By Ed Garea
STAR
OF THE MONTH: MELVIN DOUGLAS
September
17: Two decent films rarely shown: That
Uncertain Feeling (1941) at midnight, and Fast
Company (1938), at 1:30 am. The first is a
Lubitsch-directed comedy about an unhappy married couple (Merle
Oberon and Melvyn Douglas) who see a shrink. While at the shrink’s
office, Oberon meets another of his patients - an absurd pianist
named Alexander Sebastian (Burgess Meredith). Taken with his
disregard of social conventions, she invites him to the couple’s
next party, and becomes infatuated with him.
Fast
Company is the first of three films starring the
husband-wife detective team of Joel and Garda Sloane (Douglas and
Florence Rice) and is the best of the three. Want to know how to sink
a promising B-series? Simply cast different actors in the leads of
all three films. The sequel was Fast
and Loose (1939) with Robert Montgomery and
Rosalind Russell in the leads. The third, and last, of the series
was Fast and Furious (1939),
with Franchot Tone and Ann Sothern as Joel and Garda. Joel and Garda
were rare book dealers who sleuthed part time. The series was made in
response to audience demand for more films in the vein of The
Thin Man series, and if it were only handled correctly,
would have been a big hit. MGM had a knack for making B’s that
often played in the “A” position in suburban and rural cinemas.
How they blew this one is a real crime.
September
24: Unless you want to see Hud for
the umpteenth time, I suggest you look instead at 1964’s The
Americanization of Emily at 3:45 am and record
it. James Garner is cynical Naval officer, Charles Madison, who’d
rather survive D-Day, thank you, and manages to avoid active duty by
attending to the every wish of his scatterbrained superior, Admiral
Jessup (Douglas). Along the way Charlie meets proper war widow Emily
Barham (Julie Andrews), for whom Charlie’s cowardice is a major
selling point, as she’s already lost a husband to war. But
Charlie’s luck can’t hold forever, and he and roommate James
Coburn are given the assignment of filming the landing on Omaha Beach
to record the first casualty. With superb performances from all four
leads and a decent script from Paddy Chayefsky (for once), the film,
in the words of my good friend J Michael Kenyon, is “a definite
must see.”
OUT
OF THE ORDINARY
September 21: Check
out the doubleheader of Satyajit Ray, beginning at 2:00 am with his
1958 film The Music Box,
a quietly moving film about a proud aristocrat whose riches are
rapidly turning into debts, and who is too proud to curb his opulent
lifestyle. We see how our protagonist has come to be in his present
situation in a series of flashbacks. Many critics and historians see
this as Ray’s masterpiece, his greatest film.
It’s
followed at 3:45 am by the film that put Ray on the map of world
cinema, Pather
Panchali (1955), a stark and uncompromising look
at the struggles of a mother to raise her family in an impoverished
Indian village. Compelling and disturbing, it boasts excellent
performances all around along with music by Ravi Shankar. It’s the
sort of film one sees and never forgets.
September
25: At 8:00 pm, George C. Scott stars in Patton,
the 1970 Academy Award-winning Best Picture about the controversial
American general. Scott won Best Actor for his performance, but
turned down the statue not out of any gripping political conviction
of the time, but simply because he thought actors shouldn’t be
competing against each other for awards. Watch it anyway, and revel
in Scott’s performance as he captured Patton’s inner demons.
September
28: Iconoclastic American director Whit Stillman is honored
with two of his films. First up at 8:00 pm is Metropolitan (1990),
a scathing satirical look at the haute-bourgeoisie as exemplified by
a small group of privileged Manhattan socialites who make the party
rounds during the holidays attending black-tie parties and intimate
after-hours parties. Stillman brilliantly captures the mood of the
time, displaying the empty lives of these over-privileged Yuppies and
their constant need to be on the go, lest they sink into the morass
of their boring existence. Think of it as St. Elmo’s
Fire with depth.
Metropolitan is
followed at 10:00 pm by Barcelona,
Stillman’s 1994 slice-of-life look at two American cousins talking
their way through romantic and political adventures in early 1980s
Barcelona. Along the way they meet two wild Spanish girls (Tushka
Bergen and Mira Sorvino, in an early role), who take them on a wild
ride, running rings around the two cousins who, for all their patter,
are really quite conventional.
BARDOT
Some
stars are able cross the celluloid median and icons in the world of
pop culture. Brigitte Bardot was the first French movie star to
accomplish this feat, and on September 22, TCM honors her with a
night of her films beginning at 8:00 pm. The fun begins with the film
that put her on the star map, And
God Created Woman (1956), directed by
then-husband, Roger Vadim. It’s followed in order by Une
Parisienne (1957), Plucking
the Daisy (1956), The
Night Heaven Fell (1958), and the best of the
night, Contempt (1963),
directed by Jean-Luc Godard. Bardot was no actress, but she didn’t
have to be. Not with a face and figure like she had. The only film
that attempts to challenge her acting chops is Contempt,
and Godard coaxes an excellent performance out of her by surrounding
her with solid co-stars such as Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli, and
Giorgia Moll, and, I suspect, a lot of mollycoddling by the director
himself. At any rate, it’s a story about how the filming of a movie
(entitled The Odyssey) causes friction is a marriage
thought to be above all that. Fritz Lang appears as himself, the
director of the movie. It’s definitely one worth catching.
EDDIE
G. ROBINSON
On September
20,
a night of films with newspapers and the media as the subject, the
best film of the night appears last, at midnight. It’s 1931’s Five
Star Final,
from Warner Brothers, with Edward G. Robinson as an editor who will
do anything to get a story and sell newspapers. It’s when he
revisits a hot story of 20 years ago that he crosses the line with
devastating consequences for all concerned. Robinson is amply backed
with good supporting performances from Aline MacMahon as his lovesick
secretary, George E. Stone, and Boris Karloff as a reporter who poses
as a clergyman to get inside information.
THE
PROJECTED IMAGE: THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE ON FILM
September
16: The best of the night includes the 8:00 pm showing
of Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer (1955);
a film told in flashbacks about four soldiers defending a hill
outside Jerusalem during the 1948 War of Independence. Following at
10:00 pm is Sallah,
from 1964, a comedy starring Topol as a Yemini man with a large
family who comes to Israel and begins to wonder if he made the right
decision when faced with the reality of his choice. And at 12:15,
it’s the 1949 drama from Universal, Sword
in the Desert, starring Dana Andrews as a ship’s
captain who smuggles Jewish refugees into Palestine.
September
23: Begin with The House of
Rothschild (1934), starring George Arliss in this
elaborate, entertaining epic of the famed banking family and its
origins during the reign of Napoleon. Look for a wonderful
performance from Boris Karloff as Baron Ledrantz, the villain of the
piece, who is also courting Arliss’s daughter (Loretta Young).
At
2:00 am, it’s Focus,
a quirky little film from 2001 about anti-Semitism in World War II
Brooklyn. It stars William H. Macy, David Paymer, and Laura Dern.
It’s based on Arthur Miller’s 1945 novel about a man (Macy) whose
new glasses make people believe him to be Jewish, and the persecution
that misidentity brings.
FRIDAY
NIGHT SPOTLIGHT
September
19: Rarely seen Pre-Codes today include Parole
Girl (6:00 am), Two
Seconds (11:45 am), the ultimate flashback film
with Eddie G. Robinson The Mind
Reader (2:30 pm), Blonde
Crazy (12:45 am) with exemplary performances from
leads James Cagney and Joan Blondell, and Skyscraper
Souls (3:30 am), with Warren William at his
sleazy best.
September
26: Rarely seen Pre-Codes: They
Call It Sin (noon), Employees
Entrance (2:30 pm), Midnight
Mary (4:00 pm), Other
Men’s Women (5:15 pm), Three
on a Match (1:00 am), and Call
Her Savage, staring Clara Bow (2:15 pm).
PSYCHOTRONICA
September 21: The
7th Voyage
of Sinbad (1958) at 6:15 pm.
September 29: From
Monogram - Phantom
Killer (1942,
5:45 pm), The Mystery
of the 13th Guest (1943,
7:00 pm).
THE
B HIVE
Only
two more films left in this month’s featured “Trailblazers”
series starring Ken Maynard and Hoot Gibson: Blazing
Guns (1943),
and Death
Valley Rangers (1943).
Both begin at noon on September 20 and 27, respectively.
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