July 2008
Tuesday July 1
6:30 PM Crime School (Seiler, 1938) - BW-85 mins. - Remake/reworking of The Mayor of Hell, replacing Cagney with Bogart. I didn’t even like the earlier film very much, but anything with Bogart in a lead role that isn’t on DVD should probably warrant a mention. It’s a Warner Bros. title.
12:30 AM My Sister Eileen (Hall, 1942) - BW-97 mins. - Really interesting origins here. The film is based on stories by Ruth McKenney, who moved from Ohio to New York with her sister Eileen. Rosalind Russell plays Ruth while Janet Blair is Eileen. The real life Eileen married novelist Nathanel West, but their union was short as the couple died in a car accident just eight months after the wedding. Russell, TCM’s star of the month, received an Oscar nomination for her role here. The film is not on DVD and was made by Columbia, leaving the dreaded Sony with its rights.
2:15 AM No Time for Comedy (Keighley, 1940) - BW-93 mins. - Rosalind Russell also plays the lead in this film, co-starring James Stewart. The two are married, with Stewart a playwright specializing in comedy and Russell his lead. He’s persuaded to try his hand at tragedy, but the results are underwhelming and life-altering. Interestingly, Stewart’s role was apparently played by Laurence Olivier on Broadway, according to an IMDb reviewer. The Epstein brothers, who would go on to write the Casablanca screenplay, did the adaptation. It’s unavailable on DVD and was done for Warner Bros.
Wednesday July 2
9:00 AM The Feminine Touch (Van Dyke, 1941) - BW-98 mins. - More Russell, but this time with Don Ameche. The two are married and he’s a college professor who’s written a book, but publisher Van Heflin is much more interested in Roz than the book. Van Dyke’s specialty was the romantic comedy (and he cranked ‘em out with abandon), but the cast here, also including Kay Francis as Ameche’s editor, seems quite strong. It sounds like the kind of airy escapism that I love from the studio system. The studio in question here would be MGM, putting Warner Bros. in control of the DVD rights. It’s currently unreleased.
1:30 AM Dancing Co-Ed (Simon, 1939) - BW-84 mins. - A very early Lana Turner vehicle (she would have been 18 at best when it was made) that’s controlled by Warner Bros. (made for MGM) and not on DVD. The plot is something about a contest search for a dancer. Artie Shaw plays himself. I believe the film airs as part of TCM’s July focus on big bands. That also sets up several shorts playing on the schedule, frequently late at night. Perhaps the best musical live action short ever made in Hollywood happens to get an airing early in the morning, at 5:10 AM. The wonderful and mesmerizing Jammin’ the Blues is a must-see. It’s available from Warner Bros. on DVD, but you have to to buy the entire Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection Vol. 2 because the disc it’s a supplement on (Passage to Marseille) is exclusive to that set. However, it can also apparently be found on a release entitled Improvisation that features other jazz-related curios.
Thursday July 3
4:45 AM What’s Up, Tiger Lily? (Allen, 1966) - C-80 mins. - Woody Allen’s first film as director, wherein he famously re-dubbed a Japanese movie to center the plot around an egg salad recipe. I recently discovered that the R1 DVD has gone out of print and is fetching some pretty decent prices. Those who’d just like to watch the movie will get that chance here. If you have to have it on DVD, Optimum released a disc in R2 earlier this year and it’s cheaper to import than to dive into the secondary market for the R1.
Monday July 7
8:00 PM TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence - Sydney Pollack (2008) - C-28 mins. - The channel debuts a new series where film critic Elvis Mitchell sits down to interview well-known actors and directors. This initial episode should be bittersweet as it was one of Pollack’s last interviews before passing away in May. For better or worse, his recent death will add an entirely different dimension to the viewing. The program repeats at 10:00 PM and also on Saturday morning.
4:45 AM To Paris With Love (Hamer, 1955) - C-78 mins. - A little film that once again pairs director Robert Hamer with Alec Guinness. The story is slight, with Guinness playing a man who takes his young adult son to Paris in search of a proper mate. Once there, it’s Guinness who finds a young woman to romance. I couldn’t find a DVD available in the UK or the US so it seems to be unreleased. IMDb lists Rank as the original UK distributor and Continental in the states. Where that leaves DVD rights is anyone’s guess.
Tuesday July 8
8:00 PM Craig’s Wife (Arzner, 1936) - BW-75 mins. - More Rosalind Russell this evening, beginning with a movie directed by Hollywood’s lone female director from the studio system. As such, it’s not surprising that this is what one might call a “woman’s picture,” but maybe slightly subversive of that. Russell plays a character who grabs for materialism instead of more female-centric attributes. Dorothy Arzner’s films often get labeled as giving women a masculine edge and this would certainly fit in that mold. The same story was remade in 1950 as Harriet Craig, with Joan Crawford in the lead. Neither are on DVD, with Sony controlling.
1:30 AM Sister Kenny (Nichols, 1946) - BW-116 mins. - What was Dudley Nichols doing when he wasn’t writing screenplays for John Ford, Howard Hawks and Fritz Lang? A little bit of directing, it turns out. He earned credit on three films in total including this one. Rosalind Russell again stars in the fact-based story about an Australian nurse who discovered a way to effectively treat polio. Russell won a Golden Globe and picked up an Oscar nomination for her portrayal. Made for RKO, the film is not on DVD and its rights should rest with Warner Bros. in R1.
Wednesday July 9
12:00 PM Surprise Package (Donen, 1960) - BW-99 mins. - If you’re not sold by Yul Brynner as a deported gangster then how about Noel Coward as a king whose crown Brynner is trying to take for himself. Stanely Donen’s comedy adaptation of Art Buchwald’s novel A Gift from the Boys doesn’t sound particularly good, but it does look to be interesting. Mitzi Gaynor livens things up further as Brynner’s girl. The film was made for Columbia and hasn’t found a DVD release from Sony. I would say it probably won’t either, but the company might surprise as they did recently when word slipped out that a series of unrelated treats, including Husbands and $, are due soon as “martini movies.”
10:00 PM I Dood It (Minnelli, 1943) - BW-102 mins. - What a stupid title. Vincente Minnelli was put on the film by MGM after original director Roy Del Ruth was fired. Minnelli had just made his first feature Cabin in the Sky and probably wasn’t thrilled about stepping in to direct Red Skelton and Eleanor Powell. Skelton plays a tailor’s assistant who develops a crush on stage star Powell. Though you won’t see his name anywhere in the credits, Buster Keaton and his Spite Marriage were the inspiration for I Dood It, and Skelton apparently lifted gags verbatim from Keaton. Some of what’s in the final version of this film is Del Ruth and some of it is Minnelli. Fans of the latter may be able to detect a number he did with Lena Horne and Hazel Scott against an all-black chorus. Things weren’t all bad for Minnelli, though, as he got to make Meet Me in St. Louis for his next picture. I Dood It isn’t on DVD, and is controlled by Warner Bros.
Thursday July 10
1:00 PM Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (Girard, 1966) - C-107 mins. - James Coburn seemed like a pretty cool guy in the ’60s, right. The Flint movies, The President’s Analyst, and some odd ducks like this and Duffy (which I mentioned in a past week and which also follows at 3:00 PM). Coburn here is a con man who plans an elaborate airport bank robbery. I’ve read comparisons to Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. Bernard Girard was credited both as director and sole screenwriter for the film, but doesn’t have much else of interest in his CV. The movie was at one point on R1 DVD, but a victim of Sony’s inane removal of several titles from the marketplace. It seems to be easy enough to find on the secondary market, but is technically out of print.
4:45 PM The Happening (Silverstein, 1967) - C-101 mins. - More sixties oddness here. Director Elliot Silverstein’s follow-up to Cat Ballou is about hippies who abduct a gangster, only to have him see things their way when his family doesn’t demand his return. Anthony Quinn stars as the kidnapped man, but it’s Faye Dunaway in a supporting role (the same year as Bonnie and Clyde was released) that caught my attention. Other members of the supporting cast include Michael Parks, Milton Berle and The Apartment’s Jack Kruschen. Columbia again and not on DVD either.
Friday July 11
8:45 AM Penelope (Hiller, 1966) - C-98 mins. - The good news is that a Natalie Wood box set is supposedly on the way from Warner Bros. later this year. It was informally announced but nothing official yet. The bad news is that this wasn’t included in the list of titles in the box. Natalie plays a wife who feels neglected by her husband (Ian Bannen) and decides to rob a bank as a way of getting attention. Peter Falk and Jonathan Winters co-star. Director Arthur Hiller was pretty obviously an uneven craftsman, but he did make at least two extremely good movies (The Americanization of Emily and The Hospital, plus the more well-known Love Story, Silver Streak, and The In-Laws) so perhaps Penelope has its charms. It was made for MGM, but Warner Bros. should have the rights.
8:00 PM Paper Lion (March, 1968) - C-105 mins. - Alan Alda when he was “Robert Alda’s son” instead of “Hawkeye Pierce.” It’s mildly unbelievable that there’s no DVD of this film yet. Writer, sometime actor, and general participant in most everything the world had to offer George Plimpton posed as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions training camp and turned it into a book. Alda plays Plimpton and numerous football players appear as themselves. United Artists released the film so MGM should have its DVD rights. What’s the hold-up, though? Football movies, especially ones that are fairly well-known, seem to be popular enough to warrant release. This was Alda’s breakthrough so it’s shocking to still not have it out. Those who missed Otto Preminger’s Skidoo last time it aired, TCM has another showing scheduled for 2:00 AM. It’s likely to be the same full frame print, however.
Saturday July 12
4:15 AM A Letter for Evie (Dassin, 1946) - BW-89 mins. - One of Jules Dassin’s MGM pictures before he saw the dark of noir. The director was critical of these earlier efforts, which has lead me to mostly avoid them previously, but now I think I’m ready to give most anything his name was attached to a try. The film seems to be a romantic comedy, about shirt factory worker Evie who slips a letter into a soldier’s shirt to begin a pen pal correspondence of sorts. Dassin only had one more film to go before his simmering Brute Force, which, like this movie, features Hume Cronyn. A Letter for Evie isn’t on DVD and has its rights controlled by Warner Bros.
Sunday July 13
6:00 AM You Belong to Me (Ruggles, 1941) - C-95 mins. - The other Barbara Stanwyck-Henry Fonda comedy from 1941. If it’s not hardly as good as The Lady Eve, it’s probably because few films are. From a story by Dalton Trumbo, the movie has Stanwyck as a doctor who falls for and marries Fonda’s rich playboy. He then becomes jealous of her male patients and takes a job at a department store. Ehh, the plot’s a little creaky, but the two leads make the film at least a curiosity. It was made for Columbia and isn’t on DVD.
12:00 AM The Racket (Milestone, 1928) - BW-84 mins. - I’ve only seen the 1951 remake with Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan as, respectively, a cop and crook, and I thought it was pretty terrible. Nicholas Ray was inserted by RKO boss Howard Hughes to work on some scenes. John Cromwell was the credited director, but a host of others worked on the picture too. Regardless, this silent original has a better reputation and even received a Best Picture nomination. Hughes also produced it, but the film languished for decades after its initial release, unseen until Flicker Alley, along with TCM and UNLV, conducted an extensive restoration on The Racket and two other Hughes productions. Those television airings premiered in 2004, but still no DVD. I’m unaware of the reason for the hold-up, but I’m glad TCM is showing the film again.
5:30 AM Black Magic (Ratoff, 1949) - BW-105 mins. - A largely unknown film starring Orson Welles as Cagliostro, a gypsy hypnotist out for revenge against his parents’ killers. Welles apparently did some or even most of the directing himself, though it’s uncredited. Frequent Welles co-star Akim Tamiroff co-stars, along with Nancy Guild and Valentina Cortese. It was made in Italy, outside the Hollywood system, and released in the U.S. by United Artists. I don’t think UA retained distribution rights, though, because the VHS was released by a small outfit. I’d guess that indicates possible public domain status, which, if true, makes its lack of availability on DVD strange. So I’ll just punt away questions of ownership then.
Monday July 14
1:45 PM The Black Book (Mann, 1949) - BW-88 mins. - Also known as Reign of Terror, Anthony Mann’s film noir set during the French Revolution is certainly a unique entry in the style. It’s more in line with the other films Mann was making at the time than owing to any traditional period drama conventions. As such, it’s essential viewing for fans of the director and/or cinematographer John Alton. The cast includes Richard Basehart, Robert Cummings, Arlene Dahl, and Charles McGraw. Avoid the VCI disc, though I can’t speak with certainty about the quality of TCM’s broadcast either. Most of Mann’s forties films unfortunately look terrible on DVD.
8:00 PM TCM Presents Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence - Bill Murray (2008) - C-28 mins. - I was going to share a story about encountering Murray up close, but decided against it. Not a pleasant experience. Anyway, I still enjoy his work and his humor so this should be a pretty fast half hour. Mitchell’s guests the next couple of weeks are Laurence Fishburne and Quentin Tarantino.
3:00 AM Hitchcock (Schickel, 1973) - C-58 mins. - I believe this is actually the Hitchcock episode from Richard Schickel’s The Men Who Made the Movies series. Hitchcock is interviewed on camera and the program is narrated by Cliff Robertson. These occasionally show up on Warner Bros. DVD’s, but this one hasn’t been included on any of the studio’s Hitchcock releases so this might be the best opportunity to see it (until TCM shows it again).
Tuesday July 15
12:00 PM Sleuth (Mankiewicz, 1972) - C-138 mins. - Because the R1 disc is out of print ($117 new from an Amazon third party seller!) without any current expectation of being available again, I thought it might be worth highlighting the channel’s showing of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Sleuth - a cracking film that proves two strong actors can carry a longish film all by themselves when the direction and source material are this good. Based on the Anthony Shaffer play, the story involves a mystery writer played by Laurence Olivier who invites his wife’s lover (Michael Caine) to his large, isolated estate with possible intentions of revenge. It would be Mankiewicz’s final film as director, ending one of the great Hollywood careers for a writer/director. Really a shame about the lack of (R1) DVD availability, though. I’m not sure it’s currently in print anywhere. Paramount of course did put the film out in R2 back in April.
Wednesday July 16
12:00 PM It Had to Be You (Hartman, Maté, 1947) - BW-98 mins. - TCM serves up several Ginger Rogers movies this morning and afternoon, beginning with Phil Karlson’s Tight Spot at 10:00 AM. In It Had to Be You, she plays a runaway bride tamed by fireman Cornel Wilde. I can’t imagine what was going on behind the scenes to have two distinctly different voices informing the direction. Don Hartman was a producer and writer of things like some of the “Road” movies with Hope and Crosby while Rudolph Maté, whom I’ve mentioned before, was an amazing cinematographer who worked with Dreyer, Lang, Hitchcock, and Lubitsch. This was the first directing credit for both. The film was made for Columbia and isn’t on R1 DVD. It can be found in the R2 Ginger Rogers set, which I don’t own but which also has Tight Spot, the very funny Bachelor Mother and three films already available in R1 (Top Hat, The Major and the Minor, and The Gay Divorcee). It’s only eleven pounds as of this writing so not a bad deal at all.
Thursday July 17
2:00 PM The People Against O’Hara (Sturges, 1951) - BW-102 mins. - Four years before teaming on Bad Day at Black Rock, Spencer Tracy and John Sturges made this courtroom drama with the actor starring as a retired alcoholic attorney who tries to defend a young man on murder charges. John Hodiak plays the DA, Pat O’Brien is a detective, and James Arness has the role of the defendant. The film obviously doesn’t have the reputation of the most excellent Bad Day (probably my favorite film from both actor and director), and it’s not really in that league. However, it’s a somewhat typical lawyer movie and it’s not on DVD. Made for MGM, Warner Bros. should now control the film’s rights.
Saturday July 19
8:00 AM Operation Mad Ball (Quine, 1957) - BW-105 mins. - Early Jack Lemmon comedy, but one that’s been difficult to see for many years. He plays an Army private (in peacetime) who tries to throw a crazy dance party without his strict superior officer (Ernie Kovacs) finding out. The supporting cast includes Mickey Rooney, Kathryn Grant, and Arthur O’Connell. Blake Edwards worked on the screenplay and direction is by Columbia favorite Richard Quine, who worked with Lemmon many times. It’s not available on DVD. Another Lemmon movie, 1956’s You Can’t Run Away From It, directed by Dick Powell and a musical remake of It Happened One Night, airs late in the day, at 10:15 PM.
1:15 AM You Can’t Get Away with Murder (Seiler, 1940) - BW-79 mins. - Here’s a gangster movie, starring Humphrey Bogart as a small-timer, that hasn’t made its way to DVD just yet. Bogie corrupts teenager Billy Halop into taking the blame for one of his crimes. Gale Page is Halop’s older sister. You have to think Warner Bros. will eventually get around to releasing the film on DVD due to star and genre.
Sunday July 20
6:00 AM Turnabout (Roach, 1940) - BW-83 mins. - Hal Roach is, of course, best known as a producer of silent shorts and Little Rascals comedies (1140 producing credits on IMDb!), but he did make a few features without established characters, including this one. It stars Adolphe Menjou, John Hubbard, and the ill-fated Carole Landis. The latter two are a married couple who somehow switch bodies. The set-up came from a Thorne Smith novel which was published a few years after his successful Topper book. Not really sure why I latched onto this one; it was probably Landis’ name that caught my eye. It was originally made for Roach’s studio and distributed theatrically by United Artists. Some quick research seems to indicate a company named RHI Entertainment, known somewhat for its television movies and miniseries work via Hallmark, now controls the Roach library.
2:00 AM The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov, 1957) - BW-95 mins. - Available from Criterion in an edition completely without any extras on the disc, this Russian language film about war and love is a stunner. Its story may seem basic, about a young couple split apart by his entry into the military during WWII and her resulting difficulty in dealing with his loss, but it’s very well done. The cinematography has to be seen to be believed. Highly recommended. I’m debating whether to finally purchase the film at Deep Discount’s unbelievably cheap Buy One Get One Free Criterion sale currently in progress.
Monday July 21
2:30 PM The First Time (Tashlin, 1952) - BW-89 mins. - What a nice coincidence that a film so named would actually be Frank Tashlin’s initial feature directing credit. Though he’d done re-shoots on The Lemon Drop Kid with Bob Hope the year before, he didn’t receive an on screen mention for it. With Son of Paleface, also with Hope, and this picture, Tashlin broke into feature comedies outright. Robert Cummings and Barbara Hale star as a married couple “hilariously” struggling through her first pregnancy and ensuing birth, hence the risqué-riffic title. It’s a Columbia/Sony title and not on DVD. Incidentally, TCM is showing a ton of stuff not on DVD this afternoon, most of which I’m not interested in, though Jack Carson in a movie called The Good Humor Man (6:00 AM) sounds like a pretty decent backup plan.
Tuesday July 22
8:00 PM Night Must Fall (Thorpe, 1937) - BW-116 mins. - Back a couple of years ago (three maybe?), TCM anointed Robert Montgomery star of the month and I tried to catch his crime-related films because I’d enjoyed Ride the Pink Horse so much a few years ago. I watched Lady in the Lake and liked it more than the consensus so I was then anxious to visit Night Must Fall. The film earned Montgomery an Oscar nomination for playing a drifter who’s hired by an older lady only to have his true identity revealed to be…something sinister. The problem is it’s very stagy, owing to its basis as a play, and completely missing any suspense. Montgomery is good, notwithstanding his accent, but the film hasn’t aged well. Rosalind Russell co-stars, and gets the night to herself. None of the seven films being shown are on DVD, including three more starring Montgomery. Night Must Fall was made for MGM and is now controlled by Warner Bros.
10:00 PM The Velvet Touch (Gage, 1948) - BW-97 mins. - Another one of those seven is this title, also listed as a suspense thriller. The director, Jack Gage, doesn’t have much going for him since this was his only time helming a feature, but anytime you get Sydney Greenstreet in support the cinematic ground automatically firms up a little. The plot seems to concern Russell as a Broadway actress who accidentally kills her producer (played by Leon Ames). Claire Trevor plays a rival who may also be a suspect and Greenstreet is the police captain. As mentioned, it’s unavailable on DVD and was made for RKO, making it a Warner Bros. property.
Thursday July 24
12:00 PM 711 Ocean Drive (Newman, 1950) - BW-102 mins. - I know one or two readers must’ve seen this film noir, but I haven’t and, further, I just watched the same director’s Dangerous Crossing last week without much enthusiasm. Edmond O’Brien plays a telephone repairman in Los Angeles who gets involved with a bookie and some gangsters and murder and the usual. Joanne Dru, probably best known for Red River, though she was also in John Ford’s Wagon Master and All the King’s Men around the same time, co-stars. Sony controls the DVD rights and there’s actually some forum fodder that several of their classics along this line will see the light of day, as early as next year.
9:30 PM Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Litvak, 1939) - BW-104 mins. - In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the FBI (which is actually a bit erroneous since the Bureau wasn’t christened as such until the 1930s), TCM has a slate of movies lined up for tonight dealing with the government agents. I’ve thought about trying to join the FBI before actually, but always thought better of it. That will probably continue and then I’ll be too old in a few years and so forth. Anyway, this movie somewhat improbably stars Edward G. Robinson as a G-Man who infiltrates a Nazi spy ring. George Sanders and Paul Lukas co-star. Anatole Litvak directs. It was made for Warner Bros. and is not on DVD.
1:15 AM Walk a Crooked Mile (Douglas, 1948) - BW-91 mins. - Take your pick between this, Walk East on Beacon! at 11:30 PM, and Down Three Dark Streets at 3:45 AM. All are more FBI-oriented movies. Dennis O’Keefe stars as an agent who pairs with Scotland Yard investigator Louis Hayward to stop security leaks from a California nuclear plant. Carl Esmond and Raymond Burr lead the supporting cast while Reed Hadley (Sam Fuller’s Jesse James) narrates to give everything a docudrama feel. Another Columbia picture, though I’m not entirely sure they still have the rights. I didn’t find a DVD release for this one.
Saturday July 26
12:30 PM Western Union (Lang, 1941) - C-95 mins. - Randolph Scott, Robert Young, and Dean Jagger in Fritz Lang’s second western, this one about the trials of implementing telegraph lines. It’s available from Optimum in the UK, but not yet on R1 DVD. Fox made the film and should still have the rights.
2:00 AM Rope (Hitchcock, 1948) - C-81 mins. - Available on DVD from Universal, but bear with me here. When I was a kid, there was no Turner Classic Movies. My cable company didn’t carry TNT. I didn’t have any premium movie channels. TBS mostly still showed crap back then like they do now; it was just older, testosterone-heavy crap. The saving grace in my formative days was A&E, which aired old movies during the day and also on weekend nights. That channel liked to show Rope and I liked to watch it. The commercial interruptions sort of take you out of the film, but its length was otherwise perfect for the short attention span of youth. So if you take out the ads, as TCM will, I think Hitchcock’s film is really more perfect for television than DVD or video because it ideally should be seen in one uninterrupted sitting (as all movies should, but some are harder than others to accomplish this with). I’m pretty sure it was the first time I’d seen a Hitchcock or a Jimmy Stewart movie and I still have a nice place reserved for the film.
Sunday July 27
10:00 AM High Sierra (Walsh, 1941) - BW-100 mins. - Also easy to find on Warner Bros.’ DVD, but it’s my favorite of Raoul Walsh’s films and there’s not a lot else going on this week. Probably as important to Humphrey Bogart’s career as any film he made, High Sierra established the actor as a leading man movie star and also began the vital link he had with John Huston, who wrote the script from W.R. Burnett’s novel. The Maltese Falcon would then follow later the same year. Something I really like about High Sierra is how it plays with the gangster genre, climaxing in a breathtaking outdoor manhunt, while also serving up a protagonist made sympathetic by Huston’s writing and Bogart’s acting. His absolute best roles (here, but also Falcon, Casablanca, Sierra Madre, In a Lonely Place) are shaded in more grey than any other movie star’s. The characters are flawed, surprisingly charismatic, and varying degrees of likable, but we always care about them.
Tuesday July 29
1:00 PM Double Harness (Cromwell, 1933) - BW-69 mins. - Believed to be lost until recently, and first shown on TCM in April of last year, the film stars William Powell and Ann Harding as an unhappily ever after newly married couple. Several RKO pictures were unearthed at the same time and I don’t think any have yet made it onto DVD. Warner Bros. is in charge of R1 rights.
4:45 AM Mrs. Pollifax–Spy (Martinson, 1971) - C-110 mins. - From the popular series of books about an older lady who improbably joins the CIA. Rosalind Russell stars and also received final screenplay credit under a pen name. The director is Leslie H. Martinson, whose work you may know because he not only made the Cliff Robertson as JFK picture PT 109, but, also, the Adam West Batman film! Darren McGavin co-stars with Russell, whose last role this was. The film was released by United Artists theatrically, giving MGM its rights now. It isn’t on DVD.
Wednesday July 30
10:45 AM The Old Dark House (Whale, 1932) - BW-72 mins. - I’ve been going through Universal’s most recent release of the original The Mummy so it’s a nice coincidence for TCM to air another of the studio’s horror films from the same year and with Boris Karloff. This one has James Whale re-teaming with Karloff after the huge success of Frankenstein the year before. The supporting cast, including Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, and Gloria Stuart, isn’t bad either. It’s on DVD from Kino.
1:45 AM This Could Be the Night (Wise, 1957) - BW-104 mins. - Robert Wise comedy about a teacher who takes a secretary job at a night club run by gangsters. Jean Simmons stars, with Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, and Joan Blondell in support. Made for MGM, it’s Warner Bros.’ film to release now, but nothing doing yet on DVD.
Thursday July 31
8:00 PM Monte Walsh (Fraker, 1970) - C-99 mins. - I caught this during FSLC’s Lee Marvin retrospective last summer and it’s a pretty good, early ’70s kind of western. Certainly worth releasing on DVD, though I’m not sure which studio controls the film. (Fox released on VHS, but Warner Bros. has the Tom Selleck remake.) Marvin is a behind-the-times cowboy, with Jeanne Moreau his casual lover and Jack Palance his friend. Marvin and Moreau together is an interesting combination and Palance’s role is somewhat atypical of the actor’s usual tough guy parts. Mitch Ryan plays the young bad guy and was sitting in the back row of the screening I attended, just enjoying the movie. He probably doesn’t have a copy of it either.
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