In the USA, we celebrate Independence Day on July 4. In Canada, however, they celebrate independence from the UK on Canada Day, which is July 1. TCM is available in Canada as well, so TCM is spending Monday morning and afternoon with a bunch of movies set in Canada, such as Northern Pursuit, at 3:15 PM. In this one, Aussie-born Errol Flynn stars as a member of the Canadian Mounties. He's going to be trying to get the goods on Helmut Dantine, who is a Nazi. Apparently, the Nazis have a sinister plan involving getting some of their number into Canada, where they've got the parts for a bomber hidden, and then use that bomber to destroy the shipping lanes in the St. Lawrence River. Since Flynn's character is of German descent, he's just the right person to infiltrate the group and foil their plot. So the group traipses across the boreal wilderness, with Flynn's fiancÉe (Julie Bishop) trying to get his name cleared because for public consumption he's had to be declared a traitor.
One of the new features this month is Carson on TCM. One of Johnny Carson's nephews archived the surviving episodes of The Tonight Show that Carson hosted, and a bunch of interviews with people in the movies have been culled for this series. Each Monday at 8:00 PM will see five interviews during an hour, with the rest of the Monday night lineup honoring one or more of the interviewees. This week's interviewees are: a young Drew Barrymore from the ET days of 1982, long before she flashed David Letterman; Kirk Douglas from 1988; Mary Tyler Moore from 1978; Neil Simon from 1980; and George Burns from 1989. The rest of the night is given over to movies based on Neil Simon plays, although the first of them, The Sunshine Boys at 9:00 PM, also stars George Burns.
The third of the Neil Simon films, at 1:00 AM Tuesday, is California Suite, which is one of those anthology movies with an ensemble cast about a bunch of different people who rent the same suite at an upscale California hotel. What I'd really like to recommend, however, is the short following it: Around the World in California, at 2:47 AM Tuesday. This is another of those Traveltalks shorts, from 1947, about how you can find almost anything from anywhere else in the world in California. From its lush farmlands to all the peoples of the world, you'll find it in California. Two of the more humorous parts are of a bicycle tour of the mansions of the stars in Beverly Hills -- there's virtually no traffic other than the bicycles! Also is a line when James FitzPatrick visits the various ethnic sections of Los Angeles, helpfully informing us that "Los Angeles has a population of several thousand Mexicans". I think he's off by a few zeroes.
This being the first week of the new month, we've got a new Star of the Month: Paul Henried, whom you'll recall as Viktor Laszlo from Casablanca, which isn't airing until 10:00 PM on July 30. But every Tuesday in July, you can catch other of Henried's movies. This salute to Henried kicks off at 8:00 PM Tuesday with In Our Time. Ida Lupino plays Jennifer, the secretary to an antiques buyer. The two are in Poland in mid-1939 to purchase some antiques, which is where Jennifer meets count Orvid (Henried). The two fall in love even though there's so much wrong. First is that they're of different social classes, which means a relationship will scandalize the Count's family, while second is the coming war, with the Germans and Soviets splitting Poland in two. Surely these idiots have to know what's coming, and flee for Jennifer's native UK. But no; they marry and try to build up his estate, which is when the Nazis invade Poland. Our new young couple have to resist the Nazis in whatever way they're able to....
Over on the Fox Movie Channel, you can catch Vincent Price in what is more or less a western: The Jackals, at 1:20 PM Wednesday. The movie starts with Stretch (Robert Gunner) leading a group of bandits in late 19th century South Africa who rob a bank and escape through one of the more barren areas that, in theory, is impassable. The gang eventually makes it to the ghost town of Yellow Rock -- except that it's not a ghost town. The meet Wilhelmina (Diana Ivarson), nicknamed Willie who lives there with her "Oupa", or grandfather (Vincent Price), who's a prospector. Stretch knows this means there must be a lot of gold, and he and the gang want to get it, while everybody starts getting the hots for Willie. If this movie sounds familiar, that's because it's a remake of Yellow Sky from about 20 years earlier. The original is better, except that Ivarson makes a better tough woman than Anne Baxter did in the original. Price isn't give enough to do, although he's entertaining enough.
Thursday is Independence Day in the US, and TCM is celebrating on Thursday night with several features that have scenes set on July 4. I think I've recommended all four features before: The Music Man at 8:00 PM; Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! at 10:45 PM; the musical 1776 at 1:30 AM Friday; and Jimmy Stewart winning a gun on Independence Day, only to have it stolen from him, in Winchester '73 at 4:30 AM. In between Ah, Wilderness! and 1776, however, there are three shorts. In the late 1930s, Warner Bros. produced several two-reelers in Technicolor looking at American history, and it is three of these that are on the TCM schedule in the overnight between Thursday and Friday. One of these is The Declaration of Independence, at 12:50 AM Friday. You probably know about how Thomas Jefferson (played here by John Litel) wrote the Declaration of Indepence, but actually getting the Continental Congress to agree to it was more difficult. The short focuses on Delaware delegate Caesar Rodney (Ted Osborne), who had to make it to Philadelphia under cover of darkness and whose vote was necessary to get the thing passed. The short is probably highly dramatized, but it's fun enough, and the color is quite nice.
What would you get if you mix children and gangsters? Try Bugsy Malone, which is on CinÉmoi at 11:00 AM Friday. An homage to the gangster movie, this film stars children (average age about 12) in all the gangster roles. The plot, such as it is, involves Fat Sam's gang put on the defensive because Dandy Dan's gang has gotten a stash of "splurge guns". You see, rather than normal weapons, they "kill" each other with cream pies which, before the splurge gun, had to be thrown by hand. The kids also drive pedal-powered cars. Anyhow, Fat Sam recruits Bugsy Malone (Scott Baio, one of the few recognizable names) to help get back at Dan. Bugsy also has to deal with girlfriend Blousey, whom he's been promising to try to get into the movies. Also in the cast is Jodie Foster as Tallulah, the singer at Sam's nightclub. In fact, the movie is part musical, although the musical numbers are probably the weakest part of the movie. This is really a pretty innocent movie, and a lot of fun.
Earlier on Friday morning, there's a bizarre movie over on TCM: Sh! The Octopus, at 6:15 AM. Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins were normally character actors supporting the big stars at Warner Bros., but this time they get to play the leads in a B picture running just under an hour. The two of them play a pair of police detectives who get called to a lighthouse by a strange woman who claims to have seen her stepfather's dead body there! There are several people there who are apparently in fear of there lives because of a killer octopus! And there's also a famous killer who goes by "The Octupus"! This is a comic mystery, with the emphasis on comedy. Thankfully there's comedy, because the plot doesn't make much sense. One wonders if the mystery is in whether the plot is supposed to make any sense, either. Still, watch to the end for some good special effects.
Friday night is the first Friday in July, which means we get a new TCM Friday Night Spotlight. This month, the spotlight is on the films of French director FranÇois Truffaut, presented by film critic David Edelstein. There are a couple of movies I'm really looking forward to recommending in the Truffaut spotlight, but they don't show up until later weeks. The spotlight kicks off with one of Truffaut's best known movies, and the one you've probably heard of, The 400 Blows at 8:00 PM Friday. This is a story of a young French boy who's not doing well in school and doesn't have much of a home life either because of his parents' constant bickering. In fact, the story is somewhat autobiographical: Truffaut was born to an unwed mother, lived the first several years of his life with Grandma, and when she died found out that his mother was distant and his stepfather was absent a good portion of the time.
Science fiction writer Richard Matheson died a week or so ago. You may not know the name, but you certainly know some of the stuff he wrote. He's probably most famous for the short story that's been filmed as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price and I Am Legend with Will Smith. But he also wrote the story that became The Incredible Shrinking Man, which is this week's Essentials Jr. movie at 8:00 PM Sunday. Grant Williams stars as the happily married man who, thanks to a combination of radioactivity and insecticide, starts to shrink. However, he doesn't just wake up shrunken one day; he shrinks slowly. Eventually he becomes small enough that he winds up living in a dollhouse, until the cat tries to kill him, at which point he has to escape to the basement since his wife thinks the cat did kill him. It's not as if the basement is much safer, though. The movie is one of the best sci-fi movies of the 1950s, and is known for its special effects in making the title character appear like a tiny man (or, more accurately, everything around him seem huge).