Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of December 12-18. 2016. It's hard to think that we're getting really close to Christmas, even though a lot of folks here have snow on the ground; I will by this time tomorrow. Yet there are Christmas movies on (TCM has a Monday night lineup and a Sunday morning lineup of Christmas movies this week) as well as a bunch of other interesting stuff. I've used my good taste to select another batch of movies I know you will all like. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We'll start this week with something on StarzEncore Westerns: The Man from the Alamo, at 2:05 AM Monday. Glenn Ford plays the titular man, one of a couple from the same Texas town fighting at the Alamo. Lots are drawn for one of them to leave and go back to their home town to warn them of the coming dnager from the Mexicans. Except that when Ford gets there, the town has already been wiped off the face of the earth. And then he finds that everywhere he goes, he's declared a coward for having left the Alamo, since none of them know the real reason he was sent away and wouldn't believe him anyway. The only thing left for him to do is to try to restore his good name by taking on the bandits, but the way he tries to do this, going along with the bandits to gain their confidence, doesn't sit well with the good people.
I've recommended Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House several times before. It'll be on TCM at 6:00 PM December 30 as part of the salute to Star of the Month Myrna Loy. The themes are universal, which makes it only natural that a lot of imitators would get made, such as The Money Pit, which will be on StarzEncore Classics at 6:55 AM Monday and 10:20 AM Sunday. Tom Hanks plays Walter, an attorney married to Anna (Shelley Long) who have to move out of their current place. Ultimately, they find a house being sold by a little old lady (Maureen Stapleton) – and she's selling it for what seems like a really good price. That should send up red flags, but if we had those red flags, we'd have no movie. So of course our young couple stupidly rushes in, only to find that the house is a disaster zone. It's literally falling apart around them. It's probably going to cost twice as much to renovate as it would have cost to buy a similar house in pristine condition. But their only option is to renovate, which brings up a whole lot more comedic opportunity. Don't forget that Tom Hanks was actually adept at comedy back in the day.
Tuesday is the birth anniversary of actor Van Heflin, who was born on December 13, 1908. So it's only natural that TCM is showing a bunch of his movies. Among them is his early film Saturday's Heroes, at 6:15 AM Tuesday. This one may be of interest to football fans. Heflin plays a college football player (at 28, and he doesn't exactly look like a football player) who is part of all the corruption surrounding the college game, notably players selling their tickets to make money. However, he develops a conscience about it, and when the administration won't stop the corruption, he gets the ridiculous idea of quitting the team, and going to the school's big rival with the help of some of the sportswriters. There, he's going to coach the other team to beat his old school in the big game! It's nuts, but it just barely works as a movie, and Van shows he was ready for bigger and better things. Too bad he couldn't beat Penn State in the B1G Championship Game.
Over on FXM Retro, you have a couple of chances to catch The Right Approach: at 11:25 AM Tuesday and 8:00 AM Wednesday. British singer Frankie Vaughn, who had just appeared in Let's Make Love, shows up as singer Leo Mack, who's hoping to make it big in Hollywood. To that end, he moves in with his brother (Steve Harris) who has converted a former nightclub into a bachelor pad where a bunch of guys live. Leo, however, has the entirely wrong notion that the way to get what he wants is to walk over anybody and everybody on the way to the top. To that end, he tries to steal the girlfriend (Juliet Prowse) of one of his housemates, and then once he no longer has any use for her, he tries to use a journalist (Martha Hyer) to get better press. And then he wonders why nobody really seems to care about his success! An interesting idea, although you get the impression the movie was affected by budget cuts made in an attempt to save the troubled Liz Taylor Cleopatra production.
Since you all like 1930s B movies, I'll mention another one: Accidents Will Happen, at 10:30 AM Wednesday. This one stars Ronald Reagan early in his career, when he was starring in those B movies and doing well at it. Here, he's an insurance fraud investigator with a wife (Sheila Bromley) who wants more out of life than to be married to an insurance investigator. So she joins a gang of crooks committing insurance fraud and walking away with the proceeds! Unsurprisingly, all this gets Reagan fired. But he's not one to take things lying down. Instead, he shows he's got pluck by taking on the fraudsters himself and beating them at their own game. Reagan actually did a fine job when he was able to play these characters who are sympathetic but with the determination not to let setbacks get him down. It's like a Harold Lloyd character, only without the comic timing. Of course, having Warner Bros. B-movie production values – I think they made the best of the B movies – helps. Watch for Joan Blondell's sister Gloria as the other woman in love with Ronnie.
Joan Crawford often gets lambasted for going way over the top in her post-Mildred Pierce career, in many cases rightly so. But she actually did a good job and deserved the Oscar nomination she got for Sudden Fear, which TCM will be showing at 8:00 PM Wednesday. Crawford plays Myra, a middle-aged playwright who's had a successful career, but not such a successful personal life, in that she's remained unmarried all this time. Myra's new play is going to be a big hit, except for that drab leading man Lester (Jack Palance), who is all wrong for the part, so Myra nixes his casting. Well, wouldn't you know it, on the train back to the west coast, whom should Myra run into but Lester? This time, he decides to romance her, perhaps to show that he really does have leading-man material. But perhaps he has ulterior motives. At least, Myra certainly begins to believe Lester isn't so pure in his intentions. Gloria Graham plays Lester's previous girlfriend; Bruce Bennett returns from Mildred Pierce.
Every great actor who has a long enough career has a dud or two in their career. For Clark Gable and Myrna Loy, that dud might be Parnell, which is airing on TCM at 10:30 AM Friday. This is the story of Charles Parnell, an Irishman who was elected to Parliament in London since this was the 1880s when Ireland was still part of the UK, and used his position in Parliament to agitate for home rule for Ireland, a controversial subject since there were a lot of Protestant landlords. Being framed for murder didn't help. But what winds up getting him into trouble is his personal life. He campaigned for the election of one Mr. O'Shea who had an estranged wife Katie (Myrna Loy). It turned out that Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea would have an affair for years before her husband filed for divorce (in real life, he was waiting for one of her relatives to die so he could sue for his share of the inheritance). Oh, and Parnell fathered multiple children by Mrs. O'Shea.
I'm not a particularly big fan of Send Me No Flowers, but a lot of people like this comedy, so I'll mention that it's on again this week, at 6:00 PM Saturday on TCM. Rock Hudson plays George, a suburban commuter married to Judy (Doris Day) and with a best friend Arnold (Tony Randall). George is also a terrible hypochondriac. One day when he goes to the doctor (Edward Andrews) thinking he's sick again, he overhears the doctor telling the nurse about how the patient has a bad ticker and is going to die in a few months. Of course, the doctor is referring to a different patient and George is in perfect health, but George just assumes that he's dying. He doesn't want to alarm his wife, so he keeps the news from her and tries to find her a new man to be her husband after he dies. Unsurprisingly, Judy misinterprets what's going on, which drives much of the comedy. I found George to be an intensely irritating character, but a lot of people like this particular Day/Hudson comedy.
With winter here, what better time to think of a movie like Summer School, which will be on StarzEncore Classics at 9:00 PM Saturday? Mark Harmon plays Shoop, a gym teacher in California who finds that, in order to get tenure, he's going to have to teach the remedial English summer school program. Bummer. It's not what he wants to do, and it's certainly not what the students want to be doing with their summer. So he takes the students on field trips except that vice-principal Gills (Robin Thomas) doesn't like that, and threatens to let the principal know. Those kids have to pass the English exam, or else. Thankfully for Shoop, there's a hot history teacher Ms. Bishop (Kirstie Alley before she became a Scientologist whackjob and her weight started yo-yoing) in the next room, and as he begins to fall in love with her, she gives him the motivation to help his students pass their exam. But she's dating Gills.