TCM TiVo Alert for May 1-7

TCM TiVo ALERT

For 

May 1–May 7

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

DODSWORTH (May 3, 9:30 pm): Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) is a rich automobile manufacturer who loves his job, but is convinced to retire early by his wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton), a vain woman who is fearful of growing old. She wants to see the world, particularly Europe, lead an exciting life. Sam is a regular guy who wants to please his wife. Fran quickly grows bored of Sam and spends most of her time with other men. She eventually dumps him for a European noble, leaving Sam to mope around Italy, where he sees a divorcee (Mary Astor), who he first met while traveling on the Queen Mary to Europe. The two fall in love, but Fran wants to reconcile. I won't ruin the ending. Everything works exceptionally well in this film. The acting is top-notch (besides the three leads, David Niven is great in a smaller role in one of his earliest films, and Maria Ouspenskaya as a baroness is a scene-stealer), the story is first-rate, and with William Wyler as the director, the movie is filmed and paced perfectly.

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (May 6, 8:00 am): An absolute classic, directed by Frank Capra, about a runaway snobby socialite (Claudette Colbert) and a reporter (Clark Gable). This movie really put the two actors on the movie map even though they both already had about 20 credits to their names. It's a wonderful screwball romantic comedy with great chemistry between the pair. The story takes place over more than one night despite the title. It's a wonderful film with two of cinema's most famous scenes. The first has Colbert successfully hitching a ride, after Gable fails, by lifting up her skirt and showing her leg. The other has the two of them sharing a room and Gable putting up a blanket to separate them, calling it "the walls of Jericho," which ties in nicely at the end of the film. Released in 1934, it has aged well.

ED’S BEST BETS:

HOMICIDAL (May 4, 3:45 am): Another great hokey B horror film from William Castle centered around a murderous scheme to collect a rich inheritance. Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin), the object of the murder, is to share in the inheritance with her half-brother Warren, who lives with his childhood guardian Helga (Eugenie Leontovich) in the mansion where Warren and Mariam grew up. Confined to a wheelchair after recently suffering a stroke, Helga is cared for by her nurse Emily (Joan Marshall), a strange young woman who has formed a close bond with Warren. Just when we think we have everything figured out, the film blindsides us with a surprising conclusion. A nice little gem of a movie, it’s not as gimmicky and tongue-in-cheek as Castle's usual fare and comes across as one of his most interesting and effective shockers. As with all Castle’s films, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

GRAND HOTEL (May 6, 6:00 am): Hollywood’s first all-star film, it was a risk that turned into a huge hit for MGM. Five different characters are staying at the luxury hotel over the course of two night, linked together by varying forms of desperation. There is Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), a fading suicidal ballerina; Baron Von Gaigern (John Barrymore), a charming and destitute hotel thief who plans to rob Grusinskaya of her valuable pearls; Mr. Preysing (Wallace Beery), a ruthless industrialist who is gambling his entire future on a business merger that may not go through; Kringelein (Lionel Barrymore), a meek, terminally ill accountant who intends to go through his life savings living his last days in style; and Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), an ambitious stenographer willing to do more than just take dictation to get ahead. It’s the interaction between the characters that makes the film the deserved classic it is today. Lewis Stone plays Otternschlag, the alcoholic house doctor whose caustic observations set the film in motion. of the scene. In the opening scene he sets the tone of the film when he remarks, "People come, people go, and nothing ever happens.” The performances by Garbo, Beery, and the Barrymores are what we expect, but it’s Crawford’s stenographer who steals the show. Her Flaemmchen is a beautifully balanced portrait of ambition driven by desperation. Grand Hotel won the Oscar for Best Picture and has been remade many times over the years (Hotel Berlin, Weekend at the Waldorf, to name a few), and has even surfaced as a Broadway musical. A film always worth the time to watch.

WE AGREE ON ... HANG ‘EM HIGH (May 5, 8:00 pm):

ED: A-. Though it may look like another of Clint’s Spaghetti Westerns, this one was actually produced in the U.S. by Clint’s own company, Malposo. Clint is a rancher mistaken by Ed Begley and his vigilantes for a rustler and hanged from a tree. Only they botched the job and a passing marshal (Ben Johnson) cuts him down. He is later cleared of any wrongdoing and released by Judge Fenton (Pat Hingle), just in time to witness the hanging of the man who really murdered the owner of the cattle. In need of money he accepts the job of deputy and is assigned to arrest the men who tried to hang him. It goes on from there as Clint enforces the law while clashing with Fenton over the placation of justice. With Inger Stevens as a shopkeeper haunted by her own ghosts and noir icon Charles McGraw as a sheriff. The final confrontation between Clint and Begley matches his earlier efforts for Sergio Leone in ironic violence. All in all, a satisfying dark Western.

DAVID: A-. When it comes to great cutting-edge Westerns, Clint Eastwood has made more than anyone. Many of them have received the praise they deserve including The "Man with No Name" trilogy of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as well as High Plains Drifter, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and Unforgiven. To me, 1968's Hang 'Em High belongs in the same class as those. Eastwood is Jed Cooper, who is wrongly accused by a posse (including Bruce Dern, Ed Begley Sr. and Alan Hale Jr., the Skipper on Gilligan's Island) of killing a man and stealing his cattle. The posse hangs Cooper, but that doesn't kill him – even though it leaves him with a nasty scar around his neck. As Eastwood characters are prone to do, Cooper wants revenge. But this one has a twist. Cooper, who was previously a lawman, becomes a federal marshal. He comes across a member of the posse and tries to arrest him, but ends up having to shoot (and of course, kill) him when he reaches for his gun. Slowly, he comes across everyone in the posse. Cooper wants to see all of them brought to justice, but because that would lead to being hanged, none of them are terribly interested in the proposition. There are plenty of shootouts and great action scenes, but the best part of the film is Cooper's struggle to uphold the law while resisting his strong urge to seek revenge. This was Eastwood's first film after the "Man with No Name" trilogy. Yeah, he immediately did another Western, but the character of Cooper is far more complex than his roles in the trilogy.

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