Welcome to another edition of Fedya’s “Movies to Tivo” thread, for the week of August 9-15, 2021. We’re almost getting to the first exhibition game of the Packers’ preseason, which will give everybody a chance to see how Goldie’s new #1 boyfriend Jordan Love will play against real NFL talent. But for those who don’t put much stock in preseason, there are a lot of good movies out there, including seven more stars in TCM’s Summer Under the Stars, although I didn’t mention any for Saturday’s star Gregory Peck. That’s because there’s enough interesting stuff on other channels as well. And for those of you who prefer recent movies, note that there’s nothing more than 96 years old here. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
On Monday, TCM is giving us one of those 1930s actresses I know you all love, Kay Francis. One of her movies I don’t think I’ve mentioned before is The Goose and The Gander, which will be on at 1:30 PM. Kay plays Georgiana, a divorcée who had been married to Ralph (Ralph Forbes), at least until another woman came along to steal Ralph away from her. One day while out doing the things upper-class women did back in the 1930s, she runs into that other woman, Betty (Genevieve Tobin). However, she’s with another man, Bob (George Brent) who is decidedly not Ralph. Georgiana gets the idea to bring Bob and Betty to her place and then get Ralph to come over and find Betty in flagrante delicto so that he’ll dump Betty and return to Georgiana. But there are complications. One is that Bob may just like Georgiana while she certainly hasn’t fallen in love with him (yet). Then a couple who are also high-class jewel thieves (Claire Dodd and John Eldredge) show up. Based on who the leads are, you can probably guess the ending.
Elsewhere on Monday, you’ve got a chance to catch The Eiger Sanction, at 9:45 AM on StarzEncore Classics. Clint Eastwood, only entering middle age, plays Jonathan Hemlock, a professor of art history in California. However, he had a past that’s going to catch up with him as you should be able to figure out considering the opening scene. Dragon (Thayer David) is the head of a shady spy organization, and Hemlock had been a member of that organization before becoming a professor. Dragon gives Hemlock an offer he can’t refuse, which is to find the guys who committed the murder in Zürich that we see in that prologue scene. Hemlock kills one of the two assassins, but the other one is still alive, and when word gets out he’s going to be part of an expedition to climb Switzerland’s Eiger, well, Hemlock has to go into training to learn mountain climbing to be able to kill the other guy. Old friend Bowman (George Kennedy) trains him out in Arizona, and eventually everybody goes to Switzerland for the finale.
Tuesday brings a bunch of movies featuring the recently-deceased George Segal to TCM. Among them is Where’s Poppa?, airing at 2:30 AM Wednesday. Segal plays Gordon Hocheiser, a Manhattan attorney who lives with his elderly mother (Ruth Gordon). It’s a daily struggle, because Mom clearly has dementia and none of the nurses Gordon has brought in have been able to deal with this or even seem to recognize that she’s suffering from dementia. Gordon has a brother Sidney (Ron Leibman), but he’s got a family and can’t take Mom in. And they all made a deal when Dad died not to put her in a home. At the agency, Gordon meets a new nurse, Louise (Trish Van Devere) who says she’s not very good at nursing but is willing to meet Mom on a sort of date at the apartment. Gordon and Trish begin to fall in love, but Mom is so cantankerous that Gordon has no idea what to do. An interesting premise that unfortunately doesn’t always know when to be serious and when to be funny.
If you want to see something with actors who are an acquired taste, then there’s a good one out there: Two Sisters from Boston, at 11:30 AM Wednesday on TCM. This one is airing as part of Kathryn Grayson’s day in Summer Under the Stars, with her as one of the sisters, Abigail Chandler. She lives with the rest of the Boston Brahmin Chandlers including sister Martha (June Allyson, whose voice is another acquired taste). Abigail is an aspiring opera singer, and the family helps fund recitals to promote the arts and try to jump-start Abigail’s ambitions. But she’s found in New York City(!), and worse, she’s singing at a burlesque house! She’s been lying about her career in the New York opera (she doesn’t have such a career), but like Pocketful of Miraclesa few weeks back, when her boss Spike (Jimmy Durante) finds out about her dilemma, he tries to get her backstage at the opera. She eventually goes onstage and upstages the tenor. Lawrence Patterson (Peter Lawford, a nonentity who wouldn’t be remembered today if he hadn’t shtupped one of the Kennedys) is the son of the patron Spike appealed to in order to get Abigail in the chorus, and he now hates the Chandlers for this, even though Martha is falling in love with him.
Another movie that I think I haven’t mentioned here before is The Mighty Quinn. You can catch it at 2:08 PM Thursday on More Max and 10:30 AM Sunday on Thriller Max. Denzel Washington plays Quinn, a police chief on aJamaica-like island. There’s a murder in one of the hotels, and since the area depends on tourism, it’s up to Quinn to get to the bottom of the case so that the tourists won’t be too troubled and their money can start flowing freely again. The main suspect is Maubee (Robert Townend), who happens to be a childhood friend of Quinn’s, so Quinn would really like to exonerate Maubee if at all possible. As Quinn investigates, however, he finds that there’s a lot more than meets the eye, from hired hitmen to the CIA to the trope of nefarious white businessmen. And there’s still the possibility that Maubee might not be innocent after all. Washington would go on to bigger and better things, but this one is undemanding and everybody looks like they’re enjoying their working vacation in the Caribbean.
There’s usually one star in Summer Under the Stars who did a substantial amount of work in the silent era. This year, that would be Ramon Novarro, with his most prominent movie being Ben-Hur: a Tale of the Christ, at 8:00 PM Thursday on TCM. Novarro plays Judah Ben-Hur, member of a wealthy Jewish family in Judea in the era when Jesus was around. Childhood friend Messala (Francis X. Bushman) returns, now as a Roman officer, and an accident that injures one of the Romans means that Messala is forced to arrest Judah and turn him into a galley slave. Ben-Hur survives an epic naval battle, and gets purchased by a wealthy Roman who makes Judah his adopted son. Ben-Hur’s goals are to find his family and old girlfriend Esther (May McAvoy), as well as to get revenge on Messala. The latter will come in the famous chariot race, which features a whole bunch of MGM’s stars as spectators if you look closely. After the chariot race, there’s time to be redeemed by Jesus; of note is that all of the Jesus scenes are filmed in two-strip Technicolor.
A search of the site suggests that I haven’t mentioned The Firmbefore, so I’ll point out that it’s on this week at 6:35 AM Friday on Showtime Showcase. Tom Cruise plays Mitch McDeere, a young law student about to sit the bar exam who looks like he could have the pick of any law firm he wants. However two partners at a Memphis law firm, Avery Tolar (Gene Hackman) and Oliver Lambert (Hal Holbrook) make Mitch an offer that he can’t refuse, so he and his wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) set out for Memphis. Two of the firm’s young lawyers die in an accident when their boat explodes, except of course that it’s not really an accident. The firm is helping the Chicago mobsters, engaging in all sorts of illegal activity to do so, and Mitch has unwittingly been part of those activities, which would send him to jail, even in in real life he’d probably get a lesser sentence than the partners. FBI agent Wayne Tarrance (Ed Harris) uses the threat of prison to try to get Mitch to cooperate, while the firm’s security man William Devasher (Wilford Brimley) will stop at nothing to keep Mitch in line.
Friday brings us a full day of Jane Fonda, which gives me the chance to note In the Cool of the Day, at 2:15 PM on TCM. Fondaplays Christine Bonner, sickly wife of Sam (Arthur Hill) and with an overbearing mother (Constance Cummings). Sam is good friends and a co-worker with Murray Logan (Peter Finch), who’s trapped in a loveless marriage to Sybil (Angela Lansbury), they having lost their son in a car accident that badly injured Sybil. The two couples plana trip together to Greece and with both Murray and Christine feeling like their respective marriages are all wrong, the obvious solution is for the two of them to fall in love and travel Greece together once Sam can’t go and Sybil walks out. This is the sort of soap opera, together with lavish scenery of exotic places that Americans didn’t normally get to go to in those days, that showed up a fair amount on the big screen. Beyond that, well, have fun laughing at how ridiculous it all is.
The next movie has nothing to do with either Elton John or North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un: The Rocket Man, on Fxm at 11:55 AM Saturday. The titular rocket man is a TV character enjoyed by all the boys at an orphange, including little Timmy (George “Foghorn” Winslow). He’s given a chance at being a foster kid by local justice of the peace Amelia Brown (Spring Byington), who has an adult daughter June (Anne Francis), and the local mayor Ed Johnson (Charles Coburn) trying to get her to remarry. Meanwhile, Amelia also tries to rehabilitate criminals about to go on parole by giving them a place to stay and get a new start in life. Tom Baxter (John Agar) is mistaken for one of those criminals, but he’s really in town on orders from local political fixer Bill Watkins (Emory Parnell), who wants to buy the orphanage to make a killing. Timmy, however, has been given a special ray gun that will make people tell the truth, and he might be able to use it for good and save the orphanage.
Up against the second airing of The Mighty Quinnis Girl Crazy, at 10:45 AM Sunday on TCM. A remake of another Wheeler and Woolsey movie, this one stars Mickey Rooney as Danny Churchill, a New York playboy who blemishes the family name by appearing in the 1940s equivalents of TCM. So his father decides that the best thing to do is to get Danny as far away from New York as possible, sending him to a mining and ag school somewhere out west. There, he meets Ginger (Judy Garland), granddaughter of the Dean (Guy Kibbee), and Ginger’s wisecracking best friend Polly (a young Nancy Walker, as recognizable as she would be in the Bounty commercials). Danny and Ginger fall for each other, but there’s a problem that the college has plummeting enrollment and could be forced to close. SO what do do? Why, put on a show (this isa Garland and Rooney musical, after all) to try to save the college. And with the help of one memorable Gershwin song after another, they’re bound to succeed. The two most memorable songs here are “Embraceable You” and “I Got Rhythm”. There’s also big band leader Tommy Dorsey, and a young June Allyson.