Welcome to another edition of Fedya's Movies to Tivo thread, for the week of January 2-8, 2017. I don't know yet what time the Packers are playing this coming weekend, and there's one movie that could be up against a Packers game. (I have a feeling the Packers will get a better time slot than the first game, however.) Now that we're in a new month, we get a new TCM Spotlight, and a new Star of the Month. There are interesting movies on other channels, too. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Those of you who like more recent movies may enjoy one from the 1980s: The Pope of Greenwich Village, airing at 12:45 AM and 3:20 PM Monday on StarzEncore Classics. Mickey Rourke plays Charlie and Eric Roberts plays Paulie, two ne'er-do-well cousins in New York's Little Italy. They both need money, and one day Paulie comes up with a “brilliant” idea: rob a safe of the $150,000 it contains to bet it on a “sure thing” horse. Yeah right; this is just the latest annoying scheme from Paulie. But Charlie and safecracker friend Barney (Kenneth McMillan) go along. What they don't realize is that the $150,000 is owned by the Mob, in the form of local boss Bed Bug Eddie (Burt Young), and they were going to use that money to bribe the police, so there are corrupt cops who want that money, too. No wonder Charlie is always exasperated with Paulie. Geraldine Page earned yet another Oscar nomination playing the mother of a cop who gets killed; Daryl Hannah plays Charlie's girlfriend.
TCM is showing a whole bunch of Ray Milland movies on Tuesday. One in which he's decidedly supporting the female lead is A Life of Her Own, at 8:30 AM. The lead here is Lana Turner, too old at 30 to play the character of a young small-town model in the big city, but dammit if she isn't glamorous enough to try to pull it off. This being Lana Turner, of course she becomes a big success as a model, although she should probably heed the warnings of aging Ann Dvorak who mentors her at the beginning. Sure enough, lovely Lana meets businessman Milland, and the two immediately hit it off, because who wouldn't want a trophy girlfriend like Lana Turner? Of course, there's a problem, which is that our businessman has a wife back home, and not only that, she's wheelchair-bound. One thing to watch for is that choreographer Hermes Pan gets a dance number.
The January TCM spotlight will be prison movies, hosted by Frank Darabont, who gave us such prison films as The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. One of this week's prison movies that I don't know if I've recommended before is Riot in Cell Block 11, which will be on at 12:15 AM Wednesday. This one is interesting in that it was produced by Walter Wanger (of Stagecoach and Foreign Correspondent) fame, who had served four months in prison for shooting and agent he thought was having an affair with his wife, actress Joan Bennett. Wanger was horrified by prison life – not that he couldn't survive a four-month stretch, but that for the people there longer the conditions were brutal. So Wanger assembled a bunch of B list types and filmed this in part at California's Folsom Prison, even using real prisoners as extras. The plot of the film has the prisoners finally having enough of the conditions, to the point that they decide to riot and force the warden and authorities to listen to their grievances.
One of RKO's “prestige” movies that doesn't get much attention today is The Toast of New York, which will be on TCM at 11:45 AM Wednesday. Cary Grant is the second man here; the lead is actually Edward Arnold, playing Civil War-era financier Jim Fisk. Grant is his associate Nick Boyd. The movie starts with the two of them forced to make a hasty retreat north of the Mason-Dixon line before the war begins, but once it does they hatch a plan to make money hand over fist by smuggling cotton. Eventually Fisk becomes wealthy and falls for actress Josie (Frances Farmer), but Nick also develops an attraction to her too. Fisk loses one fortune and gains another through not-quite-scrupulous means, and it all results in his trying to corner the gold market as well as drawing the ire of another man who tries to shoot him. The story plays fast and loose with the real Jim Fisk's story, but it's certainly a pretty picture to watch.
This week sees the return to FXM Retro of Night and the City, which will be on at 3:00 AM Thursday. Richard Widmark plays Harry Fabian, an American in London who is scratching out a living as a tout and hustler. One night while doing a con job at the professional wrestling matches, he hears Gregorios the Greek tell his son Kristo (Herbert Lom) his displeasure at how the matches these days are rigged, so Harry comes up with an idea: stage real wrestling matches. Of course, there's a problem in the Harry doesn't have any money or a venue, and how is he going to get them. He gets half of the money from nightclub owner Nosseros (Francis Sullivan), and the other half from Nosseros' estranged wife (Googie Withers). That's sure to go well. Needless to say, things go sour, and Fabian is ultimately forced to run for his life. Gene Tierney also appears, playing Harry's girlfriend.
Over on StarzEncore Westerns, they're running a movie about everyone's favorite wide receiver: Geronimo, at 7:14 AM Thursday. OK, this isn't about the football player, of course, but about the Apache chief, who is played here by the incredibly miscast rifleman Chuck Connors. The Apaches have just surrendered to the US, only to find out that life on the reservation isn't all it's cracked up to be, because some members of the Army are actually in on a land deal that will pull the Apaches' land right out from under them. So Geronimo does what any good leader would do, which is to lead his people in revolt. Obviously the US Army as an institution don't like this and have to put down the revolt, but there are some men who realize the Apache were wronged and try to get Geronimo to call off the rebellion by peaceful means. Adam West, later TV's Batman, plays one of the good US soldiers, while there's an Apache maiden played by Kamala Devi, an Indian from the subcontinent who would go on to become Connors' second wife.
Speaking of football, up against Geronimo over on TCM will be The Dirty Dozen, at 7:00 AM Thursday. Former running back and later wife-beater Jim Brown plays one of a dozen reprobates in the US Army in World War II who are given a second chance at life if they go on a mission that seems like certain death.
The new Star of the Month will be on TCM on Thursdays in prime time: Jane Wyman. You may remember her as Ronald Reagan's first wife, or later as the matriarch on the TV show Falcon Crest, but she was an accomplished actress in her own right, even winning an Oscar for Johnny Belinda (on next week). This week's lineup of Wyman movies includes a bunch of Warner Bros. programmers from the late 1930s, when she was on her way up. Wyman, for example, took over for Glenda Farrell in one of the movies in the Torchy Blane series, Torchy Plays with Dynamite, which will be on at 9:15 PM Thursday. (She also had a bit part as a hat-check girl in the first Torchy movie, Smart Blonde, but that one doesn't seem to be on this month's TCM schedule.)
Long before Judd Hirsch, Andy Kaufman, and the rest, there was the movie Taxi!, which TCM will show at 6:15 PM Friday. James Cagney is the star here, playing Matt Nolan, who is trying to organize the taxi drivers to fight back against a competing company led by Buck (David Landau) who has been using strong-arm tactics against Matt and his friends. One of these had a trucker (Nat Pendleton) go up against an older taxi driver (Guy Kibbee), and the older guy shot back, so he wound up in prison where he died. Enter his daughter Sue (Loretta Young). Sue and Matt eventually marry, but at a party to celebrate the marriage Buck shows up, stabbing Matt's brother in a fight! Matt wants to take revenge, much to Sue's distress. And when Sue and Buck's girlfriend meet, Matt thinks Sue has turned against him. Ah, those Warner Bros. programmers back in the day were zippy fun. Watch also for George Raft dancing.
A movie that's back on TCM after a long absence is Tomorrow, which you can see at 6:00 PM Saturday. Robert Duvall plays Jackson Fentry, a man who, at the beginning of the film is the lone holdout juror in a murder trial, refusing to commit. Flash back to decades earlier, to learn why. It's around the turn of the last century in Mississippi, and Jackson, a dirt poor farmer, takes a job overseeing a saw mill in the winter. One day, who should walk into his life but Sarah (Olga Bellin). She's obviously pregnant, and has nowhere else to go, but Jackson really doesn't have the money to care for her. There's nothing else to do, though, so he does take care of her as best he can, falling in love with her along the way, and deciding to care for the kid when he's born. But sure enough, several years later, some of the boy's relatives learn of his whereabouts, and show up to claim custody of him because they've got the financial wherewithal to do it. It's a tragic story, beautifully shot in stark black and white, a rarity for the 1970s.
I am thrilled to see that this week's TCM Underground block includes the unbelievably awful Gymkata, at 2:00 AM Sunday. Kurt Thomas (yes, the Olympic gymnast) plays a gymnast who is approached by the US government to take part in a mysterious sporting event in the far-off country of Parmistan called “The Game”. The winners' countries get favors from the Khan of Parmistan, and the US would like to have a missile installation in Parmistan. Thomas accepts, in part because his father mysteriously disappeared in Parmistan. But the competition isn't going to be easy, and there are a lot of obstacles in the way. Thankfully for Kurt, every time there's an obstacle, there's also a strategically-placed piece of gymnastics equipment so he can use his gymnastics skills to get out of trouble. The movie is awful, with a screwed-up plot (if you can call it a plot), bad acting (if you can call it acting), and little to no coherence. But that's the sort of thing that makes it so hilarious to watch, like a Roller Boogie or Lambada.