Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of August 3-9, 2015. The days are beginning to get noticeably shorter as football season approaches, but more darkness means more time to watch good movies. This week sees seven more stars on TCM's "Summer Under the Stars", as well as some good stuff on other channels. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We'll start off this week over on FXM Retro, with White Feather, at 4:00 AM Monday. Robert Wagner plays Tanner, who at the start of the movie is traveling through the old west alone, coming upon a man who was killed in an Indian ambush. It turns out that Tanner is making his way to the nearest fort, from which he is going to conduct surveying for a land firm back east. The only thing is, the treaties to move all of the native tribes haven't been concluded as the Cheyennes haven't agreed. The Chief (Eduard Franz) is beginning to think that perhaps giving up the old warrior ways is the least bad option since they'll never beat the US. But his son, Little Dog (Jeffrey Hunter), isn't so sure. Tanner winds up being the go-between as he's the only one who can gain the confidence of the Cheyennes. Matters get complicated when the chief's daughter, Appearing Day (Debra Paget) falls in love with Tanner. This one takes a sympathetic look at the native tribes, not too common back in the 50s, but has a mess of an ending.
Monday's star on TCM is the moustachioed Adolphe Menjou. Menjou's career lasted from the silent era through to 1960. One of the early movies that made him a star is A Woman of Paris, airing at 7:30 AM Monday. Obviously he's not the star; that honor goes to Edna Purviance, who was the girlfriend of Charlie Chaplin at the time. Chaplin directed, but he didn't act in it (other than a brief cameo) and this isn't a comedy. Purviance plays Marie, who at the start of the movie is in love with Jean (Carl Miller) and plans to elope with him. But Jean's father dies suddenly, he misses the wedding, and she runs off to Paris. There, she starts enjoying the good life à la Gigi, meeting a bunch of rich fashionable gentlemen. Among them is Pierre (Menjou). And then Jean shows up in Paris unexpectedly, wondering what's happened to Marie. This obviously presents problems. The movie was a failure when it was released in 1923 since audiences expected comedy from Chaplin, but it's actually a pretty good film.
Teresa Wright is the star who gets honored on Tuesday. I suppose I could mention The Best Years of Our Lives (5:00 PM) or Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (10:15 PM) again, but instead I'll recommend Casanova Brown, which you can catch at 12:30 PM Tuesday on TCM. Casanova is played by Gary Cooper, and at the start of the movie he's an English professor about to get married to Madge (Anita Louise). But he gets a letter from Isabel (Teresa Wright), who suggests that he should visit a certain maternity hospital in Chicago to talk to the doctors. You see, Casanova has a secret past in that he was briefly married to Isabel, but her parents annulled the marriage. In the brief time he was married, though, Casanova knocked up Isabel, and she's looking to put the baby up for adoption. When Casanova sees the baby, however, he falls in love with it, and wants to keep it. And that leads Isabel to pursue her former husband again. A nice enough little comedy.
A different sort of love story shows up over on Encore Westerns: Will Penny, at 8:00 PM Wednesday. Charlton Heston plays Penny, an aging man who works on the cattle drives by summer, but then has to find other work to get him through the winter. This season, that means working as a lineman, which basically means watching the property line for any stray cattle or people and doing the upkeep. But when he gets to his winter cabin, he finds that it's already occupied! Catherine (Joan Hackett) and her son (Jon Gries, real-life son of the director) are there because they were on their way to Oregon but their guide abandoned them. You can guess that they start to develop an emotional bond, although there's a bit of a problem in that she's got a husband waiting for her in Oregon. But three's a more immediate problem, in the form of Quint (Donald Pleasance) and his sons, who show up to be the villians of the piece.
If you like musicals, Wednesay is your day, as TCM is honoring Fred Astaire. I don't think I've recommended The Band Wagon before; that's on at midnight Thursday (ie. 11:00 PM Wednesday LFT). Astaire, who was in his early 50s when he made this movie, plays a movie star who is considered over the hill. But he's got good friends in writers Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray who decide to write a hit musical for him. Unfortunately, the wrong director gets put in charge, and the musical is changed beyond recognition, including puttin in a costar for Fred (Cyd Charisse) who is entirely inappropriate: he thinks she's too tall, while she thinks he's too old. Needless to say, the changed show is a flop, but then the cast decidde they're going to change the show back to what it was, and put it over anyway. And of course, Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse's characters wind up falling in love along the way too.
Some of you are freaks enough to enjoy baseball. So I'll present you with another baseball film this week: It Happened in Flatbush, over on FXM Retro at 7:20 AM Friday. This is a fictionalized look at the Brooklyn Dodgers circa 1941. In real life they hadn't won a pennant in 20 years and had a popular manager in Leo Durocher. Here, the Dodgers are so bad that the manager quits halfway through the season, and the owner (Sara Allgood) goes down to the minor leagues to look for former Dodger player Frank Maguire (Lloyd Nolan). Unfortunately, he's got the nickname "Butterfingers" because he committed a crucial error that cost the Dodgers an entire season, and was drummed out of Brooklyn for that. (They should have called him Bostick.) But he comes in to manage these sad sacks, and the Dodgers' fortunes begin to turn around. Carole Landis plays the niece of the owner, and the romantic interest for the manager, although he's not the only one with eyes for her. The film also has vintage footage of the 1941 World Series (the real-life Dodgers won the NL pennant but lost the series to the Yankees.)
Back on TCM: Thursday means 24 hours of films with Michael Caine. I don't think I've recommended Deathtrap before; that comes on at 5:45 PM. Caine stars as Sidney Bruhl, a playwright known for a string of hit plays that are mysteries. Unfortunately, that string of hits is far enough in the past that what he's writing now isn't very good. Then one day he hears from an old student of his, Clifford (Christopher Reeve), who has written a play of his own and is looking for a review from his old teacher. Sidney reads it, realizes that it'll be a hit if produces, and jokes with his wife (Dyan Cannon) that perhaps he should invite Christoper over, kill him, and then take credit for the play himself. It's dark humor, only made darker when Sidney actually does invite Christopher to dinner. And at that point the movie really starts to take a series of twists and turns. This is based on a popular stage play by Ira Levin, who also brought us Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives.
There's more mystery on TCM on Friday, in the form of the Katharine Hepburn film Undercurrent, airing at 4:00 AM Saturday. Hepburn plays Ann, a woman who marries fairly late in life to young industrialist Alan Garroway (Robert Taylor). At first the marriage seems a happy one, but then she begins to realize that perhaps things aren't as idyllic as they seem. Alan keeps talking about his brother Michael (Robert Mitchum), who has been away for years, and Alan also has a past of his own. Further, Ann notices that Alan seems to be insanely jealous and thinks that she may be falling in love with Michael even though at this point she still hasn't met Michael! What's the truth about Alan, and if it is dangerous for Ann, will she learn it before the dnager gets to her? Hepburn is cast a bit against type here, but she's a good enough actress to make it work.
Saturday is the day for Raymond Massey. You could do far worse than to watch him in Arsenic and Old Lace, at 5:45 PM Satuday on TCM. Cary Grant is the star, playing a newspaperman who is about to get married to Priscilla Lane. Before getting married, however, he wants to inform his spinster aunts (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair) of the impending marriage. He arrives at the house and makes makes a gruesome discovery: they've got a dead body! Apparently, they've been spending their days finding lonely old men with no family, and helping them deal with their loneliness by giving them poisoned elderberry wine. Grant has a nephew with a mental problem who believes he's Teddy Roosevelt digging the Panama Canal, which is how the aunts are able to dispose of the bodies in the basement. Into all of this walks Cary's brother (that's Raymond Massey). He's a fugitive, and has his plastic surgeon (Peter Lorre) in tow. Of course, all of this is a madcap comedy, which makes you wonder how any of it got past the Production Code. But it's one of the great comedies Hollywood ever made.
Finally, Sunday on TCM means a day of films with Robert Walker. One that I don't think I've recommended before is Song of Love, at 4:00 PM. This is the story of composer Robert Schumann (Paul Henried), who married Clara (nÉe Wieck and played by Katharine Hepburn), the daughter of his piano teacher. Schumann, it was thought, could become a great concert pianist except that he injured his hand and turned to composing; Clara was a piano virtuosa. Unfortunately, Robert had a mental illness or possibly a brain tumor -- medicine wasn't so advanced in those days -- that ultimately led him to attempt suicide and wind up in an insane asylum for the last two years of his life, dying at the young age of 46. Robert Walker plays Johannes Brahms, who showed up one day at the Schumanns' house on recommendation from a famous violinist and wound up impressing the Schumanns with his music to the point that Clara premiered several of his pieces after her husband's death. One other composer in the cast is Franz Liszt, played by Henry Daniell.
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