TCM
TiVo Alert
For
April
23-30
DAVID’S
BEST BETS:
SÉANCE
ON A WET AFTERNOON (April 26, 3:45 am): An
unusual and very compelling British film from 1964 with Kim
Stanley as a mentally unstable medium who convinces her weak-willed,
hen-pecked husband (played by Richard Attenborough) to kidnap the
young daughter of a rich man. She wants to help the police solve the
kidnapping so she can become famous. Nothing goes right as Stanley's
character gets more and more crazy, and has her husband kill the
girl. Stanley and Attenborough are splendid in their roles in this
outstanding psychological thriller.
THUNDER
ROAD (April 28, 10:30 pm): There are
few actors with greater screen presence than Robert
Mitchum. In this 1958 film, he's a fearless Korean War vet who makes
the high-speed and dangerous car deliveries for his family's
moonshine business. His family and the other moonshiners with illegal
distilleries in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee are feeling
the heat from not only the feds, but from a big-shot, big-money
gangster who wants to buy them out at a fraction of their business
profits. Those who resist wind up either having their business
destroyed or are murdered. Mitchum, who co-wrote the story and
produced the film, is outstanding in one of his finest roles.
He's got to make his last run even though he knows he's got
little chance to succeed. It's an excellent film with tons of action.
End notes: Mitchum wrote his son's character for Elvis Presley, who
loved the script, but his manager, the infamous Colonel Tom Parker,
killed the idea by asking for a ridiculous amount of money for Elvis
to take the role. This was a common with Parker, who never wanted
Elvis to act in serious films. Instead the role went to James
Mitchum, Robert's son. Also of note, the title of one of Bruce
Springsteen's best songs, Thunder Road, (originally
called Wings for Wheels) came from this movie.
Springsteen hadn't seen the film before writing the song, but saw a
poster for the film in a theater lobby and thought it sounded
cool. He's right. Imagine if he saw the movie. He probably would
have also changed the name of the album from Born to Run.
ED’S
BEST BETS:
RIO
BRAVO (April 25, 5:15 pm): Howard Hawks produced and
directed this wonderful Western with John Wayne as a sheriff who must
prevent a killer with wealthy family connection from escaping his
jail. Wayne can only enlist a drunken Dean Martin, gimpy Walter
Brennan and tenderfoot Ricky Nelson to help him. Oh yeah, he also has
the beautiful Angie Dickinson on his side. Leigh Brackett and Jules
Furthman wrote the script. The French critics fell over themselves
praising this when it came out, but never mind, it’s a classic
anyway.
MAN
HUNT (April 30, 10:00 pm): A great thriller from
director Fritz Lang has Walter Pidgeon as a big-game hunter who
infiltrates Hitler’s Berghof in Berchtesgaden, has Der Fuehrer in
his sights, but is interrupted and arrested by the Gestapo. They
don’t buy his explanation that he wasn’t preparing to shoot
Hitler, but offer him freedom if he signs a confession saying the
British government put him up to it. When he refuses they torture him
and shove him over a cliff to make his death appear “accidental.”
He survives and makes it to England, but soon finds German spies are
hot on his trail. Thus the hunter becomes the hunted. Besides Pidgeon
and George Sanders as the Gestapo official, the film also boasts a
breakthrough performance by Joan Bennett as a prostitute who becomes
Pidgeon’s ally in his fight against Sanders and the Nazis. Don’t
think through the logic of the plot; just go along for the ride. You
won’t be disappointed.
WE
DISAGREE ON ... THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (April 23,
8:00 pm)
ED:
A+. This film was planned in 1942 as a morale booster
and a plug for the PT Boat, but by the time he got around to shooting
it in 1945, John Ford had experienced the war first-hand, which
greatly affected his point-of-view. This was one of a group of war
films made in 1945 that reflected the real war instead of the
glory-winning heroics featured in earlier morale films. In addition,
many of the men in the cast had also experienced the war first-hand,
which lends an air of authenticity to the film. The star, Robert
Montgomery, actually commanded a PT Boat during the war. (During
filming, when Ford fell from a scaffold and broke his leg, Montgomery
took over the directorial duties.) The film has the usual stirring
action scenes, but it differs from earlier war film in its attitude.
There are none of the usual patriotic speeches about fighting for God
and Country, no maudlin references to the home front and those
praying for the safe return of their loved ones, none of the usual
monkeyshines between the boys, and most surprisingly, no depictions
of the Japanese as robotic and sub-human. The best war films pull no
punches. They do not wallow in jingoism; there is no over-the-top
heroism designed to manipulate the audience into action. The dialogue
is subdued. As the title suggests, this is a sober film about those
left behind in the Philippines to fight the Japanese after MacArthur
was evacuated to the safety of Australia. This film is so good that
it manages to wring a decent performance out of John Wayne, the super
patriot who served not a minute in the real war. As such, I regard it
as one if the finest war films ever made.
DAVID:
B-. This film is interesting and authentic, but it's
not very entertaining. The movie tells the story of PT Boats and
their usefulness during World War II. The film is fine and Robert
Montgomery is very good, as usual. There are long drawn-out scenes
that honestly bores me. That doesn't bode well for a movie that runs
for two hours and 15 minutes. While I've grown to appreciate some of
John Wayne's performances over the years, after unfairly dismissing
his entire cinematic career, this is not one of his finest moments.
He's not terrible, but Wayne is far from good in this particular
movie. His acting is largely stiff and the lines he is given do not
help. For example, he's in hospital for an infection in his arm and a
nurse, trying to calm him down, suggests they'll eventually dance
together. Wayne's response: "Listen, sister, I don't dance and I
can't take the time out now to learn. All I want is to get out of
here." It's one of the corny lines he delivers throughout the
film. Don't get me started on his embarrassing effort to recite
poetry in honor of a fallen soldier. Despite that, I admire director
John Ford's effort to make an authentic film about World War II
shortly after it ended. The film is good, but far from great.
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