Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” thread, for the week of July 4-10, 2016. There's a holiday this week, and also the soccer Euros still going on, but at the stage where there will be several days without matches. So while you're waiting for your favorite team to play, why not relax with some good movies? As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Monday is Independence Day for those of us in the US, so unsurprisingly TCM is running several movies that are appropriate for the day. Among these is The Devil's Disciple, at 1:30 PM. Kirk Douglas plays Dudgeon, a ne'er-do-well in the Saratoga area of Revolution-era New York. His father was just hanged, and he son cuts Dad down from the noose and takes him to Rev. Anderson (Burt Lancaster) for a proper burial. This, much against the wishes of the British. Anderson agrees, but winds up being called away to tend to Dudgeon's mother, at which point the British arrive, intending to arrest Anderson for performing the funeral rites. They assume Dudgeon, who is found alone with Mrs. Anderson, is in fact Anderson, and Dudgeon decides to go along with the ruse. Rev. Anderson, for his part, finds that this stirs up some revolutionary spirit in him. Laurence Olivier plays British General Burgoyne. This is based on a play by George Bernard Shaw.
TCM is running a historical curiosity: The Squaw Man, Tuesday at 6:30 AM. This is the first film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, and is often considered Hollywood's first feature film (there were other feature-length movies made elsewhere, however). The story involves Capt. Wynnegate (Dustin Farnum), a British cavalry officer who takes the fall for his cousin Sir Henry's embezzlement. Wynnegate decides the best thing to do is go to America and make a new life for himself. After a series of adventures, he winds up at a western ranch. There's he's saved by a native Ute chieftan's daughter, eventually falling in love with her and having a mixed-race son by her. And then Sir Henry dies, exonerating Wynnegate on his deathbed, and offering Wynnegate a chance at a noble life. But would the British accept his family? Although this is Cecil B. DeMille, he's still at the beginning of his career and had a lot of improving to do. But I know how much you all love the movies of 1914.
Randolph Scott became a staple of westerns in the 1950s, but you can see him toward the beginning of his western career in Virginia City, which is on TCM at 6:15 AM Wednesday. This Civil War-era movie has Errol Flynn as Kerry, who has escaped a Confederate prison circa 1864, from where the Union bosses send him to Virginia City, NV. That's because there's a plan afoot by those supporting the Confederacy to send $5 million in gold bullion to the South to help with the war effort. It's up to Kerry and his men to stop it. Making things complicated is that it's a former commander of the prision where Kerry was held, one Vance Irby (that's Randolph Scott) leading the plot. Also, Kerry falls in love with saloon singer Julia (Miriam Hopkins), not realizing she's a Confederate spy. And then there's Murrell (Humphrey Bogart), the half-Mexican bandit Irby hires to make things more difficult for Kerry. Murrell decides he and his men could do with that $5M themselves.
For those who like those sprawling color melodramas, FXM Retro is running From the Terrace at 12:35 PM Thursday. Paul Newman stars as David Eaton, a World War II veteran from Philadelphia who wants a better life than going into the family business – even if that business is a steel mill -- which means going to the big time in New York, even if his parents (Myrna Loy, a much more pathetic drunk than in the Thin Man movies and Leon Ames) don't like that. In New York, he meets the wealthy St. Johns and marries daughter Mary (Joanne Woodward). But David finds that the route to the top isn't as fulfilling as he thought it would be, as his marriage to Mary is a loveless one and he'd rather be with nice girl Natalie (Ina Balin). Meanwhile, Mary has an ex-finacé she's been turning to to fill the emotional void that David can't be bothered to fill. It's all overblown, if apparently toned down from the book (which I haven't read) since Hollywood couldn't show everything in the book.
This Thursday sees the new TCM Spotlight for July: America in the 1970s. Unfortunately, TCM's website doesn't seem to say who's actually going to be presenting the movies for the Spotlight. There are going to be 19 movies in the series, grouped thematically. This first Thursday in July looks at the media and surveillance. The “media” themed movies are:
All the President's Men at 8:00 PM, about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's reporting of the Watergate scandal;
The Candidate at 10:30 PM, with Robert Redford running for Senate in California; and
Network at 12:30 AM Friday, Paddy Chayefsky's dark look at the world of TV news.
The surveillance films are The Conversation at 2:45 AM Friday followed by Klute at 4:45 AM. (No Parallax View, sorry.)
Olivia De Havilland returns for another night of her movies on Friday. One of her most frequent co-stars was Errol Flynn, and the two take lead acting honors in Santa Fe Trail, airing at 12:15 AM Saturday. This one is set in Kansas in the early 1850s, which was the “bloody Kansas” era in the days just before the Civil War, when settlers in the state were violently debating whether Kansas would enter the Union as a free state or a slave state. Flynn plays J.E.B. Stuart, a southerner who, after graduating West Point, was sent out to Kansas to help keep the peace. Stuart was sent there along with George Armstrong Custer (Ronald Reagan). Once in Kansas, they meet “Kit Carson” Holliday, who amazingly isn't a “Doc”, but a settler woman played by De Havilland and daughter of the man who built the Santa Fe Railroad. There's a romantic rivalry over Holliday. More importantly, however, the soldiers have to deal with one John Brown (Raymond Massey), the zealous abolitionist who would later raid the arsenal at Harpers Ferry (now in West Virginia). History isn't quite right here, of course, but the movie is more than entertaining enough.
I can't recall if I've recommended Bhowani Junction before; it'll be on TCM at 6:00 PM Saturday. Set in 1946, a year before the British left India and the partition into India and Pakistan occurred, the movie stars Ava Gardner as Victoria Jones. She's of mixed British and Indian parentage, which is a problem because the Anglo-Indians are generally neither white enough for the British, nor Indian enough for the Indians. Victoria's father is a railway driver, which brings her into contact with Patrick Taylor (Bill Travers), another Anglo-Indian who runs the local railway station. Some Indians, led by the Communists are protesting in part by trying to block the railroad lines, and the British treatment of the Indians, ordered by British Colonel Savage (Stewart Granger) makes Victoria long to be more Indian. But Taylor's hatred of Indians pulls Victoria in the other direction. Things continue to get even more complicated for Victoria.
I know how much you all like the classic westerns, so I'll note that StarzEncore Westerns is running a really good one: Winchester '73, at 8:00 PM Saturday and again at 2:40 AM Sunday. James Stuart plays Lin McAdam, who comes into Dodge City one July 4, enters a marksmanship contest, and wins a Winchester '73 repeating rifle as a prize. However, in the contest he defeated his bête noir Dutch (Stephen McNally), who really wants that rifle. So Dutch waylays Lin and steals the rifle, leading Lin on an obsessive search for it. Along the way he meets outlaw Waco Johnny (Dan Duryea) and the engaged couple he holds up, a coward and his fiancée (Shelley Winters). Needless to say, eventually Lin meets up with Dutch again in a climactic showdown, and we learn just why they hate each other so much.
This week's TCM Underground includes a movie from just about the time Blair Kiel was heading off to college: Roller Boogie, at 3:45 AM Sunday. Linda Blair plays Terry, the daughter of wealthy Beverly Hills parents who is being groomed to be a flutist and go to Juilliard. However, she really hates the flute and would rather spend her nights roller skating with all the other people on the boardwalk. It's there that she meets Bobby (Jim Bray), who thinks that he's going to qualify for the next Olympics, in roller skating. (Never mind that this isn't an Olympic event, and that Jimmy Carter would lead an Olympic boycott that would have scuppered Bobby's dreams.) Terry eventually falls for Bobby and trains with him for the big roller disco contest. But will the contest go ahead? Unfortunately, a developer wants the land on which the roller disco sits, and will stop at nothing to get that land. The plot is ludicrous, but this is the sort of movie you watch precisely because of how screwed up it is.
A movie returning to FXM Retro after an absence is Elopement, which you can catch at 6:00 AM Sunday. Clifton Webb plays Mr. Osborne, father of college student Jacqueline, nicknamed “Jake” (a very young Anne Francis). At a dance just before her graduation, she dances with her philosophy professor, Prof. Reagan (William Lundigan), and the two get the idea that they should get married, like right now! By eloping! Well, you could probably figure that out from the title. When Jake doesn't return home, the Osbornes learn what's happened, and they set off to give a piece of their minds to Prof. Reagan's parents (Charles Bickford and Evelyn Varden). But they're none to happy of their son eloping, either, and don't really care for the Osbornes. So they also set off to chase after their son. Circumstances for all the in-laws together in one car. If they even become in-laws. Amazing that gay, 60-something mama's boy Clifton Webb played so many of these family roles.