Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of July 1-7, 2019. Thursday is a big holiday in the US, and even our wacky neighbors to the north get a holiday this week on Monday. Since a lot of people are going to try to take Friday off as well as Thursday, that means there's a lot of time to beat the heat by watching some good movies. This also being the beginning of the month, there's a new Star of the Month and some new spotlights. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Leslie Caron will be celebrating her 88th birthday on Monday, so TCM is marking the occasion with a bunch of her films, including Chandler at 6:30 AM. Warren Oates stars as the title character, a former private eye who has become a security guard. But he gets a chance to go back to his old line of work when he's asked by the government agent Carmady (Alex Dreier) to follow a Frenchwoman Creighton (Caron) who is supposed to be a witness against a big-time gangster Melchior (Gordon Pinsent). However, as Chandler takes up the case, he finds that things aren't quite what they seem. The other problem, as you can probably guess because it's such an overused plot device, is that Chandler finds himself falling in love with Creighton. This was a (largely failed, although there's some nice location shooting) attempt to bring noir movies back to the screen, and there are several cameos of people who starred in some famous noirs, notably Charles McGraw and Gloria Grahame.
A movie that returned to the FXM rotation recently is Good Morning, Miss Dove, which you can catch this week at . Jennifer Jones plays Miss Dove, a spinster teacher who is known for her strict, no-nonsense style which is cause for some talk behind her back. One day, she starts feeling terrible pains, and when she sends one of her students to fetch the doctor, he sends her to the hospital where she is going to have to be operated on. The surgeon, Dr. Baker (Robert Stack) is one of her former students, and as Miss Dove looks back on her life from her hospital bed, we learn that she's really had a great impact on the small town where she teaches, as so many of her former students admire her. We also learn that she gave up so much in becoming a teacher, as she only did so to pay for a debt that her embezzler father incurred many years ago. I find it a bit mawkish at times and Jones's character a bit too severe, but most other people who review it rate it quite highly.
Monday is July 1, the first day of a new month, which means we get a new Star of the Month on TCM. That star is Glenn Ford, and his movies will be airing every Monday in prime time. Among them is Terror on a Train, at 5:45 AM Tuesday. Ford stars as Peter Lyncort, a Canadian living in the UK who served in World War II as a munitions expert. One evening the authorities spot a vagrant at the railyard where a shipment of sea mines is set to head down to a port on the Channel. It turns out that the man was not just a vagrant but a saboteur, and he's planted a bomb that threatens to blow the train to kingdom come, which would be a problem with a regular goods train, but a severe problem with a train full of explosives. And the train has been stopped on a siding in a residential area. So the authorities call in Peter to find the bomb and detonate it. Meanwhile, he's got an estranged wife in Janine (Anne Vernon) who doesn't find out about the train and the bombs until it's almost too late. MGM made this one at its British studio, with it being a not uncommon practice in the 50s to have British movies import a Hollywood star to make it more advantageous to distribute the movie in the US.
For those of you who like 80s movies, our selection this week is The Dream Team, on StarzEncore Classics at 8:47 AM Tuesday. Dr, Weitzman works at a sanatarium with the mentally ill, but he's got more compassionate ideas than locking them up. So one day, he decides to give four of his patients some group therapy by taking them to a baseball game. However, the good doctor gets mugged while witnessing a murder and knocked unconscious. The four patients: compulsive liar Billy (Michael Keaton), Jack who believes he's Jesus (Peter Boyle), neat freak who thinks he's a doctor Harry (Christopher Lloyd), and catatonic Albert who only speaks in sports jargon (Stephen Furst) quickly realize that nobody is going to believe four mental patients. Worse, they also conclude that the doctor is a witness and as such is in danger of being knocked off to prevent him from going to the police. Sure enough, as they try to get help for their doctor, they wind up helping themselves too.
One of TCM's spotlights this months is "Out of This World", a look at science fiction movies. It'll be running every Tuesday in prime time. This being the first Tuesday of the month, they'll be showing some early sci-fi, starting with what is almost definitely, the first sci-fi movie, A Trip to the Moon from Georges Méliès in 1902, at 8:00 PM Tuesday:
There's also Metropolis at 8:30 PM, and all 12 chapters of the 1940 Flash Gordon serial in one marathon showing at 4:00 AM. If you have MGMHD, you can watch the 1980 Flash Gordon overnight tonight at 12:15 AM and again at 5:50 PM Tuesday.
I mentioned the 1958 Dunkirk at the beginning of June, and then recommended Darkest Hour, which concerns Winston Churchill's first month as Prime Minister in 1940 and dealing with the evacuation of the British forces from Dunkirk. The same year Darkest Hour was released, there was another bigger budget version of Dunkirk, and that one will be on this week at 4:35 AM Wednesday on ActionMax.
Thursday is Independence Day, so as always TCM is running a series of movies suitable for the day, with some all-American musicals in prime time, kicking off at 8:00 PM with Yankee Doodle Dandy. James Cagney stars as George M. Cohan, the famous songwriter allegedly born on July 4. At the beginning of the movie, Cohan is called to see Franklin Roosevelt (the movie was released in 1942), which causes Cohan to look back at his life, starting off as a traveling entertainer in the days before they called it vaudeville; Walter Huston plays Cohan's father. Eventually George grows up and becomes a songwriter, meeting young Mary (Joan Leslie) while pushing one of his songs and going on to marry her. George's songs become increasingly successful and he writes for Broadway shows. But spoofing FDR in his latest show might have been a step too far. The movie is filled with many of Cohan's best-known songs (especially "Over There") and has Cagney dancing. He won an Oscar and considered this one of his favorites of all his movies.
Next up is The Sons of Katie Elder, airing at 1:47 AM Friday on StarzEncore Westerns. John Wayne stars as John Elder, eldest of four brothers, along with Tom (Dean Martin), Matt (Earl Holliman), and Bud (Michael Anderson Jr.). They've all returned to their hometown in Texas to bury their mom Katie. Unfortunately they get some bad news, finding out that Mom no longer owned the ranch, as Dad had lost it some months back in a poker game. Dad then got shot in the back for his trouble. The obvious suspect is Hastings (James Gregory), the town gunsmith who won the ranch, or his no good son Dave (Dennis Hopper). In addition, Hastings hired a gunman Curley (George Kennedy) to deal with the Elders. A lot of people in town liked Katie but not her boys, and when the sheriff gets killed, the Elders get blamed. An amiable little western filled with a cast of well-known names.
1939 is widely considered to be Hollywood's greatest year, and this is the 80th anniversary of that year. So TCM is spending Fridays this month (up until the TCM Underground slot) making that anniversary with one film after another from 1939. This first Friday in July includes a documentary about the subject at 10:00 PM; as for the features, I'll mention The Old Maid at 1:45 PM. Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins play cousins Charlotte and Delia at the start of the Civil War. Delia's fiancé Clem (George Brent) shows up, but Delia has decided she's going to marry into a more respectable family instead. This leaves Charlotte free to have a torrid affair with Clem. However, both Clem and Delia's husband get killed in battle in the war. After the war, Charlotte and Delia are running an orphanage, with Charlotte being particularly fond of one orphan, Tina (Jane Bryan). Tina falls in love with a respectable man whose family doesn't want him to marry an orphan, so Delia proposes to adopt and give the kid her now good name. However, Tina is really Charlotte's biological daughter. Sparks will fly in another melodrama, although part of the sparks has to do with the fact that Hopkins and Davis hated each other in real life.
TCM has been running a Saturday matinee block from 8:00 AM to noon. The second half of that has been movies that are installments in various B series, since they weren't using the word "franchises" back then. Last Saturday brought the end of the Falcon series, and now we're back to the first of the Bowery Boys movies, Live Wires, around 10:08 AM following another Popeye cartoon. In Live Wires, Slip (Leo Gorcey) plays a man working at a construction company who gets fired, and then finds another job as a repo man, which is where me meets Sach (Huntz Hall). Their work eventually has them running into the underworld, and they find out that Slip's old boss at the construction company is involved, with the boss putting Slip's sister (who also works there and got Slip the job in the first place) in danger. This was directed by Phil Karlson, who would go on to direct some notable noirs in the 1950s.
Following Live Wires at 11:30 AM Saturday is the entertaining short Coffins on Wheels. This is one of the Crime Does Not Pay shorts, dealing with unscrupulous used car dealers (something that hasn't changed all that much), with one of the cars being sold to a teenager getting his first car quickly having the brakes go bad causing an accident that kills poor Darryl Hickman.
TCM is showing a double feature of John Gavin movies on Sunday night, which gives them a good reason to run one of the great comedies of the 1950s, Imitation of Life, at 8:00 PM. Lana Turner stars as Lora Meredith, an actress and single mother. One day at the beach, she meets Annie (Juanita Moore), a black single mother with a mixed-race daughter Sara Jane. Annie is in need of a job, so she becomes Lora's maid, leaving Lora the time to become successful. Fast forward a dozen years, and Sara Jane (Susan Kohner) is all grown up -- and able to pass for white, which she tries to do, much to the heartache of her mother. Meanwhile, Lora begins a relationship with old friend Steve (John Gavin). Lora's daughter Susie (Sandra Dee) thinks Steve loves her. All of the white people try to disabuse poor Sara Jane of the notion that she's anything but black, leading to the tragic ending. It's a remake of a 1934 film and earlier novel, only with the melodrama turned up to 11 making it unintentionally hilarious, as in Kohner's scene with Troy Donahue.