Welcome to another edition of Fedya's “Movies to Tivo” thread, for the week of November 14-20, 2016. The election may be over, but sadly the whining doesn't seem to be. So if you want to get away from that nonsense, why not do so with some interesting movies? I've used my impeccable taste so select several more movies that I know you'll all enjoy. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
We'll start off this week with something over on FXM Retro: Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man, at 6:00 AM Monday. Those of you who know your Hemingway might be able to guess that the “young man” in question is Nick Adams (played here by Richard Beymer), a frequent character in Hemingway's short stories. Adams is a young man who grew up in the early 20th century Midwest with a domineering mother (Jessica Tandy), prompting him to run away. Adams then goes on a journey across the country trying to find himself, and getting into a bunch of episodic adventures, as you might be able to guess considering the original source material. Adams then goes over to Europe to do his part in World War I, as an ambulance driver in Italy. The movie, having an episodic structure, uses this to reasonably good effect in that there are a lot of guest stars; Paul Newman as a boxer is probably the biggest; there's also Ricardo Montalbán as an Italian army major; Arthur Kennedy as Nick's father; Diane Baker as a love interest; and so on.
On TCM on Monday, we get a lot of sinners. (Of course, we know your favorite sin is Wisconsin.) One that I don't think I've mentioned before is Laughing Sinners, which you can see at 4:30 PM. The wacky plot of this one has Joan Crawford playing Ivy, a nightclub entertainer in love with traveling salesmand Howard (Neil Hamilton, 30 years before he was Commissioner Gordon on Batman). However, Howard plans to marry for money, so he unceremoniously dumps Ivy. This leads Ivy to try to jump off a bridge. She's stopped from doing this, however, by Salvation Army worker Carl (Clark Gable; you'd think he'd be more natural playing Hamilton's role and vice versa, but whatever). So Ivy gets the brilliant idea of joining the Salvation Army with Carl, even falling in love with him. That is, until Howard returns, this time offering to make her his mistress. There would be much more of a conflict if she were being asked to leave “good” Neil Hamilton for “bad” Clark Gable, but alas, that's not to be. Audiences likes seeing Gable and Crawford together, which is why we get stuff like this.
This Tuesday brings our Guest Programmer to TCM. If you thought politics was over with the election, well, you might not be in luck, since this month the movies were selected by US Rep. Steve Israel (a Long Island Democrat). He's selected four of his favorite movies, and will be sitting down, presumably with Ben Mankiewicz, to present them. Three of them are politics-themed:
The Candidate at 8:00 PM, the Robert Redford movie about a campaign for the US Senate;
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington at 10:00 PM, in which James Stewart is appointed Senator and finds all sorts of corruption;
The Best Man at 12:30 AM Wednesday, a biting look about what goes on behind the scenes at a contested convention; and
For something completely apolitical, you could do far worse than to wath Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, at 2:30 AM
I know how much you all like Guy Kibbee, so I'll mention one of his films this week: This Time for Keeps, at 11:30 AM Wednesday on TCM. Kibbee plays Harry Bryant, father to Katherine (Ann Rutherford). Katherine has recently gotten married to Lee White (Robert Sterling), and due to circumstances, the husband winds up moving in with her side of the family while the wife is away for a bit. This gives our father-in-law a chance to “help” out his son-in-law by bringing him into the family business. But while Lee has ideas, it seems that Harry is unintentionally stymying those ideas at every turn, which of course causes problems between Lee and his new family. Meanwhile, Harry's teenage daughter Harriett (Virginia Weidler) is going through adolesence, and all that implies. Aren't teenage girls wonderful? It almost seems as if MGM was trying to come up with something to replace the Hardy family movies, what with World War II coming and Mickey Rooney being all grown up.
For those of you who like something more recent, you could watch The Parallax View, at 11:40 AM Wednesday on StarzEncore Classics. The movie starts off some time in the past. A US Senator with ambition is assassinated, by whom nobody knows. The investigation claims it was a lone gunman, but witnesses aren't so sure, and those witnesses start turning up dead. One of those witnesses was TV reporter Lee (Paula Prentiss), so she goes to her former boyfriend Joe (Warren Beatty) to tell him of her suspicions, notably that she's afraid somebody is after her, and if something should happen to her to do something. Joe might be able to “do something” because he's a reporter at a small-town newspaper, and sure enough, he's going to have to because Lee gets bumped off too. Joe investigates, and what he finds shocks him. But can he stop it all before it's too late? If you like those cynical 1970s movies with their conspiracy movies, you'll love this one as it's very well made. It's not quite my genre, but that doesn't mean it's bad at all.
Actor Robert Vaughn died a few days ago. He was the last surviving gunmen among The Magnificent Seven, and that movie happens to be showing several times on Wednesday on Starz, including at 3:15. (You may have to check your times if you only have the west coast feed.) You probably know the story; a bunch of Mexican villagers find that their village is being harassed by a bandit leader (Eli Wallach), so they approach gunman Chris (Yul Brynner) to recruit him to help fight the bandits. Chris assembles six other gunmen (Vaughn, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Brad Dexter, and James Coburn), and together they teach the gunmen to fight the bandits. Of course, it isn't going to be quite so easy to defeat the bandits once and for all…. The movie has become a classic since its original release, in no small part thanks to the memorable score by Elmer Bernstein.
One of the staples of the western genre was actor Joel McCrea, who made a lot of them in the 50s. One that I'm not certain I've recommended before is The Gunfight at Dodge City, which will be on StarzEncore Westerns at 7:25 AM Friday. McCrea plays Bat Masterson, who in this version of the story starts off killing a man in self-defense in Hays City, KS. So he goes off to Dodge City to get away, as well as to join up with his brother Ed, who is the marshal there. Unfortunately there's a lot of conflict between Ed and Sheriff Regan (Don Haggerty), and Ed winds up getting shot, leading Bat to campaign for Marshal himself. Bat has also gotten into business with the widow Lily (Nancy Gates), co-owning a saloon with her, and there are some romantic feelings too. But things get complicated after Ed dies, and Ed's former girl Pauline (Julie Adams), also the preacher's daughter, starts going after Bat. Bat, meanwhile, also has to deal with local crime which continues to bring him into trouble with the sheriff. But where's Wyatt Earp in all of this?
If you want to see a bunch of interesting people thrown together in a mediocre movie, you could do worse than to catch Higher and Higher, which will be on TCM at 9:45 AM Friday. Leon Errol plays wealthy Cyrus Drake, who has had loyal servants for decades. Except that he isn't wealthy any longer, and it's to the point that he's going to have to let the help go. So they get the idea of taking one of their own, maid Michèle Morgan, passing her off as a débutante, and marrying her to a rich guy. So far, so good. But unfortunately, Frank Sinatra moves in just across the street, and what 1940s woman wouldn't fall in love with a young, not yet fat Frank Sinatra? God knows he had enough wives and lovers. Barbara Hale (later Della Street on the Perry Mason TV show) plays another débutante; Dooley Wilson does a little bit of singing; Mel Tormé and Victor Borge(!) also show up. Yeah, that's one strange cast.
Michael Caine played British spy Harry Palmer in a series of three-movies back in the mid-1960s. I'm not a particular fan of these movies, but a lot of people do think they're quite good, so I think the night is worth a mention:
The Ipcress File, at 8:00 PM, has Harry investigating the disappearance and brainwashing of a bunch of scientists;
Funeral in Berlin at 10:00 PM get Harry into a plot to help a Soviet agent defect; and
Billion Dollar Brain at midnight Sunday (ie. 11:00 PM Saturday LFT) involves Harry and a supercomputer in the fight against Communism
I'm trying to remember if I've recommended Latin Lovers before. It's going to be on TCM at noon Sunday so you can watch it then. Lana Turner plays Nora, an heiress who unfortunately has the distinct feeling that men don't love her so much as they love her money. This, even though her fiancé Paul (John Lund) is even wealthier than she. When Paul goes off to Brazil, looking to buy some polo ponies, so Nora decides to go and follow him down to Brazil. While there, she finds Paul looking at some of the horses from the Santos spread, owned by Grandpa Eduardo (Louis Calhern) and his grandson Roberto (Ricardo Montalbán). Nora had been warned that Brazil is a place where passions flare but went anyway; sure enough she finds that Roberto is interested in her. Or is he really just interested in that money? The plot is silly enough, but this isn't the sort of movie you watch for anything deep. Jean Hagen, fresh off Singin' in the Rain, plays Nora's secretary, while Montalbán gets to dance with a young Rita Moreno.