Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” Thread, for the week of May 15-21, 2017. We've got more movies from Star of the Month Clark Gable, more creature features, and some interesting movies on other channels. I've used my erudition and good taste once again to select a bunch of movies I know you'll all enjoy. As always, all times are in Eastern unless otherwise mentioned.
There's a bizarre little movie showing up on FXM Retro again this week after a long absence: Gospel Road, at 3:00 AM and 1:35 PM Monday. On the surface, it's yet another retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, which in and of itself is no big deal. But what makes this one different is that it seems to be a vanity project by Johnny Cash, who shows up dressed in black as usual and narrating the story through the use of white gospel music. The actors are largely unknown; the guy playing Jesus, showing his love for his fellow man in ways I don't know that the Bible mentions, also directed. The one name you'd recognize is June Carter Cash, Johnny's wife, who plays Mary Magdalene. There was also a lot of location shooting, which is always a nice touch. But as movie-making, it's a decidedly mixed bag. If you like the music of Johnny Cash, however, the movie is probably worth watching.
Back on TCM, they're spending Monday morning and afternoon honoring director Alfred Green. Among his work is It's Tough to Be Famous, at 10:00 AM. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. plays Scotty McClenahan, a navy lieutenant who's the commander of a submarine. His sub suffers a mishap, however, and is stuck underwater running out of air. So he sacrifices himself to get his men to safety, as he goes down with the ship. Except that he gets rescued! So once he comes ashore alive, he's considered a hero, and a plot is afoot to make him famous for his heroism, as others, notably publicity man Chapin (Walter Catlett) try to take advantage of Scotty's newfound fame. Meanwhile, Scotty had been engaged to be married his girlfriend Janet (Mary Brian), and goes through with the marriage not realizing the strain that the fame is going to put on the marriage since especially Janet didn't ask for any of this. And Scotty just wants to live a quite life of his own with Janet.
Over on StarzEncore Westerns, I can recommend the interesting little western Gun the Man Down, which will be on at 12:42 PM Monday and 1:36 AM Tuesday. Rem Anderson (James Arness) plays one of three members of a gang robbing a bank in a western town (the other two are Robert Wilke and Don Megowan). Unfortunately, the robbery goes wrong, resulting in Rem's being wounded, and the other two abandoning him to the posse. Oh, and they not only take the loot back to the hideout with them, they also takes Rem's girlfriend Janice (Angie Dickinson), who takes Rem's share of the loot. And doesn't seem so interested in Rem any longer. Rem gets sentenced to prison, but doesn't squeal on his partners in crime. Of course, Rem's real reason for not squealing is that he's got a plan to find them and get his share and get revenge on them if possible. There were a lot of underrated little westerns made in the 50s and this is one of them.
Over on TCM, against the second showing of Gun the Man Down, is Seven Days to Noon, at 1:45 AM Tuesday. Barry Jones plays Willingdon, a research scientist who's got a wife, and a daughter who's engaged to one of his assistants. The only problem is, the area of Willingdon's research is nuclear science, which means that he's part of Britain's program to produce its own nuclear deterrent. Willingdon isn't certain he likes the idea of Britain having the bomb, mostly because he doesn't want anyone to have the bomb. Finally he decides to take matters into his own hands. He absconds with some nuclear material and writes a letter to the authorities that he's going to bomb the government if they don't announce within seven days that they're going to abandon all nuclear research. So of course a big manhunt is set up, and the authorities are even willing to evacuate London! Willingdon, for his part, takes and leaves a couple of hostages along the way. Meanwhile, it's going to be up to that future son-in-law to find Willingdon and defuse the bomb.
The third night of Clark Gable's turn as Star of the Month includes the excellent Manhattan Melodrama, at 12:45 AM Wednesday on TCM. Blackie and Jim are two childhood friends (young Blackie is played by 13-year-old Mickey Rooney) who get separated by a steamboat disaster. Blackie was a bit of an imp as a kid and grows up (played by Gable) to become an owner of speakeasies and casinos, which are barely tolerated if not quite legal. Jim is a straight-arrow kid, and grows up (played by William Powell) to become a lawyer and eventually the Manhattan DA. Eleanor (Myrna Loy) was Blackie's girlfriend, but when he didn't want to go into “honest” business, she leaves him and marries Jim. Jim, meanwhile, has higher political ambitions and eventually runs for governor. And then Blackie has someone killed. The murder case effects both men's lives, as Blackie winds up in Sing Sing on death row and Jim, now governor, has the chance to grant clemency to his old friend. Except that doing so would blow up his political career. Watch for a scene set at the Cotton Club; Shirley Ross sings “The Bad in Every Man”, a song with a familiar tune but which required a lyrics change to become popular… as “Blue Moon”.
Frances Dee gets a night of her movies on Wednesday night on TCM; this night includes what I think is the TCM premiere of An American Tragedy, at 9:30 PM. Phillips Holmes plays Clyde, whose mother (Lucille LaVerne) runs the local mission. When Clyde runs afoul of Mom's Christian teachings, he runs off to a wealthy but distant uncle, getting a job in a textile factory. It's there that he meets Roberta (Sylvia Sidney), a co-worker, and falls in love with her. But she's even more in love with him, which presents problems when Clyde meets society girl Sondra (that's Dee) and falls for her and her wealth. Clyde would be more than willing just to dump Roberta for Sondra, except there's a slight problem in that by this time Clyde has knocked Roberta up. Clyde takes Roberta out for a day boating, but the boat overturns – Clyde thought about it, but did he deliberately overturn it or chicken out and suffer an unfortunate accident? – and there's a sensational trial as a result. If all of this sounds familiar, it's because the material is based on the Theodore Dreiser book, and was later remade as the classic A Place in the Sun.
Thursday night's “Creature Features” spotlight on TCM includes a movie where the enemy is technically not a creature: The Magnetic Monster, at 4:00 AM Friday. A store owner is complaining that all of the store's metallic objects are becoming highly magnetized, and a government science team led by Dr. Stewart (Richard Carlson) is sent in to investigate. What he finds is that a scientist had done an experiment involving bombarding an element with alpha particles that turned that element highly radioactive, and creating magnetism. In fact, the magnetism is used to make the radioactive sample more powerful, doubling in size at regular intervals. Eventually, it's determined that if nothing is done to stop the growth, it's going to destroy the entire earth, so the scientists have to take it to a special research station in Canada to try to destroy it. Interesting even if the science is way off. And the place where they try to destroy the sample at the end uses impressive footage from an early 1930s German movie.
Last Friday was the first part of a TCM feature on the films of 1967, which are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. This week sees the second part, including the foreign film Belle de Jour, at 2:00 AM Saturday. Catherine Deneuve plays Séverine, a rich bored Parisian housewife who spends her days shopping and having all sorts of sex fantasies because, well, women think about sex all the time just like men do. (Admit it, ladies.) Anyho, after talking to some of her friends, she gets the idea that maybe she should deal with her boredom and sexual tension by becoming a call girl during the day while her doctor husband (Jean Sorel) is at work. Séverine is given the name Belle de Jour, and is good at what she does, to the point that she gets some guys who specifically ask for her. The only thing is, one of those guys, Henri (Michel Piccoli), is a criminal, and pretty possessive about his women. When he finds out Séverine's real identity, he's none too happy…. It's an interesting and well-made movie, but leaving it up to the viewer to figure out how much of what's going on is real life, and how much of it is Séverine's sexual fantasies may leave some people annoyed by the end.
I see that The Day of the Jackal is back on TV this week, this time on StarzEncore Classics at 12:54 PM Saturday. The scene is France in the early 1960s, when the country is fighting to keep Algeria from becoming independent and losing, and this is ticking off a certain segment of the French military, which is reacting by trying to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. Their attempts of course fail, so they decide to hire an external assassin, the Jackal (Edward Fox) to do the deed. The film shows the Jackal's meticulous plans for the assassination, as well as the equally meticulous work of French intelligence, led by Inspector Lebel (Michel Lonsdale), when they realize that something is up. It's a race against time, but who are they going after, and when and where is he going to strike? Eventually they realize they're going after a Charles Calthrop (from “Chacal”, the French word for “Jackal”), and the leads follow them from Italy to southern France to Paris. A lot of movies once they get close to a two-and-a-half hour running time, feel like they're overlong, but this one isn't at all.
This week's Noir Alley selection is Crime of Passion, at 10:00 AM Sunday. Barbara Stanwyck plays Kathy, a tough and ambitious reporter from San Francisco who meets Los Angeles homicide detective Bill Doyle (Sterling Hayden). They fall in love, a relationship about as likely as the one Hayden and Bette Davis had in The Star a few years earlier. So Kathy leaves her job to move to LA and become Mrs. Doyle, living in a house out in the valley and trying to get her husband to show some more ambition. Except that Bill seems perfectly content with his station in life. So Kathy decides that if Bill is ever going to get that higher position that she wants for him, she's going to have to do something about it. So she develops a friend with the wife (Fay Wray) of Bill's supervisor (Raymond Burr) and tries to get said supervisor to announce his retirement from the force and endorse Bill for his replacement. And when the supervisor isn't quite so interested, Kathy takes matters further into her own hands….