TCM is spending the morning and afternoon of New Year's Eve with two of cinema's finest actors of all time: Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. One of the many, many examples of their outstanding work is Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man at 5:00 PM Monday. With a title like that, you can guess in part what the movie is about, or at least what's going to be the source of the humor. As for the "plot" that serves as a hook for Bud and Lou's comedy, that involves the two as new private investigators who get the case of a middleweight boxer who has been framed for murder, presumably by a bunch of gangsters who are fixing the boxing matches. Making matters more complicated is that our boxer hero has taken a serum that had the effect of making himself invisible, which you'd think would be good for keeping himself from being noticed, but then if he's wearing clothes you'll see the clothes.
New Year's Eve night brings several movies that have scenes set on New Year's Eve, what with all the celebrating. A good example of this is in Billy Wilder's The Apartment, airing at 10:00 PM, with the New Year's scene set at the end of the movie as if it were timed to show up at midnight for those of us on the east coast. A movie that might have fit in well with Tuesday night's schedule is the 1960 version of Ocean's Eleven, which follows The Apartment at 12:15 AM Tuesday. In the latter movie, Frank Sinatra plays a World War II veteran who gets a bunch of his Rat Pack friends who in the movie were also in the military together as part of a conspiracy to rob the casinos of Las Vegas after they cut off the power on New Year's. Immensely entertaining stuff, with vibrant colors and groovy style in the days when such style wasn't retro.
The reason I say that Ocean's Eleven might have fit in on Tuesday night is that the theme for Tuesday night on TCM is heist movies. The selection on Tuesday night runs the gamut from comic, with The Pink Panther kicking the night of at 8:00 PM, to overblown with Jack of Diamonds at 4:00 AM, and one of the best American films in the genre, The Asphalt Jungle at 10:00 PM. Places other than Hollywood got in on the act too, such as the Italian farce Big Deal on Madonna Street, which is listed as airing at 2:15 AM Wednesday. In this one a small-time crook lands in jail, where he hears about a big heist being planned, except that he can't take part in it if he's in jail. So he tries to get somebody else to take his place in jail, except that things go wrong... and keep going wrong. Eventually a group is assembled for the heist, but they're not the most competent crooks out there.
Back to the morning of New Year's Day, before Wisconsin get their asses kicked by Stanford, TCM is showing a bunch of musicals. Unfortunately, they're the overblown 1960s musicals made at a time when the genre was in decline and the material isn't quite as good. Perhaps no better example of this is Finian's Rainbow, which kicks the morning off at 6:00 AM Tuesday. (Not that any of you will have recovered from your New Year's Eve drinking, but that's why there's Tivo.) Fred Astaire stars as an Irishman who's stolen a pot of gold from a leprechaun (Tommy Steele) and run off with his daughter (Petula Clark) to go not downtown, but to the American South, where they encounter some of the social problems that were plaguing America in the 1960s. More importantly, though, the leprechaun appears because he wants his gold back (who can blame him). Actually, if the leprechaun doesn't get his gold back, he'll lose his leprechaun powers and become a mortal. This musical also gave us such crap standards as "How Are Things in Glocca Mora".
Wednesday morning and afternoon brings a bunch of ghost stories to TCM, although these are more romantic than horror; I don't think there's a horror movie in the bunch. You saw Topper (11:30 AM) back in November when Constance Bennett was Star of the Month, and I've recommended A Matter of Life and Death (1:30 PM) before as well. In between those two comes the short One Live Ghost, at 1:09 PM. The star of the short is Leon Errol, a comic actor who appeared in dozens and dozens of two-reelers back in th e1930s and 40s, as well as bit parts in a lot of B movies. This time, he's playing a father who, feeling unappreciated by his family, fakes his death and returns as a butler (and ghost) to find out what his family really think of him. They, of course, see through the disguise but don't let on. The real reason to watch the short is for the maid, who is played by a young Lucille Ball
Wednesday nights in January on TCM are given over to the new Star of the Month, Loretta Young, as January 2013 is the centenary of her birth. Young made quite a lot of movies, enough in fact that TCM is able to keep the Young movies running into Thursday morning. This first Wednesday in January brings some of her silents and a bunch of pre-Code talkies, such as Loose Ankles, which comes on at 6:00 AM Thursday. Young plays the girl with the loose ankles, a bit of a free spirit who had a rich old grandmother. The old lady just died, and left most of the money to Loretta, but with a few conditions. First, she had to get married, and second, she had to keep the family's good name from being sullied by scandal. The rest of hte relatives don't get their money until Young gets hers, so they're all pressuring her into being a good girl. The only thing is, she doesn't really want the money.
So she advertises for a man to help her cause scandal and, well, all hell breaks loose from there. Or, at least, as much hell as would break loose in a movie circa 1930.TCM is putting the spotlight on child star Shirley Temple on Thursday night. If you paid attention last month, you'll remember Baby Peggy and the movie Captain January. The movie was remade in 1936 with Shirley Temple as the star, and TCM is showing her vesion of Captain January at 9:30 PM Thursday. In the Baby Peggy version, it was she who was named Captain January for having been rescued from a shipwreck by a lighthouse keeper, but this time, it's the lighthouse keeper (played by Guy Kibbee) who's got the Captain January name, while Temple plays the rescued girl, named Star. Since Temple is four years older than Baby Peggy was when they made their respective versions, the captain and the girl are hounded by a truant officer, until the girl's aunt and uncle come along and realize who the girl is and claim custody of her. You know, however, having watched the Baby Peggy version last month that the good people are going to live happily ever after. Since this is a Shirley Temple movie, songs and dances were added for her, and she performs one with Buddy Ebsen.
The Torchy Blane movies continue at noon on Saturday, but before that TCM is running one of the Brass Bancroft movies, Secret Service of the Air, at 10:45 AM Saturday. Brass Bancroft, played by Ronald Reagan in four films, is a Secret Service agent, this time sent to investigate a racket smuggling illegal aliens. Technically, they should have been investigating counterfeiting, which happens in one of the later movies, and here, the illegal immigrant racket is discovered as part of a counterfeiting investigation by an agent who gets killed, at which point Brass investigates the killing of his colleague. There's not much to these B series, but Reagan was well-suited to a role like Bancroft, looking suitably heroic and having an affable personality. This one, has a surprising scene when the smuggling ring discover they're about to be caught and don't want to be caught with any illigel immigrants.
Speaking of Ronald Reagan, you can also see him in one one Bette Davis' movies, Dark Victory, which is airing at 10:00 AM Sunday. I've recommended this one a couple of times before. Bette Davis stars as a socialite who develops a brain tumor, but is operated on by Geoge Brent and the tumor is removed. Believing she's cured, she falls in love with the doctor. What they haven't told her is that the disease is incurable and she's going to drop dead fairly suddenly one day. And you just wait until she finds this out! Reagan plays one of her wealthy socialite friends, doing a good enough job with a supporting role, while Humphrey Bogart is badly miscast as Davis' Iirsh stablehand, but he tries hard. This is clearly Bette Davis' movie
I don't know that I've ever recommended the Gerard Depardieu movie The Return of Martin Guerre (remade as Sommersby with Richard Gere) before, only because it airs so rarely. A movie telling a similar story is Libel, airing at 11:15 PM Saturday on TCM. Dirk Bogarde stars as Sir Mark, a wealthy Londoner, living in contemporary (ie. 1959 when the movie was made) London who may be more than what he seems. The thing is Mark was a prisoner of war during World War II, in a camp with Frank, an actor (that is, the character's pre-war job was an actor) who looks amazingly like Sir Mark. (That would probably be because Frank was also played by Dirk Bogarde.) A third prisoner of war sees Mark in contmeporary times, and exposes what he thinks is a ruse. And there is some evidence that the guy claiming to be Sir Mark isn't him in fact, since he'd had trouble remembering his past since returning from the war. But Sir Mark has to defend his honor. The thing is, whoever it is that returned has been such a decent person that there's the question of whether anybody should really care if he's not actually Sir Mark -- he's become Sir Mark.