TCM has a night of literary adaptations on Monday night, kicking off at 8:00 PM with In Cold Blood. Based on Truman Capote's account of a true crime, the movie tells the story of Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and Dick Hickok (Scott Wilson), two aimless young cons who hear about a family out in western Kansas who are rumored to have a large sum of money stored in their farmhouse. So the two friends figure they'll get the money and then head down to Mexico to live, free from extradition. They go to the family's house and things don't go according to plan. There's only a small sum of money, and the attempted robbery actually results in the two men murdering the entire famly, although we don't see the actual murder until near the end of the movie. Perry has weird fantasies about buried treasure in Mexico, and this is a source of tension between him and Dick. The two men eventually get caught, and it was Truman Capote's interviews with Perry that were the basis of the book.
A movie that recently started showing up in the FXM rotation is Sodom and Gomorrah. It's back on this week, at 3:20 AM Tuesday. You probably know the basic story of the Biblical twin cities of sin and how they were destroyed for their sin. In this telling of the tale, Stewart Granger plays Lot, who has led one of the tribes of Israel through the desert to where he's found water and a place to settle down. However, it's right across the river from Sodom, ruled by the Queen (Anouk Aimée) whose brother Astaroth (Stanley Baker) is looking to overthrow her. The Queen sends slave Ildith (Pier Angeli) over to the Hebrews in the hopes she'll spy on them, while Melchior (Rik Battaglia) defects to the Sodomites. There are nomadic tribes that Astartoth hopes can beat the Hebrews, but when that battle fails, it looks like the Hebrews might be saved. Yeah, you know what happens to Sodom eventually. This was made in Morocco as an international production backed largely by the Italians, who made a bunch of these sword and sandal movies.
James Cagney and Joan Blondell were a popular screen pair in the early 1930s, but before they became stars they were second-billed in Sinners' Holiday, airing at 6:00 AM Tuesday on TCM. The nominal stars here are Evalyn Knapp and Grant Withers, playing Jennie Delano and Angel Harrigan respectively. The Delanos run a penny arcade on the boardwalk, with Ma (Lucille La Verne) being the boss and Jennie and her brothers Harry (James Cagney) and Joe (Ray Gallagher) working for the family business. They've hired Angel on, and Jennie has fallen in love with her, something which has made Ma none too happy. Harry has fallen in love with Myrtle (Joan Blondell), a “good-time girl” of sorts. He's also involved with Mitch (Warren Hymer), who runs another place on the boardwalk, but which is really a front for bootlegging illegal booze. Ma doesn't like that, and sure enough it eventually gets Harry into trouble. Ma loves Harry so much, however, that she's willing to set up Angel to be the fall guy. Moderately interesting film made more so by the debuts of Cagney and Blondell.
Robert Cummings was generally quite good in light comedies. An example of this is Princess O'Rourke, at 12:15 PM Wednesday on TCM. Of course, Cummings isn't the princess; that's Olivia de Havilland, as Princess Maria. World War II is going on and her country has been overrun. Her father the King is in exile in London, while she's been sent to America. To try to get away from the spotlight of New York, her handlers send her on a flight to San Francisco. Because of her nerves, her secretary gives her a sleeping pill before the flight. But so do the co-pilot Campbell (Jack Carson) and the pilot O'Rourke (Cummings). So boy is the princess out like a light. However, the flight has to turn back to New York, and when it gets there, nobody can wake up Maria. O'Rourke decides the best thing to do is to take her back to his place, since nobody on the flight knows her real identity as a princess. And then when she wakes up, she gives O'Rourke a story about going to San Francisco to be a maid. And O'Rourke falls in love with her as a commoner. What will happen when he finds out she's a princess?
Among this week's more recent movies is Delirious, airing at 5:00 AM Thursday on Flix. John Candy stars as Jack Gable, a writer for a popular soap opera, who has an unrequited love for the show's star, Laura (Emma Samms). However, the producers tell him that they're thinking of writing Laura's character out of the show and getting a new female lead, played by Louise (Mariel Hemingway). Much worse is that on the way to a vacation weekend, he gets into a car accident that leaves him badly injured. He wakes up in the hospital and realizes… it's the hospital on the soap opera he writes for! When he gets out of the hospital he meets Louise, only it's her character, not Louise, and she identifies him as another character. As time begins to go on, Jack discovers that the the things he writes for the soap opera are actually happening in this new life (or is it a coma fantasy, one of those very old soap opera tropes?) of his. Can dream Jack make things work out for real life Jack?
I don't think I've mentioned an Audie Murphy western in a couple of weeks. I see that one of his later films, Gunpoint, is on StarzEncore Westerns this week at 8:11 AM Thursday, so I'll mention it now. Murphy plays Chad Lucas, a sheriff in Colorado who's dealing with a particularly irritating criminal. Drago (Morgan Woodward) is based in the New Mexico Territory, and comes across the border into Colorado to commit robberies, going back to New Mexico since he knows the sheriffs can't follow him, well not quite legally. Drago's latest robbery takes the money that a whole bunch of businesses in Lucas' town need to stay in business, so he's damn well sure he's going to stop Drago this time and get the money back. He rounds up a posse and they all set off for New Mexico, but the other folks in the posse have their own reasons for wanting to go after Drago that might just screw up Lucas' desire for law and order and the town to be able to survive.
TCM is running several Adolphe Menjou movies on Thursday morning and afternoon. One that I don't think I've mentioned before is Friends and Lovers, at 1:45 PM. Menjou plays Geoffrey Roberts, a British army captain who is good friends with Lt. Ned Nichols (Laurence Olivier). Roberts goes off to serve in India because he made the mistake of falling in love with Alva (Lili Damita), who is married to Victor Sangrito (Erich von Stroheim). Victor uses Alva to lure men so that he can then blackmail the men! After some time in India, Roberts meets up again with Nichols, who it turns out also started a relationship with Alva that ended in the same way as Roberts'. The two will eventually have to go back to England, and when they do, wouldn't you know it, but they run into Alva again! Is she still trying to blackmail them? This one is more worth watching for the cast than the story. And has nothing to do with the awful 80s song:
I'm not sure how long it's been since I've recommended Trading Places. It's going to be on this week, at 10:09 AM Friday on StarzEncore (and three hours later if you only have the west coast feed). The elderly Duke brothers, Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer (Don Ameche) own a brokerage firm and have a debate over nature vs. nurture. So they decide to settle the debate with a little real-life experiment. They'll take one of their workers, Louis Winthorpe (Dan Aykroyd) and frame him for a crime, causing him to lose everything, and bring in a petty criminal Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy) to live a life of luxury and see how the two men respond to their changed circumstances; notably, will Winthorpe turn to a life of crime? Well, his first day in jail he meets prostitute with a heart of gold Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis), and she can help show him the ropes on the seedier side of life. How many other people will the brothers' experiment hurt?
Like Audie Murphy, another actor who made a whole bunch of westerns is Randolph Scott. I believe it's been quite some time since I've posted about Riding Shotgun, which is on TCM at 3:30 PM Friday. Scott plays Larry Delong, who lost some family members to the gang run by Dan Marady (James Millican), so he takes a job as a stagecoach job to try to find the Marady gang and take them down. Unforuntately, he makes a mental mistake that gets him shot and wounded and off the coach, which the gang waylays. That, however, is actually a ruse for their real plan, which is to rob the casino in town. Larry learns all of this, and tries to go to town to warn them after escaping from the gang. But when he gets to town, there's a mix-up that resuts in the townsfolk thinking Larry is part of the Marady gang. Larry wants to stay free to get the Maradys, since the people in town don't see that they're in danger. About the only person who might be willing to help Larry is deputy sheriff Tub (Wayne Morris). Watch also for another early role from Charles Bronson, still credited as Charles Buchinsky.
Valentine's Day saw a bunch of love stories. If you want a different kind of love story, then you could watch the 1935 version of Mad Love, at noon Saturday on TCM. Colin Clive plays a concert pianist Stephen Orlac married to Yvonne (Frances Drake), a stage actress. However, as they leave for their delayed honeymoon, there's an accident that crushes Stephen's hand, which is a bit of a problem for a pianist. He's in luck, however, as Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) is an eminent surgeon who claims he can fix the hand in an operation. What he doesn't tell Orlac is that the hand transplant is going to be the hand of Rollo, executed for throwing knives. Stephen's new hand brings with it the old owner's ability to throw knives, and can't really play the piano. The other thing Gogol didn't tell Orlac is that he's long had an obsession with Yvonne, and that this hand operation was in part a way for Gogol to get at Yvonne, what with Gogol really being a mad scientist.