Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of May 30-June 5, 2016. Memorial Day is on Monday, so we get some war films, but there are other things worth watching. I apologize for there being one fewer movie than normal this week, but there was a movie I had selected, only to find this morning that I wrote a blurb on the wrong movie, one which won't be on TV this week. Oops. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
One of the staples of western movies is the railroad; indeed in the past few months I've mentioned a number of movies about the building of rail lines. There's another one on this week: Denver and Rio Grande, at 7:35 AM Monday on StarzEncore Westerns. This one involves a railroad executive General Palmer (Dean Jagger) whose railroad is building a line in the Colorado Rockies. He's given the task of making certain that gets done to his trouble shooter Vesser (Edmond O'Brien). And Vesser certainly has trouble, as a competing gang led by McCabe (Sterling Hayden) is trying to sabotage the building of the line so that they themselves can do it and collect the money! There's a gunfight that sees McCabe's partner in crime Bob shot, and of course Bob's sister Linda (Kasey Rogers) thinks Vesser did it and hates him at first but you know they'll fall in love along the way as the truth comes out. The plot is pedestrian, but this is the sort of movie you watch for the action sequences of railroad crashes.
FXM is also showing a couple of war films both on Memorial Day and later in the week. A typical World War II movie is Crash Dive, airing four times this week, at 10:45 AM Monday, 7:50 AM Thursday, 8:40 AM Saturday, and 6:00 AM Sunday. Tyrone Power plays Lt. Stewart, who has just been given a new posting as second-in-command aboard a Navy submarine, which doesn't make him happy since he preferred being on the surface in PT boats. Before taking up the posting, though, he meets lovely teacher Jean (Anne Baxter), but she's rather cool on him. The reason for that turns out that she's already got a guy, Lt. Cmdr. Connors (Dana Andrews). And wouldn't you know it, but Connors just turns out to be the new commander on the sub where Stewart is second in command! That's awkward. But there's a war on, and there's the issue of dealing with those pesky Nazis, especially the secret base they've set up to extend their range of harassing American shipping. Rounding out the cast are Dame May Whitty as Tyrone Powers' grandmother; James Gleason as the CPO, and Harry Morgan as a young member of the submarine crew.
TCM is showing a bunch of movies set in Las Vegas on Tuesday morning and afternoon. Perhaps the most interesting because of its provenance is They Came to Rob Las Vegas, at 3:30 PM. What's interesting about it is that it's a European production, even though they used several American stars. Gary Lockwood (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) plays Tony, a Las Vegas blackjack dealer. He gets the brilliant idea to rob Skorsky's (Lee J. Cobb) armored car company; that's because he's got the help of his girlfriend Ann (Elke Sommer), who happens to be Skorsky's secretary. Eventually Tony assembles a gang that robs one of Skorsy's cars containing $7 million out in the desert. Investigating is FBI agent Douglas, who has long held the view that Skorsky is a front to move money for the Mob since Skorsky did have an unsavory past. So Skorsky has his own reasons to find out what happened to the money. Many of the non-American cast did their lines in a foreign language and dubbed them into English for the US release.
Tuesday night finally brings the TCM Guest Programmer for May: Matthew Broderick. He's selected four of his favorite movies, and on Tuesday night TCM will run the conversation he did, presumably with Robert Osobrne, about those four movies. Broderick's selections are:
Doorway to Hell at 8:00 PM, a gangster movie with James Cagney in one of his earliest roles (even before The Public Enemy);
Breaking Away at 9:30 PM, about class issues in the sport of cycling;
The 400 Blows at 11:30 PM, François Truffaut's classic about youth alienation; and
Yankee Doodle Dandy at 1:30 AM Wednesday, in which James Cagney plays George M. Cohan.
If you want another odd little film, try Violence, which TCM is showing at 8:15 AM Wednesday. Nancy Carroll plays Ann, a secretary to the head of a populist organization (Emory Parnell). Or, that's her front; in reality she's an undercover reporter doing an exposé on the organization since it's a same to fleece returning World War II veterans. She's just about to skip town to reveal what she knows to her press bosses, but on the way out she's chased by Steve (Milo O'Shea), which results in the cab in which Ann is heading for the train station to get in an accident, injuring her and, more ominously, giving her amnesia so that she can't remember she's doing an exposé on the organization! Steve may or may not be a good guy. Meanwhile, one of the veterans the organization scammed also figured out what was going on, but he got murdered by the organization's thugs. His relatives show up to complicate things further.
If you want a different war movie, you could watch Something For the Boys, which will be on FXM at 10:30 AM Saturday and 8:00 AM Sunday. Vivian Blaine plays Blossom, who finds that she and her two cousins have inherited one of those lovely old southern mansions from their grandfather. In a bit of casting that only Hollywood could provide, those "cousins" are played by Phil Silvers (OK), and... Carmen Miranda (how many wives did Grandpa have?). So they go to their lovely mansion, only to find that it's not so lovely any more, as time has taken its toll and the place is run down. Fortunately for them, there's a war on, and Army Sergeant Fulton (Michael O'Shea) is along to say he wants to use the place to billet army wives. Now our cousins have a purpose in renovating the place, but they don't have the money. What's the best way to get that money? Why not put on a show! They've certainly got the talent for it. And as you can probably guess, the Blaine and O'Shea characters fall in love over the course of the movie. (It's not as if the Code would let O'Shea love either of the other two cousins.)
Wednesday night's theme on TCM is stage play to film adaptations. One of the adaptations I think I've never recommended before is The Sea Gull, airing at 5:15 AM Thursday. James Mason plays the successful writer Trigorin, who is visiting the countryside with his lover, the actress Arkadina (Simone Signoret). She's going in order to visit her ailing brother Sorin (Harry Andrews) and her estranged son Treplev (David Warner). He's a budding playwright, but an experimental playwright. He's written a new play set to star Nina (Vanessa Redgrave), who lives on the neighboring estate. In fact, he loves Nina, but she doesn't love him. She falls in love with Trigorin, who doesn't love her. Further complicating matters is the fact that in love with Treplev is the daughter of one of the estate's servants, Masha. Masha, in turn, is loved by the local schoolteacher. Sorry if it's all a bit complicated. Don't blame me, blame Anton Chekhov.
Those who complain that I recommend too many old movies will be pleased to see that I'm recommending something fairly recent this week: A Fish Called Wanda, on Encore at 2:35 AM Friday (and again at 5:35 AM if you have the west coast feed). Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) is an American in London with her boyfriend Otto (Kevin Kline). They're there to take part in a plot to rob a jewelry store and walk away with tens of thousands; also in on the plot are Georges (Tom Georgeson) and the stuttering Ken (Michael Palin). Of course, the plot doesn't quite go to plan and Georges gets arrested, leaving everybody else to figure out where the loot is. Wanda, as part of her attempt to get that information, meets Georges' barrister Archie Leach (John Cleese), but things get complicated when Wanda and Archie really start falling in with each other. It's unprofessional for Archie, and of course Wanda has Otto to worry about. This is an over-the-top comedy, including poor Michael Palin accidentally killing an old lady's three dogs in three separate incidents as he tries to bump her off for being the sole witness.
TCM is getting a new host. Tiffany Vazquez, who won a fan competition for the channel's 20th anniversary two years ago and presented a monthly spotlight last December, will be taking over the Saturday afternoon hosting duties starting in June, and this Saturday is the first Saturday in June. One of the movies she'll be presenting this week is the Alfred Hitchcock classic Dial M For Murder, at 2:00 PM. Ray Milland plays Tony, a man living in London off of the wealth of his wife Margot (Grace Kelly). He's not happy with the life, especially since he thinks Margot has been cheating on him, so he comes up with a plan to have her knocked off, and blackmails an old schoolmate to do the deed. However, the plot hits a snag: when the man enters the flat, Margo is able to get a pair of scissors off the desk and stab the poor man dead! So Tony gets the brilliant idea to manipulate the evidence such that it will all point to Margot having murdered and not killed in self defense; this should send her to the gallows, ridding Tony of Margot. However, Margot's old friend, American crime writer Mark (Bob Cummings) shows up, and he begins to suspect something. Most of the film is don in the cramped set of that London flat, with an exception for a restaurant scene featuring an incredibly phony giant hand prop.