A
Guide to the Rare and Unusual on TCM
By
Ed Garea
STAR
OF THE MONTH: FRANK SINATRA
December
16: Three good musicals from MGM: On
The Town (1949) at 9:00 pm, Take
Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), following at
11:00, and 1945’s Anchors Aweigh
at 12:45 am.
December
23: It’s the ludicrous The
Miracle of the Bells (1948) at 8:45 pm (Bad Movie
Alert), followed by High
Society (1956) at 11:00 pm. Bing Crosby, Grace
Kelly, and Louie Armstrong co-star in this remake of The
Philadelphia Story.
December
30: Two solid films tonight: The marvelous, and still
powerful, The Man With the Golden
Arm (1956) at 9:15 pm, followed by Frank as
comedian Joe E. Lewis in The Joker
is Wild (1957) at 11:30 pm.
TCM
SPOTLIGHT: GIRLFRIENDS
December
28: A good double feature worth catching: The
Children’s Hour (1961) at 8:00 pm, with the
original These Three (1936)
immediately following at 10:00. I’m always partial to the original,
but both versions are excellent adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s
play, The Children’s Hour, about how scandalous gossip
ruins the lives of two schoolteachers. Miriam Hopkins and Merle
Oberon co-star with Joel McCrea in the original, while Shirley
MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn star with James Garner in the remake.
CHRISTMAS
CLASSICS
December
18: An excellent double feature of Barbara Stanwyck
Christmas movies begins at 9:30 with the classic comedy Christmas
in Connecticut (1945), with Stanwyck as a
homemaking columnist who can’t cook a lick being called upon to
entertain a war hero and her publisher for the holidays. Remember
the Night (1940), a bittersweet comedy written by
Preston Sturges, follows at 11:30. Prosecutor Fred MacMurray takes
pity on shoplifter Stanwyck, and instead of letting her stay in jail
over the Christmas holidays, takes her home to his family for the
holidays with the predictable results.
OUT
OF THE ORDINARY
December
20: Director Eric Rohmer is highlighted in a late night double
feature beginning at 2:30 am with his 1969 film, My
Night at Maud’s. Jean-Louis Trintignant is a devout
Catholic who moves to a provincial town and vows to marry Francoise
(Marie-Christine Barrault, a ravishing blonde he notices at mass.
Vidal (Antoine Vitez), an old school friend, invites him to date the
recently divorced Maud (Francoise Fabian) and Jean-Louis ends up
staying the night, engaged in a philosophical discussion with Maud in
her bedroom. But he’s determined to win Francoise over, and
although he and Maud have terrific chemistry, his stubbornness gets
in the way. It’s a delightful, though somewhat dense, film that
demands the viewer’s attention.
Following
at the ungodly hour of 4:40 am is La
Collectionneuse (The Collector Girl), a
comedy from 1967. It’s a wonderful psychological comedy, exploring
Rohmer’s favorite theme of rationalization versus eroticism. Adrien
(Patrick Bauchau), an art collector, and Daniel (Daniel Pommereulle),
a painter, are staying at a friend’s house in St. Tropez. Also
staying there is Haydee (Haydee Politoff), a carefree spirit who beds
a different man each night. At first, Adrien is repulsed by her
behavior, calling her “a collector of men.” But as time passes,
he becomes more and more intrigued and attracted to her. His tension
between adhering to his moral principles or casting them aside and
sleeping with Haydee comprises the core of the film. It’s Rohmer’s
first color feature and is beautifully photographed, with excellent
performances from all concerned.
December
27: At 2:45 am is Ingmar Bergman’s 1982 masterpiece, Fanny
And Alexandria. Fanny
and Alexander are the children of Emilie and Oskar Ekdahl, a
prosperous theatrical family in Uppsala at the beginning of the 20th
century. When Oskar falls ill during Christmas season and passes
away, their mother Emilie is devastated. Shortly afterwards, she
marries Edvard Vergerus, a rigid, demanding bishop. The household
changes from a footloose and happy one into a cheerless, unhappy one.
This affects the children deeply, especially Alexander, an
imaginative boy, whose stubbornness in the face of his new situation
causes him to constantly butt heads with the icy Edvard. Isak, their
grandmother’s longtime friend, manages to kidnap the children and
shelters them in his house, which is filled with puppets and
mysterious objects. Reality and fantasy become blurred from here
onward, but, in the end, the cruel bishop meets his fate and Emilie
finally makes it back to the family home. Definitely recommended.
THE
MARX BROTHERS AND THE THIN MAN
December
31: In the morning and afternoon it’s a Marx Brothers
marathon. All five of their Paramount films will air along with A
Night at the Opera and A
Day at the Races. In the evening, it’s the
complete Thin Man series
with William Powell and Myrna Loy. What a way to see in the New Year!
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B-HIVE
December
19: Leading off at 2:00 am is director Andrzej Zulawski’s
graphically weird Possession.
Isabella Adjani and Sam Neill are a couple who see their marriage
come crashing down around them after Adjani takes a lover. Neill has
a nervous breakdown, but stays with Adjani literally ‘till death
does them part. They live in an apartment next to the Berlin Wall and
slash themselves with electric knives. She has a very messy
miscarriage in a subway station and later gives birth to a tentacled
monster that later becomes her lover. Think of a combination of The
Exorcist and Repulsion on acid.
At
4:00 am, it’s Louis Malle’s Black
Moon from 1975, a bizarre, dark and surreal film
that opens with a war around the world between men and women. To
escape the war, a young girl flees to a fantasy world with talking
animals and unicorns, plus one really strange family. This film is so
weird I can’t even describe it adequately. The best thing is to see
it for yourself. By the way, intended as an allegory on the modern
world, it flopped miserably at the box office.
December
26: A Larry Cohen double feature begins at 2:00 am with his
1976 murder mystery, God Told Me To.
Tony Lo Bianco is an NYPD detective investigating a series of
homicides whose perpetrators all claim to have been acting at the
behest of the Almighty. “God” turns out to be an extraterrestrial
beget by a nonconsensual union of alien and human. Look for Andy
Kaufman as a cop who goes berserk in a parade.
Following
at 3:30 am is It’s Alive (1974),
Cohen’s story of a demonic killer baby on a rampage. Shocking when
first released, it seems almost tame today due to the relative lack
of gore.
December
29: A morning and afternoon of sci-fi and fantasy movies.
Nothing new, but highlights include It
Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) at 6:30 am, The
Valley of Gwangi (1969) at 9:45 am, Earth
vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) at 3:00 pm,
and Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
at 6:15 pm.
Two
great B-noirs are being shown in the evening. First up at 10:15 pm is
the great Lizabeth Scott in Too Late
for Tears (1949). Liz is a housewife who, through
a fluke set of circumstances, comes into a briefcase filled with
$60,000. And she’ll do anything to hang on to it, even if it
includes murder. At 2:00 am, it’s John Payne in Phil Karlson’s
1952 noir, Kansas City Confidential.
Payne is a down-on-his-luck ex-con who finds himself framed for a
million dollar armored car heist. He’s determined to catch the
culprits and clear his name even if it means going to Mexico. Quentin
Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs shows the influence of
this film.
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