TCM TiVo Alert for June 1-7

TCM TiVo ALERT
For

June 1–June 7

   

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

THE BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ (June 2, 5:15 pm): There are few actors who had the presence of Burt Lancaster – that voice, the athletic build and his ability to become one with the characters he portrayed. In this 1962 film, he plays Robert Stroud, a murderer, who from all accounts was not a nice guy. In the film, Stroud has a dark side, but comes across overall as a decent person. While in solitary confinement, Stroud adopts and trains a sparrow. After a while, he's got an entire bird collection and inspires other inmates to get birds. When some of the birds get sick, Stroud discovers ways to cure them, and becomes an expert on bird diseases. The concept may sound boring, but the screenplay is outstanding and the acting is first-rate. Besides Lancaster, the cast includes Telly Savalas as a fellow prisoner, Thelma Ritter in the performance of her career as Stroud's mother, and Karl Malden as the warden at Leavenworth. Most of the film – and the book of which it is based – takes place at Leavenworth. Stroud served some time at Alcatraz, where he wasn't permitted to have birds making the title catchy but inaccurate.

THE PETRIFIED FOREST (June 4, 3:30 am): In one of his first major roles, Humphrey Bogart plays Duke Mantee, a notorious gangster on the run. Bogart was so great in this 1936 film as the heavy – bringing depth, emotion and character to the role – that Warner Brothers spent nearly five years casting Bogart in other movies as the bad guy. But very few were of this quality. Duke and his gang end up in a diner near the Petrified Forest in Arizona with the police chasing them. The gang takes everyone inside hostage, including Alan Squier (Leslie Howard), a once great writer who is now an alcoholic. Not fearing death because of what life has become for him, Squier engages Duke in conversation, pushing his buttons. The interaction between the two is outstanding. Also at the dinner is Gabrielle Maple (Bette Davis), who owns it with her father and grandfather. Davis is excellent and even subdued as a secondary character. 

ED’S BEST BETS:

THREE STRANGERS (June 2, 8:00 pm): A wonderful noir. Geraldine Fitzgerald invites two strangers (Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre) to her London flat on Chinese New Year, 1938. She believes if three strangers make the same wish to an idol of Kwan Yin, Chinese goddess of fortune and destiny, the wish will be granted. Since money will make their dreams come true, the three go in together on a sweepstakes ticket for the Grand National horse race, agreeing that they will not sell the ticket if it is chosen, but will hold on to it until the race is run. Each has their plans for the money. Although it is the winning ticket, good fortune is not to be had; rather, they are undone by greed, paranoia, and plain bad luck. Any film with Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre is always worth seeing and this one even more so because of the addition of Geraldine Fitzgerald. The weird screenplay by John Huston and Howard Koch guarantees fascinating viewing.

FAST AND LOOSE (June 4, 1:30 pm): Of all the Thin Man clones that hit the silver screen, this series was the best. If MGM had handled it right, it could have been a solid and profitable B series. But the constant changing of the leads doomed the series. There were three films in all, each with different actors playing the roles of Joel and Garda Sloane, rare book dealers who always seemed to get involved in shady doings. This entry in the series, with Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell, was the best. In this film, the Sloanes investigate the murder of Mr. Oates, a book collector for whom the Sloanes were trying to buy a rare Shakespeare manuscript. Mr. Oater is dead and the manuscript is missing. Since Joel is considered a suspect in the case, he tries to find the murderer. It’s a lively and appealing 80 minutes that doesn’t have one dull moment. Russell and Montgomery fit the roles perfectly, with their banter being one of the highlights of this excellent film. Had the studio decided to commit to the duo and taken the series seriously, they could have given Nick and Nora Charles a run for their money.

WE DISAGREE ON ... McLINTOCK! (June 6, 2:15 pm)

ED: A-. This Western takeoff on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is a welcome and funny departure from Wayne’s usual Westerns of the ‘60s. It also might be seen as an updating of The Quiet Man set in the West. John Wayne is cattle baron G.W. McLintock, whose wife Katherine (Maureen O’Hara) had left him a while ago with no explanation. She has returned to take their daughter, Becky (Stefanie Powers), who has just returned from school, back to the State Capitol with her. McLintock is a peaceful and respected man who has a hard enough time keeping that peace without his headstrong wife returning to irritate him. O’Hara steals the film as the headstrong Katherine. She also did her own stunts. (Yes, that’s really her sliding into the mudhole.) Look for old Wayne buddy Bruce Cabot in there somewhere, and a bit of nepotism with Wayne’s son, Patrick, in a strong supporting role. The movie never pretends to be something other than what is – a broad farce, unlike some of Wayne’s pictures, which could be described as unintentional farces. But the Ol’ Draft Dodger is in good form here, having surrounded himself with a cast of friends he’s comfortable with in a film that requires no thought whatsoever. Just watch and laugh.

DAVID: D. To be blunt, this is an awful film. It's an out-of-control ego trip for John Wayne. Batjac Productions, owned by Wayne, made the film. One of his sons, Michael, whose movie experience was limited to an associate producer credit on Batjac's The Alamo (another terrible John Wayne film) is the producer. The director is the talentless Andrew V. McLaglen, a John Ford gopher whose directing experience before McLintock! was limited to TV Westerns and two lousy Western movies made by...Batjac Productions. As Ed noted, another of Wayne's sons, Patrick, is a co-star (and surprisingly isn't terrible). The point is the Duke had no one to stop him from making such a crappy film and as you watch it that becomes obvious. He surrounded himself with inexperienced "yes people" who didn't have the nerve, experience or talent to tell Wayne that this wasn't working. It's supposed to be funny, I think, but it failed to make me laugh even once. The slapstick brawl with people falling into a mud pit was ridiculous and too staged. I'm not a fan of The Quiet Man so the reunion of Wayne and Maureen O'Hara did nothing for me. On top of that, O'Hara's character, Katherine, is unlikable. Just like in The Quiet Man, the premise that violence makes people fall in love is on full display only it's worse here. Dev Warren (Patrick Wayne) feels the need to teach Becky McLintock (Stefanie Powers) a lesson about who she should love so he goes to spank her over his knees like a five-year-old child straight out of the Duke's prehistoric thoughts of what the world was like in 1963. Before Dev can strike Becky with his hand, the Duke, who plays her dad, G.W. (short for George Washington, gag!), gives him a small metal shovel to beat her ass. It works as she falls in love with him. Dev returns the favor at the end of the movie when G.W. goes to spank Katherine. Good ol' Dev gives G.W. a metal shovel so the estranged couple can get back together properly. I'd give it an F, but the 127-minute(!) film's color is nice.

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