Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of March 18-24, 2019. We haven't found out yet where and when your Badgers are going to play their next basketball games, so why deal with that wait by watching some good movies? I continue to use my good taste to select a bunch of movies I know you'll all like. There's Star of the Month Fredric March; journalism movies presented by Anderson Cooper on Thursday, and interesting stuff on other channels as well. As always, all times are in Eastern unless otherwise mentioned.
Director Stanley Donen died last month, and since that was during 31 Days of Oscar, TCM couldn't do a tribute until March. That tribute comes up this Monday in prime time, starting at 8:00 PM with the Private Screenings interview that he did with Robert Osborne a dozen years ago. Donen was known for his work with Gene Kelly, and directing musicals in general, so for better or worse we get a bunch of musicals as the rest of the night's lineup; no Charade or Arabesque. But there are some of the best musicals in the night's lineup:
Donen co-directed Singin' in the Rain (9:00 PM Monday) with Gene Kelly; Kelly stars as the actor who has to adjust to the transition to talking pictures.
They also co-directed On the Town (11:00 PM), which has Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin as a trio of navy men who get 24 hours' leave in New York.
As for one Donen directed solo, you could watch Royal Wedding at 3:00 AM Tuesday; this is the movie that has Fred Astaire's famous dance on the ceiling.
Freckles is back on FXM, at 6:00 AM Monday. Martin West plays the title character, a young man missing his left hand who shows up at a logging camp in California looking for a job with landowner McLean (Roy Bancroft). You'd think an amputee wouldn't be useful in a physical field like forestry, but McLean gives him a job looking out for Duncan (Jack Lambert) who had a previous claim on the land, and Duncan's men who have been trespassing and cutting down trees. Freckles runs into amateur photographer Alice Cooper (Lorna Thayer), who, it turns out, is looking for her niece Chris (Carol Christensen) who is living up here in the mountains. Freckles meets Chris and falls in love with her, but she's going to be leaving to go off to college, which makes Freckles unhappy. Meanwhile, there's going to be a confrontation with Duncan and his men. This on was based on a popular book from the early 1900s, which had been filmed a couple of times before this one.
TCM is honoring birthday girl Betty Compson on Tuesday with several of her movies, including Street Girl at 12:45 PM. Compson plays Frederika, the immigrant woman who is temporarily homeless in the big city when she's spotted by Mike (John Harron). Mike leads a small combo that performs at a local club and lives with the other members, and when she suggests one of their songs would be better with violin accompaniment and she proves herself to be a great violinist, she's in the band. But they perform at a restaurant run by another immigrant from her home country, and then a Prince Nicholas (Ivan Lebedeff) from that country visits, recognizes Frederika, and kisses her, which causes all sorts of success for the band and the restaurant, but also all sorts of problems. By this time, Mike has fallen in love with Frederika, but she still has feelings for Nicholas, something that threatens to break up the band. Surprisingly good for a pre-42nd Street musical.
Fredric March's turn as Star of the Month continues on Tuesday night on TCM. I could recommend The Best Years of Our Lives (8:00 PM) again, but instead this week I'll mention the movie that follows, Another Part of the Forest at 11:00 PM Tuesday. Based on the play by Lillian Hellman, this is a sort of prequel to The Little Foxes. Fredric March plays Marcus Hubbard, the patriarch of a family in 1880s Alabama who is despised for his actions in the Civil War, notably running the blockade and making a mint off of it not having been a member of the old southern aristocracy. He's got two sons, ambitious Benjamin (Edmond O'Brien) and dumb Oscar (Dan Duryea) whom he doesn't really like, and a daughter Regina (Ann Blyth) he spoils rotten, obviously having learned nothing from Mildred Pierce. The kids all want to make their own way in the world, but to do that they're going to have to go up against father. Ben discovers an old family secret which could change everything. If you like overheated southern melodrama, this one is definitely for you.
There's no football on the gridiron for several months yet, so why not watch a movie like Heaven Can Wait instead? It will be on StarzEncore Classics at 3:10 AM Wednesday. Warren Beatty plays Joe Pendleton, backup quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams. Just as he's about to be named the starter, he gets in a traffic collision that kills him. Except that when he gets to Heaven, the bosses determine that the junior-grade angel who brought him there goofed and he wasn't supposed to die for years yet. So Mr. Jordan (James Mason) brings him back to Earth to find a suitable body to host Joe. He gets put in the body of an industrialist Farnsworth, not realizing that the industrialist's wife (Dyan Cannon) and executive assistant (Charles Grodin) are out to kill him. Joe, as Farnsworth, sees that there's a chance to get back into the Rams' lineup and lead the team to the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Joe falls in love with a woman (Julie Christie) protesting one of Farnsworth's factories. If all of this sounds familiar, it's because the movie is a remake of the 1941 classic Here Comes Mr. Jordan.
TCM is running a bunch of shipboard movies on Thursday, including Melody Cruise at 6:00 AM. This one has two rich friends on an ocean cruise together. Pet Wells (Charlie Ruggles) is married, and worried of doing anything wrong because he just knows it will get back to his wife. Pete's friend, Alan Chandler (Phil Harris), is a notorious playboy who is just not looking for marriage yet. Part of Wells' job is to keep Chandler from winding up married. So of course you know that they're going to get involved with women in a whole bunch of ways, starting with a couple of young ladies who had too much to drink showing up in Wells' stateroom, and he has to pass them off as his "nieces". This was made in 1933 when 42nd Street was just beginning to change the Hollywood musical, so here we end up with another movie that's short on plot and more interesting for the musical numbers, which are fairly imaginatively staged for a studio that didn't have Busby Berkeley.
Those of you who like more complicated westerns will probably enjoy The Missouri Breaks, at 2:44 AM Thursday on StarzEncore Westerns. Jack Nicholson plays Tom Logan, leader of a gang of outlaws that has been stealing horses. The rancher Braxton (John McLiam) catches one of Logan's men and hangs him, which leads Logan to extract revenge by handing Braxton's foreman. Both men get bigger ideas, however. Logan decides that he's going to buy the land adjacent to the Braxton spread and use it as a base for transporting stolen horses. Not only that, but he's going to take Braxton's daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd), too. She's beginning to chafe under her father's severe ways. Braxton, on the other hand, decides he's going to rid the region of horse thieves once and for all, and to that end hires the best the "Regulators", a group who hunt down horse thieves, to do so: Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando). Watch for Randy Quaid and Harry Dean Stanton as fellow members of Logan's gang.
I should probably mention The First Traveling Saleslady since it's showing for the first time since Carol Channing died several weeks back. TCM will be running it at 4:15 PM Friday. Ginger Rogers plays the titular saleslady, Rose Gillray, who at the start of the movie is selling corsets in Texas with some help from her friend Molly (Carol Channing). Corsets aren't selling well, and she overhears another man saying that the ranchers are all trying to kill his salesmen who are trying to sell barbed wire. It's that darn ranchers vs. farmers thing that shows up in a lot of westerns. Anyhow, Rose figure that she can sell barbed wire, and can convince the ranchers that it won't hurt their cattle. One of the ranchers, Joel Kingdom (James Arness) doesn't believe her, and has her arrested, leading to the climactic trial. Changing is romantically paired with a cavalry officer played by Clint Eastwood, at the beginning of a career that still hasn't ended. She also gets to sing a song called "A Corset Can Do a Lot for a Lady".
We actually have a movie from the 1990s this week: King Ralph, which you can find on StarzEncore Family at 4:06 AM Friday. A whole bunch of the British royal family are brought together for a group photo, but a freak accident kills them all. Genealogists have to dig further than ever to find the closest related person to the royal family. Eventually, they find Ralph Jones (John Goodman). He's living in Las Vegas as a lounge singer in one of the lesser places. Understandably, he's not so certain, except that he needs the money. So he goes over to England, where Lord Willingham (Peter O'Toole) tries to teach Ralph in the ways of how to be a proper British monarch, which nowadays means little power and a life of a lot of ceremonial duties to go with all those opulent palaces. Ralph begins to chafe at that, and when Lord Graves (John Hurt) learns that His Highness has a mistress who likely wouldn't be approved of by the British public, he figures it's his chance to strike.
If you want a war movie this week, let me mention I Was an American Spy, which will be on TCM at 12:15 AM Saturday (ie. still late Friday evening in Wisconsin and points west). Ann Dvorak plays Claire Phillips, who was working at a nightclub in Manila when the Philippines were still an American possession. The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor bringing the US into World War II, and then the Japanese attacked the Philippines. After her soldier husband is killed, she changes her identity, managing the nightclub as a place for Japanese officers to relax. Of course, she's really working as an agent for the Americans still left behind enemy lines led by Cpl. Boone (Gene Evans) and the Filipino rebels who were fighting the Japanese. All of this was, of course, at great personal risk to herself. Thus is based on a true story and the real-life Phillips earned a Medal of Freedom for her actions.
I mentioned one remake earlier, and now I'll mention another: Back From Eternity, which is going to be on TCM at 2:00 AM Sunday. Robert Ryan plays Bill Lonagan, the pilot of a plane taking a motley crew of passengers from one South American location to another. There's co-pilot Joe (Keith Andes); condemned criminal Vasquel (Rod Steiger) together with the policeman taking him to justice (Fred Clark); an elderly couple (Cameron Prud'Homme and Beulah Bondi); and the showgirl (Anita Ekberg), among others. Unfortunately the plane develops mechanical problems and is forced to crash-land in the middle of the rain forest. Bill and Joe set about repairing the plane, but there's a catch. Due to the damage the plane suffered, the plane is only going to be able to take five people back on the flight out, so everybody else is going to have to wait for help to arrive. That's bad enough, but there's also a band of headhunters in this part of the jungle, which means not getting on that plane is near certain death. If this plot sounds familiar, it's because this is a remake of the 1939 film Five Came Back.