By
Ed Garea
Anyone
who loves Westerns and is fortunate enough to have the Starz Western
Channel on their system can rejoice in the fact that the channel is
now showing Hopalong Cassidy films. The channel has been showing
Hoppy’s television show now for about a month (Saturdays, 8 am).
The films can be seen (we recommended recording) during the graveyard
shift from 3:30-7:00 am. Check your schedule. It’s great to see
Hoppy back. A true American hero.
PEGGY
CUMMINS - APRIL 17
Welsh
actress Peggy Cummins will be celebrated with a showing of five of
her films, beginning at 8 pm with her star turn as Annie Laurie Starr
in director Joseph H. Lewis’ acclaimed noir, Gun
Crazy (1950).
For those who haven’t yet seen this classic, please mark it on your
calendars. It’s a must.
Following
at 9:45 pm Cummins stars with Dana Andrews and Niall MacGinnis in
the 1958 chiller, Curse of the
Demon. Andrews is an anthropologist and would-be
debunker of devil worshipper MacGinnis. Cummins is the daughter of
one of MacGinnis’ victims, another would-be debunker. Directed by
Jacques Tourneur, it’s an intelligently plotted film that’s more
than a cut above the usual.
At
11:30 pm Cummins stars with Stanley Baker, Herbert Lom and Patrick
McGoohan in the British noir Hell
Drivers (1957). Baker is Tom Yately, a newly
released ex-con is desperate need of a job. He signs on as a driver
with a rather shady trucking company where the essence is speed of
delivery if they want to keep their jobs. McGoohan is the lead
driver, a psychopathic type who turns out to be trouble for Baker.
Look for Sean Connery in a supporting role as one of the drivers who
gives Baker a hard time. Cummins is the love interest as Lucy, the
company secretary. Let me quote the TCM essay by Paul Tatara on the
film: “Hell Drivers, directed by Cy Endfield, is a
hard-charging little picture laced with a heavy dose of working class
grit. Over the years, it's developed a cult following among British
cinema enthusiasts.” Need we say more?
Cummins
is the headstrong daughter of staid Boston Brahmin Ronald Colman in
The Late George
Apley (1947),
airing at 1:30 am. And at 3:30 pm she’s a grifter who falls for
British Treasury agent Terence Morgan in the 1954 comedy Always
a Bride.
I haven’t seen this one, so I can’t judge, but I’ll be
recording it to see Cummins’ performance.
JUZO
ITAMI - APRIL 22
Japanese
director Juzo Itami is honored with as double feature of his films
beginning at 2:00 am with the hilarious comedy Tampopo (1985).
The story is about a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomu Yamazaki) who
rides in like a hero out of a Spaghetti Western to help Tampopo
(Nobuko Miyamoto), a sweet young woman whose heart is in the right
place, but not her noodles as she searches for the perfect noodle
shop. As with Jacques Tati, the plot is merely a cover for the
director’s bemused look at human nature and the foibles of everyday
life. As with Tati, one situation blends seamlessly into another as
Tampopo and Goro research the perfect noodle and open the perfect
noodle restaurant. I have this on DVD and have seen it several times,
each time finding something new. It’s a wonderful look at
contemporary Japanese society and the need of some to overcomplicate
it.
It’s followed at 4:45 am by another comedic slice-of-life film, this one darker in tone, The Funeral (1984). This was Itami’s first film and looks humorously at the social side of death. As this is another one I haven’t seen, I’ll rely on Lorraine LoBianco’s excellent recap in the TCM review: “The film covers three days between the sudden death of the father of the hip, popular Tokyo actress Chizuko Amamiya (Miyamoto again, who Itami had married in 1969) until the time that he is cremated and his ashes are buried. In only three days, Chizuko and her actor husband Wabisuke Inoue (Tsutomu Yamazaki) have to deal with planning all the minute details of a proper Buddhist funeral for an upper class Japanese family.”
After
making ten films (all starring his wife), Itami came to an
unfortunate end. In 1992, after the release of his film Minb
no onna (“Minbo,
or the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion”) he angered the Yakuza,
the Japanese version of the Mob. Their retaliation came in the form
of an attack in which Itami’s face and neck were slashed. In a
later interview in The New
York Times he
said, “They cut very slowly, they took their time. They could have
killed me if they wanted to.” Eventually they did. On December 20,
1997, after a weekly magazine wrote about his extra-marital affair,
he allegedly killed himself. In 2008, a Yakuza told journalist
Jake Adelstein (author of Tokyo
Vice, an
expose of the Yakuza) that the Yakuza had murdered Itami by forcing
him to jump off a rooftop at the point of a gun.
MAX
OPHULS - APRIL 29
A
double feature from director Max Ophuls begins at 2:00 am with his
sublime The
Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953),
followed by his extraordinary Lola
Montez (1955)
at 4:00 am. To quote Francois Truffaut: “There are films that
demand undivided attention. Lola
Montes is
one of them.”
PRE-CODE
April
22: Warren William lusts after Loretta Young in Employees
Entrance (1933) at 6:00 am. Read our essay on
it here.
April
26: Steelworker's son Ramon Novarro becomes a college
football hero at Yale and faces snobbery and class distinction
in Huddle (1932)
at 10:320 am.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B HIVE
April
16: With the morning and afternoon devoted to psychotronic
flicks, the picks for the day are as follows: The East Side Kids meet
Bela Lugosi in Spooks Run
Wild (1941) at 6:00 am; George Zucco as twins,
one a vampire, in Dead Men
Walk (1943) at 8:45
am; a Seminole witch-doctor pursues those who desecrated his grave in
the absurd Death Curse of
Tartu (1967) at 4:45 pm; and Christopher Lee and
Peter Cushing face off once more in Dracula
A.D. 1972 (1972) at 6:15 pm. Read our essay on
it here.
April
19: It’s back to the beach with a side trip through the
‘60s, as TCM opens with a selection of beach movies before segueing
into films by The Dave Clark Five, The Beatles, and Herman’s
Hermits. The fun begins with 1963’s Beach
Party at 6:00 am and ends with Herman’s Hermits
in Hold On! (1966) at
6:30 pm.
April
21: Red Barry continues his fight against
crime in the 7th chapter of his serial at 9:30 am, followed by Tarzan
Triumphs (1943) at 10:00 am. Read our essay on
it here.
April
27: The most unusual Gabriel
Over The White House (1933), starring Walter
Huston as a crooked president who comes back from a seemingly fatal
accident and reforms the country by using almost dictatorial powers
to defeat criminals, get the jobless working and making world peace.
A
double feature of Alone in the
Dark (1982) followed by the truly bizarre Killer
Klowns From Outer Space (1988) begins at 2:00 am.
The latter is so outre that it demands to be seen.
April
28: Episode 8 of Red
Barry leads off at 9:30, followed by Tarzan’s
Desert Mystery (1943) at 10:00 am. Read our essay
on it here.
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