TCM TiVo Alert for October 1-7

TCM TiVo ALERT

For

October 1–October 7

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. (October 4, 5:15 pm): Buster Keaton's last independent silent film – and one of the last silent films he ever made – is the legendary actor at his best. The stunts are stunning, including one of the most memorable in cinematic history. The facade of a house falls forward with Keaton, who is in front of it, saved by perfectly hitting his mark standing where the empty third-story window lands. It is an insane stunt that could have easily killed Keaton. Don't try this at home, kids. It's a perfect example of Keaton's physical comedic style. Keaton is basically the entire movie as the plot is paper-thin. Keaton is the small college-graduate son of a riverboat captain, who's about to lose his broken-down paddle steamer and livelihood to a wealthy rival. Keaton's character is in love with the daughter of his father's rival. Besides the physical comedy, there's some other exceptionally funny moments in the film such as Keaton attempting to get his father out of jail by giving him a loaf of bread with tools obviously inside.

HEAD (October 7, 3:45 am): This confusing but entertaining film features manufactured pop band The Monkees doing their best to break their "Pre-Fab" mold. The four jump off a bridge symbolically killing themselves, but they learn even that does nothing to change their image. The trouble for the group is when this film was released in late 1968, The Monkees' popularity was low. The group desperately wanted to leave behind their teen-pop image and appeal to a cooler hippie audience. The problem is the band's core audience is dismissed and ridiculed in the film, and because The Monkees were squares with the in-crowd (despite some excellent songs), no one went to see this movie. And that's a shame. While the plot is simple enough, how it is handled is rather sophisticated even though the viewer has no idea at times what's happening – something that was intentionally done.

ED’S BEST BETS:

DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (October 1, 9:30 pm): An excellent sequel to Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) with Dracula’s daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska (Gloria Holden), trying to free herself of the vampire spell her father put over her. She returns to London with her manservant Sandor (Irving Pichel), who is in love with her, but her vampiric tendencies still reign. She engages psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger) to help her in shedding her problem. To ensure his cooperation she has Sandor kidnap his secretary/lover Janet Blake (Marguerite Churchill). However, the Countess wants more than a consultation. Will she get it? Tune in.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (October 3, 2:00 am): A gruesome and unsettling adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau starring Charles Laughton at his most fiendish as the mad doctor isolated on a remote island who is conducting experiments transforming jungle animals ostensibly into human brings, but in reality coming up with half-human abominations. Moreau's theory is that evolution can be sped up through experimental skin grafting. The man-beasts who populate the island know his laboratory as “the house of pain.” When Richard Arlen, the sole survivor of a shipwreck, arrives at the island Moreau wastes no time in trying to mate him with his most successful creation, a panther woman (Kathleen Burke). But Moreau’s empire comes crashing down after the arrival of Captain Donahue (Paul Hurst) and Parker's fiancee Ruth (Leila Hyams) who have come for the missing Arlen. The finale is equally gruesome as Moreau gets a taste of his own medicine from his creations. Banned in England, many film historians credit it with helping to sped enforcement of the Code.

WE AGREE ON ... THE PUBLIC ENEMY (October 2, 5:45 pm)

ED: A+. If ever a film deserved to be labeled as an “essential,” this is the one. Ably directed by William Wellman and adapted by Kubec Glasmon and John Bright from their novel about the Chicago mobs, Beer and Blood, it made a star out of James Cagney. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the old story about Edward Woods being cast in the lead with Cagney as his sidekick. Over the years everyone from Wellman to Glasmon and Bright to Darryl Zanuck has taken credit for the switch. But whoever made it obviously made the right move, for Cagney is electrifying as Tom Powers. Even though he’s completely amoral, ruthless, emotionally brutal, and terrifyingly lethal, we are still drawn to his every move. Without him, the film is just another run-of-the-mill gangster epic, much like Doorway to Hell, made the year before and starring the miscast Lew Ayres in the lead, with Cagney as his sidekick. Shot in less than a month at a cost of around $151,000, The Public Enemy was the first film to gross over $1 million at the box office. It might surprise some viewers out there to learn that many of the happenings in the movie were based on real-life events. The shooting of the horse, the grapefruit to the face of Mae Clarke (in reality it was an omelette), the machine gun ambush of Tom and Matt Doyle (Woods), and the murder of Putty Nose were among the events fictionalized by the authors and repeated in the screenplay. Cagney’s Tom Powers is a combination of real life mobsters Hymie Weiss and Dion O’Banion, who ruled the North Side of Chicago, while Johnny Torrio and Al Capone ruled the South Side. Wellman keeps the action going at a frantic pace, never allowing the viewer to slow down and take stock of the situation. The only downside to the movie is the short shrift given to Joan Blondell and Mae Clarke as the molls of Matt and Tom respectively. When Edward Woods played Tom Powers, he had quite a frisky bedroom scene with a scantily-clad Blondell. When the roles were switched, the scene was cut from the movie. For those who have not yet had the pleasure of watching this film, I urge you to do so when it comes on. For those of you who have seen it, you’ll probably want to see it again – that is, unless you have it on DVD as I do. The most mesmerizing thing about The Public Enemy is that it has lost none of its power or magnetism over the years; in fact, the opposite may well be true and the movie has actually gained in stature. 

DAVID: A+. After the credits and the cast of characters, the film opens with this: “It is the ambition of the authors of The Public Enemy to honestly depict an environment that exists today in a certain strata of American life rather than glorify the hoodlum or the criminal.” Despite the warning and giving the lead character, Tom Powers (James Cagney), no redeeming qualities – except he loves his mother – he is the quintessential anti-hero. You can't help but like him as he commits murder, serves as muscle for a bootlegger and is an overall vicious and cruel criminal. It is Cagney that makes this early talkie/Pre-Code film a classic. Eighty-six years after it came out, it is still one of the greatest gangster movie ever made. Tom and Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) grow up committing petty crimes before finally making it big thanks to bootlegging during Prohibition. It's a Warner Brothers gangster film from 1931 so obviously it's gritty. While most of the violence is off-screen, the last 20 or so minutes are absolutely brutal and hold nothing back. This is Pre-Code so when someone gets shot, they bleed. Thanks to the brilliant and intense performance by Cagney and an incredible directing job by William A. Wellman, this goes far beyond any other gangster film of its time and even to this day. Gangster films have become more violent, but The Public Enemy is so authentic and captivating that you can't turn away from it – and you don't want to. It includes two of the most iconic scenes in cinematic history: Tom shoving a grapefruit in the face of Mae Clarke and the shocking ending.

For the complete list of films on the TCM TiVo Alert, click here.