Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of January 23-29, 2017. We're all waiting to find out what team the Packers will be playing in the Big Game (I didn't pay licensing fees to Roger Goodell and his goons, so I can't use the phrase Super Bowl 
). That wait will end tonight, at which point we get the long two-week wait for the game. Why not spend some of that time with a bunch of good movies? I've used my good taste to make another set of selections I know you'll like. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We'll start off with this week's Silent Sunday Nights feature: Captain Salvation, at midnight Monday (ie. 11:00 PM tonight LFT) on TCM. Lars Hanson plays Anson Campbell, who's returning from a divinity degree in the mid-19th century to become the pastor-in-waiting at his small New England hometown's church. That, and he's going to marry his sweetheart Mary (Marceline Day). Except that there's a small problem. A storm comes up and causes a shipwreck, with one woman Bess (Pauline Starke) needs particular help. This is a problem because, as it turns out, she's a “loose” woman. Anson points out that it's people's Christian duty to help even – especially – the sinners, but of course the townsfolk scream bloody murder. Or they would if this weren't a silent. They wonder if he's still fit to be their clergyman, and even Mary isn't so sure about him any more. So Anson and Bess get on the next ship out of town, only to find out that this ship's captain isn't all he's cracked up to be. This one isn't without its flaws, but it's never less than interesting.
As Lana Turner was on the way up to stardom, she had to make do with roles in lesser movies such as We Who Are Young, which will be on TCM at 4:30 PM Monday. Turner plays Margy, who works at a big bookkeeping firm along with her husband William (John Shelton, who did not go on to stardom). Their boss Bemis (Gene Lockhart) has a couple of rules of probity, which include that employees shouldn't be married to each other, so when he finds out that Margy is married to William, it's out the door for Margy. The other big rule is that employees shouldn't take on too much debt, especially with a depression still on. And wouldn't you know, William has just bought a bunch of furniture for their new apartment on the installment plan. So poof, there goes his job, too! And William has knocked up Margy (well, they are married). It's all so didactic, thanks to a Dalton Trumbo script that insists on hitting you over the head. It's a wonder this didn't stall Lana's career, too.
A movie that's back on FXM Retro after an absence is Treasure of the Golden Condor, which you can see at 7:00 AM Monday and 6:00 AM Tuesday. Jean-Paul (Cornel Wilde) is the nephew of the 18th century Marquis de St. Malo (George Macready). The thing is, Jean-Paul's father died without leaving legal proof that Jean-Paul was his son, so the Marquis decides to make certain that Jean-Paul can never claim his rightful inheritance, making the young man a bonded servant. The Marquis' daughter (Anne Bancroft) has the hots for Jean-Paul, but he would rather just escape. He's given a chance when somebody comes along with a treasure map that claims there's a great Mayan treasure out there, which leads to Jean-Paul and the MacDougals (Findlay Currie and daughter played by Constance Smith) going off to the New World and trying to find that treasure so that Jean-Paul can claim his rightful inheritance. A reasonably rousing adventure yarn, although it's a Technicolor remake of Tyrone Power vehicle Son of Fury.
We get another night of prison movies on Tuesday night, with this Tuesday looking at women in prison. Caged is an underrated classic, airing at 8:00, but I'll mention an earlier movie, Ladies They Talk About, which will be on at 11:30 PM. Barbara Stanwyck plays Nan, the moll to a bank robber. She helps him and his partners in crime get away from one of their robberies, but unsurprisingly they get caught. Nan confesses her guilt to DA and crusading radio personality David (Preston Foster), since they knew each other as children, and he turns her in despite the fact that he starts falling in love with her! In prison, Nan learns to deal with all the women's prison stereotypes, with perhaps the most notable of these being Lillian Roth, singing a song to a photo of Joe E. Brown! (Roth would descend into alcoholism, and her story would be told as a move 20 years later with I'll Cry Tomorrow.) Meanwhile, Nan's two male bank robber friends are in the men's side of the prison, and they get word to Nan of an escape plan….
I see that HBO Family has several airings of The Neverending Story this week, including at 5:25 PM Wednesday. (If you only have the west coast feed, it would be three hours later). Bastian (Barret Oliver) is a kid with a hard life: his mother has recently died, and he's being bullied by the kids at school. One day while trying to escape the bullies, he runs into a bookstore, where he finds a leather-bound volume that the proprietor tells him is dangerous. So of course Bastian takes the book and borrows it, what boy wouldn't? When he reads it, he finds that it's a story about a strange, magical kingdom where the child empress (Toni Stronach) is dying, and the whole world is in danger from a great Nothing. The prince Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) is trying to save the place, but Bastian finds that apparently the people in the book can see and hear him, and perhaps he may be the one they need to help save the kingdom. Gerald McRaney has a small role as Bastian's father, and there's that 80s music which will give you an earworm for a long time.
Steve McQueen had a tempestuous relationship with Ali McGraw in real life. On screen, they appeared together in The Getaway, which TCM is running at 12:15 AM Thursday. McQueen plays Doc, a robber in prison yet again, married to Carol (McGraw). Doc can't take life in prison any more, but can't get parole either. Carol makes an agreement with Benyon (Ben Johnson), the head of the local political machine, to get Doc out of prison. But of course there's a price, which is that Doc has to pull off a bank robbery with men hand-picked by Benyon. Unsurprisingly, the heist winds up going awry, and Doc and Carol have to try to make their titular getaway to Mexico with everybody going after them. Along the way, they kidnap a couple (Jack Dodson and Sally Struthers), with the wife getting the hots for Doc. Yeah, Archie Bunker's daughter who got fat and begged us to help starving children is playing a nympho. McQueen is good as always.
Over on StarzEncore Westerns, there's a bit off odd casting: Dana Andrews in a western. That movie is Smoke Signal, which will be on at 5:48 AM Thursday. Dana plays Brett Halliday, who at the start of the movie is a prison at a fort which is being attacked by the Utes. Apparently, the fort's previous commander insisted on starting a foolish and possibly illegal war with the Utes, so Brett decided it was better to desert. Meanwhile, the fort commander has died and the commander's daughter (Piper Laurie) is in love with the new commander, Lt. Ford (Rex Reason), although since the female lead you know she's going to wind up having romantic conflict with Brett. Why would she be the female lead otherwise? A cavalry patrol comes to the fort and wants to take the survivors away by land, although Brett realizes this is futile and that the only hope of escape lies in going down the Colorado River. Of course, trying to go through the Grand Canyon isn't exactly easy….
TCM is showing a bunch of Joan Leslie movies on Thursday. One which I don't think I've recommended before is Thieves Fall Out, which you can see at 7:45 AM. Eddie Albert plays Eddie Barnes, who wants to become his own boss but doesn't have the money for it. Well, there is one way he could get money, which is a legacy from his mother (Minna Gombell) which is currently being held in escrow. To get that legacy, Eddie has to get married, so he promptly does that, taking young Mary (that's Joan Leslie) as a bride. However, it turns out there's a second part to the legacy, that it only pays out in full after Ma dies. Well, there are some people around (in the form of the shady Anthony Quinn) who would be willing to make that happen. Jane Darwell steals the show as the grandmother looking out for her grandson's best interests, while Alan Hale (Sr.) plays Eddie's father.
Debbie Reynolds died at the end of last month. TCM is running a 24-hour programming tribute to her starting at 6:00 AM Friday, with 12 of her movies. One that I think I've never recommended before is I Love Melvin, which will be on at 4:30 PM Friday. Reuniting two of the stars of Singin' in the Rain (which follows at 6:00 PM), the movie stars Donald O'Connor as Melvin, a photographer for Look magazine (remember that). He meets Judy (Debbie Reynolds) in the park; she's an aspiring actress who dreams of making it big in Hollywood. Her parents (Allyn Joslyn and Una Merkel) don't like that dream and don't particularly care for Melvin; they'd rather she marry the dependable but dull Harry (Richard Anderson). Melvin promises Judy he'll get her on the cover of Look, but his boss has no intention of using Melvin's pictures of Judy if he can avoid it. This isn't one of MGM's better known musicals, but can you really go wrong with Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor?
On Saturday morning, TCM is airing not one, but two Bowery Boys movies. This is because they're at the end of the series (after Leo Gorcey left), and they want to get the end of the series in before 31 Days of Oscar starts next week. Needless to say, the series was running on fumes by this point. Gorcey would team up with Huntz Hall one more time a dozen years later in The Phynx, looking like he was on his deathbed in his one scene (he died a few weeks later, before the movie was released).