zerode – a sensibility

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August 4, 2023 • 12:28 pm 0

On TCM, week of Aug 6, 2023 – singing and dancing, Powell and Pressburger

Pressed for time, so this is going to be a more telegraphic survey than usual, just quick notes on the films for the coming week that I think are most interesting, with some clips to whet your appetite.

Sunday, August 6

  • The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
  • Bunch of Debbie Reynolds films, including The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) and Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van in The Affairs of Dobie Gillis

Monday, August 7

  • Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1970) – cheesy but fun example of the sort of science fiction and fantasy films produced on lower budgets before the whole blockbuster era and huge success of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, etc. upended things. No more quick, cheap and fun Sinbad movies.
  • Billy Budd (1962) – directed by Peter Ustinov and starring Ustinov and Terence Stamp. I somehow didn’t even know about this movie. My personal must see for the week.
  • Berlin Express (1948) – directed by Jacques Tourneur. Allied agents fight an underground Nazi group in post-war Europe. Film noir-ish, great director.
  • On Dangerous Ground (1952) – directed by Nicolas Ray and starring Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan
Original trailer for Captain Nemo and the Underwater City

Tuesday, August 8

  • Bunch of films with Joan Blondell, a nice selection of 1930s movies, including two of the most fun and representative backstage musicals of that era:
    • Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
    • Footlight Parade (1933)
Original trailer for The Gold Diggers of 1933

Wednesday, August 9

  • Joan Blondell continues, with Blonde Crazy (1931) being the highlight
  • The Emperor Jones (1933) – adaptation of a play by Eugene O’Neill, with Paul Robeson
  • That’s Entertainment! (1974). An all-star cast, including Fred Astaire and Frank Sinatra, introduces clips from MGM’s greatest musicals.
  • That’s Dancing! (1985). Gene Kelly, Liza Minnelli and Mikhail Baryshnikov host this compilation of some of the greatest dance numbers in movie history.
  • Stormy Weather (1943) with Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway
An old intro on TCM to The Emperor Jones
Lena Horne in Stormy Weather
The Nicholas Brothers and others in Stormy Weather

Thursday, August 10

  • The day starts, in the witching hours, with three short films from the 1930s directed by Roy Mack, showcasing Black performers
  • Uptown Saturday Night (1974) directed by Sidney Poitier and starring Poitier and Bill Cosby
  • Out of the Past (1947)- directed by Jacques Tourneur. One of the finest and most interesting films noir.
  • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949). Adapted from the book by Mark Twain. Bing Crosby plays an auto mechanic who’s sent back in time to King Arthur’s court. I loved this movie when I first saw it as a kid and don’t really have any critical distance.
Original trailer for Uptown Saturday Night

Friday, August 11

  • Some Rhonda Fleming films
  • Bunch of Alan Ladd films, including the most important, probably: Shane (1953), a crucial western.

Saturday, August 12

Martin Scorsese introduces The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

For people into film, I’d say there’s a bunch of must sees in this week, but many of them films people are likely to have already seen, like Singin’ in the Rain, The Adventures of Robin Hood and Shane. Ones people are maybe less likely to have seen that I think are must sees are the film noir—Out of the Past and On Dangerous Ground—Gold Diggers of 1933, Stormy Weather, The Emperor Jones, and the two Powell and Pressburger. Those last are not the best films by that crucial duo, but are excellent and discussed whenever that duo comes up. My favorite films by Powell and Pressburger are A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948).

To pick just one (and assuming you’ve seen Singin’ in the Rain and Robin Hood)… it’s got to be Stormy Weather if you haven’t seen it or Out of the Past if you have.

For more…

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July 27, 2023 • 8:42 pm 0

TCM week of July 30, 2023 – Daisies, Errol Flynn

First, some meta/blog discussion… I like doing these TCM review posts (which is probably obvious since I’ve been doing them so frequently, originally and now with the resurrected blog). It’s interesting—to me at least—to think about movies in groups and sets and to be able to draw out connections. And hopefully it’s of some interest to others. I have noticed, though, that I’ve written about the same films multiple times, often saying the same things—like with Kiss Me Kate—and also that I may have inadvertently buried some potentially (hopefully) interesting general material in posts that people who don’t watch TCM might not read, like a discussion of the different musical subgenres in one of those posts in which Kiss Me Kate featured. So I’m going to put some thought into how I do these, going forward. But for now…

oh yeah, before we begin properly – Hello to Jason Isaacs

Sunday, July 30, is a bit all over the map but in a very nice way. Some excellent movies, including

  • Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) – which I don’t care for, but I respect that’s a minority view
  • Great Expectations (1946) – directed by David Lean, and based on a slimmed down version written for the stage by Alec Guinness. Considered one of the best filmic adaptations of Dickens.
  • Gigi (1958) – directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold. Not a great musical, but a good one, though there are aspects that seem much less charming now than they presumably did, at least generally, when it came out
  • Coming Home (1978) – an important Vietnam War film, with Jane Fonda, who conceived of and produced the film, and cinematography by the great Haskell Wexler
  • Being There (1979) – with Peter Sellers. Directed by Hal Ashby, who also directed Coming Home. He had a good 1970s—some truly exceptional work.

So that’s a pretty solid day. But the standout, the real “must see” for the day—and the week— is the last: Daisies, “a 1966 Czechoslovakian surrealist comedy-drama film written and directed by Věra Chytilová” (Wikipedia). Not as well known as it deserves to be, but as with Jeanne Dielman the most recent Sight & Sound Critics Poll has boosted its profile: it was ranked 28th, after never having appeared in any Sight & Sound list previously: “This feminist milestone is an anarchic comedy of subversion whose approach to montage is as exuberant as the film’s two protagonists.” Its appearance, and Jeanne Dielman topping the poll, may reflect changes in the critics polled for the list, as well as an increased interest in more complicated and non-traditional films.

I got turned onto it fairly recently—though before the S&S poll—by a friend who’s an art history professional but regularly knows more about films than me, which is, you know, embarrassing. And when I try to show off some of my art history knowledge to get some of my own back… well, let’s just say it doesn’t go well for me as a rule. But I am grateful for being introduced to this really fascinating piece of filmmaking. (It’s also available on Max, Apple TV and the Criterion Channel.)

I can’t really go through every film that TCM’s screening, though sometimes it’s tempting, so I’m just going to call out a few of the films that seem like highlights from the rest of the week.

  • Them (1954) – Monday at 6am. An American giant monster movie, and one of the better ones, with a cameo by… Leonard Nimoy
  • Some great film noir as well on Monday
  • Lucille Ball on Tuesday
  • Anthony Perkins on Wednesday, including Psycho (but not, sadly, Pretty Poison)
  • The Silencers (1966) at midnight Thur/Fri – the first Matt Helm film, with Dean Martin as a secret agent. There were a whole bunch of secret agent movies in the 60s, trying to cash in on the success of James Bond. This one is fun, and fun to see Dean Martin doing his thing. It co-stars Daliah Lavi, who was in one of my favorite Bond films, Casino Royale (but probably not the one you’re thinking of). It’s also perhaps the first movie to feature a post-credits scene.
  • It’s followed by two blaxploitation films, Slaughter (1972) and then Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975). Not great films from this genre, but of interest.
  • That night, Treasure Island (1934), directed by Victor Fleming (who had some success a few years later with Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz – in the same year) and starring Jackie Cooper. Justly famous film version of the book.

And the week closes out, on Saturday night, with two costume dramas starring Errol Flynn, two of the best, non-Robin Hood category: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) and The Sea Hawk (1940). Elizabeth and Essex was directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and also stars Bette Davis as Elizabeth I. Davis’ strong performance was considered Oscar-nomination worthy, but she actually got nominated for Dark Victory instead. The Sea Hawk again has Flynn as a ship captain battling the Spanish Empire and again with some sparks with Queen Elizabeth, in this film played by Flora Robson in a marvelous performance.

And just after midnight: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). What more could you ask for? Well, Captain Blood (1935), obviously, but still… if you’re into great movies, fun period action and adventure movies, it’s just a terrific triple bill, pretty much unmatched.

For more…

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July 25, 2023 • 3:16 pm 0

TCM this week – July 25, 2023

Huh. TCM seems to be celebrating Christmas in July–very Australian of them. They’re showing the 1938 A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen—my second favorite Christmas Carol, non-Muppet category, after the 1951 Scrooge version with Alastair Sim —at 2 am. Record it and hang onto it for 5 months?

And it’s not just A Christmas Carol. Right after it, they’re showing In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which is a musical remake—starring Judy Garland—of another Christmas staple, at least in my house, The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring James Stewart. It’s the movie that was remade most recently as You’ve Got Mail, but the original, set in Christmas-time Budapest, is—despite not having Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks—the better version, as well as being the Christmas-y one. I haven’t seen this musical remake, though the title suggests it is not a Christmas movie in this version.

Actually… that’s it for Christmas stuff. So not much of a Christmas in July. Curious that they’d even program A Christmas Carol now, even at 2 am…

Anyway, Wednesday has a number of good films, including Fury (1936), directed by Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and starring Spenser Tracy. That’s followed by To Kill a Mockingbird and In the Heat of the Night—so a good night of movies.

Thursday, July 27, is all about the Bard, with some very good Shakespeare on screen:

  • Kiss Me Kate (1953) at 8:30 am
  • Henry V (1944) with Laurence Olivier at 10 am
  • Romeo and Juliet (1937), directed by George Cukor and starring Norma Shearer at 12:30 pm
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) at 2:45 pm, and
  • Olivier’s Hamlet (1948) at 5:15 pm

I haven’t seen that “Romeo and Juliet” so it’s the must see for me. The Olivier Hamlet and Henry are justly famous. They’re interesting to watch alongside the more recent versions by Kenneth Branaugh—the earlier ones very much filmed versions of plays, the later ones trying to see how much more can be done cinematically, both by people steeped in, deeply engaged with Shakespeare. I love Kiss Me Kate, but I always want to see it in the 3-D version, ideally in the Castro Theatre of old, where the song “I Hate Men” tends to be a laugh riot. My favorite number in it, though, is “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”:

Continuing…

Friday is Blonde Ambition day. Or something. I like it when programmers do stuff like this—it’s a bunch of movies with “blond(e)” in the title, well four anyway, beginning with the best of the lot at 1 am, Blondie (1938), based on the comic strip.

Saturday, July 29, looks awesome—one of those days when, in the past, when so many movies you could only catch on TV, I would stay in all day watching stuff. It begins with one of the better San Francisco-based movies, Freebie and the Bean, which I’ve written about previously and which is a prime contender for the movie that started the whole “buddy cop” genre. It’s followed by a really stellar selection of stuff:

  • McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) at 4:30 am – directed by Robert Altman, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, and with a soundtrack featuring Leonard Cohen
  • Key Largo (1948) at 2 pm – directed by John Huston, starring Bogie and Bacall, with Edward G. Robinson as the bad guy. Not as talked about or often seen as the other Bogie and Bacall films, but excellent.
  • Foreign Correspondent (1940) – early (well, before all the famous ones anyway), excellent, interesting Hitchcock
  • The Omega Man (1971) at 6:15 pm – fairly cheesy post-apocalypse sci fi film with Charleton Heston. Not as good as that other post-apocalypse film with Heston and some damn dirty apes, but an interesting piece for reflecting on trends in cinema, and in anxiety, as we moved out of the classic Hollywood era.
  • Double Indemnity (1944) at 8 pm – one of the most famous and most important of classic film noir. Not my favorite – which might be Out of the Past – but a must see for anyone serious about film and film genres.
  • Body Heat (1981) at 10 pm. A modern (when it came out forty years ago) reboot of the whole film noir genre, with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. Excellent.

If you haven’t already seen it, the obvious “must see” film of this week is… McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which Roger Ebert hailed as “a perfect film.” (I mean, it’s not Howard Hawks, but it is pretty perfect otherwise.)

For more…

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July 9, 2023 • 3:54 pm 0

TCM this week: an Ozu silent

Coming up at midnight tonight is a chance to see Tokyo No Korasu (“Tokyo Chorus”), Ozu’s 1931 silent feature about a young rebel facing unemployment with three children to feed.

BFI’s synopsis: “Social comedy telling the story of a family man who is dismissed from his insurance company when he sides with a colleague in a dispute against the management. After an unsuccessful search for work and having been forced to pawn his wife’s kimonos he accepts an offer to work in a friend’s curry restaurant.”

In the past, movies like this were hard to see. This particular film wasn’t released in the US until 1982. But now it has a Criterion release, and you can also watch it (though not in as good a quality transfer as Criterion’s) on the Internet Archive.

It’s also showing later this week as part of the Harvard Film Archive program “Ozu 120: The Complete Ozu Yasujiro” which started on June 9 and runs through August 13.

An embarrassment of riches.

Ozu’s one of my favorite directors, though that’s hardly an outré opinion. His Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari) (1953) appeared in Sight & Sound’s list of the greatest films of all time in the first list after it was released and has climbed steadily in critical estimation since. In the 2022 version of the S&S lists, it was ranked #4 in both the overall list and the poll of directors. If you combine the various serious critical appraisal lists for the last 50 years, the only films that top it as contenders for “greatest film” are Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Rules of the Game (La Régle du Jeu), and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I have yet to see an Ozu film that didn’t seem a completely achieved work to me. I adore his cheeky comedy, Ohayo (Good Morning)—it’s one of the films I use to turn younger kids on to watching subtitled foreign films. I tend to try not to see movies like this on a small screen for the first time, but I’ve never had a chance to see Tokyo No Korasu in a theatre before. But I still don’t have access to TCM, so I may just have to watch this on Criterion. But wow, I wish I could attend all the screenings at the Harvard Film Archive.

Two Ozu films are available to stream for free on Kanopy: Tokyo Story and Floating Weeds (1959). There’s also an episode on Ozu and Kurosawa as part of the “Understanding Japan: A Cultural History” course produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian.

There’s been a lot of good writing on Ozu, as you’d expect with a director with that kind of critical regard and such a large body of work:

You can of course find plenty of Ozu on Amazon, particularly in Criterion Collection releases, including Tokyo Story and Good Morning (Ohayo). There’s also stuff to stream including Good Morning and Early Summer.

Some of the other things on TCM this week that are particularly appealing include

  • Carefree (1938) – one of the best Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers pics
  • Ocean’s Eleven (1960) – the original, with Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin
  • Jules and Jim (1962) – Truffaut
  • The Candidate (1972) – Robert Redford
  • Shaft (1971)
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

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July 3, 2023 • 8:49 am 0

TCM for the 4th of July: Musicals

Thought I’d try my hand at another of my TCM reviews, though with the recent uncertainty around TCM’s future, and also with the fact that I currently don’t have access to TCM, it does feel a bit odd. Still…

TCM has chosen an interesting way to celebrate the 4th of July—a day almost entirely devoted to musicals. It’s a good choice: it’s such an American genre, I feel, and while the Western is perhaps more so, that genre is enmeshed in two of the worst issues in American history, slavery and the dispossession and genocide of Native Americans, and even bracketing that (which is a lot to bracket) is often less “holiday” in spirit.

But the day begins (in the wee small / post witching hours) with two of the better of the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby “Road” movies: Road to Utopia and Road to Bali. If you’ve never seen one, check it out. They’re… well, dated in all sorts of ways, obviously. Not great movies, but often mentioned, some of the most popular movies of the 1940s. And interesting in other ways: they are often semi-spoofs of popular movie types of the era, not so much genres as common settings/plots, like the jungle adventure. And they are largely thin narrative wrappings around vaudeville and stage gags and routines, so also provide a small window into that world (as do Singin’ in the Rain and White Christmas).

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December 7, 2015 • 12:13 am 0

TCM picks for the week of Dec 7, 2015

Monday, December 7th

Monday is dominated by lots of war movies to mark the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

The World Of Henry Orient (1964) at 5pm. With Peter Sellers

Skirts Ahoy! (1952) at midnight. A not so spectacular musical with Esther Williams enlivened by a top flight number with Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van.

Tuesday, December 8th

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) at 5pm

North By Northwest (1959) at 9:15pm

Wednesday, December 9th

Out of the Past (1947) at 5:30am. One of the greatest noirs, directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Kirk Douglas as a gangster, Jane Greer as his lover, and Robert Mitchum as the detective who falls under her spell.

Kirk-Douglas-in-Lust-for--001

Lust For Life (1956) at 12:45pm. Nothing to do with Iggy Pop. Vincente Minnelli directs and Kirk Douglas stars in this biopic of Vincent van Gogh.

Seven Days in May (1964) at 3pm. John Frankenheimer directs Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in this thriller about a coup plot by American military officers. Frankenheimer is best known for another military-oriented thriller, The Manchurian Candidate, and also directed the strange and disturbing Seconds, with Rock Hudson. After a great 60s, and a couple of good movies in the early 70s, he had a long dry spell. His most recent decent movie was Ronin (1998) with Robert De Niro and Jean Reno as freelance heist artists.

Thursday, December 10th

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The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) at 3pm. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Gene Tierney is a widow who rents a house by the sea that is haunted by its former owner, Rex Harrison. It’s charming and a bit surprising. With an excellent, early score by Bernard Herrmann. I’ve loved this movie since I was a little kid.

TCM Primetime features five movies by the French director, Claude Chabrol, beginning with one of his finest, Les Cousins (1958) at 5pm.

Friday, December 11th

TCM Primetime this evening features 5 Christmas classics, including a couple of particularly good ones.

The Man Who Came to Dinner (1941) at 5pm

Scrooge (1970) at 7pm. With Albert Finney doing the bah humbugging.

A Christmas Carol (1938) at 9pm. A more traditional version of the Dickens story, with Reginald Owen as Scrooge.

Meet-Me-in-St-Louis-still

Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) at 10:15pm. Vincente Minnelli directed this charming musical with Judy Garland, who debuts the song “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” More: Meet Me in St. Louis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the Good Old Summertime (1949) at 12:15am

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October 18, 2015 • 9:47 pm 0

On TCM October 19-25: a mixed bag with Dietrich, Scotland, Robin Hood, and Horror

rancho2

“She runs the West’s strangest hideout… a ranch where a guest can hide his crime… quench his thirst… betray a woman… and knife a man in the back… for a price!”

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October 11, 2015 • 12:00 pm 0

On TCM Oct 12-18: David Niven, Powell & Pressburger, Droogs, Punks, and Silents

TCM continues its look at the Star of the Month: David Niven with a couple of my very favorite movies.

A_Matter_of_Life_and_Death_Cinema_PosterOn Monday at 5pm (PT), they’re showing one of the greatest films to be made by the British film-making team of Powell and Pressburger, A Matter of Life and Death (1946; released in the USA under the unfortunate title, Stairway to Heaven).

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September 7, 2011 • 6:41 pm 0

On TCM Sep 8-11: Old Faves, Michael Curtiz, and Films for 9/11

A couple of favorites roll around again—which maybe shows that TCM’s programmers share my tastes, or perhaps just that their vaults are not as deep as they sometimes seem. On Thursday, 8 Sep at 3:30am TCM is showing the great Ealing Studios classic The Ladykillers (1955) starring Alec Guinness—and once again they’ve mislabeled this great black comedy as a “crime” picture. Then The Mouse That Roared (1959), with Peter Sellers and Jean Seberg, screens at 7am.

On Friday (at 5am), you can catch one of the great Spenser Tracy / Katharine Hepburn romantic comedies, Pat And Mike (1952). Hepburn is a multitalented athlete from an upper class background and Tracy is the fight promoter who takes her on as a client. At 10am, there’s a little known and seldom seen film from the great director, Nicholas Ray: Party Girl (1958), starring Cyd Charisse. At noon is a movie I’ve never heard of but am quite interested in: The Angel Wore Red (1960), directed by Nunnally Johnson and starring Dirk Bogarde and Ava Gardner as a priest and prostitute who fall in love during the Spanish Civil War. The synopsis makes it sound like sentimental rubbish, but I have a long-standing interest in the Spanish Civil War…

Michael Curtiz directed some terrific movies—including Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), and most famously Casablanca (1942). He was nominated for the Best Director Oscar five times, twice in one year (1938), and won for Casablanca. But he made a lot of movies—173 of them in a career that started in Hungary in 1915 and ended with his last movie in 1961, only one year before his death—and some of them were bound to be less than terrific. The ones showing Friday evening are in this latter category. Yankee Doodle Dandy proved that Curtiz could do decent work in a musical, but I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951) and The Jazz Singer (1953) are at best mediocre, demonstrations that musicals require more than interesting female leads—Doris Day in the former and Peggy Lee in the latter—and competent direction to succeed. Fortunately, TCM has some other Curtiz films playing this week.

Saturday morning (Sep 10) starts with a decent, albeit minor example of Curtiz’s work: the “Philo Vance” murder mystery The Kennel Murder Case (1933), starring Mary Astor and William Powell. Interesting trivia: both these actors have a connection to one of San Francisco’s adopted sons, Dashiell Hammett. Mary Astor is best know for her work as the wide-eyed and seemingly sympathetic, but endlessly duplicitous Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941), based on the novel of the same name by Hammett. Similarly, William Powell is best remembered as Nick Charles in the “Thin Man” series, also based on a Hammett novel. The “Philo Vance” mysteries were immensely popular in their day, with 12 novels, 15 movies (from 1929-47), and a radio serial. These days, though, they’re largely forgotten, while other mystery series from that era are still known and watched. Powell appeared as Vance in four of the films, but it’s his work in the six “Thin Man” movies (from 1934-47) that is remembered these days. Basil Rathbone played Vance in the fourth film in the series, but it is his other series from that period, the “Sherlock Holmes” movies he did with Nigel Bruce, that is still watched today.

TCM is showing more “Philo Vance” movies on subsequent Saturday mornings, so you’ll get a chance to find out what made them popular at the time. But if Curtiz’s “Philo Vance” mystery is basically of interest to film scholars or as a curiousity, the rest of Saturday offers at least two unqualified treasures: The Caine Mutiny (1954), directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Humphrey Bogart and Van Johnson, and The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (1962), the classic “angry young man” film directed by Tony Richardson.

For the 9/11 anniversary, TCM pulls out all the stops. Sunday (Sep 11) is classics from start to finish—including Gary Cooper as Lou Gehrig in The Pride Of The Yankees (1942) at 4:45am; one of the first and greatest American musicals, 42nd Street (1933) at 7am; Woody Allen’s masterpiece Annie Hall (1977) at 1:15pm; perhaps the finest and most important of all “integrated musicals” at 3pm, On the Town (1949); Curtiz’s masterpiece Casablanca (1942) at 5pm; and one of Howard Hawks’ best, and one of the best Westerns, Red River (1948), with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, at 11pm. It’s an amazing day of film, selected in part by TCM’s guest programmers, two responders to the Twin Towers attacks.

For more…

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August 17, 2011 • 3:33 pm 0

More Star Specials on TCM – Grand Illusion, Red River, Cary Grant… and Dobie Gillis

After today’s Bogart marathon—all day today, 13 films and 1 documentary—TCM’s “Summer Under the Stars” with Jean Gabin on Thursday, Debbie Reynolds on Friday, Montgomery Clift on Saturday and then Cary Grant on Sunday. The program then continues for the remainder of the month (full schedule here).

With stars like that, and more than a dozen of their films each day, there’s no shortage of highlights. Here, though, are some of the highlights of the highlights:

Grand Illusion (1937) – directed by Jean Renoir, with Jean Gabin as a French prisoner in a WWI German camp, commanded by Erich von Stroheim – showing Thursday, Aug 18 at 7pm. One of the great classics of world cinema, Roger Ebert called it “a meditation on the collapse of the old order of European civilization.” It’s followed by another film by Jean Renoir and starring Jean Gabim, La Bete Humaine (1938), based on the novel by Emile Zola.

Singin’ In The Rain (1952) – directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds – showing Friday, Aug 19 at 11:15pm.  Kelly and O’Connor play a couple of song and dance men who are trying to make the transition from silent movies to sound. Reynolds is a club dancer and movie fan. A sparkling script by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green. Roger Ebert says Singin’ “is a transcendent experience, and no one who loves movies can afford to miss it.” Leonard Maltin called it “the greatest movie musical of all time.” Selected as one of top ten films of all times in the Sight & Sound critics’ poll.

And yet… And yet… You’ve probably already seen it, so maybe you should check out The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) with Debbie Reynolds and Bobby Van, Hans Conreid (The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T) and Bob Fosse – showing first in the Debbie Reynolds marathon, at 3am. The film on which the TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, featuring pop culture’s first beatnik, Maynard G. Krebs, was based.

Red River (1948) – directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in one of the greatest Westerns of all time – showing Saturday, Aug 20 at 10am.

Saturday, August 21, features 13 movies starring the incomparable Cary Grant, including many of his greatest. The top picks:

4:30am: I’m No Angel (1933) – with Mae West

6 am: My Favorite Wife (1940) – with Irene Dunne

12:30pm: The Philadelphia Story (1940) – directed by George Cukor, with Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart

2:30pm: North By Northwest (1959) – Alfred Hitchcock once said that Cary Grant was the only actor he ever loved. The two made four films together, and this is the last.  It might also be the least. It’s spectacular, with some amazing cinematography—including the wonderful shots at UN Plaza and the scene with the crop duster. But it also has Hitchcock’s weakest blonde, Eva Marie Saint—though perhaps she only seems weak in comparison to Grace Kelly, who’d been in Grant and Hitchcock’s previous outing together, the sparkling To Catch a Thief. Still, immensely satisfying.

7:15pm: Only Angels Have Wings (1939) – another one directed by Howard Hawks, and a personal favorite of mine – with Jean Arthur.

1:15am: Bringing Up Baby (1938) – an another by Howard Hawks, probably a personal favorite of just about everyone. The classic screwball comedy starring Grant as a mousy professor and Katharine Hepburn as a scatterbrain heiress. Clearly TCM wanted to finish their day of Cary Grant on a very high note.

For more…

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August 15, 2011 • 11:01 pm 0

Humphrey Bogart on TCM Wednesday, August 17, 2011

All Bogie, all day Wednesday, August 17, from 3am PST until after midnight. And as with the day of Jimmy Stewart on the weekend, the day features some of the best the actor did—including the two movies that made him a star, High Sierra, at 11:45am, and The Maltese Falcon, at 5pm. Here are the highlights:

8 am PST: To Have And Have Not (1944)—Lauren Bacall‘s film debut in a movie directed by Howard Hawks with a script by William Faulkner from a novel by Hemingway. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together – and blow.” It doesn’t get much better than that. Or does it…

9:45 am: The Big Sleep (1946)—Bogie and Bacall again, directed by Howard Hawks, with Faulkner on script duty again (assisted by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett) working from the great hardboiled detective novel by Raymond Chandler, and a score by Max Steiner. By the end of it, apparently no one involved in the movie could figure out exactly what happened in the story, but it doesn’t matter a bit. The erotic energy of Bogie and Bacall’s exchanges has to be seen to be believed. “I like that. I’d like more.” It really doesn’t get much better than this.

11:45 am: High Sierra (1941) and 1:30 pm: They Drive by Night (1940)—both directed by Raoul Walsh, two of the many taut, tightly directed, and gritty films Walsh did for Warner Brothers in the 1930s and 1940s, including the last film in the original gangster cycle, White Heat (1949), starring James Cagney.

5 pm: The Maltese Falcon (1941)—John Huston’s directorial debut and the first of six movies he would do with his friend, Humphrey Bogart. Considered by many the first real film noir. Based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

Some of Bogie’s best films are missing—Casablanca (1942), obviously, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951)—but some of the minor films during the day are worth checking out, most particularly Bullets Or Ballots (1936), a fine little gangster pic starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Blondell.

In AFI’s 100 Years celebration, Humphrey Bogart was named the top male screen legend in American film history. Any of these highlighted films will show you why.

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August 12, 2011 • 5:39 pm 0

Tomorrow (13 Aug 2011) on TCM: Jimmy Stewart and “The Shop Around the Corner”

All day tomorrow, Saturday, August 13, TCM is featuring the films of James Stewart—and it’s a terrific lineup, with some of Stewart’s most well-known films, and some of classic Hollywood’s best. Some of the highlights:

6am (PST): Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – the Frank Capra classic about DC politics

11:30am: The Shop Around The Corner (1940) – a romantic comedy gem directed by Ernst Lubitsch, the film on which You’ve Got Mail was based

1:15pm: Bell, Book and Candle (1959) – Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon and Elsa Lanchester as Greenwich Village witches

5pm: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) – with John Wayne, directed by John Ford – “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

9pm: Anatomy Of A Murder (1959) – courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger

Bell, Book and Candle is not going to be on too many lists of greatest or must see movies, but it is a fun little film I’ve loved since I saw it on TV as a young kid. There are a lot of movies like it for me—movies that showed on Channel 2 or 20 or 44 in big blocks on Saturdays and Sundays and that formed my love of classic Hollywood, of Abbott & Costello, Bing and Bob, Fred and Ginger and the rest.

Maybe Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around the Corner played on TV back then, but if it did I missed it. Of course, that just meant I got to see it for the first time on a reel screen in a decent print, and the film is indeed a gem. Not as sparkling as Lubitsch’s masterpieces, Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Ninotchka (1939), but still a treasure. Stewart had been starring in films for 5 years and this was his 21st, but he looks so fresh—perfect as the young shop clerk Alfred Kralik who lands a position at the Budapest shop of Matuschek and Company and falls in love with a woman he knows only through the letters they exchange.

Although Samson Raphaelson is credited as screenwriter, it seems likely that some of the credit should go to Lubitsch, who could have drawn on his experience growing up in pre-War Europe and with his father’s business as a draper for so much of the details of the film. I like that the film is set in Budapest, and that the to American ears odd-sounding Hungarian names are used for all the characters. It was filmed in Hollywood and most of the cast and crew were American, but it has a real European film—helped by the marvelous, marvelous performances of the Prussian-born Felix Bressart as Pirovitch, Kralik’s closest friend in the shop, and the Viennese Joseph Schildkraut as the slimy Vadas. Bressart also appeared in Lubitsch’s Ninotchka, as one of the Russians who Greta Garbo is sent to oversee.

Jimmy Stewart is one of the great stars of the classic Hollywood cinema—an all-rounder who did everything well. He made some of the best comedies (The Philadelphia Story, You Can’t Take It with You), terrific dramas and biopics (Anatomy of a Murder, The Glenn Miller Story), two of Hitchcock’s best (Vertigo and Rear Window), great Westerns (perhaps most of all Winchester ’73)—and of course that beloved holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart once said that he wanted people to remember him “as someone who was good at his job.” We remember him as one of the greatest.

And if you don’t believe me, you can get visual proof on this Tumblr blog: fuck yeah, jimmy stewart.

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And one last bit of trivia… The song “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David for the movie, but wasn’t used. Gene Pitney recorded it the following year and it became a big hit for him.

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The 400 Blows

zerode

is an over-caffeinated and under-employed grad school dropout, aspiring leftwing intellectual and cultural studies academic, and cinéaste. Raised in San Francisco on classic film, radical politics, burritos and soul music, then set loose upon the world. He spends his time in coffee shops with his laptop and headphones, caffeinating and trying to construct a post-whatever life.

What's in a name... The handle "zerode" is a contraction of Zéro de Conduite, the title of Jean Vigo's 1933 movie masterpiece about schoolboy rebellion.