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I can't recall the last time I recommended The Bad Sleep Well, but it's this week's TCM Import at 3:00 AM Monday. Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) is getting married to Iwabuchi, the daughter of an executive in one of those big post-war Japanese corporations. However, the wedding doesn't go swimmingly, as when the cake is brought out, it's a replica of the company headquarters with a giant X on one of the windows! Apparently Nishi's father worked for Iwabuchi and committed suicide as a result of the corporation's financial shenanigans, and Nishi wants revenge. But it's more complicated than that. The corporate malfeasance is leading to more suicides, and the possibility that these might not in fact be suicides. However, Nishi's desire for revenge may change him in ways he didn't imagine. He also finds himself falling in love with his wife even though he only married her to get closer to her father. This may give Iwabuchi the break he needs to figure out who's messing with the executives. This is one of Akira Kurosawa's lesser-known movies, but it's quite good.

 

An underrated James Stewart western is Bend of the River, which is going to be on StarzEncore Westerns at 9:46 PM Monday.  James Stewart plays Glyn McLyntock, who needs to escape his Civil War past, so he leads a wagon train of settlers west to Oregon.  Along the way, the party picks up Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy).  They get to Portland, then a wild new town, and make arrangements for provisions to be delivered so they can make it through the winter.  Cole, having been shot with an arrow in an Indian raid along the way, stays behind in Portland to recover.  When the time comes to pick up the provisions, Glyn learns there's been a gold strike, and the merchants realize they can make a lot more money selling the supplies to miners than they can to settlers.  And Cole, for his part, seems to be taking the miners' side!  Glyn commandeers the supplies and heads off for the settlement, danger lurking behind at every turn.  A young Rock Hudson plays a professional gambler who winds up helping Glyn.

 

Monday night on TCM brings this month's Guest Programmer, director John Landis, whom you might recall from famous movies like The Blues Brothers and Trading Places.  (He also directed the video to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".)  Landis selected some of his favorite movies and will be presenting them with Ben Mankiewicz on Monday night.  His selections are:
The Monster and the Girl, a Paramount B-movie from the early 1940s making its TCM premiere at 8:00 PM;
A pair of Laurel and Hardy shorts, Helpmates and Towed in a Hole, at 9:15 PM;
Kirk Douglas in the anti-war Paths of Glory at 10:15 PM; and
the W.C. Fields comedy It's a Gift at midnight Tuesday (ie. 11:00 PM Monday LFT)

 

TCM is spending Tuesday morning and afternoon on a bunch of movies about Hollywood, including Goldie Gets Along at 8:45 AM.  Goldie (Lili Damita, whom RKO was trying to make the next big European star) is a young French woman who is brought to America by her American relatives after her parents die.  But they don't like her willful ways, partying and generally getting into trouble.  This, despite her having a boyfriend (not a numbered list of boyfriends, and no quarterback here) in Bill.  So she decides that if her family doesn't like her, she's going to do the next best thing, which is to run off to Hollywood to try to become a star!  It's difficult to become a star, but Goldie has all sorts of tricks up her sleeve, even if some of them are less than ethical. And then there's the past that may catch up with her.  Watch for Walter Brennan as a waiter before he became the ultimate supporting actor, and burly Nat Pendleton as a cop.  As for Lili Damita, she would wind up marrying Errol Flynn.

 

I think I've never mentioned the buddy flick The Hard Way before.  It'll be on StarzEncore Action at 12:14 PM Wednesday.  Not to be confused with the Ida Lupino movie of the same title, this one stars Michael J. Fox as Hollywood star Nick Lang.  Nick is in a bunch of light comedic action movies that he's beginning to feel are beneath him, and wants to take on a more serious role in a police detective movie.  Having seen the work of one particular NYPD detective on the TV news, Nick pulls strings to get paired with Det. John Moss (James Woods) for two weeks in preparation for taking on a cop role.  Needless to say, Moss is none too happy about having this non-cop tagging along and constantly screwing up his boundary-stretching style.  On top of that, Moss is on the particularly tough case of a serial killer known as the Party Crasher (Stephen Lang) and worries that having a non-cop beside him will bungle the attempts to catch the Party Crasher.  But perhaps Nick can give Moss some help with his love life, while the two learn to get along in typical buddy movie fashion....

 

Every year, the Library of Congress selects up to 25 movies that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" for the National Film Registry.  This year's announcement is coming this week, and TCM is spending two nights in prime time with the registry.  Tuesday night sees movies which were named to the archive in previous years, while Wednesday night is going to include some of this year's selections, which is why Wednesday night's lineup is not yet set in stone.  (Well, I'll assume a very few people at TCM already know, but it hasn't been released to the general public yet.)  The LOC accepts nominations for the registry from regular people, and since I know you all want to nominate movies for 2019, you can do so here.  (They haven't selected my nominations yet. )

 

We get more Dick Powell on Thursday in prime time and more 1930s movies, such as Dames at 1:45 AM Friday.  Powell plays Jimmy, trying to get his Broadway show produced starring his girlfriend and distant cousin Barbara (Ruby Keeler).  But another distant cousin, Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), is a multimillionaire starting a purity campaign, and show people are right out.  This could threaten Barbara's branch of the family from getting a big inheritance.  Meanwhile, Jimmy is having trouble with his main backer, so it's time for another old friend to come to the rescue.  Mabel (Joan Blondell) is a showgirl as well and had trouble with the same backer.  But she also met Barbara's father Horace (Guy Kibbee) and if the circumstances of that meeting ever became public, well, there goes the inheritance.  Why not blackmail him into putting up the money for the show?  And perhaps Ezra could learn to like Broadway shows while they're all at it.  Thus movie introduced the song "I Only Have Eyes for You".

 

Those of you who like Tom Clancy will be pleased to learn that Patriot Games is on this week at 6:00 AM Saturday on Showtime (and three hours later if you have the west coast feed).  Harrison Ford plays ex-CIA analyst Jack Ryan, who is vacationing in London with his wife Cathy (Anne Archer) and daughter Sally (Thora Birch) when the witness an assassination attempt against distant royal relative Lord Holmes (James Fox).  Jack foils the plot, which it turns out was carried out by Southern Irish terrorists.  Needless to say, they're none too happy about it and vow revenge, especially since Sean (Sean Bean), one of the terrorists who was involved, lost his brother.  Jack stupidly thinks nothing about it, like Gregory Peck in Cape Fear, and since Jack is on another continent, what can they do?  (Doesn't the idiot know about people like Peter King?)  Needless to say, what with all their sympathizers in the Irish-American community, the IRA are able to try to kill Jack and his family but are unsuccessful.  Jack has to work with the CIA to find the terrorists.

 

One of the movies in this week's TCM Underground is Thank God It's Friday, which will be on at 2:00 AM Saturday.  The plot, such as it is, involves the goings-on at a popular Los Angeles disco on one Friday night.  Tony (Jeff Goldblum) owns the place and tries to woo many of the women who come to the disco.  A couple of high school girls (one of whom is Terri Nunn from the group Berlin) fake their age to get into the disco.  Debra Winger plays Jennifer, the new girl in town.  The DJ, simulcasting on the radio, is desperate that the Commodores show up for their set.  And singer Nicole (Donna Summer) desperately wants to get in the DJ booth so she can show off her pipes.  All of them and more are preparing for the big dance contest at the end of the night.  There's also a running joke about Tony being overly vain about his car.  Wait until he finds out what happened to it.  The movie also won an Oscar, for the song "Last Dance" which Donna Summer sings during the dance contest.

 

A movie that's back on FXM Retro after a long absence is The Lion, which you can catch several times, including 1:20 PM Sunday.  William Holden plays Robert, whose wife Christine (Capucine) left him many years ago when she fell in love on an African safari.  She took their infant daughter Tina, now about 13 (played by Pamela Franklin), and ran off with the safari guide John (Trevor Howard).  Christine needs to see her first husband again for reasons having everything to do with their daughter.  Tina has spent so much time in Africa that she's practically gone native, and Mom wants her to get a nice cultured Western upbringing.  Dad could take her back to Europe or America and get her that education.  More worryingly, Tina has fallen in love with a lion, and has an unusual and disturbing relationship with the big cat.  Please won't somebody take her away from Africa before the lion does something to her!  Not that John is going to make things easy for Robert.  William Holden had a real-life concern for African wildlife conservation, which probably had an influence on getting this movie made at all.

 

Finally, I'll mention She Done Him Wrong, which TCM is showing at 11:30 AM Sunday.  Mad West plays Diamond Lou, who is the stage act at a Gay Nineties saloon in New York.  She's a big hit with all the men, and has even caught the interest of Cummings (Cary Grant), although that's for a different reason, since he's a Salvation Army officer at the mission next door.  There are various backstage intrigues at the saloon, and things heat up even more when Chick (Owen Moore) breaks out of prison.  He had been Lou's old boyfriend before going to prison, so naturally he looks to her for help.  But he also expects her to remain faithful to him, and all that interest from other men makes him jealous.  And somebody else could rat out Lou, since she knows about Rita and Serge's (Rafaela Ottiano and Gilbert Roland respectively) misdeeds in why "white slavery" racket.  Bawdy and full of quotable lines, and the movie that turned an up-and-coming Cary Grant into a star.

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