Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of July 23-29, 2018. Football training camp finally opens this week, which means that we don't have to talk about baseball any longer. But in those long weeks before the football season kicks off in earnest, there's still a lot of time for some good movies. Steve McQueen has one more turn as Star of the Month on Thursday night, but I wound up finding so much other interesting stuff that I didn't need to do a longer write-up on the McQueen movies. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
TCM is showing a bunch of monster movies on Monday, including one I don't think I've mentioned before, The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, at 9:15 AM Monday. You can probably figure out from the title just what this movie entails. Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) have been annoying a local merchant by playing baseball in the street, and it's pointed out to them that there's a vacant lot nearby that could be fixed up for all the kids to play. So they look up who owns the place and head out to Long Island to meet the Gravesend family, who own that vacant lot. They don't know what they're about to get themselves into. The Gravesend siblings: Amelia (Ellen Corby; they actually got somebody above Z-list), Anton (Lloyd Corrigan), and Dr. Derek (John Dehner), all want to create a Frankenstein-like monster, and their house is one of those creepy “house of horror” type places that were a staple of horror movies in the 1950s and 1960s. Worse for the Boys, the Gravesends realize that Sach has just the right sized brain for their monster! Granted it's still the Bowery Boys, but it's better than most of their stuff.
Remember Henry Thomas? He's the kid who played Elliott in E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. He's actually still working steadily, but this week another of his early roles is on: in Cloak & Dagger, at 4:35 PM Monday on StarzEncore Family. Henry plays Davey Osborne, a kid who's lonely because his mother has died and his military father Hal (Dabney Coleman) doesn't have enough time for him. So he retreats into the fantasy world of his favorite video game, Cloak & Dagger, the protagonist of which is named Jack Flack and whom Davey treats as an imaginary friend. He tells stories about himself and Jack that obviously none of the adults believe. That's going to come back to bite him when he sees an actual murder victim. Said victim is an FBI agent who hands Davey a Cloak & Dagger video game cartridge which actually contains coded information that some criminals want. Davey can't get anybody to believe him especially when the body goes missing, so it's up to him to crack the code on the cartridge while staying one step ahead of the bad guys.
You may remember that terrible 90s song "Rockabye". Well, there was also an early 1930s movie called Rockabye, and that movie will be on TCM at 6:45 AM Tuesday. Constance Bennett plays Judy Carroll,a stage actress who's trying to adopt a baby. Except that she's been having a relationship with politician Al (Walter Pidgeon), and when she's called as a witness in a trial he's involved in it results in her losing the baby. So she goes off to Europe until she's not such toxic publicity, at which time she decides to do the latest play by playwright Van Riker Pell (Joel McCrea). The two fall in love, but he's got a wife even though he's been trying to get a divorce from her. And then it turns out that his wife is pregnant, and he doesn't wan to leave her alone with a baby. It goes on like this. This one is a good example of what chick flicks were like back in the early 1930s.
I think it's been a while since I've recommended How to Steal a Million. It's coming on again this week, at on FXM Retro. Audrey Hepburn plays Nicole Bonnet, daughter of a prominent Parisian art collector (Hugh Griffith). The only thing is, Dad is also a forger, having just sold off a forger Cézanne. That's bad enough, but Dad is lending their Cellini sculpture -- which is of course also a forgery -- to a museum for an exhibit. They're sure to have it appraised for insurance purposes and discover the forgery. Nicole is in a bit of luck, though, when she discovers an intruder in her house, Simon Dermott (Peter O'Toole). She's able to convince him to help steal the Cellini out of the museum before its appraised. The only catch is that Simon isn't actually an art thief but an investigator compiling evidence against Bonnet. Simon falls in l0ve with Nicole, making things even more complicated..Charles Boyer plays Simon's boss, and Eli Wallach is an American businessman who wants to buy the "Cellini" sculpture.
William Haines was a silent actor who actually had no problems with the transition to sound. But he was gay, so that put an early end to his acting career and he became interior director to the stars for the last 40 years of his life. A good example of one of his talkies is Remote Control, which will be on TCM at 11:30 AM Thursday. Haines plays William Brennan, who's looking for a job when he finds that his old friend Sam (Charles King) runs a radio station and is looking for talent. Brennan gets a job there and starts romantically pursuing Sam's sister Marion (Mary Doran), who is a receptionist at the station. Among the diverse talent (movies about the early days of radio had a lot of odd radio shows that would never make it today) is the professor of the occult Dr. Kruger (John Miljan). However, Brennan gets the idea that Kruger is actually sending coded messages to a gang of robbers to keep them one step ahead of the police! It's up to Brennan to foil the crime wave. Haines isn't everybody's cup of tea, but this isn't a bad movie.
Married to the Mob is on this week, at 6:39 AM and 5:18 PM Thursday on Starz (those are the east coast feed times; if you only have the west coast feed it's three hours later). Michelle Pfeiffer plays Angela de Marco, the woman unhappily married to the Mob in the form of husband Frank (Alec Baldwin), nicknamed "Cucumber"; she knows he can never get out. Frank has a mistress in the form of waitress Karen, which might make Angela even unhappier except that Karen also happens to be the mistress of Frank's boss Tony Russo (Dean Stockwell). Tony is the one who's logically unhappy about Frank taking his mistress, to Tony has Frank and Karen killed. Tony then tries to put the movies on Angela much to the consternation of the Tony's wife Connie (Mercedes Ruehl). Angela runs away to escape Tony, since this is finally her chance to get out of the Mob. Or so she thinks. FBI agent Mike (Matthew Modine) has been investigating Tony's portion of the mob, and he believes Angela has the evidence that will put Tony away for murdering Frank and Karen. Having an FBI agent around, though, will also bring the attention of the Mob and put Angela in more danger.
Up against the Steve McQueen movies is The Kentuckian, at 9:38 PM Thursday on StarzEncore Westerns. Burt Lancaster plays Big Eli Wakefield, who lives in Kentucky circa 1820 with his son Little Eli (Donald MacDonald) but no wife, because she's died. He wants to move west, to Texas, to get some new land, but everything seems to keep getting in his way. First, he finds an indentured servant Hannah (Dianne Foster) and spends the money that would have gotten him and his kid to Texas on freeing her instead. Then when he gets to the next town west where his brother Zack (John McIntire) and Zack's wife Sophie (Una Merkle), he winds up spending a lot more time working the family farm than he expected, while a lot of the townsfolk think he's a rube. Little Eli goes to school and the teacher Miss Spann (Diana Lynn) is suggested by Zack as a good wife for Big Eli. Little Eli isn't so certain. Walter Matthau makes his screen debut as a tavern owner who has a way with a bullwhip. (The movie is not to be confused with the John Wayne film The Fighting Kentuckian, which has a completely different plot.)
Another movie I don't think I've ever recommended before is The Four Seasons, which will be on StarzEncore Classics at 9:59 AM Saturday. Now, when I mention that title, most of you will probably think of this:
(Don't think I don't classy up this joint.) The story deals with three middle-aged couples who vacation together during each of the seasons (and Vivaldi's music is used in the soundtrack). Jack (Alan Alda, who also wrote and directed) is married to Kate (Carol Burnett); Danny (Jack Weston) to Claudia (Rita Moreno); and Nick (Len Cariou) to Anne (Sandy Dennis). Now, I wouldn't want to vacation with friends like this constantly, as I'd go crazy and need some time alone once in a while. And sure enough, there are some tensions within this group. Ultimately Nick decides that he's had enough of Anne's behavior and decides to start an affair with Ginny (Bess Armstrong). which causes the couple to re-examine their own relationships as well as the friendships among the couples. And then there are people who think there are only four seasons:
For those of you who like more recent movies, I've got one that's only 20 years old: The Full Monty, at 11:30 PM Saturday on HBO2 (or three hours later if you only have the west coast feed). Gaz (Robert Carlyle) is a divorced father living in Sheffield, England, with his friends. It utsed to be a thriving mill town, but the mill closed and now the area is economically depressed, with Gaz never even able to get enough money to pay the alimony that will allow him to keep joint custody of his son. One day a troupe of Chippendale's dancers come to town and when Gaz sees how the women pay to see these guys, he gets an idea to have he and his friends put on a show themselves. Except of course that none of them have the bodies of Chippendale's dancers, and none of them can dance, so they have to come up with a gimmick, which is to go "the full monty", meaning all the way nude, something the real Chippendale's dancers don't do. Will they have the courage to pull it off (pun intended) when the day comes?
Finally, I'll mention a movie that I've recommended before when it ran on FXM, but that I think is a TCM premiere: Phone Call From a Stranger, at 8:00 PM Sunday on TCM. Gary Merrill plays David Trask, a businessman on a cross-country flight with a bunch of strangers. Due to the flight being socked in by weather, David, and three of his fellow passengers get to know each other: Dr. Robert (Michael Rennie), showgirl Binky (Shelley Winters), and toy salesman Eddie (Keenan Wynn). And then the plane crashes, leaving David the only one of the four still alive. All four of them had personal problems leading them to take this flight, so David feels the need to call up the surviving family of the other three passengers and telling the survivors how these three were trying to make their lives right again. Of course, David also has some unfinished business of his own.... Bette Davis shows up as the "beautiful" wife Eddie was talking about; she was beautiful at one time, but time goes on and things happen.