TCM TiVo Alert for July 8-14

TCM TiVo ALERT

For

July 8–July 14

DAVID’S BEST BETS:

HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (July 8, 12:00 pm): A very funny film about a boxer/amateur pilot Joe Pendleton (played by the charming Robert Montgomery) who crashes his plane and is mistakenly taken to heaven by angel. He survives, but the angel doesn't want him to suffer. A check by the angel's boss, Mr. Jordan (played by the charming Claude Rains) show Pendleton is correct. But by the time they go to put him back in his body, it's too late. The body has been cremated. The angels have to find Pendleton another body – one that can be a champion boxer. They find a rich guy who is killed by his wife and his personal assistant who are lovers. This 1941 movie is a joy to watch. Warren Beatty uses the exact same story (except he's a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams) with many of the same character names in the excellent Heaven Can Wait in 1978.

THE GREAT DICTATOR (July 9, 12:00 pm): TCM shows this 1940 Charlie Chaplin masterpiece on a regular basis so it often gets overlooked. As he did in so many of his roles, Chaplin brilliantly portrays the film's protagonist, known as "a Jewish barber," with great empathy and humility while still being funny. And when you mention funny, his impersonation of Adolf Hitler – the character in the film is named Adenoid Hynkel – is spot-on and highly entertaining. The film, made before the United States was at war with Nazi Germany, has several iconic scenes, including Hynkel playing with a bouncing globe, and a chase scene between the barber and storm troopers. Chaplin's brilliance lied in his ability to make people think about the world while making them laugh. There is no finer example of that than The Great Dictator. The ending is beautiful. It's too bad life rarely turns out to have a happy Hollywood ending, but that doesn't diminish from the entertainment and importance of this landmark film. 

ED’S BEST BETS:

THE PHENIX CITY STORY (July 10, 12:30 am): A wonderful docudrama about “the wickedest city in America” and how it came to be cleaned up. TCM shows the full version, which includes a prologue with noted correspondent Clete Roberts interviewing citizens of Phenix City after the National guard stepped in to restore order. If crime movies are your thing, this is one to see. And if crime movies aren’t exactly your thing, this well-made and well-acted movie is still worth your time.

MONKEY BUSINESS (July 11, 10:45 pm): The incomparable Marx Brothers star in their first film written directly for the screen as four stowaways aboard a ship who get involved with rival gangsters. That’s about all there is to the plot, as the film is a series of outrageous sight gags, monologues, and puns. Groucho romances Thelma Todd, who happens to be married to his gangster boss – not that it matters to Groucho – as only Groucho can. All four brothers try to disembark at port by pretending to be Maurice Chevalier, with hilarious results, especially in the case of Harpo. And they invite themselves to a coming-out party for a gangster’s daughter, during the course of which she is kidnapped by rivals and ultimately rescued by Zeppo, with nominal help from his brothers. This is the only movie with the four brothers in which Zeppo actually matters to the script, and he acquits himself quite well over the course of the movie. As with all their Paramount pictures, highly recommended.

WE AGREE ON ... MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (July 9, 4:00 am)

ED: B. Perhaps the most overrated movie of all time with an ending too preposterous for words. Political neophyte Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) is appointed by the Governor (Guy Kibbee) to fill the seat of recently deceased Senator Sam Foley as a sort of middle finger to political boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold). Simply put, Smith is a babe in the woods, or more to the point, a boob in the woods. Once in Washington he’s taken under the wing of senior Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains) while he embarrasses himself around town, especially with the press, who make fun of him. Wanting to be useful while he’s there, he decides to write a bill with the help of his secretary, Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur). Smith’s big idea? To buy some the land in his home state for the purpose of making it into a national boys’ camp, the money to be paid back by youngsters across America. What he doesn’t know – and never bothered to find out – is that the Taylor machine has designs on that land for a dam, part of a graft scheme. When the bill hits the fan the machine tries to reason with Smith, but he won’t budge. Then they try to smear him and have him kicked out of the Senate. This leads to the famous filibuster scene, with one man against the combined forces of a corrupt government. Of course, in the end he wins thanks to a sudden change of heart on the part of Sen. Paine. Frank Capra’s Manichaeism is on full display in this movie: everyone is either an apostle (Smith), a devil (Taylor) or a fallen apostate (Paine), There is no middle ground. Also in this film Capra is clearly in thrall to the Big Idea. This is a film about his Big Idea, not about people, as Mr. Deeds was. He will carry over this radical Populism to his next project, Meet John Doe, an extension of his thinking on the Big Idea. Everyone treats Smith as a sort of wayward child in the first part of the movie. And their presumption proves to be correct, as Smith absolutely refuses to compromise. Like a spoiled child he’ll hold his breath until his face turns blue unless he gets what he wants. He could spill everything to the press, but Capra shows earlier in the film that the press is a pack of jackals, not to be trusted. The bad guys in the movie, led by Edward Arnold, are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts. And Smith won’t back down until he gets the land for his precious campsite, where he can presumably spend weekends with the Boy Rangers (And the less said about that, the better.) Is Capra trying to make a point against the Roosevelt Administration (Hoover Dam and the Tennessee Valley Authority), big government-in-general, the mass media, or what? We never find out. Meet John Doe made a helluva lot more sense, though it also has trouble with its ending. On the plus side, the acting is first-rate, especially Stewart, Arthur, Rains and Arnold. No one can play a bad guy quite like Edward Arnold. The camerawork and art direction is also first-rate; the re-creation of the Senate chamber is absolutely breathtaking. Too bad Capra sacrifices with could have been a marvelous human interest story to his notion of the Big Idea.

DAVID: B. This is a classic film. But if you look at it objectively it's the cliched formula Frank Capra used a few too many times. It's ridiculously corny, preachy, sentimental with an ending you know is going to happen as soon as Mr. (Jefferson) Smith, played by James Stewart, goes to Washington. After a senator from an unnamed Western state dies, the state's political power-brokers look for a replacement. They eventually decide on Smith believing him to be a sap they can easily control. He's the incredibly naive and idealistic head of the state's Boy Rangers who doesn't realize he's supposed to be a puppet of the political machine. Of course, he's way out of his element in the Senate, but eventually wises up thanks to his sassy secretary (Jean Arthur). Stewart's filibuster scene toward the end of the film followed by Sen. Joe Paine's (Claude Rains, who's not so charming in this film) attempt to commit suicide out of guilt and his subsequent admission that he was part of the conspiracy to discredit Smith are almost unbearable to watch. However, I agree with Ed that the acting is exceptional. I've never seen a film with Stewart or Arthur that a viewer could criticize either for their performances, and they've both very good here despite the lines they're reading and how over-the-top preachy the film is. 

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