Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of June 27-July 3, 2016. We've got the end of one month and the beginning of another, which means we're actually going to have two Stars of the Month this week. There's also another installment of Treasures From the Disney Vault, and some interesting movies on other channels. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We'll start off with this week's Silent Sunday Nights feature: Go West, at midnight Monday (ie. 11:00 PM tonight LFT). This is one of Buster Keaton's lesser-known movies. Here, he plays a man named “Friendless”, who has had little luck in his home town, so he goes to New York, where he finds he also has little luck. He decides to go west, only to fall off a train somewhere in the middle of Arizona. That's how he winds up getting a job as a ranch hand, something for which you'd think Buster Keaton is thoroughly unsuited. Ah, but it turns out he's able to make his first friend – a cow named Brown Eyes. Eventually, though, he has to transport the cattle to the slaughterhouse and sell them so that the rancher can make his money. Except that things go wrong again, and Friendless winds up with a whole herd of cattle on the streets of Los Angeles. With an odd plot like that, you can see what this isn't as well known as some of Keaton's other stuff.
Marie Dressler gets one more night of her movies in her turn as Star of the Month. One in which she does well, although the movie isn't so well known today, is Emma, airing at 11:45 PM Monday. Dressler, unsurprisingly, plays Emma, who was the governess to the children (now all grown up) of wealthy Mr. Smith (Jean Hersholt). Mr. Smith decides that Emma has been such a big part of the family since she basically raised them all after Mom died giving birth to the youngest Ronnie (Richard Cromwell), that Dad asks for Emma's hand in marriage. Ronnie is OK with it, but the other three kids (Myrna Loy, George Meeker, and Barbara Kent) all resent it. They especially resent it when Dad dies and bequeaths his estate to Emma. So the kids other than Ronnie decide to trump up charges against Emma! Can Ronnie get home in time to save Emma? Marie Dressler gives another fine performance, and was Oscar-nominated.
Those of you who like the old Fox musicals from before the Freed Unit over at MGM really got going and raised the bar will be pleased to see another one showing up this week: That Night in Rio, at 1:25 PM Monday and 11:45 AM Tuesday. Don Ameche plays Larry Martin, an American doing a nightclub act in Rio de Janeiro, and in love with fellow nightclub star Carmen (Carmen Miranda). Into the club come the businessman Baron Duarte (Ameche, in a double role), and his wife the Baroness (Alice Faye). Martin does an impersonation of the Baron, which isn't too hard considering that they're played by the same actor. But it's good that he can do the impersonation. The Baron is in financial difficulty but doesn't want any of his Brazilian rivals to know it, so could Martin impersonate the Baron while the Baron goes to Argentina to secure financing? You'd think the lack of knowledge of Portuguese would be a problem, but we'll put that aside. Martin decides to do it, and all sorts of complications ensue. It's a well-worn plot, but when you've got people like Ameche and Carmen Miranda putting it over, it's entertaining enough.
Tuesday night on TCM brings another night of Treasures from the Disney Vault. Past installments have started with cartoon shorts, but here, they're saved until 10:15 PM, since the night starts off at 8:00 PM with The Parent Trap, starring Hayley Mills in a double role as sisters who bring their divorced parents (Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith) back together. Among the animation, there's also a block at 12:45 AM Wednesday which includes the first three-strip Technicolor animation, Flowers and Trees. None of the traditional Disney characters here; just anthropomorphic flora dealing with a forest fire.
Perhaps most interesting might be the documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty at 11:00 PM; this looks at the renaissance of Disney animation that began in the 80s with movies like The Little Mermaid. (Anyone remember The Brave Little Toaster or Oliver and Company? I don't.) It wasn't an easy time for the studio, but obviously they've come out of it quite successfully.
If you want a recent fiction movie, you could do worse than to catch Jagged Edge, which is over on StarzEncore Classics at 5:40 AM Wednesday. Jeff Bridges plays editor Jack, married to heiress Page. Page and her maid get murdered right at the beginning of the movie, in an attack that also injures Jack. The crusading district attorney Krasny (Peter Coyote), however, has reason to believe that Jack actually committed the murders and then injured himself. Well, part of that is that Krasny doesn't like the editorials against him that Jack has penned. Jack has to get a good defense attorney, so he gets former DA Teddy Barnes (Glenn Close). She does her best to defend Jack, but she also rather stupidly decides to start a relationship with him, which seems like it would be a major ethical no-no. (No jokes about this being the first time a lawyer has ethics.) And what's the deal with those letters proclaiming Jack's innocence on a typewriter where the T key is screwed up?
As for StarzEncore Westerns, they're running Lonely Are the Brave this week, at 11:20 AM and 9:50 PM Thursday. Kirk Douglas plays Jack Burns, a cowboy. Or, he's a would-be cowboy, in that if he had been born a few generations earlier he'd be a cowboy on the open range. But there's no open range any longer for him. Still, he tries to live a life of freedom. Then he hears that his old friend Paul (Michael Kane) is in prison for helping illegal immigrants, so Jack decides he's going to get himself thrown in the clink himself in order to get Paul out. But Paul just wants to do his time and go back to his wife Jerry (Gena Rowlands). So Jack has to break himself out, which carries a much greater sentence. He tries to flee to Mexico, with the sheriff (Walter Matthau) in hot pursuit. Douglas is excellent as the man out of his own time, and considered this one of his favorites of all the movies he made.
Friday is the first day of a new month, which means that we're getting some movies returning to FXM Retro after a substantial absence. These include A Flea in Her Ear, at 9:40 AM Sunday. Rosemary Harris plays Gabrielle, a belle époque era Parisienne and wife of Victor (Rex Harrison). One day, a hotel discreetly returns something of Victor's that was left there, which gives Gabrielle reason to believe that Victor may be having an affair; one of her lady friends Suzanne (Rachel Roberts) agrees to pretend to be someone wooing him to see if he'll take the bait. However, things get complicated. First, it turns out that it was Victor's nephew that was going to the hotel; there's a subplot about his cleft palate that provides some of the humor. Then, Suzanne's husband Henri (Louis Jourdan) reads Suzanne's letter to Victor and thinks Suzanne is serious. Many hijinks ensue. Parts of the movie are quite good, parts unfortunately fall flat. Worse, the last time I saw this one on FXM Retro, it was a panned-and-scanned print, the bastards.
Friday, July 1, will also be the 100th birthday of actress Olivia de Havilland, as long as she doesn't die before then. With that in mind, TCM have made her the Star of the Month for July, and will be showing her movies every Friday in prime time. I've recommended most of the prime time lineup, but the one that seems to show up the least is Raffles, which kicks the night off at 8:00 PM. David Niven is the star in the title role, that of a gentleman thief. De Havilland plays the sister of an old school friend of his, and that friend needs help because he did some embezzling and now needs to replace the money he embezzled. So Raffles plans to commit one more crime for the old friend, but when he goes to the country manor where he's going to steal the jewels, things get complicated because another burglar shows up. Never mind the fact that Scotland Yard (in the form of Dudley Digges) is on his trail. This movie had already been made once before, at the dawn of the sound era, with Ronald Colman as Raffles, and this is a fairly faithful remake.
This week's TCM Underground selection is an early Brian De Palma movie, Sisters, at 2:15 AM Sunday. Grace (Jennifer Salt) is a newspaper reporter who wants to be a star reporter but is stuck out on Staten Island. And then one night she sees, Rear Window style, a murder in the apartment across the way. The only thing is, the police don't believe her (in part because she's written some articles exposing their corruption), and when the investigate, they find a woman Danielle (Margot Kidder) in the process of divorcing her husband (William Finney), and Danielle's twin sister Dominique. No body and certainly no evidence that there's been a murder! So Grace hires private eye Joseph (Charles Durning) and starts to investigate the case. What she finds is disturbing, as of course there really was a murder, a fact she knows since she saw the murder with her own eyes.
Our final selection is something a bit lighter: Summer Stock, at 8:00 AM Sunday. TCM seems to have been showing a bunch of Judy Garland musicals on Sunday mornings recently, and this is another one. Here, she plays farmer Jane, who could use some help around the place. She's in luck to an extent, as her sister Abigail (Gloria de Haven) is an actress who is willing to let the troupe she's with come to the farm if Jane can let them stay there; they'll do some of the work. Jane isn't so sure at first, but than the director of the troupe, Joe Ross (Gene Kelly) works on convincing Jane that this will all work out. Complications ensue, as Jane begins to fall for Joe, which is a problem since Jane is engaged to the lock banker's (Ray Collins) son (Eddie Bracken), while Joe is supposed to be engaged to Abigail. This was Garland's last film at MGM before being summarily let go; Kelly, for his part, does the dance on a sheet of newspaper.