Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of February 28-March 6, 2022. The Oscars are going to be held in March this year, so starting on March 1, TCM brings us the annual 31 Days of Oscar programming gimmick, with every movie being nominated for at least one Oscar. That means there's no Star of the Month for the next several weeks. But it also means there are some really good movies. There's also a fascinating foreign film before the start of 31 Days of Oscar, and some fun stuff on other movie channels. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned, which is important this week since I selected two films that start at 12:15 AM.
This week's TCM Import is a fascinating vintage movie from South Korea before the country became the cultural powerhouse it is today: The Housemaid, at 4:00 AM Monday on TCM. At a company town-type factory with only women employees living in dormitories, they bring in composer/music teacher Mr. Kim to run the music club. He's got a wife and two kids at home, with a third on the way, and has been building a new house for the family. With his wife needing help running the household, he asks one of the employees who has been taking piano lessons, and she recommends Myung-sook. However, Myung-sook starts seducing Mr. Kim, and she's also extremely jealous. When Mrs. Kim finds out about the affair between her husband and the maid and that it's resulted in a pregnancy, Mrs. Kim tries to handle it on the hush-hush to keep her husband's social status and job prospects from being threatened, but Myung-sook decides she's going to blackmail everybody in the family for all it's worth, and if that escalates to murder, well, so be it. Part noir and part melodrama, it's never less than interesting even if it has serious plot flaws.
The TCM spotlight on failed romance in movies concludes on Monday night, including an airing of Divorce American Style at 12:15 AM Tuesday (which is of course still 11:15 PM Monday LFT). Dick Van Dyke plays Richard Harmon, suburban husband married to Barbara (Debbie Reynolds), with two kids (including Tim Matheson at the start of his career). Unfortunately, Richard and Barbara bicker a lot, and when Barbara's analyst suggests couples therapy that doesn't work, her cousin suggests a trial separation that spirals into divorce. Richard has to pay crushing alimony, so when he meets nice divorcée Nancy (Jean Simmons), who is on friendly terms with her ex-husband Nelson (Jason Robards), Nelson suggests trying to find a husband for Barbara since that would end Richard's having to pay alimony. Of course, Nelson would be happy for Nancy to marry Richard since that would end his alimony payments. They try to set up Barbara, but nothing works, perhaps because Richard and Barbara would really be better off back together.
Pretty much every week I pick one movie that's back in the FXM rotation. This week, that movie is Caprice, at 9:40 AM Tuesday. Doris Day plays Caprice, who works at a cosmetics company owned by Sir Jason (Edward Mulhare). He wants to engage in some industrial espionage, so he comes up with a ruse to fire talented Caprice, who then goes to work for Christopher (Richard Harris), working for Matthew's (Jack Kruschen) competing company in order to get a formula being developed by one of their employees (Ray Walston). If that sounds complicated, it's worse, as everybody also seems to be working themselves, too, with Caprice trying to avenge the death of her father, an anti-narcotics spy, while Christoper seems as interested in bedding Caprice as he is in whatever his other jobs are. But at the same time it's a Doris Day movie, so everything looks fabulous, and Doris still gets to show off some really nice clothes and look good at 45. The romantic pairing with Richard Harris, however, is a bit odd.
A movie that seems to show up every year in 31 Days of Oscar is The Bad and the Beautiful. This year, it's got an airing at 4:00 PM Wednesday. Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, a producer who has basically burned all his bridges. But he's got an idea for a movie, and has called his studio's rep, Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon), to get his old friends to back the idea. We then learn from those friends why they had their fallings out with Joanthan. First was Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), who started with Shields at the bottom, working on B movies, until they collaborated on a treatment for an "unfilmable" book that Jonathan then took sole credit for. Then there's Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), a struggling actress whom Jonathan turned into a star, having a love affair with her along the way, but then started seeing another woman just as Lorrison was becoming a star. Finally there's James Bartlow (Dick Powell), a southern college professor turned author who's brought to Hollywood to do the screenplay for his book, only to lose his wife (Oscar-winning Gloria Grahame) in a plane crash that Shields may have had a hand in.
A search of x4 claims I haven't mentioned The Station Agent before. It will be on Showtime Showcase this Wednesday at 6:30 PM, so this week would be a good time to recommend it. Peter Dinklage plays Fin, a dwarf and train buff who works at a model train store. Unfortunately, the owner of the store suddenly dies, but bequeaths Fin an abandoned station house on a low-traffic line in the exurban part of New Jersey. Fin would just like to live quietly by himself (no mention being made how he's supporting himself, however), but Joe (Bobby Cannavale), an outgoing food-truck operator, sets up shop near the station house and tries to strike up a friendship with Fin. Fin and Joe also meet Olivia (Patricia Clarkson), a struggling artist whose marriage is failing. Joe also strikes up a friendship with her, although because she's a woman it's more than friendship. Fin also meets a schoolgirl who is accepting of him, as well as a librarian who has her own relationship problems. Things get more complicated.
You may have heard the song "Never on Sunday" before. The movie that gave us the song, also called Never on Sunday, will be on TCM at 4:00 PM Thursday. Director Jules Dassin cast himself as Homer Thrace, a philosopher who has decided to go to Greece in order to figure out what it was that drove the greatness of ancient Greece but has led to the modern-day country being a third-rate place at best. He arrives by boat at Piraeus, the port city serving Athens, which is where he learns about Ilya (Melina Mercouri, who would later marry Dassin). She's a free-spirited woman who seems to be enjoying life in one of the tavernas, and Homer is immediately smitten with her. But it turns out that she's actually a prostitute, and Homer is horrified by this. So Homer decides that he's going to try to reform Ilya by showing her the greatness of culture. Never mind that Ilya simply makes up her own stories to go along with the ancient Greek tragedies such that they aren't tragedies any more. In fact, Ilya may have more of an effect on Homer than the other way around.
There's another airing of Ordinary People this week, at 4:15 AM Friday on Epix Hits. Timothy Hutton plays Conrad Jarrett, a teenager with some emotional problems. It's for a good reason, as it turns out. Some time back, he and his older brother took out the sailboat on Lake Michigan when a sudden squall came up, overturning the boat and causing the older brother to drown. Conrad feels responsible for the accident, and has such survivor's guilt that he tried to commit suicide. Some time later, he's putatively better, at least at far as Mom (Mary Tyler Moore) and Dad (Donald Sutherland) can tell. But he's not, so he finally starts seeing a psychologist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch). As Connie tries to put his own life back together, it starts to cause rifts within the family, since Connie feels Mom is extremely emotionally cold towards him and always loved his brother more than she loved him. And poor Dad is stuck in the middle of this war of wills.
Another movie always worth a watch where you probably already know the plot is Midnight Express. This one you can see at 12:15 AM Saturday (once again, that's 11:15 PM Friday LFT) on TCM. Brad Davis plays Billy, an American who's been vacationing in Istanbul and makes the incredibly stupid decision to try to smuggle hashish out of the country on the flight home. For this he's arrested and placed in a Turkish prison to await trial. He doesn't trust the guy from the American consulate (Bo Hopkins) sent to provide assistance, and flees as a result, but this only makes matters worse, especially since the Turks want to make a point about foreign tourists trying to smuggle drugs. In prison, he meets some other westerners, but he's not certain if he can trust them (watch for Randy Quaid and John Hurt). Worse, when the case is appealed to Turkey's top court, they decree an even harsher sentence. It's all based on a real case, and although the real-life Billy Hayes gets a writing credit, the lion's share of the screenplay adaptation was done by a young Oliver Stone. Giorgio Moroder picked up an Oscar for his influential score.
Another search of x4 suggests it's been over three years since I recommended Bend of the River. This movie shows up on StarzEncore Westerns at 5:05 AM Sunday, so it gets another mention here. James Stewart stars as Glyn McLyntock, leading settlers west to Oregon in the 1850s. Along the way he comes across another group trying to hang a man who allegedly stole horses, Emerson Cole (Arthur Kennedy). They have common pasts in "Bloody Kansas", but while Glyn has tried to reform, Emerson is rather more opportunistic. They get to Portland before the trip up the Columbia River, but a gold rush hits and the supplies are worth more selling to the prospectors than the settlers. Jeremy (Jay C. Flippen) and Glyn decide just to take the provisions since they supposedly have a contract for it, but that has obvious problems, they make a hasty break for it with Emerson, his girlfriend and Jeremy's daughter Laura (Julie Adams), and a professional gambler Trey (Rock Hudson). Getting back up the river is going to be a problem fraught with betrayals.
Preston Sturges wrote some surprisingly subversive screenplays when he was at the top of his game in the first half of the 1940s. One of the earlier ones, which won him an Oscar, was for The Great McGinty, which will be on TCM at 2:15 PM Sunday. Dan McGinty (Brian Donlevy) is tending bar in one of those small "south of the border" countries. He saves Tommy (Louis Jean Heydt) from killing himself, and tells Tommy and the other people at the bar the story of his own downfall. Cue the flashback.... Some time in the past, McGinty was a hobo in a big city, one of those that had machine politics where shady figures in back rooms controlled ward-heelers. McGinty shows his usefulness by becoming a "repeat voter", casting the right vote for dead people still on the roles, gaining the attention of The Boss (Akim Tamiroff). This starts a rise through the ranks of the machine, eventually becoming an electoral candidate when the machine needs one without a past. Eventually he becomes governor, but his wife from a marriage of convenience wants him to go straight, which will obviously put him at odds with the machine.