TopBilled
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*JOHN DEREK*
AMBUSH AT TOMAHAWK GAP (1953) with John Hodiak
THE ADVENTURES OF HAJJI BABA (1954) with Amanda Blake
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It's a shame that TVLand has strayed from its original mission so much that TCM has to pick up the slack. What's next: reruns of The Donna Reed Show on TCM...?
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*HARRIET HILLIARD NELSON*
COCOANUT GROVE (1938) with Fred MacMurray
CONFESSIONS OF BOSTON **** (1941) with Chester Morris
CANAL ZONE (1942) with Chester Morris
JUKEBOX JENNY (1942) with Ken Murray
GALS, INCORPORTED (1943) with Leon Errol
HONEYMOON LODGE (1943) with David Bruce
HI, GOOD LOOKIN'! (1944) with Eddie Quillan
TAKE IT BIG (1944) with Jack Haley
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*ATTACK!-- THE BATTLE FOR NEW BRITAIN (1944)*
From Agee on June 24, 1944:
In ATTACK! there are morning shots, getting men and material ashore in the not quite misty, sober light, which overwhelmed me with their doubleness of beauty and sublimity. This was restrainedly enhanced by the rather quiet sounds of metal and motors.
Meanwhile, the housetops of the French shore standing insanely near and distinct above the end of the barge are abruptly disclosed full-length as by the rise (or fall) of a theater curtain. The barge opens and the men begin their hip-deep wade ashore.
But fully as moving and as worthy of watching, over and over, were the shots of men receiving medical pellets and their last Communion before battle.
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*WANTED FOR MURDER (1946)*
From Agee on December 28, 1946:
An English melodrama starring Eric Portman as a middle-class mother's boy who can't keep his hands off the throats of working girls. He strangles several before Scotland Yard catches up with him.
To have held out so long, he is remarkably careless at his work, dropping a marked handkerchief near one corpse, a shard of cigar near another, and the balance of the cigar in the inspector's ashtray. He even knocks the head off his late, mad uncle, The Happy Hangman, who is on exhibit and under whose influence the hero does his killing.
Neck-deep as he stands in a blizzard of such manna, Roland Culver manages to make the inspector seem capable and subtle as well as likable. Mr Portman, who suggests a cross between Paul Henried and Louis Calhern, gives the maniac a dangerous, melancholic grace.
This is a pleasant, unpretentious thriller of the second or third grade, with oddly contradictory streaks of good and crude directing. There are some beautifully exciting shots of Hyde Park as a police cordon clears away the rattled crowds and closes in, through the twilight, for the kill.
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*LAURENCE OLIVIER*
THE YELLOW TICKET (1931) with Lionel Barrymore
21 DAYS (1940) with Vivien Leigh
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Thanks for the update.
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It is possible that only some of the 14 Boston **** films will air.
TCM did not schedule all of the Warren William Lone Wolf entries-- left off the list were SECRETS OF THE LONE WOLF and ONE DANGEROUS NIGHT.
Also, one of the Gerald Mohr pictures have been omitted: THE LONE WOLF IN MEXICO.
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*JANET GAYNOR*
THE BLUE EAGLE (1926) with George O'Brien
SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927) with Charles Farrell
LUCKY STAR (1929) with Charles Farrell
DELICIOUS (1931) with Charles Farrell
THE MAN WHO CAME BACK (1931) with Charles Farrell
DADDY LONG LEGS (1931) with Warner Baxter
ADORABLE (1933) with Henri Garat
STATE FAIR (1933) with Will Rogers
PADDY THE NEXT BEST THING (1933) with Warner Baxter
CHANGE OF HEART (1934) with James Dunn
ONE MORE SPRING (1935) with Warner Baxter
THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE (1935) with Henry Fonda
BERNARDINE (1957) with Pat Boone
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*UP IN MABEL'S ROOM (1944)*
From Agee on May 13, 1944:
As horrible, and wonderful, as watching a Gopher Prairie dramatic club play a mail-order farce.
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I watched REDEMPTION this morning. I thought Gilbert was fine. Surely, he should not have had to shoulder all the blame for the film's disconnect with audiences. Most of the performers were reciting dialogue in an over-the-top dramatic fashion. But Gilbert seemed to try to make the whole affair more poetic. He photographs well and the film deserves a wider following (and a better reputation). It deserves, quite frankly, a shot at redemption.
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*OUT OF THE PAST (1947)*
Agee wrote about this film on at least two separate occasions.
From Agee on December 15, 1947:
OUT OF THE PAST (RKO Radio) is a medium-grade thriller about a not-very-smart young man (Robert Mitchum) who is hired to hound down the runaway mistress (Jane Greer) of a hard guy (Kirk Douglas). Mitchum finds the girl, sets up housekeeping with her, and lets himself in for no end of melodramatic consequences. Fairly well played, and very well photographed (by Nicholas Musaraca), the action develops a routine kind of pseudo-tension.
When he performs with other men (most memorably in THE STORY OF G.I. JOE), Robert Mitchum is a believable actor. But it seems to be a mistake to let him tangle, as a hero, anyhow, with the ladies. In love scenes his curious languor, which suggests Bing Crosby supersaturated with barbiturates, becomes a brand of sexual complacency that is not endearing. Jane Greer, on the other hand, can best be described, in an ancient idiom, as a hot number.
From Agee on April 24, 1948:
Conventional private-eye melodrama. More good work by Musaraca, largely wasted. Kirk Douglas, wasted as usual. Bob Mitchum is so very sleepily self-confident with the women that when he slopes into clinches you expect him to snore in their faces.
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*TYRONE POWER*
DIPLOMATIC COURIER (1952) with Patricia Neal
THE MISSISSIPPI GAMBLER (1953) with Julie Adams
UNTAMED (1955) with Susan Hayward
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Mercedes McCambridge has lower billing than Martha Raye (and Jimmie Walker) in AIRPORT '79. I think this probably indicates something...!
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The film returns to TCM's schedule in February during the annual Oscar tribute.
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*TALL IN THE SADDLE (1944)*
From Agee on November 4, 1944:
A medium-silly Western, done, however, as if those who made it knew that, and were getting and giving what mild pleasure they could out of the knowledge.
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*DIANA BARRYMORE*
NIGHTMARE (1942) with Brian Donlevy
EAGLE SQUADRON (1942) with Robert Stack
BETWEEN US GIRLS (1942) with Kay Francis
FIRED WIFE (1943) with Robert Paige
FRONTIER BADMEN (1943) with Robert Paige
LADIES COURAGEOUS (1944) with Loretta Young
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calvin,
It looks like these are the missing pieces:
2.7 THE COMMANDOS STRIKE AT DAWN 91942)
2.9 MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944)
2.12 IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1954)
2.12 LOVER COME BACK (1961)
2.12 THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954)
2.17 PANIC IN THE STREETS (1950)
2.20 SPARTACUS (1960)
2.22 KISSES FOR MY PRESIDENT (1964)
2.24 THE HARVEY GIRLS (1946)
2.24 THEM! (1954)
We still do not know what the two films are that we were missing for March 1st and March 2nd.
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This schedule does not include March 1 or March 2, which we have included in the other thread (as those are part of the 31 days of Oscar celebration).
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The behind-the-scenes making of ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE is very interesting. The blacklisted writer, Hugo Butler, fled to Mexico and began collaboration with Luis Bunuel.
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*JOSEPH COTTEN*
HERS TO HOLD (1943) with Deanna Durbin
PEKING EXPRESS (1951) with Corinne Calvet
UNTAMED FRONTIER (1952) with Shelley Winters
EGYPT BY THREE (1953) with Ann Stanville
SPECIAL DELIVERY (1955) with Eva Bartok
THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTLE (1956) with Ruth Roman
THE SCOPONE GAME (1972) with Bette Davis
The picture with Shelley Winters pops up on the Encore Westerns channel but never in widescreen.
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*ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST (1948)*
From Agee on June 19, 1948:
ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST. Lillian Hellman's saber-toothed play about the new-born New South, ardently acted, and directed with sense and tension by Michael Gordon. Smart casting of instruments, musicians and music for a deep-provincial musical evening. Some alert intercutting of reactions around a smoldering dinner table. Is unusually good hybridization of stage and screen drama.
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You're right. I think the programmers are making some silly mistakes. Example: scheduling THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER for a night in January devoted to Joseph Cotten, when they should've saved it for February and used it as an Oscar picture for Loretta Young's performance. Selfishly, I am glad I only have to wait till January, instead of February, to see it...but I do not associate that film with Joseph Cotten necessarily and I don't think many others do, either.
Also, they just showed Lucille Ball in EASY LIVING (1949) the other night. Why didn't they air that one in August for her SUTS/100th birthday? She gives a very good dramatic performance in it, and it certainly would've been better than CRITIC'S CHOICE.
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This is a thread meant to offer constructive criticism...
Classic Film Criticism
in General Discussions
Posted
*AIR FORCE (1943)*
From Agee on February 20, 1943:
I cannot be sure how I feel about AIR FORCE. It is loud, loose, sincere, violently masculine, and at times quite exciting. Its disasters are well arranged and, in the Coral Sea sequence, nicely cut. There is some gladdening effort to get away from movie faces and to give the men diverse and authentic speech. Bits of the music are imaginative. The sound, if plain realism is enough, is unusually good.
I think it unfortunate, since the crew of this bomber is supposed to be going night after night without sleep, that the cast was not required to. The camera work varies between competence in the air, and the gummiest sort of Rembrandt sentimentalities on the ground. A few all but annihilating cut-ins of actual combat adequately measure the best of the fiction, and my own uneasiness about it.