Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of March 3-9, 2014. This week sees the end of 31 Days of Oscar and a return to TCM's normal programming lineup, with a new Star of the Month and a new Friday night spotlight. There's one ofther special programming feature, and some good movies on other channels. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned. Note that this week sees Daylight Savings time begin early Sunday morning, so check the overnight schedule between Saturday and Sunday carefully.
There's one final day of 31 Days of Oscar, and the morning and afternoon of that day are spent showing the rest of the Best Picture nominees from 1935. The last is The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, which is listed as beginning at 6:10 PM Monday, which is a departure from TCM's normal programming of having features begin on a quarter-hour. The Bengal Lancers are a regiment of British soldiers, serving on the Northwest Fronter of British India, which would rougly correspond to the area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which was restive even then. Guy Standing plays Col. Stone, the commander, whose job it is to repulse the invasions from Mohammed Khan (Douglas Dumbrille). He's helped by Lt. McGregor (Gary Cooper), who is supposed to be relieved by Forsythe (Franchot Tone), but the replacements also send in Col. Stone's son. And then the young Lt. Stone gets kidnapped by Mohammed Khan. Can McGregor and Forsythe save him?
I'm not particularly a fan of Marlon Brando, but I know a lot of people do like him, so I'll mention him in Morituri, which is airing on FXM/the Fox Movie Channel at . Brando is miscast as a man of German descent stuck in British India in World War II. British intelligence, in the form of Trevor Howard, learn about him, and they decide to use him in a plan. The Nazis are taking the Japanese ship Morituri frmo Japan to Germany with a supply of valuable rubber, which the British could use. Brando is to pose as an SS officer, board the ship, and prevent the captain (Yul Brynner) from scuttling the ship then the British try to take it and its cargo. Complicating matters is that the German crew suspect Brando of not quite being loyal to the Nazis, further, they're carrying several prisoners in addition to that valuable rubber.
You may recall that last July, TCM brought us Carson on TCM, with 25 interviews Johnny Carson did with various old and more recent Hollywood stars. Carson on TCM returns this month, with another 25 interviews on Tuesdays. This first Tuesday in March brings six interviews:
James Stewart from 1976 (I don't remember which of his appearances is the one in which he reads the poem about his dog Beau);
Jack Lemmon from 1979;
Sally Field from 1979; I'd guess she was there to plug Norma Rae, which came out a week and a half after this appearance;
Diane Keaton from late 1972 (between her roles in The Godfather and Sleeper);
Angie Dickinson from 1980; and
Sammy Davis Jr. from 1972.
Following Carson on TCM is a look at the films of one of the evening's interviewees; in this case that's Sammy Davis Jr. Ocean's Eleven, the heist film that comes on at 9:15 PM, actually has both Davis and Angie Dickinson, but the film I'd like to recommend instead is the following film, Anna Lucasta at 11:30 PM. Eartha Kitt plays Anna, a prostitute working the bars near the port of San Diego for the Navy men who drop in. Sammy Davis Jr. plays a man in love with her, but her life is about to turn upside down. Her estranged family up the coast, led by patriarch Rex Ingram, has gotten a letter from an old friend back east. The friend's son is coming out west with a bunch of money and in need of a wife. Ingram and his family all see dollar signs, as they get the idea to find Anna and bring her back. Whether or not she likes the idea isn't quite considered. Before anybody thinks this movie is playing off of any black stereotypes, it had originated as a Broadway play turned into a movie with an all-white cast a decade earlier.
Over on FXM/what's left of the Fox Movie Channel, you'll find Freckles, at 6:00 AM Wednesday. This is about a young man (Martin West) who lost a hand, but has been hired by a man who owns 2,000 acres of forest to look after the forest for the summer and make certain there are no fires or nobody trying to cut down any of the trees. While patrolling the land, Freckles comes across the lovely young lady Chris, and falls in love with her even though the two are of completely different social backgrounds. Freckles also finds out that there are people trying to engage in illegal logging, and it's up to him to stop it, although he winds up getting a little help from Chris. Unfortunately, the last time FMC ran this movie, they ran a panned-and-scanned print, which is a shame since it looks as though it should have some gorgeous location shooting, what with the mountain forest.
For those of you who like more recent movies, you could do worse than to watch New Jack City, which is coming up several times: 10:20 AM Wednesday on Encore Action, and Friday at 11:35 AM and 10:30 PM on Encore Black. Wesley Snipes, before his tax problems, plays Nino, a small-time gangster who gets on the crack cocaine bandwagon on the ground floor. On producing and distributing, not using. Nino is particularly violent in working his way ot the top, killing people and eventually taking over an entire building, and drawing the attention of the police. This is in the form of Scotty (Ice-T), a detective who lost his mother to the drug gangs, and his partner Nick (Judd Nelson). A young Chris Rock plays Pookie, a man who got on crack, got off it, and now helps the police. Nino does eventually get a comeuppance of sorts, but not quite the one you expect.
This being the first full week of March, we've got a new Star of the Month, Mary Astor. Her movies will be airing every Wednesday night, running well into Thursday. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Great Lie (airing at 10:00 PM Wednesday), but the movie I'd like to mention this week is The World Changes, at 2:30 AM Thursday. Paul Muni plays the son of a family that goest west to grow up with the country, west here being the Dakotas. He eventually grows up to be a cattleman, beoming rich in part with the help of meat packer Guy Kibbee; he then marries Kibbee's daughter (that's Mary Astor), who has grown up less with a pioneer spirit than with finishing schools. The two eventually produce a wealthy family, but Astor's taste for the good life spoils the children (reminiscent of Sweepings), which will come back to bite the family when the stock market crashes in 1929.
The Friday night spotlight will be looking at food in the movies, and you could do a lot worse than to start off the month with Eat Drink Man Woman. Chu is a widowed chef with three adult daughters, who has a tradition of having all of them be at home for a big Sunday dinner which he lovingly prepares. However, he's beginning to lose his sense of smell, which is a disaster for a chef since he can't tell how good or bad the food is. His three daughters are also more and more having adult lives of their own and want to live those much to the chagrin of Dad, since their modernity clashes with his tradition. Meanwhile, an older lady neighbor whose divorced daughter has returned from America with child in tow is trying to pursue Dad. Life throws them all some curves, but everybody muddles through to a satisfying ending. It's a charming story with lots of lovely food photography mixed in, such as the wonderment of the older lady's granddaughter having school lunches made by Chu, and all the kid's classmates watching the delicacies being unwrapped.
Saturday night sees the start of another season of The Essentials. For the third year, Drew Barrymore will be sitting down alongside Robert Osborne to talk about a bunch of movies that presumably are "essential" for any well-rounded movie buff to have seen. The first movie they're presenting is Marty at 8:00 PM Saturday, in which Ernest Borgnine plays a homely bachelor who meets spinster schoolteacher Betsy Blair and finds himself falling in love. It's part of a night of movies written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Delbert Mann, the other two being:
Middle of the Night at 9:45 PM, with older widowed executive Fredric March falling for secretary Kim Novak; and
The Bachelor Party at midnight Sunday (ie 11:00 PM Saturday LFT), about a bachelor party and how it affects the married men who attend.
Thanks to Daylight Savings time, TCM Underground doesn't begin until 3:00 AM: The Bachelor Party is about 95 minutes and there's currently no short between that and the first Undergournd picture, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, so there's currently 20 or so minutes unaccounted for. Plan accordingly if you want to record anything in the Saturday overnight timeslot.
Shirley Temple died last month, and with 31 Days of Oscar, TCM had to wait to do a programming tribute to her. That tribute is this Sunday, with an eight-film salute starting at 4:30 PM with Heidi. Shirley Temple movies include a lot of singing and dancing, and perhaps her most famous musical number is "On the Good Ship Lollipop", from the movie Bright Eyes, which is on at 8:00 PM Sunday. Temple plays a girl whose aviator father has died, so mom is working as a maid for a wealthy family to make ends meet. Unfortunately, Mom gets run down by a car, leaing Shirley an orphan. Dad's best friend, and her godfather (James Dunn), would like to adopt Shirley. But the uncle of the family for which Mom had been working (Charles Sellon) wants them to take in Shirley, which they do for appearance's sake even though they don't want to. Who will get custody of Shirley? Comic relief is provided by Jane Withers (still alive at 87), playing the bratty daughter of the family for which Shirley's mom had been working. She upstages Shirley in several scenes, including one in which she rips the limbs off a doll! Wow is she bratty!
Finally, there are a lot of shorts on the schedule this week, although it doesn't look like TCM has any Traveltalks shorts just yet. One that looks interesting, although I haven't seen it before, is The Big Revue, at about 1:56 AM Thursday, or just after Mary Astor in the silent Don Juan (midnight between Wednesday and Thursday, running 112 minutes plus Robert Osborne's commentary). Also known as The Starlet Revue -- or at least that's the title on the TCM schedule as opposed to the IMDb page -- this one stars Frances Gumm and her sisters Mary Jane and Virginia, performing a musical number. You can be forgiven if you don't recognize the name Frances Gumm. She eventually had it changed to Judy Garland, and became a star under that name.
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