TCM
TiVo ALERT
For
November
1–November 7
DAVID’S
BEST BETS:
DODSWORTH (November
6, 2:15 am): This 1936 film is one of the greatest film you
haven't seen. Actually, that was the introduction
of Dodsworth from
Robert Osborne on TCM the first time I saw it a few years ago. He is
absolutely correct. This is a wonderful film. Sam Dodsworth
(Walter Huston) is a rich automobile manufacturer who loves his job,
but is convinced to retire early by his wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton),
a vain woman who is fearful of growing old. She wants to see the
world, particularly Europe, lead an exciting life. Sam is a regular
guy who wants to please his wife. Fran quickly grows bored of Sam and
spends most of her time with other men. She eventually dumps him for
a European noble, leaving Sam to mope around Italy, where he sees a
divorcee (Mary Astor), who he first met while traveling on the Queen
Mary to Europe. The two fall in love, but Fran wants to reconcile. A
very adult film, which is surprising as the Hays Code that restricted
such themes went into effect two years before Dodsworth was
released. I won't ruin the ending. Everything works
exceptionally well in this film. The acting is top-notch (besides the
three leads, David Niven is great in a smaller role in one of his
earliest films, and Maria Ouspenskaya as a baroness is a
scene-stealer), the story is first-rate, and with William Wyler as
the director, the movie is paced perfectly.
BLACKBOARD
JUNGLE (November 7, 6:00 am): An
excellent JD movie with Glenn Ford as the teacher trying to put high
school kids on the right track. Sidney Poitier and Ford work
exceptionally well with Poitier as the defiant student and Ford
seeing promise in him and trying to bring it out into the open. Vic
Morrow plays the worst of the worst kids to near perfection. The
scene in which Morrow’s character destroys a teacher's most-beloved
items, his record collection, in class as the teacher is trying to
reach the kids, is an incredibly haunting piece of cinema. And the
soundtrack is great, particularly the opening credits with “Rock
Around the Clock.” While most people think of the film as the
first with a rock-and-roll song in it, it is so much more than that
and a must-see.
ED’S
BEST BETS:
TO
BE OR NOT TO BE (November 1, 8:00 pm): They didn’t
call it “the Lubitsch Touch” for nothing, and it’s in full
regalia in this film, an extremely witty send up of Hitler and his
Nazi thugs. Black comedy has never been better than here in the hands
of a true master like Lubitsch. Jack Benny has a role of a lifetime
as the egocentric Polish actor Joseph Tura, who in reality is one of
the biggest hams ever to appear on stage. Carole Lombard, tragically
in her last film, is Tura’s co-star and suffering wife. When the
Germans invade Poland, Tura’s theater is closed and his troupe put
out of business – until they become involved in espionage trying to
save Polish Underground fighters from being handed over to the
Gestapo by a traitor, and they find their acting skills put to a real
test. Lubitsch took quite a beating from critics over this film, and
it was not a success at the box office. Many felt that treating the
Nazis as comical characters was in poor taste, but Lutisch defended
his position by saying that "What I have satirized in this
picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also
satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless
how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true
observation.” Today, the film is viewed as a classic and the 1983
Mel Brooks remake is faithful to the original both in letter and
spirit. Brooks himself echoed Lubitsch by saying that if one were to
argue with a dictator, he would lose because the dictator has the
fanaticism of his ideas, but if one were to take both the dictator
and his ideas and make fun of them, it’s far more effective in
discrediting both. Look for the great opening gag with Tom Dugan
parading around as Der Fuehrer. This is a film not to be missed.
THE
SILENCE OF THE SEA (November 2, 2:00 am): Jean-Pierre
Melville chose Jean Brullers’ novel of the same name to make his
directing debut. It’s an intimate look at France during the
Occupation. A patrician German general is billeted with a provincial
French family who is unwilling even to speak to him. Nevertheless,
each evening he reminisces about life and war in the face of their
stubborn silence. He is firm in his belief that the family and
France will one day see the true nature of him and Germany. It is
only later that the naive general visits Paris and finally sees the
brutality of the occupation, as well as learning of the death camp in
Treblinka. Melville provides glimpses of what he would later
accomplish in such films as Bob le flambeur (1956),
and L' Arme des ombres (1969). And it’s always
interesting to see a director’s first feature.
WE
DISAGREE ON ... WAIT UNTIL DARK (November 1, 4:00 am)
ED:
A-. I’m
not an Audrey Hepburn fan by any stretch of the imagination, although
I am fond of several pictures she stars in, such as The
Nun’s Story, Two
for the Road, The
Children’s Hour, Love
in the Afternoon,
and Sabrina.
If the film is interesting, then I’m in, but not for Hepburn. Wait
Until Dark is
another on my list. It’s not so much Hepburn, but the story and
cast around her that makes this film such a delectable thriller. The
film began life as a 1966 Broadway play by Frederick Knott that
starred Lee Remick. The basic plot itself was a rehash of a 1958 film
titled The
Lineup,
with psycho gangster Eli Wallach after a heroin-filled doll
accidentally brought back from a trip abroad. The key change, a nice
little twist, was to make the heroine a recently blinded woman, which
added even more thrills to the plot. Hepburn, I must admit, was
brilliant in the role. She and director Terrence Young studied for
the role at The Lighthouse for the Blind in New York, where Hepburn
learned how to use a cane, how to do her hair and make-up with her
eyes shut, and even donned special contact lenses to make the
transformation complete. Her main competition in the movie is Alan
Arkin, who gives one hell of a performance as Roat, who is simply
Wallach’s character, Dancer. Some say Arkin steals the movie, but
Hepburn gives it everything she can without going overboard and
overemoting. The rest of the cast is excellent, Richard Crenna and
Jack Weston in particular. The ending, where Hepburn levels the
playing field with Roat, is the highlight of the film. Author Stephen
King, in his non-fiction work, Danse
Macabre,
declared Wait
Until Dark to
be the scariest movie of all time. And he should know. By the way, a
little piece of ironic trivia: Hepburn served as a nurse in World War
II Holland, and one of the patients she treated was young British
paratrooper Terrence Young, the film’s director.
DAVID:
C-. In comparison to me, Ed is a huge fan of Audrey
Hepburn. Outside of Sabrina and The
Children's Hour, I'm at a loss to name another film she's in that
I enjoy. What do I think of Love in the Afternoon? Read
this We Disagree. How
about My Fair Lady? Read this We Disagree. That we've never done a We Disagree on Breakfast at
Tiffany's is because neither one of us is a fan. She's not
as bad as Katharine Hepburn, but that's primarily because Audrey
didn't make as many films. So what is it about Wait Until
Dark that I don't like? It's quicker to write what I like or
rather who I like. Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna are quite good and
save the film from getting a D rating from me even though both
over-exaggerate their roles. The movie came out in 1967, considered a
landmark year in cinema. This movie wasn't one of the reasons for
that year in film to be celebrated. Hepburn is horribly miscast as
the film's heroine, a blind woman being pursued by bad guys over
heroin sewn into a doll. She's not even slightly convincing as a
woman who's recently lost her sight. The plot is completely
ridiculous, almost nonexistent at times and seems to be just there to
pass the time. It gets out of hand fast with the silliness escalating
to the film's supposed tense showdown with the blind Hepburn breaks
all the lights in her apartment to even the odds by putting the
criminals in the dark with her. Of course, she misses one light. The
attempts to build tension come across as contrived and forced.
There's no need to give away the ending. Even if you've never seen
it, you know how it ends. That predictability is typical of this
movie's many flaws. But if you're looking for good news, it also
signals the end of the film.
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