Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of March 4-10, 2019. We've made it through another year of 31 Days of Oscar, which means it's time for TCM to go back to its regular series. So we'll get a new Star of the Month, and some of the other things. There's a lot of interesting stuff on other channels, too. And since the only sport going on is basketball, why not sit back and relax with some good movies? As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
TCM is running a bunch of boxing movies on Monday, a subject that has always been popular in the movies. One that I'm not certain if I've recommended before is Tennessee Champ, at 6:45 AM Monday. Dewey Martin plays the boxer here, a son of a preacher man named Daniel Norson. Daniel is on the run, thinking he accidentally killed a man in a fight. But he's discovered by Willy Wurble (Keenan Wynn), a promoter who has a rather shady way of doing things, much to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife Sarah (Shelley Winters) who would prefer he stay honest. Daniel has a good punch -- obviously he must if he thought he killed a man in a fight -- and Wily puts that to good use bringing Daniel up through the ranks. But then Willy wants him to throw a fight, which Daniel doesn't want to do. And then Daniel steps in the ring.... This is one of those MGM programmers from the 1950s, which are often just as interesting as the big-budget Technicolor musicals they were making at the same time.
The listings show that the 1971 movie The Beguiled is going to be on StarzEncore Classics at 11:20 AM Monday. Clint Eastwood stars as John McBurney, a Union soldier who is on a mission deep in the heart of Confederate territory when he gets shot. He's found by an adolescent girl, who, as it turns out, is a student at a boarding school that somehow is able to keep running what with the war on. There, the headmistress Martha (Geraldine Page) has a dilemma of what to do with him. The women and girls at the school have barely seen a man since all the battle-age men are off fighting, and McBurney is able to use this to his advantage. At first they confine him to one room, but then he starts using psychological manipulation on all of them, including Martha's assistant Edwina (Elizabeth Hartman). If this plot sounds familiar, that's because the movie was remade in 2017. That remake is going to be on TV several times this week.
Tuesday morning and afternoon brine several Rex Harrison movies to TCM, including King Richard and the Crusaders at 11:00 AM. George Sanders plays Richard the Lionhearted, who in the 1190s led a crusade to the Holy Land to take it back from the Moslem invaders. However, there's a bunch of infighting amongst the multinational force, with only Richard's Scottish retainer Sir Kenneth (Laurence Harvey) remaining loyal to him. Richard's cousin Edith (Virginia Mayo) loves Kenneth, but Richard isn't so sure about that relationship, since Edith would make a good wife in a royal alliance with some other country's royalty. As for Rex Harrison, he plays a Muslim doctor who treats Richard after Richard gets shot by an arrow from some of the other Christians who are supposedly supporting him. The doctor is also in love with Edith, except that he has a secret that he's been hiding. Loosely based on one of Sir Walter Scott's lesser known works, the movie has been panned more than it probably deserves.
Now that we're done with 31 Days of Oscar, it's time to get back to the regular programming on TCM, such as the Star of the Month. This time out, it's Fredric March, and his movies are going to be showing every Tuesday in prime time. On this first Tuesday in March (no pun intended), we get some of his earlier movies, including The Dark Angel at 3:30 AM Wednesday. March plays Alan Trent, who was childhood friends with Gerald (Herbert Marshall) and Kitty (Merle Oberon). Kitty loves both, but ultimately decides she's going to marry Alan. Except that the Great War intervenes (this was made in 1935, so it wasn't called World War I yet). Alan and Gerald both have to go off to war, with Gerald being the commanding officer of Alan's regiment. Alan spends his last hours in the UK with Kitty, but Gerald gets erroneous information that Alan was with a woman other than Kitty. So Gerald sends Alan on a dangerous mission that results in Alan being reported killed in action. Gerald goes home to Kitty, but can the two ever be happy together?
If you want to see the ample assets of Mamie Van Doren in a western, watch Star in the Dust, at 4:39 AM Wednesday on StarzEncore Westerns. Mamie is Ellen, girlfriend of sheriff Bill Jorden (John Agar). The good sheriff has a serious problem on his hands, in that there's a range was going on between the farmers and the cattle ranchers, and three farmers have been found murdered. Sam Hall (Richard Boone) has been arrested for the crime, and the sheriff wants him to hang legally, but also knows Hall is just the hired killer for somebody, and the sheriff wants to find out who that somebody is. The problem is, that somebody might be Ellen's brother George (Leif Erickson), who's one of the bigwigs among the cattle ranchers. Meanwhile, the farmers want to lynch Sam and the cattlemen want to spring him from prison. Then there's Sam's girlfriend Kellie (Coleen Gray). Watch also for James Gleason, Harry Morgan and Paul Fix.
For those of you who like your Hollywood biopics without a shred of truth, you could do worse than to watch Kit Carson, at 2:00 AM Thursday on TCM. Jon Hall plays the legendary trapper and scout for wagon trains west. In this one, after getting attacked by Indians, he hooks up with John C. Fremont (a young Dana Andrews), who is going to be taking people along the Oregon Trail and then south to California. At the time the movie is set, California was still part of Mexico, so part of the influx of Americans was to see if the US could take over the valuable territory. Along the way, the two men are companions to the lovely Dolores Murphy (Lynn Bari), who is going out to California to reunite with her father. (Not that Fremont and Carson ever got involved in this sort of love triangle in real life, but the movie needs some romantic conflict.) The Governor of California is none too happy about the Americans coming, so he pays off a bunch of Indians to attack them. A lot of standard stuff for a western, but not bad.
I thought I had mentioned For Heaven's Sake recently, but a search of the site says I haven't. It's going to be on FXM Retro at 4:30 AM Friday. Clifton Webb plays Charles, an angel in Heaven who gets sent down to earth to deal with the matter of little Item (Gigi Perreau). She's an angel who hasn't been born yet, and has selected the perfect parents, the Boltons (Joan Bennett and Bob Cummings). There's just one problem. The Boltons are part of the Broadway set, and their lives are so busy with plays and trying to get the funding for them that, well, they just don't have time for sex, not that it's put quite so bluntly. The job for Charles is to get Item conceived. So Charles plays the part of a Texas millionaire who could provide the funding for the Boltons' latest play, giving them the opportunity to have a love life. But the Boltons' marriage isn't so simple, and Charles begins to find that he enjoys life in corporeal form, prompting Heaven to send down Arthur (Edmund Gwenn) to deal with Charles as well as the Boltons. Joan Blondell provides support as another theater actress.
I'm not certain if I've recommend Party Girl before, but it's going to be on at 6:45 AM Friday on TCM. Robert Taylor plays Tommy, a lawyer in 1930s Chicago. Tommy wants to be a good lawyer, but he's working for Rico (Lee J. Cobb), who's one of the gang bosses. Rico has a love for the high life and throws parties with lots of chorus girls for entertainment, and it's at one of these parties that Tommy meets Vicki (Cyd Charisse). She's one of the women Rico brings in, and when Tommy meets her, the two begin to fall in love. This gives Tommy the idea that perhaps there's more to life than defending the Mob, and that perhaps he could go honest. Rico, for his part, has been paying Tommy well and thinks he should be able to keep retaining Tommy's services. So he's not about to let Tommy go honest. Charisse shows she wasn't just a dancer, and Taylor shows he could really act. But it's still an MGM movie, and they could never hide the glitz, even in a movie like this that needs less glamour.
TCM's Saturday matinee block finished up with the Hildegard Withers movies just before 31 Days of Oscar, so now it's time for a new series in the 10:00 slot, and that's the Perry Mason movies. This week, it's The Case of the Curious Bride at 10:08 AM, which is notable for the murder victim being played in one brief scene by Errol Flynn just before he became a star. Elsewhere in the block, there's another Popeye cartoon at 10:00 AM, and the 1940 Flash Gordon serial.
For those of you who prefer more recent movies, this week's selection is Splash, which will be on Movie Channel Xtra at 2:10 PM Saturday. Tom Hanks plays Allen, who runs his family's wholesale produce business but has childhood memories that nobody else believes of having been saved my a mermaid when he nearly drowned. Now as an adult, he falls into the sea again, and this time, the mermaid that saved him the first time finds Allen's wallet. Now that she has that, she (Darryl Hannah) can find Allen at his home in New York to return the wallet and to find out what life on dry land is like. On land, taking the name Madison, she and Allen fall in love, but there's the same problem that every other mermaid movie has, which is that Allen can't live under the sea with a mermaid, and that if Madison (don't ask her real name) stays on dry land, her secret is going to come out. Still, it's a fun little romantic comedy; hard to believe that Saturday is the 35th anniversary of its US release. John Candy plays Allen's brother Freddie, who has rather different views on love.
Finally, I'll mention an atypical movie for John Wayne: McQ, which TCM is showing at 8:00 PM Saturday. Wayne plays Lon McQ, a Seattle policeman whose partner gets shot under mysterious circumstances one morning, along with two plainclothes officers. McQ starts to investigate, being certain that drug kingpin Santiago (Al Lettieri) is behind it, but McQ finds that his boss Kosterman (Eddie Albert) is stymying McQ's investigation. McQ continues against orders, with some support from city councillor Toms (Clu Gulager) and private detective Pinky (David Huddleston), and finds that there are police in on this narcotics deal. Possibly even McQ's partner, and the partner's wife (Diana Muldaur). Meanwhile, back at home, McQ's own marriage to his wife (Julie Adams) is on the skids. This is a surprisingly depressing police drama from Wayne, who does his best despite being a bit miscast. Wayne would do another police movie, Brannigan, which is a far lighter picture.