Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of June 7-13, 2020. With the weather warming up, it might not be a bad time to turn on the AC and watch some good movies in anticipation of Sunday when everybody celebrates Fedya's birthday. We've got more from Star of the Month Ann Sheridan; this month's TCM Spotlight, and some interesting stuff on some of the other channels, including a couple of 80s movies because I know you guys like the newer stuff. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
One of this month's TCM spotlights is Jazz on Film, which airs on Mondays and Thursdays in prime time. One of Monday's films is a movie I think I haven't mentioned before, A Man Called Adam, at 8:00 PM. Sammy Davis Jr. plays Adam, a jazz musician who's quite volatile. He was supposed to be away performing over a weekend, but returns to his New York apartment early to find that his best friend Nelson (Ossie Davis) lent the apartment to elder statesman of jazz Willie Ferguson (Louis Armstrong) and his civil rights campaigner granddaughter Claudia (Cicely Tyson). Adam begins to fall in love with Claudia and tries to become a better person so as to be able to earn her respect, but as I said he's quite volatile and that is going to get him in trouble with the law one of these days. The cast includes Davis' fellow Rat Pack member Peter Lawford; Frank Sinatra Jr. plays a man Adam is mentoring; and Mel Tormé has a cameo performing a number.
Quite a few of Neil Simon's plays have been turned into movies. One that I'm not certain I've recommended before is Brighton Beach Memoirs. The movie shows up at 7:40 AM Monday on Movie Max. Based loosely on Simon's own youth, the movie is the first of a trilogy about young Eugene (Jonathan Silverman), a Jewish boy living with his extended family in an apartment in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn in the late 1930s. Teenage years are tough for anybody what with the beginning to learn about sex, but in a packed apartment like this it might be worse. There's Eugene's dad Jack (Bob Dishy) and mom Kate (Blythe Danner), and her sister Blanche (Judith Ivey), who comes with her two daughters to live with the family because her own husband has died. And Eugene has an older brother Stanley who has been through it all and to whom Eugene looks up. The original play starred Matthew Broderick in the Eugene role, although he couldn't play it here because he was doing the next play in the trilogy, Biloxi Blues.
Ann Sheridan returns for another night of her movies as TCM's Star of the Month on Tuesday. Perhaps her best-known movie, Kings Row, kicks off the night at 8:00 PM, but the movie I'll mention is Woman on the Run, at 12:30 AM Wednesday (which is still late Tuesday evening LFT). Sheridan plays Eleanor Johnson, estranged wife of Frank (Ross Elliott). One night, Frank takes the dog for a walk, only to witness a murder when a hit man kills a grand jury witness. Frank knows that he's going to be next, so in the confusion with the police, he makes an escape. He sends Eleanor a cryptic letter with his whereabouts, and she tries to find him, especially after discovering he's got a heart issue and actually really loved her. She gets some help from a reporter, Leggett (Dennis O'Keefe), but he's also clearly got his own interests, as the story would be big. Meanwhile, other people who knew Frank start turning up dead. It all leads to an exciting climax at an amusement park. Good little noir helped by location shooting in San Francisco.
If you want a fun little western, you could do a lot worse than to watch the 1939 version of Destry Rides Again. There's a showing of it this week at 3:39 AM Wednesday on StarzEncore Westerns. James Stewart plays Destry, a man who gets called to the rough-and-tumble town of Bottleneck by the town's sheriff, Washington Dimsdale (Charles Winninger). Dimsdale is a drunk and Kent (Brian Donlevy), the real power behind the strings, got Dimsdale named sheriff to have somebody pliable in office. Kent didn't know that Dimsdale knew Destry, whose father was a famous sheriff in his own right. But Destry the younger, having seen that violence, is of a rather different mettle than his father, refusing to wear a gun. But the two men take to their new jobs, and with the help of Frenchie (Marlene Dietrich), the singer at the bar, they might just be able to clean up Bottleneck. There was an earlier talkie version of the movie and there would be another in the 50s, but this one is probably the best and helped revive Marlene Dietrich's career.
I hope the beaches in your state aren't still closed. If so, then perhaps you could go to Jones Beach in The Girl from Jones Beach, at 8:45 AM Thursday on TCM. Ronald Reagan plays Bob Randolph, an artist who has come up with the famous “Randolph Girl”. Except the girl doesn't actually exist. Instead, it's a composite of a dozen different women: one woman's leg, another's arm, a third's hair, and so on. Unfortunately, his best friend Chuck (Eddie Bracken) lets this slip, but Chuck at least offers some consolation. Over at Jones Beach he met a woman who looks exactly like the composite Randolph Girl. That woman is Ruth Wilson (Virginia Mayo), and Bob would like to use her as a model, but she's a teacher, and doesn't think posing in a swimsuit is dignified. So Bob comes up with a “brilliant” scheme that can't possibly go wrong. Ruth teaches an ESL class for immigrants, so Bob will pose as a Czech immigrant to get in Ruth's class and get her to model that way! Of course, the deception is going to be discovered, and Ruth could even lose her job for it. But you know this is the sort of movie that's going to have a happy ending.
A movie that's recently started showing up in the FXM rotation is Take Her, She's Mine. It's going to be on again this week, at 1:20 PM Thursday. James Stewart plays Frank Michaelson, a California lawyer who's about to be booted off a board of some sort because he's been the subject of all sorts of embarrassing headlines. So Michaelson has to defend himself, cue the flashbacks…. Frank is a family man with a wife Anne (Audrey Meadows) and two daughters, the elder of whom, Mollie (Sandra Dee) is 18 and going off to college. Frank doesn't seem to realize that his daughter is all woman now, and getting caught up in the social changes of the early 1960s at her all-girls' college in the Boston area. Mollie's letters cause consternation, so Frank flies off to Boston to find out what's going on, which gets him in one of the headlines, and Mollie ultimately booted from school. So Mollie goes off to Paris with her bohemian French artist boyfriend, where she causes more problems, leading Mike to follow her there and make more headlines.
Up against Take Her She's Mine is Desiging Woman, at 12:15 PM Thursday over on TCM. Gregory Peck stars, although obviously not as the woman; he's New York sportswriter Mike Hagen. While out on the west coast to cover a golf tournament, he gets good and drunk at a party for the writers and winds up meeting Marilla (Lauren Bacall). The two have a whirlwind romance and get married. Then they return to New York and find out that perhaps they should have had a longer courtship. Marilla is a fashion designer who gets hired to do the costumes for a new Broadway play, and has a bunch of fashionista and theater friends who are nothing like Mike's sportswriter friends. Worse is that Mike had an old flame Lori (Dolores Gray) who isn't too happy with Mike's marriage. And then Mike writes a potentially libelous piece about a boxing promoter who may be involved with the Mob, one that has the promoter sic the Mob on him (watch for future Rifleman Chuck Connors as one of the guys sicced on Mike), forcing Mike and Marilla to become closer as Mike tries to save his ass. If you're reminded of the Tracy/Hepburn movie Woman of the Year, you're not the first.
The “Jazz on Film” spotlight continues on Thursday night with a number of biopics, including The Glenn Miller Story, at 8:00 PM Thursday. James Stewart stars as Glenn Miller, who as you well know is the big band leader who helped make swing a thing in the 30s and early 1940s. He's seen struggling together with his girlfriend and later wife, Helen (June Allyson), trying to create a new sound that takes a while before it wins over the public. There's personal tragedy, too, as the band's bus is in a crash that leaves Helen unable to have children, forcing the Millers to adopt. And when Miller gets really successful, what should happen but World War II. Miller enlists, and brings morale to the troops and British people by playing “In the Mood” through an air raid. Finally, on Christmas Eve 1944, Miller is coming back from a mission in France when his plane disappears over the English Channel, with the mystery of what happened to him never completely solved. The soundtrack includes iconic songs like “Moonlight Serenade” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo”, which earned him an Oscar nomination.
You've got another chance to watch Repo Man this week, as it's showing up at 1:47 AM Friday on StarzEncore Classics. Emilio Estevez plays Otto, a slacker in the punk scene of 80s Los Angeles who one day gets an offer of easy money from Bud (Harry Dean Stanton). Bud, it turns out, repossesses cars for a shady company. Otto finds out that he's good at the business, and joins the company which has a bunch of oddball characters. Meanwhile, out in New Mexico, Miller (Tracy Walter) was pulled over in a vintage Chevy Malibu by a cop; when the cop looks in the trunk of the car, something kills him. Miller is making his way to Los Angeles, where a bounty has been put out to repossess the Malibu, with Bud and Otto's company trying to get it along with a rival company. Oh, and agents presumably from the federal government want the car for what's in the trunk. Otto's old punk friends keep showing up and eventually get involved with the Malibu, too.
If you're sick and tired of the politics of today, then watch some of the Politics of 90 years ago. The movie airs at 1:00 PM Friday on TCM. Marie Dressler stars here, in one of the programmer comedies where she was paired with Polly Moran. Here Dressler plays Hattie, a widow who isn't particularly interested in politics until a friend's kid is killed by a stray bullet in a gangland drive-by, this being the Prohibition era. When the mayor brushes Hattie off, she decides she'll take the mayor on directly by running for mayor, with Ivy (Polly Moran) serving as her campaign manager. Hattie and Ivy run on a platform that the men have screwed things up, and the women aren't going to take it anymore, which might make you think of the Greek play Lysistrata. But the campaign isn't going to go off without a hitch. Hattie has an adult daughter Myrtle (Karen Morley) who has a boyfriend Benny (William Bakewell). Benny has gotten into trouble with the law and is hiding out in the attic of Hattie's house!