Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of November 18-24, 2019. We've got an eclectic lineup of movies this week spanning over three-quarters of a century, but then again I always pick good movies for all of you. Nothing Christmas yet because I'm not trashy like the Hallmark Channel. And there is some violence, albeit not in the form of ripping off somebody's helmet and hitting them in the head with it. As always, all times mentioned are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
If you like those silly comedies from the 1960s, you might like The Wheeler Dealers, which will be on TCM at 10:15 AM Monday. James Garner plays Henry, an oilman from Texas who has been able to get to where he is mostly through bluster. When the current well he's drilling is a bust, he knows he has to go to New York to try to raise the funding to be able to keep drilling. He goes to the investment bank run by Mr. Bear (Jim Backus), who sees Henry as an opportunity. Bear has a female stock analyst Molly (Lee Remick) he doesn't think is capable, because none of the executives at the time thought female stock analysts could be successful. So Bear tries to get Molly to pawn off some worthless stock in Universal Widget to Henry. Henry finds Molly good-looking and charming, so he strings her on, while she tries to find out what Universal Widget is all about. Things spiral out of control from there with the pair drilling for oil in Massachusetts and Henry in danger of getting tried for securities fraud. Lee Remick is surprisingly capable at comedy.
Up against The Wheeler Dealers, over on FXM, is The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, at 9:35 AM Monday. The title gives a fairly good idea of what this is about, the mythical Yeti. Peter Cushing plays Dr. Rollason, a botanist by training, who is ostensibly studying Himalayan herbs together with his wife Helen (Maureen Connell) and assistant Peter (Richard Wattis). However, he's really planning to go on an expedition to find that Yeti together with an American, Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker), who arrives with his assistant Shelley (Robert Brown). When they all get together they finally set off in search of that Yeti. But Dr. Rollason is horrified when he learns that Friend isn't really in it for the science, but to be able to bring something home like Carl Denham did with King Kong a quarter century earlier. It turns out, however, that the Yeti, if it really does exist, might not be quite the stuff of legend it's been made out to be all these years.
Bette Davis gets an other day of her movies on Tuesday as TCM's Star of the Month. I was going to mention The Man Who Came to Dinner at noon, but that's not a Christmas theme so it's going to be on twice in December. So instead, I'll mention Old Acquaintance, airing at 4:00 PM. Davis and Miriam Hopkins play long-time friends Kit and Millie respectively. Kit is single and career-minded, being a writer of novels the critics love but the public is indifferent to. Millie has a husband Preston (John Loder) and daughter DeDe, and decides she wants the material things, so she'll become a writer like Kit, only writing romance novels that the female public wants. She does become successful, but at the cost of a strain on her marriage. So when Kit comes back and Preston files for divorce, Kit thinks perhaps the two might be related. This even more so when a former lover of Kit's, Rudd (Gig Young), starts getting pursued by DeDe. Through it all, Kit and Millie still try to remain friends, which is interesting considering that in real life, Davis and Hopkins absolutely loathed each other going back to the days of their previous collaboration The Old Maid.
It's time for another Audie Murphy western. This week, that western is Drums Across the River, which will be on StarzEncore Westerns at 8:04 AM Tuesday. Murphy plays Gary Brannon, who together with his father Sam (Walter Brennan) runs a freight company in Crown City, CO. The town used to be prosperous thanks to gold mining, but is falling on hard times because the gold has run out. Well, at least it has on the white man's side of the river. There's good on the other side still, but that's land owned by the Utes (where's Joe Pesci when we need him?), so off limits to the whites. One of the locals, Frank Walker (Lyle Bettger) wants that gold, and figures if he can start another Indian war he can get the Utes forced of their land. Gary doesn't really like Indians, so goes along with Walker at first, until skirmishes happen that get Sam injured. And then Frank kidnaps Sam to make certain that Gary will keep taking part in his nasty schemes. Of course, we know that an Audie Murphy character turns out right in the end. Jay Silverheels plays Taos, son of the Ute chief.
The salute to cinematography continues on Wednesday with the movies being mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. Among them is McCabe and Mrs. Miller, at 8:00 PM Wednesday on TCM. Warren Beatty plays John McCabe, who comes riding into the mining town of Presbyterian Church, WA, with a bunch of money and a reputation that may or may not be deserved. He comes up with the idea of starting a bathing house for the men to get hot baths, combining it with a brothel. One day, British widow Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) comes to town and makes McCabe an offer that she'll manage the brothel in exchange for half the profits. After all, she's a woman and knows more about female sexuality than any man can, things that are important in the running of a brothel. And so the two form an unlikely alliance. But the town becomes successful enough that the big mining company wants to buy McCabe out. He thinks that the offer is much too low, so he turns them down, but they won't take no for an answer and will take McCabe's holdings by force if need be.
If you like 80s movies, then you'll know that John Hughes was one of the most remembered directors of the decade. Among Hughes' films is Pretty in Pink, which is going to be on Epix Hits at 4:25 PM Wednesday. Molly Ringwald plays Andie, a high school senior who is definitely of the wrong social status at her high school, working at a record store (remember those?) and geeky unlike all the rich preppy kids. She's loved by Duckie (Jon Cryer), who is too cowardly to ask her out. Andie, for her part, pines after Blane (Andrew McCarthy), one of the rich kids. He finally reciprocates, ultimately asking her to the prom even though she can barely afford a real prom dress. All of his rich friends, however, think she's entirely wrong for him, notably Steff (James Spader), who may have his own ulterior motives. Andie is determined to go to the prom come hell or high water. Can love conquer social differences? You probably also remember the movie for the memorable song “If You Leave”:
On Thursday in prime time, TCM is running a night of the films of John Ford. However, rather than pointing out the features since I've mentioned all of them before, I'll note that there's a recent documentary airing, called John Ford, the Man Who Invented America, at 1:15 AM Friday. This looks like it's from the same company that distributed the documentary on James Stewart and Robert Mitchum that TCM showed at the beginning of the year, and the one on Frankenstein last year. Before the documentary, TCM is running one of the shorts that Ford made during his time in the military in World War II, The Battle of Midway, at 12:45 AM Friday. This one uses actual footage from the pivotal 1942 naval battle that helped turn the tide in the Pacific theater of World War II, and doesn't use a bunch of CGI like the recently released movie on the battle does. (Of course, they didn't have computers then, so he couldn't have used CGI even if he wanted to.)
TCM is running a bunch of Mary Astor movies on Friday morning and afternoon, even though it's not her birthday. One of the movies that I'm not certain I've recommended before is I Am a Thief, which will be on at 3:30 PM Friday. In Paris, there have been a bunch of jewel heists, but the police have an ingenious plan to figure out who's behind them. They're going to get the Karenina Diamonds, a pricey set of jewels, auctioned off, and then follow the purchaser to see who tries to steal them. Jewel dealer Pierre (Ricardo Cortez), outbids Odette (Mary Astor) for the jewels, and promptly proceeds to board the Orient Express, where he's going to go to Istanbul to sell off the jewels. Odette also gets on the train with a copy of the jewels – and she's not the only mysterious person to be on that train. There's a Baron (Robert Barrat), a Count (Irving Pichel), and a colonel (Dudley Digges). Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Eventually, all will be revealed in this breezy Warner Bros. programmer.
And now for a shocker: I'm going to point out a movie from this decade that's on, and it's not a documentary about the movies! That movie is The King's Speech, which you can see at 9:00 AM Saturday on Showtime 2. Colin Firth plays Albert, Prince of York, second son of British King George V and second in line to the throne. Dad dies in 1936 and Albert's elder brother becomes King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce). But Edward is in love with an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, and that's deemed incompatible with being monarch, so Edward has to abdicate, making Albert King George VI. But the new King has his own problems that might make him unsuitable to be monarch in this modern age of communications, notably, a severe stuttering problem going back decades. To that end, his wife Elizabeth (mother of the current monarch Elizbeth II and played by Helena Bonham Carter) has hired an Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) to help her husband deal with the stuttering, something that's going to be important when he has to start making radio speeches.
A movie that I don't think I've mentioned in quite some time is the 1934 version of The Scarlet Pimpernel. TCM is showing it at 2:00 AM Sunday. The time is the 1790s, the height of the French Revolution. Sir Percy Blakeney (Leslie Howard) is a British nobleman married to a Frenchwoman (Merle Oberon). She thinks he's become soft, while he worries about her losing the things in her Frenchness that made him fall in love with her in the first place. What Lady Blakeney doesn't know about her husband is that he's concerned enough about the situation in her native France that he goes over there in disguise as the titular Pimpernel to rescue French nobles from being sent to the guillotine. Robespierre is pissed about this, so he has his underling Chauvelin (Raymond Massey) arrest a French nobleman, the Count de Tournay, and offer him his life in exchange for information about the identity of the Pimpernel. Tournay happens to be the brother of Lady Blakeney, complicating matters. Nigel Bruce costars as the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV).