Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of July 20-26, 2020. Training camps are supposed to open in the near future, but who knows what's going to happen with politicians stoking insane levels of panic? In any case, all the movie channels keep running movies, and that's something that produces a lot fewer bones of contention. So sit back with another night of Tony Curtis movies on Monday John Ford on Friday, a couple of movies from the 90s – the 1990s, not the 1890s – in between, and a bunch of other interesting stuff. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentnioned.
Tony Curtis gets a third night as Star of the Month on Monday, this time with a night of movies based on history. Among them is Taras Bulba, at 3:45 AM Tuesday. Taken from the historical story by Nikolai Gogol, Taras is actually played by Yul Brynner. He's a Ukrainian Cossack in an era when his part of the world was a vassal state of Poland. He fights for the Poles against the Ottomans, but the Poles don't appreciate this as much as Taras thinks, so Taras bides his time waiting for revenge. In the meantime, he's got a couple of sons who have grown into adults, including Andrei (Tony Curtis). Taras sends Andrei to Poland to study in order that Andrei may learn from the Poles and use that better to defeat the Poles and gain full independence for the Ukrainians. But in Poland, Andrei meets Natalia (Christine Kaufmann), daughter of a local nobleman. He falls in love with her, which is a problem for Taras, since she's not a Cossack, or even Ukrainian. Of course they couldn't film in Ukraine in the 1960s, so Argentina stands in.
A movie that started showing up in the FXM rotation not too long ago is Kid Blue. It's going to be on again this week, at 9:50 AM Monday. Dennis Hopper plays Kid Blue, real name Bickford Waner, a bumbling outlaw who at the start of the movie can't get his gang to rob a train successfully in Texas circa 1895. So he decides he's going to try going straight. He winds up in the town of Dime Box, a growing place that's full of quirky characters. He's able to get a job at the local ceramics factory and makes a friend in Reese (Warren Oates). But Reese has a wife Molly (Lee Purcell) who decides to take an interest in Bick. The sheriff (Ben Johnson) suspects something isn't right with Bickford, while Preacher Bob (Peter Boyle), who is building an “aerocycle”, wants to save Bick's soul. And then one of Bick's old friends comes into town and accidentally spills the beans. It all leads to Bick deciding that perhaps trying another heist might be a better idea after all.
Monday also marks the birth anniversary of Natalie Wood, so it's not surprising that TCM is running her movies on Monday morning and afternoon. One that I haven't recommended since her birthday six years ago is Inside Daisy Clover, airing at 4:45 PM Monday. Wood plays Daisy Clover, who at the start of the movie is a teenager in a coastal California town in 1936. She runs a boardwalk stand, while her mother (Ruth Gordon) scrapes by doing playing card stuff, all along sinking into insanity. Daisy entered some sort of talent contest by sending a recording of her voice to the famous movie producer Swan (Christopher Plummer), and somebody at the studio brings Daisy in for an audition. Swan decides to make her a star, but it's going to come at a price: Daisy's mom is going to have to go in an asylum while the official story is that her mother died. Daisy rebels, and meets a kindred spirit in Wade Lewis (Robert Redford), and actor who strings her along enough for her to think that he's in love with her. Except that he's got problems of his own that are causing him to rebel against the studio too, and what will happen when Daisy figures things out?
For those of you who like more recent movies, we've got a pair that are less than 25 years old. The first one is Casino, which will be on Showtime 2 at 10:15 PM Tuesday. Robert De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a handicapper in 1970s Chicago. The Chicago Mafia needs to launder money, so they get the idea of running a casino out in Las Vegas where gambling is legal, and they can rake off the profits. Mob boss Stone (Alan King) sends Ace out to Vegas to run the casino behind the curtains (they need a respectable front to be seen to run the place for the public), and coming along with Ace is his onetime best friend Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci). However, Nicky has becoming increasingly volatile and violent in the intervening years, and things are going to come between him and Ace. One is Nicky's desire to move up in the Mafia, which he thinks he can do by staking out his own territory in Vegas. The other is that Ace falls in love with Ginger (Sharon Stone), which causes another wedge. If only the movie didn't run close to three hours….
Tuesday's prime time lineup is a salute to Milestone Films, a company that releases lesser-known titles to DVD. A movie that might be of interest to some of you is No Maps on My Taps, which comes on at 12:30 AM Wednesday. This is a documentary from the late 1970s about three pioneers of tap dancing who at the time of the movie had a bit of a comeback as they were performing with Lionel Hampton at a venue in Harlem. The three men: Chuck Green, Bunny Briggs, and Sandman Sims, are seen preparing for that show and ultimately performing, as well as talking about their origins in tap dancing, along with film clips from some of the other pioneers of the genre, most notably Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, if you remember that terrible song. Even if you're not much of a dancer, it's still interesting to see Harlem as it was back in the day.
Our second recent movie is Shakespeare in Love, which you can catch at 7:52 AM Wednesday on StarzEncore Classics. Ralph Fiennes' brother Joseph plays Shakespeare, who, at the time the story begins, hasn't yet become the success he'd later be, at least not as famous as Christopher Marlowe. He's sold a play to the owners of a theater, but needs an idea for a new play. Enter Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow), who is supposed to be married to Wessex (Colin Firth) but thinks about Shakespeare having read some of his poetry. She goes to see Shakespeare, in part because of her love for the poetry, but also because she'd really like to try her hand at acting. Of course, in those days, all the roles were played by men, including the female roles, so she dresses up as a man to try to get the role of Ethel, the pirate's daughter. Shakespeare begins to fall in love with Viola, which is a problem since she's betrothed to Wessex. But she has an effect on everybody, as you can guess since you know there's no Ethel in Shakespeare. A big-name cast includes Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth, Ben Affleck as one of Shakespeare's actors, and Geoffrey Rush as one of the theater owners.
I thought I recommended the movie Perfect Strangers not too long ago, but a search of the website claims I didn't. At any rate, it's back on this week, at 7:00 AM Thursday on TCM. Ginger ****** plays Terry Ross, a woman who gets selected to serve on a jury in a murder trial. Because of the public nature of the crime, the judge decides that the jury is going to be sequestered in a hotel, meaning the 12 jurors are going to be spending a lot of time together. Another of the jurors is David Campbell (Dennis Morgan). He and Terry become friends at first, and then begin to fall in love, although that presents all sorts of problems. Not just in terms of jury dynamics, but also the fact that David is married back in the real world, albeit in an unhappy marriage. So what's going to happen to the two jurors after the trial ends? Among the other jurors are the great character actress Thelma Ritter, as well as Alan Reed, best known as the voice of Fred Flintstone.
Up against Perfect Strangers over on HBO is Benny & Joon, but it's also on HBO Comedy at 6:20 PM Thursday, so I'll mention that airing. Aidan Quinn plays Benny, who owns a garage in Spokane and lives with his sister Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson). She's got some sort of mental illness and the psychiatrist (CCH Pounder) thinks Joon should be in a group home, which Benny is afraid to do because he doesn't want to anger Joon. One day Joon joins a poker game between Benny and his friends, and one of the stakes is that the loser has to take one of the friends' eccentric cousin Sam (Johnny Depp) off the friend's hands. Joon loses, so Sam moves in with the siblings. Despite his strangeness, he has a positive effect on Joon, and she thinks she might be in love with Sam. The feeling is mutual although Sam realizes there's a problem. Sure enough, when Benny finds out, he's pissed, and it sets in motion a chain of events that could destroy all of their relationships. Also stars Julianne Moore as a woman who wants to start a relationship with Benny, but he's afraid because of what that would do to Joon.
Another movie I thought I recommended recently is The Wings of Eagles. But a search of the site says no, so I'll mention that it's airing this week at 6:00 PM Friday on TCM. John Wayne plays Frank “Spig” Wead, a navy pilot in the era just after World War I together with his best friend Jughead (Dan Dailey). He has ideas about how the navy should integrate aviation into its missions, but his promotion of it is all-consuming, eventually bringing a strain into his marriage to Min (Maureen O'Hara). Finally he gets a big appointment to squadron commander, but while celebrating he falls down a flight of stairs, paralyzing him from the waist down and leaving him in the hospital for months. He eventually learns to walk again and uses his knowledge of aviation to become a Hollywood screenwriter. And then the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, bringing the US into World War II. Spig feels he still has something left to contribute to his country, and sure enough he does. If you like John Ford's and John Wayne's worldviews, you'll love this movie.
Speaking of John Ford, TCM has been spending Fridays with him this month. Friday night's lineup of Ford Films will conclude with his final movie, 7 Women, at 12:30 AM Saturday. In China in 1935 near the border with Mongolia, it's a turbulent era as China is at war with Japan and with Communists, Nationalists and the Mongolians, there's not even a united front. Agatha Andrews (Margaret Leighton) leads a Christian mission staffed by westerners thinking that, because they're neutral Christian westerners, the outside forces will more or less leave them alone. (Obviously they didn't see enough other movies about the era.) One of the women, Florrie (Betty Field) is married to one of the few men on the staff, Charles (Eddie Albert), and she's pregnant, so the mission needs a doctor more than ever. Taking the job is Dr. Cartwright (Anne Bancroft), who is about the last person you'd expect to take such a job, as she's liberated and not particularly Christian. Things get much more complicated when local warlord Tunga Khan (Mike Mazurki) starts harassing the women, ultimately holding them hostage.