The TCM Ten 9/1-9/7 August 31, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films , trackback
I’m starting a new weekly heads-up of ten interesting films or specials on my favorite channel, Turner Classic Movies in the U.S. This should remind me what to watch for and hopefully help someone else every now and then as well. I’m neither endorsing nor claiming I’ve seen every selection here, only that there’s something worth exploring further. It may be for a particular director, actor, or anything else. The only criteria will be relative obscurity (don’t expect me to point out the monthly Casablanca showing), which automatically qualifies most any film unreleased on DVD. TCM starts their program day at 6:00 AM EST so I’ll follow their lead there. (i.e. all times EST and a new day starts at 6:00 AM instead of midnight) I’m picking out ten things of interest each week, beginning this Saturday, the 1st of September. Every Friday (in theory) I’ll make a new post summarizing what I picked and why. So, here we go:
Saturday September 1
8:00 AM In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1950) - BW-94 mins. - Certainly not obscure, and out in a fine DVD from Sony/Columbia, but still not as well known as it deserves. My favorite film not immutably perched in the film canon.
4:00 PM One, Two, Three (Wilder, 1961) - BW-109 mins. - Wilder’s zaniest film and my favorite non-gangster Cagney performance. Again, available in a good MGM anamorphic DVD, but undervalued nonetheless.
Sunday September 2
6:00 AM The Kid from Spain (McCarey, 1932) - BW-96 mins. - This is the musical comedy Leo McCarey made just before Duck Soup (and right after Indiscreet starring Gloria Swanson). It stars Eddie Cantor as an expelled college student who somehow ends up as the getaway driver following a robbery (I think). His plan to evade the police is simple enough: go to Mexico and pretend to be a famous bullfighter. Things get hairy when the cop following him from the states gets tickets for Cantor’s bullfight. That’s about all I know as I’ve never seen it, but McCarey is one of the more neglected early comedy directors (and this was his prime era) so it’s probably worth a watch. A couple of alternatives to waking up early Sunday morning might be a scandalous Hedy Lamarr in Ecstasy at 2:15 AM, followed by Robert Aldrich’s Too Late the Hero.
Monday September 3
8:30 AM Directed by John Ford (Bogdanovich, 2006) - C-111 mins. - The TCM guide sums it up better than I could: “Newly updated and re-edited version of the 1971 documentary chronicling the career of maverick director John Ford. Narrated by Orson Welles.” Not yet available on DVD.
10:30 AM Raw Deal (Mann, 1948) - BW-79 mins. - Along with the previous year’s T-Men, this film noir established Mann as a great B-movie auteur prior to his tackling of, first, the western, and, then, the epic. Available in numerous cheap and terrible digital incarnations. None, I believe, are any better than what TCM shows.
2:00 AM The Wind (Sjöström, 1928) - BW-82 mins. - I’m fairly sure this is the last silent film directed by Sjöström, who perhaps has become just as well known for starring in Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. It’s not been released on DVD to my knowledge, with Warner Bros. owning the R1 rights. Starring Lillian Gish, it’s a film I haven’t yet seen, but with a reputation that precedes it a mile, The Wind on television gives me no excuse to avoid the film any longer.
3:30 AM Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer, 1965) - BW-84 mins. - Here’s a perfect example of why I love TCM so much. They follow up The Wind with this, a film where “three go-go dancers resort to murder in search of a family’s hidden treasure.” Probably exploitation king Russ Meyer’s most famous movie, it’s been shown a few times before on TCM, mostly during their Friday night “Underground” series. Another one I’ve not had the pleasure of watching. It seems that both the R1 and R2 DVD releases are no longer in print.
Tuesday September 4
12:15 PM The Sniper (Dmytryk, 1952) - BW-88 mins. - Smack dab in the middle of a nine film Edward Dmytryk marathon to start the day, this is probably the film I’d pick as the most essential (though the Connery-Bardot teaming of Shalako is hard to pass up). Adolphe Menjou and Marie Windsor, of The Killing and The Narrow Margin fame, star in the disturbing story of a man who begins shooting seemingly random people with an assault rifle. A Stanley Kramer production, the film was made by Columbia and remains unreleased on DVD. With Sony’s dismal track record of late, I wouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Wednesday September 5
2:00 PM A Child Is Waiting (Cassavetes, 1963) - BW-105 mins. - Another film produced by Stanley Kramer for Columbia, about a teacher (Judy Garland) who takes an interest in an autistic boy whose parents have left the child at an institute for the mentally impaired and not visited him during his stay. Burt Lancaster also stars as a child psychologist. Kramer apparently took the reins away from Cassavetes in the editing stage so his “authorship” is somewhat questionable, but I know many regard the film fairly well, especially for its handling of mental retardation. No R1 DVD, though there is an out of print French release.
Friday September 7
12:30 PM It Happened in Brooklyn (Whorf, 1947) - BW-103 mins. - An early Frank Sinatra movie, also starring Peter Lawford and Jimmy Durante. A musical love letter to Brooklyn, the place Frank’s character has been dreaming about returning to since serving in WWII. Young and blonde Gloria Grahame the same year she was Oscar-nominated for Crossfire. Not available on DVD, but made by MGM so a Warner Bros. property and thus likely for release at some point.
Comments»
I’m up for ‘It Happened in Brooklyn’ on Friday - thanks Clydefro. No more downloading those massive monthly listings from the TCM site for me! Keep ‘em coming!
If you can’t find it come Friday, don’t blame me - my information is for the U.S. channel!
Thanks though.
“The Sniper” and Frank. Can’t beat those picks.