as part of a day of the films of Merle Oberon. Oberon plays Cathy Mallory, a wealthy socialite living with her aunt, Miss Willey (Ethel Barrymore). One night Cathy goes slumming at a jazz club where she meets Dan Evans (Dana Andrews), pianist for the combo that plays there. Dan is a good pianist and a would-be composer, but he lost his eyesight in the war, so now he’s a bitter man living with his friend Chick (Hoagy Carmichael), who wants to help Dan if Dan would only be willing to help himself. Cathy falls in love with Dan, and comes up with the ridiculous idea of pretending to be blind herself, with her love enabling him to complete that concerto and win a contest (funded by Cathy!) which will pay for the operation to restore Dan’s eyesight. But what will happen when Dan finds out that Cathy isn’t really blind at all? And what if Dan’s time away from Cathy on the east coast leads him to fall in love with someone else?
50 years ago, New York City was going through a series of crises that climaxed in Gerald Ford telling the city to “drop dead”, at least according to the newspaper headline. Quite a few movies from that era show the degrading quality of life in the city, such as Death Wish, which will be on The Movie Channel Xtra at 3:05 PM Friday. Charles Bronson plays Paul Kersey, an upper-middle-class architect with a wife Joanna (Hope Lange) and married daughter Carol (Kathleen Tolan). One day while Kersey is off working, a band of thugs break into the Kersey apartment looking for money; finding none, they rape Carol and fatally beat Joanna. On a business trip to Arizona, one of the firm’s clients takes Paul out to a shooting range, and Paul finds that he enjoys shooting and is a good shot. He gets home and finds that the client left him a gun in his checked baggage as a gift, these being the days when it was not quite so difficult to fly with firearms. When Paul himself gets mugged, he turns the tables by pulling out his gun and shooting the mugger dead, starting him on a career as a vigilante. He’s a folk hero to many in New York, but the cops aren’t happy.
Saturday’s star on TCM is Lee Marvin, which gives me the chance to recommend a really fun movie: The Dirty Dozen, at 5:15 PM Saturday. Marvin plays Army Major John Reisman, currently in London shortly before D-Day. He’s able to get things done, but because he’s got unorthodox means of getting things done he’s always in trouble with his superiors, which is why he’s been assigned the mission he gets. There’s a castle in northern France converted to use for the relaxation of Wehrmacht officers; Reisman and his men are tasked with a suicide mission of parachuting in and destroying the place so that there will be large holes in the Nazi chain of command come D-Day. And because it’s a suicide mission, Reisman is given the worst of the worst to carry it out: 12 men who are in military prison either with long sentences or condemned to be executed. Among them are Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, football player Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, and more. Reisman sets about training the men to turn them into an effective fighting force, although there are still higher-ups who aren’t sure the mission will succeed. Once we actually get to France, the movie gets even more fun.
A search of x4 claims that I haven’t mentioned Urban Cowboy before, which makes me think the search function isn’t working properly. In any case, it’s on this week, at 6:43 PM Sunday on StarzEncore Classics. John Travolta plays Bud, who moves from his small town in east Texas to the Houston area to work in the growing petrochemical industry along with his uncle Bob (Barry Corbin). Bob and his friends like to blow off steam by going to the honky-tonk joint owned by country singer Mickey Gilley (a real place that burned down in the late 1980s), which is where Bud meets Sissy (Debra Winger). The two quickly fall in love and marry, but find that life is not a bed of roses, in part because Bud doesn’t want to let Sissy ride the mechanical bull. So when Sissy meets Wes (Scott Glenn), a parolee getting a second chance from Gilley, she’s excited by the “bad boy” image and falls for him. But of course he’s a jerk, as she’s going to find out in the run-up to the climactic bull-ridign competition. Country had a brief vogue in the early 1980s thank in part to this picture.
Sunday brings 24 hours of Ingrid Bergman to TCM. The 1939 movie Intermezzo: a Love Storymade her a huge star, but she was brought to the Hollywood to make that movie because producer David O. Selznick had seen her in the Swedish movie Intermezzoand wanted to make that story in English. The Swedish version kicks off Bergman’s day at 6:00 AM Sunday. (The remake is not on this week.) Bergman plays Anita Hoffmann, a pianist who makes her money by teaching the children of the well-to-do. One of those upper class people is Holger Brandt (Gösta Ekman), a college professor and concert violinist who gives recitals. Brandt needs a new accompanist for his recital, and with Anita showing up to teach his children, she’s make a natural choice. However, as they hit the road together for the recitals, the two find that they’re falling in love with each other, which is a pretty big problem since Holger is married. Holger’s friends aren’t particularly happy with the relationship, either. What will Holger do?