Friday, June 22, 2018

TCM TiVo Alert for June 23-30

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.

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

No comments:

Post a Comment