A
Guide to the Rare and Unusual on TCM
By
Ed Garea
ROBERT
RYAN
The
Star of the Month this May is Robert Ryan. It’s a good choice
because Ryan made a lot of war films and this is the month of the
Memorial Day marathon. On the other hand, Ryan made a lot of
run-of-the-mill programmers, so there’s not really a lot of choice
pickings.
May
6: The entire day is devoted to Ryan, with the better films
being shown in the evening. During the day, Ryan films worth viewing
include the anti-red hysteric, The
Woman on Pier 13 (1950) at 12:15, Clash
By Night with Barbara Stanwyck (1952) and
directed by Fritz Lang, at 1:30 pm, and Berlin
Express (1948)
with Merle Oberon at 4:45 pm.
The
evening’s choices include Bad Day
at Black Rock (1954) with Spencer Tracy at 8:00
pm, and the superb boxing noir, The
Set-Up (1948) at 4:00 am.
May
13: The best of the night include Billy
Budd (1962) at 8:00; the bizarre The
Boy With the Green Hair (1948) at 12:15 am,
followed by God’s Little
Acre (1958) at 1:45.
CINEMA’S
EXILES
The
evenings of May 2, 3, 4 & 5 are devoted to a festival of films
from expatriate actors and directors.
May
2: The evening begins at 8:00 with the superb 2009
documentary, Cinema’s Exiles: From
Hitler to Hollywood. Narrated by Sigourney Weaver, the
film presents a solid overview. It’s followed at 10:15 by the
ultimate expatriate film, Casablanca (1943), Three
Smart Girls (1937) from director Henry
Koster, Ninotchka (1939),
written by expatriate Billy Wilder and directed by expatriate Ernst
Lubitsch, and finally, at 4:00 am it’s Carnegie
Hall, directed by expatriate Edgar G. Ulmer. One
of the interesting stories about Lubitsch was that Joseph Goebbels
had considered using a photo of him for a poster of what the ultimate
Jew looked like to be placed in public areas and in textbooks.
May
3: The evening starts off slowly at 8:00 with Joe May’s
1934 Music in the Air from
Fox starring Gloria Swanson and John Boles. At 9:45 comes Fritz
Lang’s superb look at mob mentality, Fury (MGM,
1936), starring Spencer Tracy as the unfortunate victim who manages
to survive and return for revenge. Then it’s an encore of Cinema’s
Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood at 11:30, followed by
Karl Freund’s wonderful slice of gothic horror, Mad
Love (1935), a remake of The
Hands of Orlac starring expatriate Peter Lorre as
the maddest of mad doctors who grafts a murderer’s hands onto
concert pianist Colin Clive, whose own hands were crushed in an
accident, because he’s in love with Clive’s wife. At 3:00 am,
it’s the Bogart vehicle, All
Through the Night (1941). Bogart is gangster “Gloves”
Donahue, whose investigation of the murder of his favorite cheesecake
baker leads him to a nest of Nazi spies. With Peter Lorre, Kaaren
Verne, and the movies’ naughtiest Nazi, Conrad Veidt. Veidt was a
most interesting character. A renowned actor in Germany (He played
Caesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, among other great
move roles.), Veidt’s beloved wife, Ilona, was Jewish, and when he
had to state his ethnicity on employment forms he always put down
“Jude” (Jewish) even though he wasn’t. When the Nazis came to
power, he and Ilona fled to England. He became a British subject in
1939. He was Carl Laemmle’s choice to play Dracula in the 1931 film
originally scheduled to be directed by Paul Leni.
May
4: We begin at 8:00 with MGM’s 1944 The
Seventh Cross, Austrian expatriate Fred Zinnemann’s
first “A” film, starring Spencer Tracy, with German expatriate
Felix Bressart in support. At 10:00 pm, it The
Killers (1946) from German expatriate director
Robert Siodmak, followed at midnight by director Billy Wilder’s A
Foreign Affair with German expatriate Marlene
Dietrich. At 2:00 am, it’s Hitchcock’s Foreign
Correspondent (1940) with expatriates Albert
Bassermann and Martin Kosleck, and Comrade
X (1940) starring Hedy Lamarr and Felix Bressart.
AMERICAN
INTERNATIONAL
The
TCM Spotlight this month shines on American International Pictures.
The studio grew out of American Releasing Corporation (ARC), a
company founded by former sales manager of Realist Pictures, James H.
Nicholson and entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff. The duo served
as executive producers while Roger Corman and Alex Gordon handled the
production – and sometimes directorial – duties. Among the
company’s writers were such names as Charles B. Griffith, Richard
Matheson, and Charles Beaumont. The company also served as a
springboard to young actors, counting Fay Spain, John Ashley, and
Jack Nicholson among its roster of stars.
The
company got off to a rocky start until Arkoff began quizzing film
exhibitors. They told him adults were home watching television while
the teenagers were the primary moviegoers. Using that information,
AIP began targeting the teenage audience. They would pitch a proposed
title to the exhibitors, ask them what they thought, and if the
response was positive, have in-house artists such as Albert Kallis
create eye-catching posters, and assign a writer to create a script.
Observing
that the majors were ignoring the lucrative drive-in marker, AIP made
it the focus of their early output, releasing youth oriented double
features with titles like I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, High
School Hellcats, Hot Rod Girl, Blood of
Dracula, Teenage Caveman, and The Cool and
the Crazy.
In
the ‘60s, AIP contracted Corman’s Poe cycle of films and hit box
office gold with 1963’s Beach Party, starring the duo
of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. They also made several
motorcycle gang films, including Devil’s Angels, The
Born Losers (which introduced the character of Billy Jack),
and Hells Angels ’69. The studio also exploited the
hippie/psychedelic scene with The Trip, Riot on Sunset
Strip, Maryjane, Wild in the Streets,
and Psych-Out.
In
addition, AIP served as the U.S. distributor for many Italian giallo,
sword and sandal, and what were referred to as “macaroni combat”
films, usually with a faded or young American star and an Italian or
Spanish cast. Japanese and South Korean sci-fi films were also added
to the roster, including many Godzilla sequels and Korean products
such as Yongary, Monster of the Deep.
During
its heyday, AIP was a major force is what used to be known as the
“B-Movie” market, cashing in on pop culture trends and creating
some of their own. Frankly, it’s about time TCM celebrated this
groundbreaking studio and one can only hope that more AIP films will
be added to the playlist in the future.
May
5: The is the best night for psychotronic fans with The
Fast and the Furious (1954)
leading off at 8:00, followed by The
Beast With a Million Eyes (1955) at 9:30, A
Bucket of Blood (1959) at 11:00, High
School Hellcats (1958) at 12:15, The
Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959) at 1:45
am, Attack of the Puppet
People (1958) at 3 am, and Tarzan
and the Valley of Gold (1966) at 4:30.
May
12: The
scene shifts to the ‘60s, beginning with Pit
and the Pendulum (1961)
at 8:00, ”X”
– The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)
at 9:30, Dementia
13 (1963)
at 11:00, Black
Sabbath (1964)
at 12:30 am, The
Comedy of Terrors (1964)
at 2:30 am, and Master
of the World (1961)
at 4:15 am.
ANTONIONI
May
8: A double feature of Italian Director Michelangelo
Antonioni begins at 2:00 am with L’Avventura (1960),
with Monica Vitti, Lea Massari, and Gabriele Ferzetti, followed
by Blow-Up (1966). L’Avventura,
a favorite of the art house crowd, begins with Anna (Massari),
who’s in a troubled love affair, on an ocean cruise with a yacht
full of rich passengers. When they disembark on an island near
Sicily, Anna is not among the passengers, and for much of the film,
Anna’s best friend (Vitti) and her lover (Ferzetti) search for her
while dealing with the emotional impact of her disappearance. Blow-Up
has been shown several times. It concerns a photographer (David
Hemmings) who may have inadvertently photographed a murder. Its easy
my favorite film from the director with excellent performances from
stars Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave.
PRE-CODE
May
13: At 6:00 am, it’s the seldom seen Shooting
Straight (RKO, 1930) with Richard Dix as a
compulsive gambler wanted for murder who attempts to redeem himself
for the love of a minister’s daughter. Following at 7:30 is Loretta
Young, Winnie Lightner and Norman Foster in Play
Girl (WB, 1932), the story of a young innocent
(Young) who falls hard for a compulsive gambler (Foster). It’s a
good film with a good cast.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B -HIVE
Though
the tribute to American International was entirely composed of
psychotronic films, there are still several other good ones on the
schedule.
May
9: There are few things I enjoy more than an Old Dark House
thriller, and at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am, TCM is running one of
the earliest, if not the earliest, made with sound. It’s The
Bat Whispers, directed by Roland West and released by
United Artists in 1931. Yes, it’s old; yes, it creaks; and yes, it
still entertains. A sound remake of West’s classic silent, The
Bat from 1926, it stars Chester Morris and Una Merkel. The
search is on for the notorious thief known only as The Bat and he may
be hiding out at a spooky old countryside estate populated by a
wealthy dowager (Grayce Hampton), her lame-brained maid (Maude
Eburne), and her fortune-hunting niece (Merkel). Morris is a
detective looking for The Bat. Not until every plot possibility is
overturned will we learn the identity of The Bat, which makes the
film so much fun. Also, the visuals are fantastic, as is the use of
miniature sets. At the end of the film, Morris comers out from behind
a curtain to implore the audience not to divulge the plot’s
secrets. If Old Dark House mysteries enchant you, this is a Must See.
If not, see it anyway; you might be entertained.
May
14: Gerald
Mohr takes over the role of Michael Lanyard from the ailing Warren
William in The
Lone Wolf in London (Columbia,
1947). The main problem with the film is that Lanyard is supposed to
be suave and charming and Mohr is anything but. It’s followed
at 10:30 by the Bowery Boys in Ghost
Chasers
(Monogram, 1951). The boys are after a fake medium in this appealing
installment.
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