TCM TiVO ALERT
For
June
23-June 30
DAVID’S
BEST BETS:
THE
MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (June
24, 8:00 am): Warner Brothers wasn't known for making
excellent comedies in the 1930s and 40s, and Bette Davis
didn't become famous for her comedic skills. However, this 1942
screwball comedy is the exception to the rule. Davis is delightful
and funny as Maggie Cutler, secretary to Monty Woolley's
character. Woolley's Sheridan Whiteside is an
arrogant, acerbic lecturer and critic who slips on the front steps of
the house of an Ohio family, injuring himself in the process. Since
he's going to be laid up for a while, Whiteside thinks
nothing of completely takes over the house, leading to some funny and
madcap moments. Woolley, who reprised the role he first made
famous on Broadway, is the best part of the movie. While Davis
didn't become famous for being a comedian, she is great here and
showed legitimate promise as a comedic actress.
VIVA
LAS VEGAS (June 26, 9:15 am): For the most part,
if you've seen one Elvis film from the 1960s, you've seen them all.
While 1964's Viva Las Vegas doesn't stray too
far from the Elvis Formula – he has a rugged-type job, somehow gets
into a jam, sees a pretty girl, sings some songs, gets into a fight,
gets the girl and lives happily ever after – it is significantly
better than most of them. That's not much of a compliment, but this
is one of Presley's best films. The reason? The on-screen and
off-screen chemistry between Elvis, who plays race-car driver Lucky
Jackson, and Ann-Margaret, who plays Rusty Martin, his love interest
in one of her sexiest roles. While not the best actress to play
opposite Elvis, Ann-Margaret is the most entertaining and interacts
better with him than any other. Rusty is a swimming instructor and
dancer, great excuses for her to wear skimpy clothes. But it's more
than a T&A film. There's some great dance numbers that are filmed
nicely with the use of several different camera angles, the excellent
theme song along with a few other musical numbers, an exciting car
race (of course Elvis is a race-car driver, a job he had in several
of his films), and Presley's charisma, rarely captured during this
era. Is it a masterpiece or even Elvis' best movie? No, but it's very
entertaining to watch.
ED’S
BEST BETS:
GET
CARTER (June 23, 4:00 pm): Michael Caine is
pitch perfect as a vicious London gangster in this hard-boiled crime
thriller from writer/director Mike Hodges. In Newcastle for his
brother's funeral, Jack Carter begins to suspect that his
brother's death was not an accident. Seeking the truth he follows a
complex trail of lies, deceit, cover-ups and backhanders through
Newcastle's underworld, hopefully leading to the man who ordered his
brother killed. Because of his, Carter is totally ruthless and will
not hesitate to knock heads together to find out what he wants to
know, which in this film happens quite a lot. The film feels a lot
like a detective movie, except that the hero is on the other side of
the law. It also separates itself from the pack in its depiction of
the underworld, as Carter moves through a world of working-class
pubs, rundown boardinghouses managed and urban betting parlors,
unusual for this type of film, which usually focus on the flash while
leaving the underlying characterization on the cutting room floor.
Look for playwright John Osborne as the heinous leader of
the porno crime syndicate Carter is up against. Get
Carter was not only a top-notch action noir, but also a huge
influence on the British crime drama.
STRANGER
ON THE THIRD FLOOR (June 29, 1:45 pm): This is a
terrific and fast moving noir about a rising reporter Mike Ward (John
McGuire) whose testimony at the trial of a cab driver (Elisha Cook,
Jr.) accused of killing a café owner results in his conviction and
death sentence. He argues with his noisy neighbor, which results in a
surreal dream that he has murdered the neighbor. When he awakes, he
finds that the neighbor is dead; killed in the same manner as the
café owner, and now Mike is arrested as the prime suspect. He tells
his fiancée Jane (Margaret Tallichet) that he remembers seeing
a man who ran from him on the night he argued with the neighbor, and
now Jane searches for that man in order to clear Mike. Will she find
him? Is it Peter Lorre? There’s only one way to find out: tune
in.
WE
DISAGREE ON ... FUNNY GIRL (June 28, 8:00 pm)
ED:
A-. The reason for my grade
can be given in two words: Barbra Streisand. Though I’m
not a fan of Ms. Streisand, one must give credit where it is
due, and in this movie she is due all the credit, for without her it
hardly moves. To quote Roger Ebert: “But the film
itself is perhaps the ultimate example of the roadshow musical
gone overboard. It is over-produced, over-photographed and over-long.
The second half drags badly. The supporting characters are generally
wooden. And in this movie, believe me, everyone who
ain't Barbra Streisand is a supporting
character.” Truer words were never spoken.
Take Streisand out and the movie is
practically unwatchable. If there was anyone born to be a movie
star, it is Barbra Streisand. Watching the movie again
after almost 20 years, I noticed her natural comic timing. Take
notice of her way with a song. She just doesn’t sing it,
she acts it out, using her hands and facial
expressions to get the song across to the audience. But while her
performance is remarkable, it ends up hurting the film, especially in
the case of her leading man, Omar Sharif, who in this movie is
reduced almost to a mannequin. Looking at him I imagine he may
have been thinking how much better it was to be with Julie Christie
in Revolutionary Russia. Thinking about it after it ended, I reckoned
that director William Wyler, who was nearing the end of his
career and who wasn’t really conversant with the musical form,
took a close look at the script and decided to
let Streisand dominate. Streisand, one of the most
egocentric performers in Hollywood, later said
that Wyler didn’t direct her, she directed herself.
Of course she did; one almost expects her to say that she
wasn’t born, but emerged fully grown from the head of her
father, Zeus, on Mt. Olympus.
DAVID:
D+. There's
very little that's funny about this film. The plot is dull and
lifeless –and
this is after they fictionalized the life of Fanny Brice to make
this more interesting. They failed. The movie is too much of a bad
thing. As Ed mentions in his review, Roger Ebert wrote that
the 1968 film "is perhaps the ultimate example of
the roadshow musical gone overboard. It is over-produced,
over-photographed and over-long." It clocks in at
two-and-a-half hours, and is a chore to watch. The movie is slow
paced and only gets worse as it goes on. I generally dislike musicals
and this one did nothing to change my mind. While "People"
is a good tune, the rest of the songbook is forgettable.
William Wyler was a wonderful director, but he did an awful
job with this film. Most critics have kind words
for Barbra Streisand's performance in this movie, but
she's just too much and Wyler fails to reign her in, and
the rest of the actors are simply awful. It's far from being the
worst movie or musical ever made, but it's a bad film that fails to
entertain.
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