A
Guide to the Interesting and Unusual on TCM
By
Ed Garea
Has
anyone been catching the miniseries Feud on
FX? I went into this expecting it to be really bad, but I must admit
to being delightfully entertained. It’s the story of the making
of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and the feud
that followed afterwards between divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford,
who is aided by Hedda Hopper in her fight against Bette. Susan
Sarandon is a positive revelation as Bette, taking the time to nail
down her Yankee accent. And though Jessica Lange didn’t remind me
of Crawford first off, like Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, her
abundance of talent allowed her to segue effortlessly into Crawford’s
persona, so that she becomes Crawford soon into the series. Jackie
Hoffman steals the series right out from under their noses as
Crawford’s German-born maid, Mamacita, while Stanley Tucci makes
for a most effective Jack Warner. And look for the the and only John
Waters as the one and only William Castle, who directed Joan
in Strait-Jacket. I recommend this to all as good trashy
fun, something there is too little of lately.
Lola
Albright, whose move credits include a couple of psychotronic
classics, as well as the classical psychotronic TV show, Peter
Gunn, died March 23 in Los Angeles at the age of 92. The cause
was not disclosed.
She
was born Lois Jean Albright on July 20, 1924, in Akron, Ohio. Her
parents, John Paul and Marion (nee Harvey) Albright, were gospel
singers, and she studied music throughout her childhood.
After
graduating high school she moved to Cleveland, where she worked as a
receptionist at a Cleveland radio station. She began singing on WJW
in Cleveland before marrying an announcer and moving to Chicago,
where she worked as a model. While modeling, a photographer, taken
with her looks, suggested she give Hollywood a try.
Albright
made her screen debut in 1947. Her first credited role was as Palmer
in Kirk Douglas’s boxing movie, Champion. However, she
couldn’t escape the Bs. Her big break came in television when she
was cast as singer Edie Hart in Peter
Gunn (1958-61), a noir adult drama
created by director Blake Edwards and starring Craig Stevens that has
since become a cult classic.
Besides Champion,
Albright was noted for The Monolith Monsters (1956),
a psychotronic cult classic; A Cold Wind in August
(1961), playing a stripper who seduces a teenage boy; Kid
Galahad (1962), giving a strong performance opposite
Elvis; and The Impossible Years (1968) as the
wife of child psychiatrist David Niven, who can’t control their
teenage daughters. The latter was her final film
appearance.
She
was married three times: to Warren Dean, actor Jack Carson, and
musician and restaurant owner Bill Chadney, all ending in divorce.
PSYCHOTRONICA
AND THE B HIVE
April
18: With the morning and afternoon is devoted to
psychotronic flicks, the picks for the day are as follows: M (1931,
6:00 am); Night of the Hunter (1955,
8:00 am); Bedlam (1946,
9:45 am); What Ever Happened to Baby
Jane? (1962, 3:30 pm); and Shock
Corridor (1963, 6:00 pm).
April
19: Yet
another morning and afternoon devoted to the psychotronic. Among
those recommended are: The
Monster (1925,
6:00 am) with the one and only Lon Chaney; The
Murder of Dr. Harrigan (1936,
7:45 am - read our essay here); Indestructible
Man (1956,
9:00 am); The
Body Snatcher (1945,
10:30 am) with Henry Daniell, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; The
Cosmic Monster (1958,
5:00 pm - read our essay here);
and Karloff in Frankenstein
1970 (1958,
6:30
am).
April
22: At 8:45 am, astronauts Kieron Moore, Lois Maxwell and
Donald Wolfit are trapped in a space station with a ticking time bomb
in Satellite in the Sky (1956),
followed by Ann Sothern in Swing
Shift Maisie (1943) at 10:30 am.
At
2:15 pm it’s a Blaxploitation double feature. It begins with Rudy
Ray Moore in his most popular role as Dolemite,
from 1975. Moore is Dolemite, a rhyme master and pimp set up by the
police, who planted drugs and stolen goods in his trunk. Given a
sentence of 20 years, when he’s released, he’s ripe and
ready for revenge as he calls on the services of his old friend Queen
Bee (Lady Reed) and her army of karate black belt call girls. It’s
obviously low-budget, but just as obviously, it’s good fun, not to
be taken seriously.
Following
is the statuesque Tamara Dobson is Cleopatra
Jones (1973)
at 4:00 am. Cleo is a special agent who locks horns with master
criminal Mommy (Shelley Winters) in her battle to clear the drug
dealers out of her inner city neighborhood. Dobson is a classy
heroine and Winters gives a deliciously over-the-top performance as
the depraved Mommy. Read our essay on the
film here.
April
29: Start off with Maisie
Goes to Reno (1944) at 10:30 am. At 2:45 am it’s
a double feature of Lady
Snowblood (1973) and
the sequel, Lady Snowblood: Love
Song of Vengeance (1974). Directed by Toshiya
Fujita, Meiko Kaji stars as a young girl specifically raised to
become an assassin and kill the criminals who destroyed her family.
Based on a popular comic book series (Manga), it’s set in the Meiji
era, the period of Japan’s transition from feudal nation to a
modern state. An innocent woman sees her husband and son killed
before her eyes and is imprisoned after killing one of the murderers.
While behind bars, she gives birth to a daughter, named Yuki
(Japanese for snow) who will be grow up to be the instrument of her
revenge. Graphically violent, it was so popular that a sequel was
made a year later. Both films were a huge influence on Quentin
Tarantino and the main influence for his Kill Bill series.
MIKE
LEIGH
April
16: Director Mike Leigh, known for his somber and incisive
portraits of English working-class life such as Secrets and
Lies, Career Girls, and Vera Drake,
continues the trend with Meantime (1984).
Airing at the godforsaken hour of 4:30 am, this is a British
television movie that takes a close look at how being on the dole
affects the underclass in Britain. Starring Tim Roth as Colin, a slow
and possibly intellectually disabled man living with his parents and
brother in a housing project. He and his sarcastic manipulative
brother still act like teenagers, living with their parents and
harassing each other, though they are now in their late teens or
early twenties. They interact with the likes of Hayley, a young woman
with a crush on Colin, and Coxy (Gary Oldman) a violent local
skinhead who befriends Colin. Trouble comes when a wealthy aunt gives
Colin a job, causing his brother to become jealous. Record this one,
you’ll want to see it later.
ANNA
MAGNANI
April
30: A double-feature of the great Anna Magnani begins at
2:00 am with Mamma Roma (1962).
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Magnani stars as a streetwalker who
tries to save her son from entering into a life of crime. Following
at 4:15 am is the film that first brought her into prominence,
Roberto Rossellini’s Open
City (1946). The film is about the efforts of
Rome’s Nazi occupiers to capture partisan leader Giorgio Manfredi
(Marcello Pagliero), who is assisted by local priest Don Pietro
Pellegrini (Aldo Fabrizi). Set against this are the ordinary, daily
fight of Rome’s citizens, shown storming a bakery to obtain bread
for their children, as they struggle with the uncertainties of the
occupation. Magnani is Pina, an ordinary citizen engaged to Francesco
(Francesco Grandjacquet), a friend of Manfredi. Pina, pregnant with
Francesco’s child is the focus of the moral ambiguities faced
during wartime by the characters as they fight a constant battle to
live a decent life despite the huge temptations to do otherwise.
Tragedy occurs when Manfredi's beautiful, but shallow, mistress
Marina (Maria Michi) is tricked by Nazi agent Ingrid (Giovanna
Galletti) into betraying Manfredi.
FASSBINDER
April
23: TCM is airing two films by noted director Rainer Werner
Fassbinder beginning at 2:15 am with his 1974 film Ali:
Fear Eats the Soul, the film that first won him
international acclaim. Loosely based on Douglas Sirk’s 1955 All
That Heaven Allows, it’s the story of a lonely aging white
German cleaning lady who marries a much younger black Moroccan
immigrant worker and the vicious response of both family and
community to their action. Following at 4:15 am is his first
feature-length film, Love is Colder
Than Death (1969). A deconstruction of the
American gangster films of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, Fassbinder
is Franz, a small-time pimp torn between his mistress Joanna (Hanna
Schygulla) and his friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel), who has been sent
after Franz by a syndicate he’s refused to join. To save Franz,
Joanna informs the police about a bank robbery Franz and Bruno are
planning and while Bruno is killed in the subsequent shootout, Franz
and Joanna escape. The film contains many of the themes that would
later mark Fassbinder’s work, such as loneliness, the longing for
companionship and love, and the fear and reality of betrayal.
TORCHY
BLAINE
April
21: Blonde
is the order of the day with a marathon of films devoted to our
favorite intrepid reporter, Torchy Blaine. Portrayed by the
marvelous Glenda Farrell, Torchy was a role model to women across
America as she showed that a woman doesn’t have to stay at home all
day while her husband brings home the bacon. Barton MacLane, noted
for playing heavies, is excellent as her put-upon policeman
boyfriend, Lt. Steve McBride. The films all center around a case that
Steve wishes Torchy would keep her nose out of, but it’s Torchy who
often puts the clues together and brings the villain to justice. As
Torchy, Farrell is smart and sassy. The only word she doesn’t
understand in “no” as she uses her finely honed reporter’s
instinct to get to the bottom of things.The festivities begin at 6:00
am with Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blaine in Smart
Blonde (1936,
read our essay on it here),
followed by 1937’s Fly
Away Baby at
7:15 am, as Torchy takes to the skies to track down a band of
killers. At 8:30 am, Farrell walks out on her own wedding to Steve to
solve the case of a murdered actor in The
Adventurous Blonde,
from 1937. At 9:45 am, even the threat of a jail term for contempt
can't keep Torchy from finding out who murdered a department store
owner in Blondes
at Work (1938).
At 12:15 pm Torchy cracks a counterfeiting case in Torchy
Gets Her Man (1938).
Torchy sets out to catch a blackmailer in 1938’s Torchy
Blaine in Chinatown (1:30
pm), directed by the one and only William Beaudine. We wrap up the
marathon at 2:30 pm with Torchy
Runs For Mayor (1939),
as our favorite reporter becomes disillusioned after digging up the
dirt on the local politicians and decides to run for office
herself.
There
is only one Torchy Blaine feature airing without Farrell and MacLane.
That’s Torchy Blaine in
Panama (1939), starring Lola Lane as Torchy and
Paul Kelly as Steve McBride, airing at 11:00 am. When Farrell and
MacLane left Warner Bros., the studio figured it could plug anyone in
as Torchy and Steve with no questions asked. But they forgot the
unique chemistry between Farrell and MacLane, and their popularity
with audiences. Needless to say, the film did not do well.
RICARDO
CORTEZ PRE-CODE FEST
April
27: Ricardo Cortez, one of the mainstays of Pre-Code
cinema, has the morning and afternoon to himself with a mini-marathon
of films. It all begins at 6:00 am, with the silent Torrent (1926),
famous today as the film that introduced Greta Garbo to America.
Following, in order: 8:00 am - The
Younger Generation (1929); 9:30 am - The
Maltese Falcon (1931); 11:00 am
- Transgression (1931);
12:15 pm - Flesh (1932);
2:00 pm - The House on 56th
Street (1933); 3:15
pm - Midnight Mary (1933);
and 4:45 pm - The Phantom of
Crestwood (1933).
Of
particular note are two films. First, the original version of The
Maltese Falcon, from 1931. This film is shown rarely
on the network and is a must see. Those who think the 1941 version is
the definitive version will be surprised at how faithful the original
is to the book. What it lacks is the star power of Huston’s remake,
although Bebe Daniels as Ruth Wonderly and Thelma Todd as Iva Archer
are way better looking than Mary Astor and Gladys George. And check
out the underrated Una Merkel as Spade’s secretary, Effie.
The
other Cortez flick to catch is Flesh,
airing at 12:15 pm. Those who have seen the Coen Brothers Barton
Fink will remember John Turturro as a respected New York
writer signed by a Hollywood studio and given the assignment of
writing a Wallace Beery wrestling film. This is the film the Coen
Brothers are referring to: a 1932 drama directed by no less than
John Ford for MGM and starring Wallace Beery, Karen Morley and
Cortez.
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