TCM TiVo Alert for May 15-22

TCM TiVo ALERT

For

May 15–May 22

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

THE THIRD MAN (May 15, 2:30 p.m.): This is, no doubt, one of the finest film noirs ever made. I'm a huge fan of Joseph Cotten, and while his performances in many movies are great, his best is in The Third Man. The 1949 film noir has quite the pedigree. In addition to Cotten, it stars Orson Welles, Trevor Howard and Alida Valli, is directed by Carol Reed with a screenplay by Graham Greene. The acting is outstanding as is the cinematography, particularly the use of shadows, and a brilliant plot with great pacing. Cotten is Holly Martins, a pulp fiction novelist who travels to post-World War II Vienna to take a job offered by Harry Lime (Welles), a longtime friend. But before they meet, Lime dies in what appears to be a car accident as he is walking across a street – or is he? Martins asks a lot of questions and get some disturbing answers about Lime selling diluted penicillin on the black market, which has led to a number of deaths. This film has two scenes that are among cinema's best – one is on the Wiener Riesenrad, Vienna's famous Ferris wheel, with Cotten and Welles, and the climax in the sewers of that city.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (May 21, 8:00 pm): Only a year after John Steinbeck's 1939 classic story of the Joad family, Okies who travel to California after the Dust Bowl wipes out their family farm, Life doesn't get much better for the family on their drive to California and even worse once they get to the state. The book is good, but the film is excellent. The film and book are certainly left-wing, pro-labor union and pro-Communist. It's odd that director John Ford and executive producer Darryl F. Zanuck, both conservatives, made this film. Despite the tragic story, the movie is beautiful and very moving. You'd be hard-pressed to find better acting than the performances in this movie by Henry Fonda (Tom Joad), John Carradine (Jim Casy, a former pastor turned union organizer) and Jane Darwell (Ma Joad). 

ED’S BEST BETS:

A FAMILY AFFAIR (May 15, 8:00 pm): The first in the popular Andy Hardy series. Lionel Barrymore is Judge Hardy, Spring Byington is Emily Hardy, Mickey Rooney is Andy and Cecelia Parker is Marion. There’s an older sister, Joan (Julie Haydon), whose character was dropped after this film. In this installment, Judge Hardy must fight an uphill battle for re-election after making an unpopular decision. The reaction to the film from exhibitors and public was so great MGM made it into a very profitable series. Lewis Stone and Fay Holden took over the roles of Judge and Mrs. Hardy for the sequels.

IL POSTO (May 20, 2:00 am): A clever and perceptive satire about how the white-collar world crushes the hopes and ambitions of those that work for it. As the director, Ermanno Olmi, wrote in 1964, “ . . . everything – epic adventure, humor, and a feeling – is contained in the normal human condition.” Indicative of the new wave of Post Realist Italian directors, the film stars Sandro Panseri, a non-professional actor. The female lead is another non-professional, Loredana Detto, who later became Signora Olmi. (Way to go, Ermanno!) It’s funny, touching and compelling. Watch for the end scene when a worker dies and his desk is up for grabs. Real? I’ve seen it. It’s all too real.

WE DISAGREE ON . . . TO BE OR NOT TO BE (May 20, 11:30 am)

ED: A+. They didn’t call it “the Lubitsch Touch” for nothing, and it’s in full regalia in this film, an extremely witty send up of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. Black comedy has never been better than here in the hands of a true master like Lubitsch. Jack Benny has a role of a lifetime as the egocentric Polish actor Joseph Tura, who in reality is one of the biggest hams ever to appear on stage. Carole Lombard, tragically in her last film, is Tura’s co-star and suffering wife. When the Germans invade Poland, Tura’s theater is closed and his troupe put out of business – until they become involved in espionage trying to save Polish underground fighters from being handed over to the Gestapo by a traitor, and they find their acting skills put to a real test. Lubitsch took quite a beating from critics over this film, and it was not a success at the box office. Many felt that treating the Nazis as comical characters was in poor taste, but Lubitsch defended his position by saying that "what I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation.” Today the film is viewed as a classic and the 1983 Mel Brooks remake is faithful to the original both in letter and spirit. Brooks himself echoed Lubitsch by saying that if one were to argue with a dictator, he would lose because the dictator has the fanaticism of his ideas, but if one were to take both the dictator and his ideas and make fun of them, it’s far more effective in discrediting both. Look for the great opening gag with Tom Dugan parading around as Der Fuehrer. This is a film not to be missed.

DAVID: B-. To Be or Not to Be is an enjoyable, but not a fantastic film. Its storyline is rather bold: a comedy about Nazis while World War II was ongoing, released in 1942. But it's nowhere near the quality of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 masterpiece, The Great Dictator, which is also a satirical film about Nazis during wartime. It's not entirely fair to compare the two – even though I just did. My problems with To Be or Not to Be are I don't find it to be exceptionally funny, entertaining or clever. I'm not a Jack Benny fan and the film was written with him in mind and plays off of his comedic persona. It's a style that becomes somewhat annoying the longer I watch the film. Also, I have trouble keeping track of who is who as Benny and others use many disguises. After a while, I'm wondering who I'm watching and what are they doing. And because of that confusion, I start to lose interest in the movie. There are a few funny moments, including one in which an actor in Benny's troupe, dressed as Adolf Hitler, orders Nazis to jump out of an airplane without parachutes and they, of course, comply. Carole Lombard was a wonderful comedic actress, who tragically died in a plane crash shortly after this film wrapped. She provides a few sparks of entertainment, but not enough to make this film memorable.

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