Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of June 3-9, 2019. We're in the first full week of a new month, so we're getting some new programming features, like a new Star of the Month on TCM and a new spotlight. There's another movie coming out of the Fox vault to run on FXM, and some interesting stuff that's relatively recent (well, if you consider the 1980s recent). As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
I thought I had recommended the movie Reversal of Fortune a few weeks ago, although it's possible it was the week that the thread only got saved and never actually posted. It's going to be on this week at 4:45 PM Monday on More Max. Jeremy Irons plays Claus von Bülow, who was put on trial for attempting to kill his estranged wife Sunny with an insulin overdose that left her in a coma for the last 25+ years of her life. He hires Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) to defend him. I mention the movie again because von Bülow died last week aged 92.
It's not all that common that TCM runs silent movies outside the traditional Silent Sunday Nights slot, but there's one this week: Pandora's Box, at 8:00 PM Monday. Louise Brooks left Hollywood for Germany to make this one, playing Lulu, a woman being kept by her newspaper editor boyfriend Dr. Schön (Fritz Kortner). However, Lulu is a former dancer who has a reputation for being a wanton woman, and Dr. Schön eventually decides he's going to marry a woman of his social class. Lulu doesn't take that lying down, so when Schön and his fiancée show up to her stage show, Lulu manipulates him into marrying her! That's not going to work either, and when he realizes what she's done to him, he takes a gun and tries to force her to commit suicide. The struggle winds up with him getting shot and no witnesses, leading to a trial and tragic consequences when a fire at the courthouse leads to a chance to escape. Well-made, but sadly it came right at the end of the silent era and led to a sharp decline in Brooks' career.
If you like crappy 70s song references, this week's thread has a couple. One of the earworms you'll get stuck with is evident from the following film, Tequila Sunrise, which will be on StarzEncore Classics at 10:45 AM Monday. Mel Gibson plays Mac McKussic, a man who made mistakes earlier in life by dealing drugs. He's trying to stay clean now, and likes to see restaurateur Jo Ann (Michelle Pfeiffer). However, he finds himself getting roped into one last drug deal, apparently organized by the enigmatic Mexican Carlos (Raul Julia). The American authorities are aware of this, so they send out DEA agent Nick Frescia (Kurt Russell) to investigate. He's a friend of Mac's even if he has to investigate his old friend. Anyhow, he goes to see Jo Ann, figuring he might be able to pump her for information. What happens is that he finds himself falling in love with her, and that combined with having to investigate Mac puts a huge strain on their friendship.
It's been a while since I've mentioned the movie Our Mother's House. It's going to be on again this week, at 2:00 PM Tuesday on TCM. Seven siblings live together in a house in London with their sickly, fire-and-brimstone Christian mother, and no father in sight. So when Mom dies, the kids face a crisis. If they tell anyone, the authorities will put them in foster care, which they don't want. Fortunately, Mom was raising the kids on an annuity, and one of the kids is able to forge Mom's signature, so they bury Mom in the backyard, have nightly seances to commune with her, and live off the annuity, all while keeping adults out of the house. And then Charlie (Dirk Bogarde) shows up. He has some shocking news for the kids: he's their father! The younger ones are happy to have a father around, but the older ones worry that he might be an impostor, and might be after Mom's savings, which was for when the kids grew up. Charlie has some more shocks for the kids, and they have one for Charlie.
A western showing up on StarzEncore Westerns that I haven't recommended before is Untamed Frontier, at 6:19 AM Wednesday. The Denbows own a whole bunch of land in the territory, and they're using some of the federal land to graze their cattle. The feds have promised that land to settlers under the Homestead Act, but the catch is that they can only get to that land by crossing a strip of Denbow property. Cousin Kirk (Joseph Cotten) tries to be more pragmatic about it, but he has to deal with his hot-headed cousin Glenn (Scott Brady). Things that complicated when Scott gets in a gunfight in town. The only problem is, somebody removed the other guy's gun, so Scott could face a murder charge, depending on what the one witness, Jane (Shelley Winters) does. The Denbows want her to decamp to Texas, which she refuses, so Glenn comes up with the idea of marrying her, since a wife can't be forced to testify against her husband! They get married, but Jane slowly begins to see what a slimeball her husband is. Meanwhile, she's also beginning to fall for Kirk.
If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain, you might like the next selection, Escape, at 4:30 PM Wednesday on TCM. Robert Taylor plays Mark, an American whose mother was originally from Germany. His mom Emmy (Alla Nazimova) returned to Germany to sell some real estate that was still in the family, but this is Germany in 1938 so her actions make her fall afoul of the Nazis, who put her in a concentration camp and sentence her to death. Mark learns his mother has gone missing and tries to find her, but unsurprisingly, everybody tells him to go home, since they're all afraid of the Nazis. One person who tries to offer some help is another American, the Countess von Treck (Norma Shearer). She had married a count before the Nazis came to power and stayed in the country after he died, in part because she's in a relationship with General von Kolb (Conrad Veidt). A plot is hatched to get Mom out of the concentration camp, but how realistic is it? One of the interesting things about this movie is that it was released in 1940, before the US got involved in World War II, and Hollywood was at the time mostly hedging its bets regarding the Nazis.
We're in the first full week of a new month, which means it's time for a new Star of the Month. This time, it's Jane Powell, who starred in a bunch of MGM musicals in the 1940s and 50s before marrying former child star Dickie Moore (her fifth marriage and longest lasting; 27 years until his death). Her movies are going to be on TCM every Wednesday in prime time throughout June Probably her best known role is opposite Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding, which is going to be on next week. This first Wednesday sees several of Powell's early roles when she was a young adult, such as Holiday in Mexico at 8:00 PM Wednesday. This one has her playing the daughter of the US Ambassdor to Mexico (Walter Pidgeon) and falling in love with a Mexican pianist (José Iturbi playing himself) who's much too old for her. Powell and Iturbi would also appear together in Three Daring Daughters which comes on at 10:00 PM.
A movie that's back on FXM after a long layoff is Stand Up and Cheer!, at 4:50 AM Thursday. It's billed as a Shirley Temple movie, although it's before she became a real star, so she only has a couple of scenes. The star is Warner Baxter, playing impresario Lawrence Cromwell. He's called upon by Franklin Roosevelt because there's a depression on, and Roosevelt has decided that one of the ways to solve it is to lift the spirits of the people by providing them bread and circuses. So Cromwell's job is to be the Secretary of Amusement, and find various acts to fill the bill and entertain the people. So Cromwell finds a bunch of odd acts and fills the movie with musical numbers. Meanwhile, there are people who don't want Cromwell to succeed because as the real-life Roosevelt and later presidents like Obama understood, an economic crisis is a good opportunity to stick the government's claws into everybody's life, and who doesn't want that sort of power? Shirley Temple plays Shirley, a little girl who dances with her father Jimmy (James Dunn, who would appear in several movies with Shirley). Madge Evans plays Cromwell's secretary.
Thursday is the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II. It's no surprise, then, that one of TCM's spotlight this month is on World War II combat movies, to go along with last month's spotlight on homefront movies. The spotlight will be every Thursday in prime time, but since this Thursday is the actual anniversary, there are going to be war movies in the morning and afternoon, including Dunkirk at 4:15 PM. Now, this isn't the 2017 movie, but one from 1958. If you don't know the story, there were British troops in France in the early days of the war, when the Nazis attacked France and defeated France fairly quickly. The British forces had to retreat, but eventually they got to the English Channel, from which there was no further retreat, except by ship. The Navy didn't have enough ships, so any private vessel they could find had its owner urged to cross the Channel and ferry soldiers back to Britain. John Mills plays an officer in command of some of the retreating soldiers: Richard Attenborough plays one of the small boat owners; and Bernard Lee plays a reporter covering the story.
I'm recommending a pair of 80s movies this week. One for the ladies is Dirty Dancing, at 11:48 AM Friday on Starz (and three hours later if you only have the west coast feed). Jennifer Grey plays Frances Houseman, nicknamed "Baby", who is vacationing in the Catskills in the early 60s before all those resorts went bankrupt, with her parents (Jerry Orbach and Kelly Bishop). They're upper-middle class, and expect a life path for Baby of going to college to find a husband and then becoming an upper-middle class wife. But Baby meets the dance instructor Johnny (Patrick Swayze), and becomes infatuated with him. The only thing is, he's already got a girlfriend (Cynthia Rhodes). Well, that and that he's most definitely not the right class for Baby. Anyhow, Johnny gets his girlfriend knocked up. Since this is the era before legal abortion, Baby lies to get the money from her father to pay for an illegal abortion, and when Dad finds out, boy is he ever pissed. The movie won an Oscar, in the Best Original Song category:
Doris Day died last month. TCM is going to honor her with a 24-hour marathon of her movies this coming Sunday, starting at 6:00 AM. Since Day started off as a singer, I suppose it's appropriate that I mention one of her musicals, Calamity Jane, at 4:00 PM. Day plays the title character, the old west figure who is based in Deadwood, SD, although at the time of the movie it was still the Dakota Territory and not a state. She was friends with Wild Bill Hickok (Howard Keel), and handy with a gun as she helped protect stagecoaches from the Sioux. She's also got a soldier, Lt. Gilmartin (Philip Carey), lusting after her. The dramatic action in the story involves the fact that there are a lot more men then women in Deadwood, and they're starved for a pretty woman. When one of the saloon owners' attempts to bring a famous actress to town backfires, Jane goes off to Chicago to find a different prominent actress and bring her to Deadwood, something which gets Jane in touch with her feminine side.