Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of December 28, 2020 to January 3, 2021. We're at the end of a year, so it's time to remember some of the things that happened this year, and hopefully put other things in the past like politicians' trampling over civil liberties. At any rate, there are some programming themes this week looking back at the past, as well as a bunch of other interesting movies on various channels this week. Lauren and Hardy get one final turn as Star of the Month on Monday in prime time even though I didn't select any of their films this week. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
A good movie for the last week of the year is one of this week's Silent Sunday Nights selections: The Phantom Carriage, at 3:15 AM Monday. Victor Sjöström, who would eventually go to Hollywood and direct several silent movies there, directs and stars as David Holm, an alcoholic who at the start of the movie is with a couple of friends at a cemetery on New Year's Eve. He tells them the story of the “Phantom Carriage”, a legend where the last person to die in any given year is doomed to spend the next year riding said carriage and being the Grim Reaper, collecting the souls of the dead. David has led a dissolute life and, wouldn't you know it, he gets in a fight with his friends that results in his being killed. The carriage comes for his soul, and the coachman is a good friend of his who died last New Year's Eve. Said friend proceeds to show David how he screwed up his life in so many ways. A pretty good story is helped by excellent camera work, at least for the standards of 1921.
Hollywood has always had tropes about the evils of big business. A good example of this is Other People's Money, airing at 8:00 AM Monday on 5Star Max. Danny DeVito plays Lawrence Garfield, a notorious corporate raider who has his eyes set on New England Wire and Cable, a company run by Andrew Jorgenson (Gregory Peck). They've always done things in a more old-fashioned way, and it's worked to this point, but in the changing environment clinging to old ways might not work any more, which is why the company seems ripe for a takeover. When Jorgenson realizes what Garfield is up to, he talks to his second wife Bea (Piper Laurie) and her daughter Kate (Penelope Ann Miller), the latter a lawyer, to figure out what the company can do. Kate investigates and meets Garfield, who finds himself falling for her. But there's still business to be done and he's going to try to get a majority of the shareholders on his side. This movie makes me think that TCM really needs to re-run The Solid Gold Cadillac.
For sh!tty dome teams like Minnesota, It's Always Fair Weather, but they're not making the playoffs. The movie with the same title shows up on TCM, Tuesday at 3:45 PM. World War II ended in 1945, and three soldiers who served together: Ted (Gene Kelly), Doug (Dan Dailey), and Angie (Michael Kidd), in New York on V-J Day, vow to meet again in the same spot in New York in ten years' time. Amazingly, even though all three are living in different cities, each of them does make it to New York. They, however, find that ten years has changed them and they don't have much in common beyond having served together. But, Doug runs an advertising firm out in Chicago that advertises on a New York-based show hosted by Madeline (Dolores Gray). Her producer Jackie (Cyd Charisse) has heard about the three soldiers, and thinks it would be a nice human interest story to have them show up on the show together. Not that they like each other much, and worse, Ted has some problems of his own in that he's a boxing trainer whose fighter is in trouble with Mob-connected people who want the boxer to take a dive. You think he wants to be seen in public?
A movie that shows up on FXM that I don't think I've mentioned in a while is The Fury. You can catch it at 11:25 AM Tuesday. Kirk Douglas plays Peter Sandza, who has a “unique” son Robin (Andrew Stevens). Peter used to work for the CIA, and one of his former colleagues there, Childress (John Cassavetes), kidnaps Robin and takes him who knows where, with Childress trying to kill Peter if he gets too close to finding out where Robin is. But Peter gets some help from Gillian (Amy Irving). She's an adolescent who is as “unique” as Robin. It turns out that they both are among a group of people who have one or another form of telepathic powers, especially psychokinesis. The CIA has rounded them up and is giving them what amounts to weaponization training. Gillian doesn't want to be a weapon, and she's willing to help Peter in his attempt to rescue Robin, even though this is going to put her in danger. She might be able to put those telepathic powers to good use, however. A fun if decidedly imperfect movie.
As you all know, famous people have been dying over the course of 2020, with me posting several of the more famous obituaries over the course of the year that you've all read quite faithfully. As 2020 draws to a close, TCM is spending Tuesday in prime time, going into Wednesday, remembering some of the people who died and didn't necessarily get full programming tributes earlier in the year. Among them are:
Buck Henry (The Graduate, 8:00 PM);
Fred Willard (This is Spinal Tap, 12:15 AM Wednesday);
Jerry Stiller (The Ritz, 4:15 AM);
Baby Peggy (The Family Secret, 8:15 AM); and
Honor Blackman (The Square Peg, 9:30 AM)
TCM has been running a salute to film composer Bernard Herrmann on Wednesdays in prime time. He worked a lot with Alfred Hitchcock at least until the falling out over Marnie, but this week I'd like to mention a movie that's an homage to Hitchcock, The Bride Wore Black, at 4:45 AM Thursday on TCM. Jeanne Moreau plays Julie, who seems to threaten suicide in the movie's opening before going to an apartment building in the south of France where she wangles her way into a party several floors up. She finds who she's looking for, gets him out on the balcony to get her scarf… and then pushes him to his death! She then goes to a small town where she finds another man and poisons his wine, thereby killing him. It turns out that Julie was a bride and, on her wedding day, five guys were sitting in the tower of a building across the square from the church. They weren't practicing gun safety, and one of them wound up shooting Julie's husband. So now she's looking for the five guys to get revenge on them. But will she be found out before she can kill them all? François Truffaut made this as a deliberate homage to Alfred Hitchcock, and it works quite well.
Earlier on Wednesday, and over on Epix Hits, there's Memphis Belle, at 12:25 PM. The “Memphis Belle” is a B-17 bomber in World War II, when bomber runs were an incredibly dangerous undertaking. In theory, a tour of duty was 25 bomber runs, but none of the planes were making it back safely from all 25 runs. The Memphis Belle, piloted by Capt. Dearborn (Matthew Modine), has completed 24, a fact that the higher-ups in the the military know. They send in a PR man, Lt. Col. Derringer (John Lithgow), who plans to send the crew back to the States on a goodwill mission treating the crew as heroes and hopefully raising morale among the folks on the home front to get them to take more part in the war effort. But since that last mission hasn't taken place yet, the base commander, Col. Harriman (David Strathairn) isn't happy with Derringer's presence. And the crew members certainly have their own thoughts, not necessarily wanting to be thrust into the spotlight. Even if they complete that 25th run successfully.
Thursday is New Year's Eve, which means a time for celebration, except that politicians have stupidly shut everything down because they think a virus is more dangerous after dark than crowding everybody together during the short days. Anyhow, TCM seems to have a limited number of programming themes that they trot out on New Year's Eve, and are bringing two of them out again this year. First during the daytime, they're running all six of the Thin Man movies, starting at 9:15 AM with the first one from 1934 (which, to be fair, is set over the Christmas/New Year's season) and running through to 8:00 PM. Then, in prime time, it's the That's Entertainment series, with clips from all those great MGM musicals, at least if you like MGM musicals. The previously mentioned It's Always Fair Weather, for example, shows up in That's Entertainment II and III, as well as That's Dancing, all of which are on Thursday night into Friday morning.
TCM is runnning several comedies on Friday morning and night, including It's a Gift at 8:00 PM. WC Fields stars as Harold Bissonette, an east coast greengrocer with an unsatisfying life at home because his wife henpecks him, and his daughter is worried about rejection from her boyfriend who is of a higher social class. Harold dreams of leaving the grocery store behind and moving out to California to start an orange grove, not that he has the money. But he's got an elderly uncle who finally kicks it and bequeaths enough money to move west, allowing Harold to buy that plot of land. However, when he gets to California, he discovers that California agriculture isn't as easy as it's always been made out to be. Of course, that's only the nominal plot; the real reason to watch a WC Fields movie is for the comic sketches, some of which work and some not at all (the idiot who wants kumquats and we're supposed to think the word “kumquat” sounds funny comes to mind). It doesn't help that Harold's family can be downright obnoxious at times and in need of a good smacking.
I'm not certain that I've ever recommended The Fabulous Baker Boys before. You've got a chance to watch it this week, at 3:00 AM Sunday on StarzEncore Classics. Real-life brothers Beau and Jeff Bridges play Frank and Jack Baker respectively, a stage act doing piano arrangements of old standards. The act is languishing, and it's obvious they need a singer. So they audition singers and eventually wind up with Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer), who isn't the greatest singer by any stretch of the imagination. But she's got something you can't teach, which is sex appeal, and that helps her make the songs a success. The group, now a trio, starts getting more bookings. But things hit a snag when Jack, the more impulsive of the brothers, starts to have a romantic relationship with Susie. All sorts of old tensions between the brothers come back to the fore, as this is a job to put food on the table for Frank while for Jack it's art and a passion.
We all know Henry's a free-range a**hole. But what about Harry? Well, you can watch The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry at 10:00 AM Sunday on TCM and judge for yourself. George Sanders plays Harry, a small-town bachelor who runs the local textile mill and lives with his two sisters, the widow Hester (Moyna Macgill) and the gorgeous but crazy hypochondriac Letttie (Geraldine Fitzgerald). Coming to town from New York is Deborah (Ella Raines), a fashion designer who wants to inspect the fabrics being produced at the mill and possibly use them in her new designs. This means Harry and Deborah will be working a lot together, and as they do, they begin to fall in love with the possiblity of a longer-term relationship. But Hester and Letty have their concerns about this, some of which have to do not with what's best for Harry, but what's best for them. Harry may finally rebel against the suffocating treatment he's been getting from his sisters, but how far is he willing to go?