Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of September 23-29, 2013. This coming week is the Packers' bye week, so with no opponent coming up for the Packers, there's a lot of time for fans to sit back and relax. And why not do so with some good movies? There's one last night of Kim Novak films, one last Friday night of future shock, and one last Sunday wiht Alfred Hitchcock. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
There's one more Alfred Hitchcock silent showing up this month, that being The Manxman, which is airing at 12:15 AM Monday. Anny Ondra, whom you'll recall from Blackmail, plays Katie, the daughter of a landlord on the Isle of Man. Fisherman Pete (Carl Brisson) and lawyer Philip (Malcolm Keen) are childhood friend both like her, with the relationship getting more complicated when Pete decides to go abroad to earn enough money to marry Katie. They learn that he dies, which sets off a romantic attraction between Philip and Katie, but Pete didn't actually die, returning, marrying Katie, and fathering a child. Katie, however, still loves Philip too, and when Pete isn't close enough, she claims that he's not the father of their child, leaving Pete for Philip. Further complicating matters is that Philip has become the local judge who is supposed to preside over the case of his two friends. (Ever heard of a conflict of interest and bringing in outside officials?)
This weeks brings part 4 of The Story of Film: An Odyssey, which focusses on the 1930s: Hollywood's film genius, and on the other hand, what Europe was doing while Hollywood was being brilliant. The documentary airs at 10:00 PM Monday night with a repeat at 2:45 AM Wednesday. Monday night looks at Hollywood, with a bunch of great movies that I've recommended in the past. Tuesday, meanwhile, looks at Europe in the 1930s, where films such as Grand Illusion (Tuesday at 10:45 PM) were being made. Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay play a couple of French pilots who get shot down over Germany in World War I. They get sent to a series of POW camps, remaining nominal friends only because they're both French; in reality they're a bit standoffish because they come from different classes. Eventually then end up at an "escape-proof" castle run by Erich von Stroheim, who befirends his fellow officer Fresnay even though they're on opposite sides of the war -- Renoir, having Communist sympathies, believed in the Marxist class struggle claptrap. The friendship between the French and German officers comes into play when the lower-ranking Gabin tries another escape attempt....
On Tuesday morning, we get a bunch of Ginger Rogers (no relation to Aaron), this time without Fred Astaire. The day kicks off with Twist of Fate at 6:45 AM. Rogers plays "Johnny", a down on her luck actress who is also the mistress of Louis (Stanley Baker), who claims he's going to be divorcing his wife in favor of Johnny but really isn't. Into Johnny's life walks old flame Emil (Herbert Lom), who is also down on his luck and in desperate need of money. He steals a bracelet from Johnny's safe, not knowing Louis had given it to her, and tries to use Louis as a fence -- Louis is ostensibly a respectable businessman, but is actually fencing counterfeit coins on the side. So Louis thinks Johnny's leaving him for Emil. In fact, Johnny has ended up with honest artist Pierre (Jacques Bergerac). It's a bit complicated, but rather interesting.
Wednesday morning brings divorce-themed films to TCM. One that I don't think I've ever mentioned before is Man On Fire, which is airing at 1:00 PM. This film has nothing to do with the Denzel Washington film of the same title from a decade or so ago. Here, Bing Crosby is a divorced businessman who got sole custody of the son (Malcolm Brodrick) because his wife (Mary Fickett) left him for another man. Well, time has passed and the mother decides she and husband #2 (Richard Eastham) want custody of the kid. Amazingly, the judge decides to grant a change in custody even though mom hasn't had much bonding with the son. (I guess it's not just now that men complain that family courts are stacked against them.) Crosby reacts badly, to say the least. EG Marshall plays Crosby's lawyer, and tragic Inger Stevens plays an associate of Marshall's who befriends Crosby. Bing is not the normal sot of character you'd think of him as in this one.
Wednesday night's TCM honoree is director King Vidor. He started off in the silent era, as you can see if you watch his World War I drama The Big Parade, which kicks off the evening at 8:00 PM. However, the movie I'd prefer to mention this week is Street Scene, which is airing at 10:15 PM Tuesday. The scene really is just one street, or the bit of a street outside a New York tenement building. Sylvia Sidney plays Rose, an office worker who, being unmarried in the early 1930s, still lives with her parents and supports them. Dad (David Landau) goes off to work every day, while Mom (Estelle Taylor) may be seeing another man while her husband is away. There's also the Jewish family the Kaplans, whose son Sam (William Collier) likes Rose and she him, but both sets of parents have problems with the relatoinship. And then there's Beulah Bondi, watching everything that goes on in the building and telling people gossip at the most inopportune times.... This was originally a stage play turned into a movie, and shows how if you have a good story (which this absolutely is), it doesn't much matter if you have a confined location.
September 26 marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of composer George Gershwin. Gershwin has been dead for 76 years, but he wrote songs used in a lot of movies, and TCM is honoring Gershwing with a morning and afternoon of his films on Thursday. This includes both versions of Girl Crazy, which was first a Broadway musical in 1930 and them made into a movie. The 1932 version of Girl Crazy kicks off the day at 6:30 AM, starring RKO comedy team Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey as a pair of New Yorkers who get brought out west by playboy friend Eddie Quillan, who has dreams of turning his ranch into a vacation resort; all sorts of comedic complications ensue.
The setting was changed to an all-male agriculture school a bit further north for the 1943 version of Girl Crazy (noon), in which Mickey Rooney gets sent to the failing college where he meets the dean's (Guy Kibbee) granddaughter (Judy Garland) and helps her and Granddad make the school profitable again, singing several of those great Gershwin songs, such as "I Got Rhythm". A young Nancy Walker provides comic relief, while an equally young June Allyson plays one of the women Rooney romances back in New York. Who could ask for anything more?
We get one more night of Kim Novak movies on Thursday, starting at 8:00 PM with Middle of the Night. Fredric March, who was about 60 when this movie was made, plays Jerry, a widowed business owner in the garment district who needs companionship. Who should walk into his life? One of his employees several steps down the ladder from him, a young woman named Betty (that's Novak, who was about 26) who recently got divorced, and doesn't know what to do with life. Jerry suggests she do something, but he's beginning to fall for her, which means they begin to have a relationship that everybody around them unsurprisingly thinks is a terrible idea, such as Jerry's son-in-law (Martin Balsam) or Betty's friend Marilyn (Lee Grant). 1930s actress Glenda Farrell gets a surprising late-career dramatic role as Novak's mother.
Over on what little is left of the Fox Movie Channel, you'll have two more chances to see a young Tyrone Power in one of his earlier roles: in CafÉ Metropole, at 6:00 AM Friday and 4:35 AM Saturday. Power plays an American who's fallen on hard times in Paris. He's passed a bad check to Adolphe Menjou, who had been embezzling money from the nightclub he manages and wants to use that money to pay back the money. So, Menjou comes up with a plan: force Power to pose as a Russian ÉmigrÉ nobleman, in order to woo the heiress (Loretta Young) of a wealthy relatives Charles Winninger and Helen Westley. However, some complications arise when Power actually falls in love with Young. Further messing up Menjou's plan is the presence of waiter Gregory Ratoff, who is actually the nobleman Power is claiming to be, only in disguise as a waiter.
Joel McCrea was born in November, but TCM is spending Friday morning and afternoon with him. One of his westerns that I don't think I've recommended before is The First Texan, airing at 12:15 PM. McCrea plays Sam Houston, who in real life really had been Governor of Tennessee, who resigned the position and went west to Texas, which at the time was still a province of Mexico. This Sam Houston only wants to be a lawyer, but he gets caught up in the politics of Texas, where a bunch of Anglo migrants from the east want to be free from Mexico, with the movie claiming it's for mostly the same reasons that the original 13 colonies wanted to be free from Britain. Houston is given a love interest in the form of Felicia Farr (whose character would go on to become Houston's second wife in real life), and continues roughly up to the battle of San Jacinto.
I think I've already recommended every single one of the Alfred Hitchcock movies that are airing on Sunday the 29th as part of TCM's month-long salute to the director which ends on Sunday. However, the one that deserves another mention because it's so different is Mr. and Mrs. Smith, at noon Sunday. This is as close as Hitchcock did to a straight-up comedy, as star Carole Lombard wanted him to direct her in a movie. Carole plays Ann, a woman in New York married to wealthy lawyer David (Robert Montgomery). However, there's a small problem: the local magistrate out west who married them several years earlier has discovered that they're technically not married due to a legal quirk in the JP's qualifications. The JP's intention is to re-do the ceremony quickly to remove any legal ambiguity, but thanks to an argument the Smiths had, Ann decides to make David woo her all over again. Obviously, we know that the Smiths will wind up together in the last reel, but the fun is seeing the path they take getting back together.
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