Somehow I’ve never seen Two-Faced Woman (airing on TCM Thursday, July 25 at 9:30 a.m. as part of a daylong block of “twin” movies), despite its Garbo and Melvyn Douglas pedigree. It always gets such lukewarm reviews when compared with the incomparable Ninotchka that it hardly seems fair.
See you here sometime after it airs (assuming I survive this blasted production of The Pirates of Penzance that has so eaten into my viewing schedule…).
I’m busily rehearsing this month, and when I’ll get to watch all of these will be dictated by the kindness of Gilbert & Sullivan, but these are some noteworthy unseen-by-me’s (with accompanying Reasons Why) coming up on TCM in these next few days:
The Gazebo (1960) – A Glenn Ford/Debbie Reynolds domestic murder comedy. Carl Reiner’s in it. Sold. Airs Tuesday, July 9 at 6:15 p.m.
Bardelys the Magnificent (1926)/ The Show (1927) – Parts of a daylong salute to John Gilbert on Wednesday, July 10. The former is a Sabatini adaptation (airs at 6:30 a.m.), the latter a sideshow story (airs at 8:15 a.m.). Check and check.
Trade Winds (1938) Frederic March, Joan Bennett & Ralph Bellamy in another mystery comedy in which Bellamy will, I’ll wager, not get the girl. Airs Wednesday, July 10 at 9:30 p.m.
Another Francois Truffaut Friday Night Spotlight on July 12,starting at 8:00 p.m. Though I’m still looking for time to watch all of last week’s.
St. Martin’s Lane (1938 aka London After Dark) stars Charles Laughton and Vivien Leigh as London street buskers. Almost too easy. Of course I want to see that. Airs Saturday, July 13 at 6:00 a.m.
Hired Wife (1940) – Rosalind Russell marries Brian Aherne for business reasons; Robert Benchley looks on. Duh. Airs Saturday, July 13 at 10:30 p.m.
And finally there’s Sunday night, July 14. The “Seven Up” lineup begins at 8:00 p.m. and is full of goodness (including The Magnificent Seven (Bill Hader’s Essentials Jr.), Seven Angry Men (Raymond Massey perfectly cast as John Brown), Buster’s classic Seven Chances, and Seven Samurai, but my particular interest is in the Max Linder silent Seven Years Bad Luck, which airs at midnight.
That should just about cover me. Come mid-August, my eyes are going to be wiped out from playing catch-up. But in a happy way.
I am criminally undereducated where the films of Truffaut are concerned. I am also about to spend July being foolishly busy thanks to the great men that were Sir William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan (and more accurately the people paying me to direct one of their works). I don’t guarantee that I’ll have something on each of these in a timely fashion, but Truffaut was French, so I can’t imagine he’d want me to hurry…
Here’s the lineup:
8:00 p.m. – The 400 Blows (1959)
9:45 p.m. – Antoine & Colette (1962)
10:30 p.m. – Stolen Kisses (1969)
12:15 a.m. – Bed and Board (1970)
2:00 a.m. – Love on the Run (1979)
4:00 a.m. – The Green Room (or The Vanishing Fiancee) (1978)
Sh! The Octopus is obviously something I’m going to love and, equally obviously, probably terrible. The fact that Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins have top billing. That’s sufficient information for me to make my previous judgment. It’s on TCM July 5 at 6:15 a.m. Let’s enjoy it, shall we?
So, it’s Shaw in the morning and O’Neill at night for me – I’ve never seen the 1935 film of O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness (though oddly I know both musical versions, Summer Holiday and Take Me Along). That will be remedied on July 4 around 10:45 p.m. thanks to the TCM Independence Day lineup. Quietly, I hope for rain.
No more homework. I’ll see you here sometime after it airs.
I missed And So They Were Married on the listings somehow, but it’s on TCM tonight (July 3) at 11:15 p.m. An Elliott Nugent screwball starring Melvyn Douglas and Mary Astor. Which begs the question, “Why am I seeing this for the first time?”
See you here sometime after it airs.
I’ve seen no shortage of Shaw film adaptations, most of them, I think. I’ve been made to feel guilty for my Shawlove, but that doesn’t work anymore. I have no defense and require none.
But the first/last time I saw The Devil’s Disciple (which airs on TCM on July 4 – natch – was so very long ago (I’m pretty sure I had only seen Pygmalion and My Fair Lady at that point) that I have little memory of it and probably didn’t get it anyway.
So it’s time to do it again. See you here sometime after it airs.
I know nothing of A Millionaire for Christy beyond its title, its stars (Fred MacMurray and Eleanor Parker, and its general Screwball categorization. Which is enough to start with. See you here sometime after it airs on TCM Monday, June 24 at 10:00 p.m.
Holiday (on TCM Wednesday, June 19 at 8:00 p.m.) is of a breed of film that scarcely exists anymore: comedies full of characters that are intelligent and erudite yet still well-rounded weirdos about whom you care deeply. This is one of them.
I have fond memories of Holiday, but I must admit I haven’t seen it in about twenty years. So I’m just going to look forward to this right along with you.
See you back here after.
Sometimes a full day of TCM programming comes along and it’s too difficult even to try to narrow down which thing you’d watch.
And such a day is June 9.
Get this:
6:00 a.m. – Dames, with a mess of Busby Berkeley goodness;
8:00 a.m. – Thank Your Lucky Stars, another essentially plotless revue of terrific musical numbers;
10:15 a.m. – The Moon and Sixpence, Maugham’s Gauguin tale with George Sanders;
12:00 m. – Gaslight is on…or is it?;
2:00 p.m. – The Talk of the Town is the movie I set on to write about with this post because while it’s considered a classic, it’s still (despite the title) not high on the list of heavily discussed films – which is unfortunate, I think. It has a sensibility all its own considering it was made in the early 40s;
4:15 p.m. – The Seven Year Itch, one of my least favorite Billy Wilders, is still undeniably fun. And yes, the whole iconic Marilyn thing;
6:15 p.m. – Viva Las Vegas, which I’m not going to defend my love for beyond the glorious weirdo train wreck that is Ann-Margret. Its plausibility makes Dames look like vérité;
8:00 p.m. – The Lavender Hill Mob, a long-time favorite comedy of mine starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway;
9:30 p.m. – A Slight Case of Murder, an Edward G. Robinson crime comedy I don’t think I’ve seen yet. We’ll find out;
11:00 p.m. – A Slight Case of Larceny which haven’t seen either, still looks like light and cheesy fun;
12:30 a.m. – And we wind it up with It, the silent classic starring icon Clara Bow as a killer clown who terrorizes small-town Maine, if I’m reading this right.
Seriously. I’m not off that day, but I hope you are.
I Humbly Suggest... 