Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, week of May 26-June 1, 2014

Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of May 26-June 1, 2014.  This week sees a very special Guest Programmer on TCM, as well as the last week of Star of the Month June Allyson and the last night of Jacki Weaver presenting Australian films.  Plus, with Sunday being the first Sunday of the summer viewing season, we've got another season of Essentials Jr., presenting movies good for the whole family, including the kids.  As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.

Monday is Memorial Day, or the last day of TCM's annual spotlight on war movies.  One of the movies that I don't think I've mentioned very often before is The Fighting Sullivans, at 6:00 PM Monday.  This is based on the true story of the five Sullivan brothers from Iowa.  When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor they, like many young American men, enlisted to serve in the military.  The Sullivans joined the Navy on one condition: that they be allowed to serve on the same ship together.  The Navy doesn't allow that any longer, and the Sullivans are the reason why.  Their ship, the USS Juneau, was sunk by the Japanese at Guadalcanal, killing all five of the Sullivans.  The government used the parents' grim determination to go on with life despite losing all five sons as propaganda for all Americans on the home front, and this movie was obviously part of that effort.  Thomas Mitchell plays the Sullivans' father; Anne Baxter their sister.

It's not quite a Memorial Day movie, being British, but FXM/FMC is showing Guns at Batrasi, at 11:40 AM Monday and again at 6:00 AM Tuesday.  Richard Attenborough stars as Regimental Sgr. Major Lauderdale, who is commanding a British base in a recently independent African country, dealing with subordinates who think he's old-fashioned and some female visitors to the base.  Suddenly, a coup breaks out in the country, putting everybody at the base in danger.  Lauderdale makes things more difficult for himself by trying to keep the deposed military commander safe, which causes the mutineers to put the base in even more danger.  Veteran actress Flora Robson plays a British MP of the naive peacenik sort, while a young Mia Farrow is a UN worker who winds up as a love interest to one of the Sgt. Major's subordinates.  This was shot in England on a low budget, getting nowhere near Africa, but it's still pretty good.

Last week I mentioned a couple of birthdays that fall during 31 Days of Oscar.  This week sees another such honoree on TCM: Merle Oberon, who was born February 19, 1911.  TCM is showing several of her movies on Tuesday, including Night in Paradise at 3:30 PM.  Turhan Bey plays Aesop, the ancient Greek known today for his fables.  Here, he's telling one of those tales in the service of King Croesus (Thomas Gomez) and the lovely Delarai (Oberon), but there's not all that much to the story itself, to be honest.  Things about matchmaking and about trying to stop an unwinnable war, but the story isn't the memorable part.  Instead, this is a movie that ought to be seen for its surprisingly good production values and Technicolor.  Gale Sondergaard plays a sorceress who makes life difficult for Aesop.

Tuesday night sees this month's TCM Guest Programmer: Dolores Hart.  Hart was an actress in the early 1960s, even making a movie with Elvis, but she gave it up in order to become a Catholic nun.  She's still a nun, and will be sitting down with Robert Osborne to select four of her favorite movies:
First, at 8:00 PM, is Lisa, which is one of Hart's own movies.  She plays Lisa, a Holocaust survivor who gets smuggled to England, gets mixed up in the smuggler's death, and then tries to escape to Palestine with a Dutch policeman (Stephen Boyd).
Next up, at 10:00 PM, is Laura, in which Dana Andrews tries to figure out who killed Gene Tierney, until the murder investigation takes a strange turn.
Then, at 11:45 PM, you can see The Song of Bernadette, about the young French girl (played by Jennifer Jones) who believes she saw the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.
Finally, at 2:30 AM Wednesday is The Rose Tattoo, in which Anna Magnani won the Oscar as a widow who starts to live again after a revelation.

On Wednesday morning and afternoon on TCM, we have several films set in and around South Africa, such as Seven Miles From Alcatraz, at 3:00 PM.  James Craig plays Champ, a prisoner at Alcatraz in the days just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Champ and the other convicts fear the bombing will hit them, so a couple of them escape, winding up at a lighthouse.  What they don't realize is that one of the workers at the lighthouse is a traitor, working for the Nazis and trying to get information to a Nazi U-boat out in San Francisco Bay.  Champ and his friend Jimbo may have committed crimes, but dammit, they still know that America is virtuous and Nazi Germany is downright evil, so they're going to work with the country that put them in jail to foil the diabolical Nazi plot!  Utterly B material, but fun B material.  Watch also for Bonita Granville, the screen's former Nancy Drew, as one of the captives at the lighthouse.

The films of June Allyson show up for one final night as part of her turn as TCM's Star of the Month.  This Wednesday kicks off at 8:00 PM with the 1957 version of My Man Godfrey.  Since there was no depression at the time the movie was made, this remake of the William Powell/Carole Lombard movie has no "forgotten man".  Instead, David Niven plays an Austrian with an English accent who doesn't have the right papers and is at risk of being deported.  Allyson in the Lombard role of a daughter in a wealthy family who brings Niven home because they need a new butler.  Unsurprisingly, Niven and Allyson begin to fall in love, until big sister Martha Hyer learns something about Niven's past that may ruin everything.  The original is better, but you'll want to judge for yourself.

Friday morning and afternoon brings a bunch of movies directed by Fritz Lang.  I've mentioned most of them before, classics such as Metropolis at 6:30 AM.  One that's rather different is Moonfleet, at 4:45 PM.  Stewart Granger stars as Mr. Fox, a squire in Dorset in the mid-18th century.  One day, Fox is sent an orphan boy to look after, because the boy's mother used to be in love with Fox, before the family nixed their relationship.  So Fox went on to become a ladies' man, having lots of mistresses.  Oh, he also became a smuggler, which is highly illegal.  But it's a good quality to have when it turns out the boy's family supposedly had a valuable diamond at some point in the past, and won't Fox help the kid find it?  Sure, but dammit, why does the boy keep getting in the way?  George Sanders gets to play another bad-guy aristocrat, and also shows up in the final Fritz Lang movie of the day, While the City Sleeps at 6:15 PM.

Jacki Weaber returns to TCM for one final Friday Night Spotlight look at Australian cinema.  This Friday kicks off at 8:00 PM with Newsfront.  The scene is Australia of the late 1940s and early 1950s, a time just before television was to come to Australia, changing life for people in a lot of ways.  One way it changed life was the death of the newsreel, and
Newsfront looks at the lives of two fictional brothers who were both newsreel photographers during this period, their relationship with each other as they competed for stories, and the way the changing culture affected both of them.  The movie mixes the story (in color) with archival footage from actual newsreels (in black-and-white) setting the story against the backdrop of actual historical events.  I'm not versed enough in Australian history to know just how accurate the history is, however.

I thought that the Mexican Spitfire series had a few more weeks to run at 10:30 AM Saturday on TCM, but apparently not.  This Saturday at 10:30 AM brings the movie Doctor in the House.  It stars Dirk Bogarde as Simon Sparrow, a medical student who finds that things aren't as easy as they seem as he tries to mix getting through medical school with having a life.  It's a mix of comedy and drama, and was successful enough that Bogarde would go on to play Sparrow in a further four movies.  (TCM, however, will only be showing three of the five movies.)

A dark comedy that I haven't mentioned in years here shows up on Starz over the weekend: Throw Momma From the Train, at 5:05 AM Sunday on the east coast feed, repeated at 8:05 AM if you also have the west coast feed.  Billy Crystal is Larry a failed writer teaching a creative writing course at the local community college.  He's got an ex-wife who he thinks stole his book idea, and a bunch of adult students whose work will never amount to anything.  One of the students, Owen (Danny DeVito) lives with his overbearting mother (Anne Ramsey), and when he hears Larry making an off-handed comment saying it wouldn't be so bad if his ex-wife died, Owen gets the idea that he and Larry could swap crimes Strangers on a Train style.  And then we get to see Owen's momma; once you see her, you might just want to throw her from the train, too!  Yes, it is all played for laughs

Sunday night once again means the return of Essentials Jr. for the summer.  Bill Hader returns for a fourth season, presenting movies good for the whole family.  This season kicks off with the quintessential screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, at 8:00 PM.  Cary Grant plays a paleontologist looking for one last bone to complete his dinosaur skeleton so he can get married, when his life is turned upside-down by ditzy Katharine Hepburn.  She's got a jaguar named Baby, and Baby takes the dinosaur bone, leading the two on a hunt through Connecticut looking for Baby and the bone.  Meanwhile, Hepburn seems to be pursuing Grant romantically.  Complicating matters is the fact that a wild jaguar from the circus escapes, and needs to be put down lest it attack anybody.  You know that Grant and Hepburn are going to wind up together in the end, but the way they get there is what makes the movie fun.