By Ed Garea
STAR
OF THE MONTH
The
Star of the Month for July is Maureen O’Hara, one of Hollywood’s
brightest stars, and TCM runs a respectable sampling of her films
during the month. It’s odd, but her best-known movies, Miracle
on 34th Street and The
Quiet Man, will not be screened. Fox has a tight clamp on the
former; as to the latter, it’s a mystery.
July
1: Begin at 8:00 pm with The
Hunchback of Notre Dame from 1939, a renowned
classic with a truly unforgettable performance from Charles Laughton
in the title role. For a relative newcomer such as O’Hara to hold
her own up against the great Laughton was a foretelling of greater
things to come. And come they did with 1941’s How
Green Was My Valley (10:15 pm), where O’Hara
had her star breakthrough as Angharad, the only daughter of Gwilym
and Beth Morgan (Donald Crisp and Sara Allgood). John Ford’s
direction is to the point, capturing the gentle humor and the
melancholy pathos of Richard Llewellyn’s novel. The film also
introduced O’Hara to Ford, who not only cast her in the important
role without seeing a screen test (they spent the interview chatting
about memories of their native Ireland), but also made her part of
his “stock company,” collaborating on five feature films.
At
12:20 am comes one of the sappiest tearjerkers ever made,
1946’s Sentimental Journey.
This 1946 20th Century Fox production finds O’Hara
as a dying actress who adopts an orphan named Hitty (Connie Marshall)
in the hopes she will be a companion to hubby John Payne after she
kicks the bucket. The film was a huge hit at the box office, and
would probably still pack a powerful punch with an audience - but not
this audience.
July
8: Three films of note to watch tonight, two of which find
O’Hara outdone by a supporting actor. First up at 8:00 pm is
Dorothy Arnzer’s Dance Girl,
Dance from 1940. Maureen is a ballet dancer who
works as a burlesque dancer in Maria Ouspenskaya’s dance troupe.
Though O’Hara has top billing, the real star of the film is Lucille
Ball, giving a terrific performance as the self-centered Bubbles, and
fighting O’Hara for the affection of divorced playboy Louis Hayward
(Ball wins). The film is rather uneven - Arnzer doesn’t know where
she wants to go with it - and is weighed down by the Hayward subplot
(he’s married and the wife really doesn’t want to let him go).
But at any rate watch it for O’Hara’s beauty and Ball’s
performance.
At
1:00 am, O’Hara stars with Robert Young in the classic Sitting
Pretty (Fox, 1948) as a young suburban couple in
need of a nanny to watch their three unruly children. Enter Clifton
Webb as Mr. Belvedere and you can pretty well forget about O’Hara
and Young. Mr. Belvedere, who describes himself as a genius, not only
has the children in lock step, but also pens a tell-all expose about
the scandalous neighborhood of Hummingbird Hill. From the way Webb
dominates this film, one would suspect it was especially written for
him. If you haven’t seen this one before, it’s a must, so record
it and watch at your leisure. You won’t be sorry.
Following
at 2:30 am is director Carol Reed’s underrated Our
Man in Havana (1960). Alec Guinness stars as a
vacuum cleaner salesman recruited by Noel Coward as a secret agent.
O’Hara plays another secret agent. Graham Greene scripted this
witty spoof, which he adapted from his novel. During filming O’Hara
met none other than Che Guevara, who greatly impressed her with his
knowledge of Irish history and the rebellions against the British. In
her memoir, ‘Tis Herself, she states that Guevara’s
cap, which would later be worn by students and dissidents around the
world, was in reality an Irish rebel’s cap.
July
15: It’s “Adventure Night” for O’Hara with three
pirate films (Didn’t we see this last month?) and an adventure
where she plays the daughter of one of the Three Musketeers. Begin at
8 pm with Maureen and Tyrone Power starring in Henry King’s 1942
adaptation of The Black Swan.
Power is wonderful playing against type as a rotten brigand with
O’Hara in fine form as his love interest, the daughter of the
former governor of Jamaica. They are ably supported by the likes of
Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, Anthony Quinn, and
George Zucco.
At
9:30, it’s The Spanish Main,
a 1945 production from RKO and director Frank Borzage, with Paul
Henreid as a Dutch pirate called “the Barracuda,” villainous
Walter Slezak as Don Alvarado, governor of Cartagena, and O’Hara as
Slezak’s bride-to-be. When Henreid discovers that O’Hara is
sailing from Mexico to Cartagena, he kidnaps her and sets the action
in full motion. It’s non-stop fun with Henreid breaking form as
Warner Brothers’ ladies man-in-residence to become a man of action.
And he’s perfect for the part. Slezak is Slezak, a marvel of
villainy, and O’Hara scrumptious as the bride-to-be.
At
11 pm it’s the ridiculous Sinbad
the Sailor, with Douglas Fairbanks and O’Hara in the
top slots. Despite its shortcomings it was a box office hit. Then, at
1:15 am, it’s RKO’s so-so 1951 actioner, At
Sword’s Point, starring Cornel Wilde, O’Hara, and
Alan Hale, Jr. as the children of the original Three Musketeers.
FRIDAY
NIGHT SPOTLIGHT
The
Friday Night Spotlight for June is devoted to - of all things - the
100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.
What the heck, it’s a good excuse to show the backlog of films TCM
has concerning The Great War.
July
4: We begin at 8 pm with Howard Hawks’ classic, Sergeant
York, with the one and only Gary Cooper as York.
Cooper was the actor the real life Sergeant Alvin York wanted to play
him in the movie adaptation of his life and he got his wish. At 10:30
pm, it’s James Cagney, Pat O’Brien and George Brent in The
Fighting 69th.
Yeah, Brent’s the commander, Cagney’s the guy who can’t fit in,
and O’Brien is - what else - the priest. But it works and works
beautifully, for it’s a morale film, meant to get us ready for the
next big conflagration.
At
12:15 am, it’s The Dawn
Patrol (WB, 1938), with Errol Flynn, Basil
Rathbone, and David Niven in an excellent remake of Hawks’ 1930
original about the anguish of squadron commanders who have to send
pilots to their death. Following at 2:15 am is William Wellman’s
award-winning Wings,
a 1927 silent from Paramount about two pilots (Charles “Buddy”
Rogers and Harold Arlen) who are rivals for the same woman (Clara
Bow). The dogfight scenes are great and enough to make up for the
film’s paper-thin plot.
July
11: Five wonderful films are the highlight of the night’s
viewing. At 8 pm, it’s Stanley Kubrick’s Paths
of Glory, a brilliant expose of the insanity of war
starring Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, and Adolphe Menjou. It’s
followed at 9:45 by a film just as good: All
Quiet on the Western Front, which made a star out of
its lead, Lew Ayres. Based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, it’s
the story of the First World War as told from the German side. We
follow Paul Baumer (Ayres), a young student filled by his teacher
with patriotic fervor from the time he enlists through his time in
trenches, where he sees the real horrors of war, to his senseless
death in the trenches from a sniper’s bullet. Ayres is excellent as
he goes from idealism to cynicism, but Louis Wolheim as Katczinsky
matches him step for step, bringing a humanity to film that never
steps over the line to the maudlin. One of the most powerful antiwar
films ever made, it was one of the first films banned upon the Nazi’s
assumption of power in 1933. Minister of Propaganda called it “an
unreal portrait.” Ironically Goebbels never served at the front as
his clubfoot rendered him unfit for action.
At
12:15 am, it’s King Vidor’s splashy 1925 opus for MGM, The
Big Parade. John Gilbert stars as one of three
soldiers from different backgrounds who are thrown together in
wartime France. Gilbert is James Apperson, a son of privilege. Tom
O’Brien is Bull, a bartender from the Bowery, and Karl Dane is
Slim, an ironworker. Renee Adoree shines as Melisande, a beautiful
village girl who reminds Gilbert of his fiancée back home. Together
these young innocents experience the horrors of war first hand in
battle scenes so realistic as to be unnerving. I know many out there
do not care for silent films, but this is a wonderfully acted and
directed film with Gilbert showing the audience why he is a star.
At
the ungodly hour of 3 am we have a doubleheader from none the than
the great G.W. Pabst. Leading off is his 1930 antiwar
classic, Westfront 1918,
a film with battle scenes so real that audience members were said to
have fainted in their seats at the film’s 1930 premiere in Berlin.
The film follows four young soldiers sent to the Western front at a
time when the war is about over, the outcome is in little doubt and
the continuation of fighting senseless. Pabst’s view of war is
stark, totally unromantic, and the picture of German society he
paints is one ridden with corruption and in serious economic trouble.
It’s no wonder that, along with All Quiet on the Western
Front, it was one of the initial two dozen films banned by
the Nazis.
At
4:45 am, TCM screens Pabst’s 1931 Kameradschaft,
a stirring and heartfelt story of a real event: a mine cave-in near
the French-German border in 1906 and the German miners’ disregard
of public opinion and their own safety to perform a rescue mission by
digging underneath the French tunnel. Its message of pacifism and
workers solidarity also led to its ban by Goebbels.
MAE
WEST
The
evening of July
3 is
devoted to a marathon of five Mae West films. Beginning at 8 pm, the
roster goes like this: I’m
No Angel (1933,
with a young Cary Grant); She
Done Him Wrong (1933,
also with the young Cary Grant); Belle
of the Nineties (1934); My
Little Chickadee (1940,
with W.C. Fields); The
Heat’s On (1943).
All, with the exception of the last, are must-sees. Mae was at her
best during the Pre-Code era and could well be said to embody the
liberties of that era. Blue noses hated her not only for her risqué
humor, but also for the fact that she was an empowered woman,
something one would never see in an MGM picture.
OUT
OF THE ORDINARY
July
6: Beginning at 2:00 am, it’s a double feature about
maids, believe it or not. First up is The
Housemaid, a 1960 film by filmmaker Kim Ki-young about
the drama that ensues when a music teacher and his wife hire a
housemaid to care for the home and the children. The only problem is
that the maid is a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, and she
proceeds to tear the household apart in a most harrowing and lurid
manner. Underneath this is a critique of the treatment of women in
Korean society. A friend of mine who saw this when a restored version
played in France back in 2008 commented to me that it was almost like
Claude Chabrol translated into Korean. Sounds like an excellent
recommendation, especially as the film was thought lost for years.
Following
at 4 am is Luis Bunuel’s 1965 Diary
of a Chambermaid. Bunuel took Jean Renoir’s 1946
original and transformed it into a look at the coming of fascism in
1939 France - with a little sex attached. Jeanne Moreau is Celestine,
the latest in a line of maids that have worked in the Monteil
household and a woman who will use her feminine charms to control and
advance her situation in the household, which itself is a mass of
corruption, violence and sexual perversion. In other words: typical
Bunuel. The lady of the house (Francoise Lugagne) distrusts her
because of her Parisian background. Monsieur Monteil (Michel
Piccoli), the man of the house, could care less where she was from in
France. Rejected by his wife, he seeks out the pleasure of the
servants and Celestine is but another in a long line of maids he will
impregnate if given the chance. But Celestine rejects his attempts at
seduction. She’d rather parade around in high heels for the benefit
of Madame Monteil’s father. Seeing Moreau running around in high
heel boots so he can leer at her proves too much for his heart and he
is found dead, naked and wrapped around a pair of her boots.
Meanwhile, a young girl is found raped and murdered, Celestine
suspects the groundskeeper, a rabid fascist, and even agrees to marry
him in the hope he will let his guard down so she can turn him in.
Got that? Right.
July
13: Looking for a good change of pace? Then try Akira
Kurosawa’s take on Macbeth, Throne
of Blood (1961) with Toshiro Mifune in the
Macbeth role. Mifune is flawless as a samurai warned of future events
in a supernatural encounter and then encouraged to kills his lord and
seize power by his ambitious wife (Isuzu Yamada, who was
unforgettable in Mizoguchi’s 1936 Tokyo Elegy).
It’s been said that Kurosawa tried to avoid duplicating Orson
Welles’ version of Macbeth. What he does do, however,
is copy Laurence Olivier in his adaptation of Hamlet by
cutting down may of the long speeches and minor characters. (Kurosawa
even cuts out the character of Macduff!) Kurosawa filmed on the
slopes of Mt. Fuji, building an impressive medieval castle among
other period sets. Critics have referred to the film as a brilliant
stylistic blend of Noh Theatre and the American Western, a
description that applies to many of the director’s samurai films.
July
14: An Ernst Lubitsch film is always worth one’s time,
especially when it’s on the level of his 1932 classic, Trouble
in Paradise. Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall play
thieves who begin by robbing each other, only to fall madly in love.
Now a team, they plan to fleece wealthy widow Kay Francis, but just
as things are going ever so smoothly Marshall finds himself falling
for his victim. Will he go straight or keep to his wicked ways with
partner Hopkins. If you know Lubitsch, you know the answer, but it’s
always a joy to find out.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B HIVE
As
always, there’s a good selection in both the psychotronic and the
B-category.
July
1: Try Gaby at
4:30 pm. While this tepid remake of Waterloo Bridge is
neither psychotronic nor a B-movie, it does boast some interesting
casting in the persons of Lisa Montell (World Without
End, She-Gods of Shark Reef) and the one
and only Narda Onyx, best known for Jesse James Meets
Frankenstein’s Daughter. (My essay on that film can be
found here.)
July
2: At 8 pm, it’s Donald O’Connor in Arthur Lubin’s
1950 comedy, Francis.
O’Connor is Peter Stirling, a G.I. in Burma whose life is saved
from the Japanese by a talking Army mule. Of course, no one believes
him and the mule is too stubborn to talk with anyone else, but with
Francis feeding him intelligence about Japanese troop movements,
Peter becomes a hero. The popularity of the film spurred profitable
sequels, including one starring Mickey Rooney, then at the nadir of
his career, opposite the mule. When the series ran its course, Lubin
brought the concept to television as Mr. Ed, only
this time it was a talking horse.
At
2:30 am, it’s Louis Malle’s confusing 1975 satire, Black
Moon. Set in the future, a woman (Catherine Harrison,
Rex’s daughter) flees the ongoing war between men and women by
escaping into a fantasy world with talking animals and unicorns. Shot
at Malle’s own house and 225-acre spread in the Dordogne Valley,
the director referred to it as unlike anything he’s ever done
before or since. However, box office returns were such that he never
did it again. Next stop, America, where he would film Atlantic
City with Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon.
Finally,
at 4:30 am, it’s Roger Corman’s The
Raven (AIP, 1963). Vincent Price is Dr. Erasmus
Craven, a widowed sorcerer who discovers that his wife, Lenore (Hazel
Court) is alive and living with his mortal enemy, Dr. Scarabus (Boris
Karloff). Peter Lorre is also in the film as Dr. Adolphus Bedio, a
magician Scarabus turned into a bird for daring to challenge him.
Craven restores Bedio to human form and the two join forces against
Scarabus. It’s unusual for a Corman film in that it’s actually
entertaining, thanks to the fact that Richard Matheson wrote the
screenplay.
July
5: Each Saturday at noon in July, TCM is showing a
psychotronic sci-fi flick. This week it’s the camp classic from the
Woolner Brothers and Allied Artists, Attack
of the 50-Foot Woman. The beautiful Allison Hayes, a
former Miss Oklahoma, plays the title character, Nancy Archer.
Distraught after another fight with her husband, Nancy is cooling off
with a drive in the country when she has an encounter of the third
kind with a transparent alien (the result of shoddy special effects).
The encounter eventually causes her to grow 50-feet tall. This is a
perfect film, hilarious writing, hilarious acting, and hilarious
special effects. Look for the giant Paper Mache hand near the end.
At
3:00 am, it’s John Carpenter’s 1976 psychotronic classic, Assault
on Precinct 13,
about a group of policemen and other individuals who must fight off
an attack by a faceless gang upon their precinct house. If this
sounds like Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo,
it’s because Carpenter took his story idea from that movie. George
Romero’s Night of the Living Dead was
also an influence in that the gang members almost seem like zombies.
At any rate it’s worth a viewing.
July
6: A double dip of Ray Harryhausen begins at 8 pm with the
1963 classic Jason and the
Argonauts, followed at 10 pm by The
Seventh Voyage of Sinbad from 1958. I remember
seeing this in the theater and the Cyclops still scares me today.
July
12: The noon feature this week is the exquisitely
awful Queen of Outer Space,
with the one and only Zsa Zsa Gabor trying hard to pass as a
thespian. The story about the film was that writer Ben Hecht
originally proposed it as a joke. Well, the joke was on us.
I
WAS A TEENAGE DETECTIVE: Also
on tap in July on Saturdays at 10:30 am are the complete Nancy Drew
mysteries, starring Bonita Granville and produced by Warner Brothers.
As only four were made in the series, it fits rather nicely in TCM’s
schedule. Adapted from Carolyn Keene’s novels, the series starred
Bonita Granville as Nancy, Frankie Thomas as Nancy’s boyfriend, Ted
Nickerson, and John Litel played Nancy’s attorney father. Granville
was the right actress for the right part. Her Nancy is feisty, filled
with boundless energy matched by her intelligence and resourcefulness
whenever in a jam. On July
5, it’s Nancy
Drew Detective (1938),
the initial entry in the series. Nancy investigates the disappearance
of a wealthy, eccentric woman who had pledged $250,000 to Nancy’s
school. Nancy is convinced the woman was kidnapped, and with Ted’s
help, tracks down the criminals. On July 12, TCM is showing Nancy
Drew, Reporter
(1939). Trying to win a contest for the best news story, Nancy visits
the court and overhears the staff talking about the Lambert murder
case. She decides to sit in on the trial, where the victim’s ward,
Eula Denning (Betty Amann), is accused of poisoning Kate Lambert for
the inheritance money. Deciding that Denning is innocent, Nancy
decides to investigate.
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