Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" Thread, for the week of September 23-29, 2019. Amazingly enough, it's looking as though your Brewers may just make the wild-card game despite losing their best star. So while you wait for that game early next week, why not relax with some good movies. There was enough of note that I didn't have to mention Star of the Month Sidney Poitier on Tuesday night or the James Bond movies on Thursday night, so there's definitely a lot out there worth seeing. As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.
Monday marks the birth anniversary of Mickey Rooney, whose career spanned nearly 80 years. TCM is running several of his movies in the morning and afternoon, including A Slight Case of Larceny at 5:00 PM. Rooney plays “Geechy” Cheevers, an Army veteran who has gone into business with his best friend from the service, Frederick Clopp (Eddie Bracken), that business being a service station. Business is going along moderately well, until a wealthy businessman who owns a chain of stations decides to open across the street from them, planning to put them out of business by undercutting them on gas prices, since he's got the other stations to let this one be a loss leader for a while. Geechy comes up with a great idea to beat the competition, although it's one that's not quite legal: tunnel under the road and tap the other guy's underground gas tank! Not that Frederick likes it, but that never stopped Geechy. Of course, the scheme is bound to be found out sometime, isn't it?
I don't recall whether I've recommended Mr. Holland's Opus before, but it's going to be on MoreMax this week at 1:15 AM Monday. Richard Dreyfus plays Glenn Holland, a musician in the 1960s who takes on a job teaching music to high school students hoping it will give him more time to write the big symphony he's always wanted to write as well as spend time with his wife Iris (Glenne Headly). But Mr. Holland isn't a good teacher at first, and faces difficulties such as other faculty members not liking the music department. Worse, he finds that his own son Cole is deaf and will never be able to appreciate music the way he finally seems to be able to make his student do so. As is often the case in movies like this, the teacher doesn't realize just how much of an effect he's had on his students until he's nearing retirement age and the music department is threatened with closure, at which point all of his old students return to show Mr. Holland what they meant to him, shades of Good Morning, Miss Dove (on FXM this week at 1:10 PM Tuesday and 4:00 AM Wednesday).
Tuesday morning and afternoon on TCM brings a bunch of crime caper movies, including the delightful Too Many Crooks, at 11:30 AM. Terry-Thomas plays Billy Gordon, a wealthy British businessman who hates Inland Revenue, so keeps a lot of cash on hand. Fingers (George Cole), head of an incompetent gang, knows this and tries to rob Gordon, but it fails. So instead, Fingers gets the idea to kidnap Gordon's daughter for ransom. The kidnapping goes to plan... except that when they get back to the hideout, they realize they haven't kidnapped the daughter but Gordon's wife Lucy (Brenda Dr Banzie). Billy hasn't been getting along with Lucy all that well, so when he finds she's been kidnapped, he's not averse to paying no ransom at all. But then Lucy figures out that her husband really intends to let the crooks keep her, and decides to turn the tables on both Billy and Fingers' gang, organizing the rest of the crime and cheating Fingers out of the ransom. This was remade in the 80s as Ruthless People, which isn't on this week as far as I can see.
Apparently it's been long enough since I last recommended The Last Metro that a search of the site couldn't find the post when I recommended it. It's going to be on TCM at 6:00 AM Wednesday. Catherine Deneuve stars as Marion Steiner, a stage actress in early 1940s France married to Lucas, who had owned one of the Paris theaters. "Had" in past tense because, if you know your history, the Nazis occupied France in 1940. Lucas (Heinz Bennent) is a Jew, so he had to flee the country to keep from getting sent to the concentration camps. At least that's the official story. In fact, Lucas is really in hiding in the basement of the theater. Bernard (Gérard Depardieu) is the lead actor in the new play being put on at the Steiners' theater. He's a ladies' man to every woman except Marion, and he, too has a secret. Marion, meanwhile, finds herself falling in love with Bernard. And of course everybody has to deal with the Nazis and the privations of daily life under the occupation.
A movie that's unintentionally fun for going way over the top is Sleeping With the Enemy, whch will be on StarzEncore at 10:39 PM Thursday on StarzEncore (and three hours later if you have the west coast feed). Julia Roberts plays Laura, who seemingly has it all in wealthy husband Martin (Patrick Bergin) and a nice vacation house on Cape Cod. But Martin is a controlling SOB who expects perfection out of Laura, and beats the crap out of her if she screws up the least little bit, like not having the towels hanging at exactly the same length or the kitchen cabinets properly sorted. So she fakes her own death in a boating accident and moves out to Iowa where her mother is in a nursing home. There, she meets Ben (Kevin Anderson), who seems like a nice guy, except of course that Laura isn't ready to trust any man after what she's been through. Meanwhile, Martin has discovered that perhaps his wife isn't dead after all, leading him to look for her, and the eventual hilarious foreshadowing for Laura that he's back. The movie really needed one more bullet at the end if you ask me.
MGM made some interesting lesser movies in the 1950 to fund those lavish Freed Unit musicals. One of the more interesting is It's a Dog's Life, which TCM is running at 6:15 PM Thursday. Wildfire is a dog born in the Bowery who doesn't know who his father is, except that Dad was a "Grand Champion", whatever that means. As you might have figured, Wildfire is the main character and we hear his thoughts, as voiced in voiceover by Vic Morrow. Wildfire sets out to find his father, and gets taken in by Patch (Jeff Richard), who trains Wildfire in dog fighting. He becomes good at it until getting injured and abandoned, to be rescued by Nolan (Edmund Gwenn). Nolan is a servant for the wealthy Wyndham family, led by Mr. Wyndham (Dean Jagger). Mr. Wyndham doesn't want this dog around and is willing to fire Nolan for it, but Wildfire turns out to be a good enough example of his breed that he could be shown in dog shows like Wyndham's other dogs (yeah, right, as if fighting dogs can learn the obedience necessary to compete in shows). And Wildfire might just wind up meeting his daddy.
If you like those quickie B westerns of the 1940s, another one that's airing this week is Ambush Trail, at 1:08 AM Friday on StarzEncore Westerns. This one stars Bob Steele, a star of dozens of Poverty Row cowboy movies in the 30s and 40s, this one being one of five westerns he made in 1946. In this one, he plays Curley Thompson, buying a ranch only to find that the town is run by a couple of really bad guys, led by Hatch Bolton (I. Stanford Jolley). Hatch is having all of the stages coming into town ambushed so that supplies won't get through and everybody will be forced to sell out to him, at which point he can turn around and sell at a huge profit to the moneyed interests back east. Curley tries to fight back, but Bolton tries to frame him for the murder of the sheriff. The sheriff's brother knows it's not true, and this gets more people to fight back. It's standard issue stuff, since the Poverty Row studios were only interested in churning out product rather than being innovative. But there's a reason these movies were a matinee staple until television came along.
TCM's college football spotlight continues on Friday night with a couple of very early talkies, including Eleven Men and a Girl (also known as Maybe It's Love) at midnight Saturday (ie. 11:00 PM Friday LFT). The unlikely football player here is Joe E. Brown, as Speed Hanson. Brown was 37 when he made this, and doesn't look at all like a football player. He's friends with Nan (Joan Bennett), who is the daughter of the school's president, Prof. Sheffield (George Irving). He's in danger of losing his job if the football team doesn't beat its big rival. So Speed comes up with a brilliant idea: have Nan use her sex appeal to woo a bunch of ringers into transferring to their school in time for the big game. (In fact, the players wooed were real college football stars, having been the All-Americans of 1929.) the scheme would have worked too, except that the players find out that they've all been conned by the same woman. And then to make matters worse, she actually falls in love for real with another football player. Watch also for Bennett falling out of a canoe and getting soaking wet in very clingy clothes. 
Over on FXM, you're going to have a chance to catch My Friend Flicka, which will be on at 1:30 PM Sunday. Roddy McDowall plays Ken McLaughlin, a young boy who is considered to be a bit irresponsible by his parents (Preston Foster and Rita Johnson), who are ranchers out in Wyoming. Ken would like nothing more than to raise a foot, but with Ken's immaturity Dad doesn't think it's a good idea. Mom, however, thinks this could teach Ken to be responsible, so Dad relents, letting Ken pick one of the foals. Ken picks a fully, naming her Flicka. But Flicka turns out to be a bit of a problem case, and Dad isn't so sure Ken can handle taming such a wild horse. Things get more complicated when Flicka gets injured and Dad thinks he might have to put the horse down. This was based on a popular book and spawned a couple of sequels, apparently being just what audiences needed during the height of World War II.
Another movie I haven't recommended in a long time is The Hard Way, which will be on TCM at 8:00 AM Sunday. The movie starts off with Helen (Ida Lupino) trying to commit suicide, only to be rescued by a policeman and asked in hospital why she did it. Cue the flashback.... Helen and her kid sister Katherine (Joan Leslie) lived in a midwestern mill town where Helen feels trapped in an unhappy marriage. She decides that the only way to get out is through Katherine. Katherine has some song and dance talent, so Helen pushes her, and they eventually do go on the road, meeting the vaudeville duo of Runkel (Jack Carson) and Collins (Dennis Morgan). Helen eventually gets Katherine to marry Runkel, but it's another loveless marriage, what with Runkel having shades of A Star is Born as Katherine becomes more successful and his own star wanes once he and Collins break up. Helen meets Collins later and falls in love with him, but Katherine realizes she's falling in love with him too....