By
Ed Garea
June
is busting out all over, with some real gems among the usual.
TCM
Big Screen Classics celebrates the 50th anniversary of Mel
Brooks’ The Producers,
which will be shown at selected theaters on June 3 and June 6. I
remember seeing it when it first came out. I was in high school at
the time and no one wanted to go with me, so I went myself and rarely
have had a better time. I couldn’t stop laughing. And so began a
love affair with Mel Brooks that has lasted until this day. Although
I don’t think every film of his is a masterpiece, he has never
failed to entertain me through the years. So if you can, go see this
classic. You won’t be sorry.
After
being a steady viewer since it premiered, it somehow never occurred
to me to recommend one of the best shows on TCM, and with this issue
I am inaugurating a special section devoted it to it. That show
is Noir
Alley,
hosted by the one and only Eddie Muller. Usually, with the exception
of Ben Mankiewicz, I skip past the host’s introduction to the
movie, but not with Muller. He is a font of information and the
real deal, having authored several books, all of which are in my
collection. Besides his signature book, Dark
City: The Lost World of Film Noir,
check out his Dark
City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir,
a study of six femme fatales who helped make noir such an interesting
genre: Marie Windsor, Audrey Totter, Jane Greer, Ann Savage, Evelyn
Keyes and Coleen Gray. Anyone who devotes a chapter to Ann Savage is
okay with me. Eddie’s also a novelist, having written the highly
entertaining The
Distance and Shadow
Boxer.
The novels concern a character named Billy Nichols, a sportswriter
and boxing devotee in 1949 San Francisco who doesn’t have to look
for trouble, as it always finds him. All the books are available on
Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
INGRID
BERGMAN
June
3: A double feature of the Swedish star begins at 2 am with
the original – and rarely seen – A
Woman’s Face from 1938. (The Joan Crawford
remake can be seen on June 15 at 12:30 pm.) It’s followed at 3:25
am by Stromboli, her
1950 film with husband Roberto Rossellini.
JEAN-PAUL
BELMONDO
June
10: A double feature starring the French actor begins at 2
am with Up to His Ears (1965),
a comedy with Belmondo as a unhappy billionaire who hires a couple of
hit men to bump him off, but has to change his plans after meeting a
woman (Ursula Andress) who makes his life worth living. Following at
4 am is That Man From Rio (1964),
a crime adventure with Belmondo as a French military man on an
eight-day furlough to visit his fiancée, Agnes (Françoise Dorleac).
Arriving in Paris, he learns that her late father's partner, museum
curator Professor Catalan (Jean Servais), has just been kidnapped by
a group of Amazon tribesmen who have also stolen a priceless statue
from the museum. Adrien and Agnes pursue the kidnappers to Brazil,
where they learn the statue is the key to a hidden Amazon treasure.
Dorleac was the real-life sister of Catherine Deneuve, as just as
gorgeous. She was tragically killed when her rental car flipped and
burned on a roadway in Nice, France, on June 26, 1967. She was only
25.
PRE-CODE
June
2: The ensemble flick, Dinner
at Eight (1933), leads off at 6:00 am, followed
by the Tom Keene Western Scarlet
River (1933) at 8:00 am.
June
5: Going Hollywood,
director Raoul Walsh’s 1933 musical with Marion Davies and Bing
Crosby, airs at 6:00 am.
An
evening of Pre-Code musicals begins with The
Broadway Melody (1929) at 8:00 pm. Following in
order are 42nd Street (1933)
at 10 pm, Gold Diggers of
1933 (1933) at 11:45 pm, Lubitsch’s The
Love Parade (1929), with Maurice Chevalier and
Jeanette MacDonald, at 1:45 am, and King Vidor’s groundbreaking all
African American musical, Hallelujah (1929),
at 3:45 am.
June
9: Tom Keene is a rodeo rider who can't face the game after
he's almost killed by a wild bronco in The
Saddle Buster (1932) at 8 am.
NOIR
ALLEY
All
films air at Midnight and are repeated the next morning at 10 am.
June
2: Bette Davis is a murderess in The
Letter from 1940.
June
9: Humphrey
Bogart murders wife Rose Hobart so he can be with her sister, Alexis
Smith, in Conflict (1945).
Sydney Greenstreet figures it all out.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B HIVE
There
is seemingly something for everyone in this month’s selection of
psychotronic movies.
June
1: Frederic March stars in the 1932 version of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at 11:00 am.
A
Paul Bartel double feature commences at 2:15 am with his 1972
feature, Private Parts,
an offbeat mix of Peeping Tom and Homicidal set
in a seedy L.A. hotel. Following at 3:45 am is Scenes
From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989),
about two servants (Ray Sharkey and Robert Beltran) making a bet over
who can have sex with their female bosses (Jacqueline Bisset and Mary
Woronov) first.
June
2: The serial, Red Barry, with Buster
Crabbe, continues at 9:30 am, followed by Tarzan
and the Mermaids (1948) at 10:00. Before the
Tarzans, the station has been been showing vintage Popeye cartoons,
so animation fans, tune in.
It’s
followed at 4:15 am by the beautiful Tamara Dobson who takes on the
scene-chewing Shelley Winters in the Blaxploitation classic Cleopatra
Jones (1973).
June
8: Robert Newton plans to give his wife’s (Sally Gray)
lover (Phil Brown) an acid bath in Obsession (Midnight),
followed by John Ashley and Pam Grier in The
Twilight People (1972) at 2 am and Charles
Laughton in Island of Lost
Souls (1933) at 3:30 am.
June
9: Another episode of Red
Barry airs at 9:30 am, followed by Tarzan’s
Magic Fountain (1949) at 10 am.
June
13: Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) discovers Professor
Moriarty (Henry Daniell) is behind a rash of gruesome murders in The
Woman in Green (1945) at 7:15 am. Later, at 8:30
am, Holmes must track down the printing plates for England’s
5-pound notes in Dressed to
Kill (1946).
June
15: At 2 am Faye Dunaway is a fashion photographer who
develops the ability to see through the eyes of a psycho who is
murdering her friends in Eyes of
Laura Mars (1979). Tommy Lee Jones is a detective
on the case. Producer Jon Peters originally intended this as a
vehicle for then-girlfriend Barbra Streisand (she sings the theme
song).
Following
at 4 am Genevieve Bujold is a doctor investigating a series of
strange deaths and disappearing bodies at her hospital in the
thriller Coma (1978).
Although the film has a few good tense moments, on the whole it’s
forgettable.
No comments:
Post a Comment