Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of May 9-15, 2016. We're well into spring, at least theoretically, since it's been cool and rainy at the Palais de Fedya. But if it's cool and rainy, that's a good excuse to stay inside and watch good movies. Once again, I've used my good taste to select a bunch of movies that I know you'll all like. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We've got a couple of football movies this week. The first of them is one I've recommended a couple of times, only because it has to be seen to be believed: The Cowboy Quarterback, airing at 2:45 PM Monday on TCM. Bert Wheeler, in his early 40s now and going it alone after his comedy partner Robert Woolsey had died, plays Harry, a cowboy from Montana who is apparently a really good football player. So Rusty, the scout for the Chicago Packers (yes, it's the Chicago Packers), goes out to Montana to get him to sign a contract. Harry leaves his girl Maizie (Marie Wilson) behind and goes to Chicago, for his chance at the big money. Unfortunately, in Chicago he meets a bunch of gamblers who get him on the hook for several thousand dollars, and give him an ultimatum: throw the big game or we'll sic the loan sharks on you. This was a remake of a baseball movie starring Joe E. Brown, but works better as a football film since you can substitute football players in and out (remember, this was still in the days of two-way players). If only it were funnier, but it's still an interesting curio.
If Fred Astaire were still alive, he'd be turning a whopping 117 on Tuesday. Since it's his birth anniversary, TCM is celebrating with a morning and afternoon of his movies. I don't think I've mentioned Carefree before; that one shows up at 3:00 PM. Here, Astaire plays Dr. Flagg, a psychiatrist who is approached by his good friend Stephen (Ralph Bellamy). Stephen's fiancée Amanda (Ginger Rogers) has just broken off her engagement to him yet again, so Stephen wants Flagg to analyze Amanda and find out just what's up with her. She overhears a comment he makes that leads her to believe that she's just "another maladjusted woman", so she doesn't take kindly to the good doctor at first. But of course since he's played by Fred Astaire and she's played by Ginger Rogers, and because the other man is played by Ralph Bellamy, you can probably guess where the plot is going to go. But it's more complicated than that, because the doctor tries hypnotherapy on her, and as with a movie like Office Space, Hollywood's view of hypnosis is way off.
I like to mention movies that are returning to FXM Retro after a long absence. This week's example is Secret World, which you can catch at 4:00 AM and 12:15 PM Thursday. The film is set at one of those lovely French country estates, populated by people who really can't afford the upbringing. Philippe (Pierre Zimmer) is the father of the family, carrying on with his English mistress Wendy (Jacqueline Bisset). Meanwhile, Philippe has an adult son Olivier (Marc Porel) who finds that he's also falling in love with Wendy. Further complicating matters is the presence of young François (Jean-François Maurin). He's been orphaned, having lost his parents in a car accident, and Philippe is the distant relative he's living with, not too happily since he's always getting into trouble. He sees Wendy, and immediately develops a crush on her. The story doesn't really go anywhere, but there is a lot of lovely cinematography of the estate house, a mining site François likes to escape to, and the town the characters visit for one scene.
A western that I haven't recommended in some time is Yellow Sky, which is airing on Encore Westerns at 10:50 AM and 11:20 PM Wednesday. Gregory Peck plays Stretch, who is the leader of a gang of outlaws who have robbed a bank. To get away, they have to escape across the parched salt flats where water is at a premium. They probably wouldn't get away, except that the come across the one watering hole in this desolate place. However, living near that watering hole is an old prospector (James Barton), who is searching for gold and living with his granddaughter Mike (Anne Baxter). Mike particularly isn't fond of having these strange men coming into her life since she knows they mean trouble, but Stretch begins to fall for her as he plays the "good cop" role in the gang's dealings with her and her Grandpa. However, the rest of the gang realize that the only reason these two people would be here is if they've actually found gold, so they want that gold. It's a terrific little western. Among the gang members are Richard Widmark and Harry Morgan.
A movie I think I haven't recommended before is Pickup Alley (also known as Interpol), which you can watch at 8:00 PM Wednesday on TCM. Victor Mature stars as Charles Sturgis, an agent for the Bureau of Narcotics; that is, the people whose job it is to fight the narcotics trade. And early on in the movie, he gets even more reason to want to fight the drugs trade: his sister is found strangled to death, and all the signs point to one Frank McNally (Trevor Howard), who just happens to be the kingpin in the drugs trade. The fight against McNally leads Sturgis all over the world, and particularly to Rome. It turns out that McNally wants his partner offed, and he blackmails his moll (Anita Ekberg) into doing it, so she escapes from London to Rome after she shoots the partner. Sturgis has to work quickly, though, because McNally is planning to ship millions of dollars (in 1950s dollars) of narcotics to New York.
If I mention the name Black Sabbath, most of you will think of the 1980s metal band. But it's also the title of a horror movie, one that's airing at 12:30 AM Friday on TCM. This was made in Italy, but for the American release was given added narration by Boris Karloff. He introduces the three segments, since this is a horror anthology. The first segment, "The Telephone", has a prostitute who receives a phone call from somebody who has come from out of her past, and who has just escaped prison. The second segment, "The Wurdalak" stars Karloff as a man who is cursed into being part of a family of vampire-like creatures, with the difference being that they want to prey on their loved ones! The third and final segment, "Drop of Water", deal with a malicious nurse who, while preparing a dead body for a funeral, decides to steal a ring off the dead woman's finger. The dead woman decides she wants that ring back.
Another football film airing this week is The Iron Major, which is on TCM at 3:30 PM Friday. This one is a biopic of coach Frank Cavanaugh (played by Pat O'Brien), whom you've probably never heard of since he died over 80 years ago. Cavanaugh went from his playing days at Dartmouth at the end of the 19th century to coaching at several colleges, compiling a pretty darn good record for the day before his career ended at Fordham and he ended up blind. Along the way, he took a couple of years out of coaching to serve in World War I, even though he was past 40 by that time. Ruth Warrick plays Frank's wife Florence, and a young Robert Ryan (the movie is being shown as part of his turn as Star of the Month) is a Catholic priest! The movie comes across as a low-rent version of Knute Rockne, All American and, since it was made during World War II, has some obvious wartime patriotism in it too which doesn't particularly help the movie.
Fred MacMurray made some westerns in his long career, although that's not the genre he's most associated with. One of those westerns, Day of the Badman, shows up at 2:45 AM Saturday on Encore Westerns. MacMurray plays a good guy here, Judge Jim Scott. Scott is planning to sentence convicted murderer Rudy (Christopher Dark) to death. Needless to say, Rudy's family doesn't like the sentencing. So his two brothers (Skippy Homeier and Robert Middleton), his girlfriend (Marie Windsor), and some of their cousins (including Lee Van Cleef) get together and try to "convince" the townsfolk to put pressure on the judge not to sentence Rudy to death, which they plan to do by getting the townspeople to turn on the good judge. Shades of High Noon, although this one came out several years later. Fred MacMurray once again shows just how versatile an actor he could be.
Following on the Black Sabbath reference above, most of you will probably know the Johnny Cash song Ring of Fire. The title would get used a few years later for an interesting movie, which TCM is showing at noon on Saturday. Frank Gorshin, James Johnson, and Joyce Taylor play three small-time hoodlums in the rural part of Oregon where forestry is one of the prime businesses. Policeman David Janssen realizes that these three are fugitives from the law and tries to arrest them. But one of them grabs his gun, kidnaps him, and forces him to drive them to the forest where they'll make their getaway. Yeah right. And then the hoodlums start to argue amongst themselves while the cop is the only one who knows how to get through the forest. Making matters worse is that it's been a dry season, and one of the three idiot hoodlums decides to smoke, so you know that the cigarette butt is going to set off a forest fire. That fire threatens not only the four in the forest, but eventually the entire town. It's an interesting movie, with some nice sceninc photography.
And now for the shorts. Airing just after the previously mentioned Pickup Alley, at about 9:40 PM Wednesday, is Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow. This is an RKO-Pathé short from the mid 1950s, when they were making serious shorts concerned with public affairs. This one deals with civil defense, which of course was seen as a big deal back in those days what with the fear of nuclear annihilation. Specifically, it looks at Reading, PA, and how it was preparing for the possibility of having to survive a nuclear war. (As many nukes as the Soviets had, they didn't have that many at the time.)
For something more traditional and more calming, you could look for the Traveltalks shorts. Among them is Quaint Quebec at 9:35 AM Tuesday. This one from the late 1930s looks at Quebec City, at a time long before the Francophone nationalists started turning the province into a hellhole for people who aren't native French speakers.
