In
a recent post from my BBFF Stacia at
She Blogged by Night, the star of stage,
Twitter and
Spectrum Culture Online was kind enough to lob some
most laudable words in my direction regarding our semi-regular feature here at
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, whereupon
I take a look at the monochromatic celluloid goodies in store for us on The
Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ in upcoming months. I should also profusely thank my friend Rick
Brooks, senior fellow at
Cultureshark Institute, for generously allowing me
to use that description of
TCM without
siccing his lawyers on me, and as always, to Laura of
Miscellaneous Musings,
who’s great about shooting me an e-mail when
the tentative schedule has been posted.
In June, the channel is planning to fete Eleanor Parker as
their Star of the Month…which is wonderful to hear since I have always believed
Ellie never really got her critical due despite appearing in many wonderful
movies (
Caged,
Detective Story,
A
Millionaire for Christy,
Scaramouche)
and being thrice-nominated for an Academy Award. Monday nights are the place to look for some
of these classics;
TCM will be serving up 34
movies featuring the thesp brought into this world as Eleanor Jean Parker. The schedule looks like this:
June 3, Monday
08:00pm Busses Roar (1942)
09:15pm The Very Thought of You (1944)
11:00pm Between Two Worlds (1944)
01:00am Mission to Moscow
(1943)
03:15am Crime by
Night (1944)
04:30am The Last Ride
(1944)
05:30am The
Mysterious Doctor (1943)
June 4, Tuesday
06:30am Hollywood Canteen (1944)
June 10, Monday
08:00pm Caged (1950)
09:45pm Chain Lightning (1950)
11:30pm Of Human Bondage (1946)
01:30am Never Say Goodbye (1946)
03:15am Pride of the
Marines (1945)
05:30am Escape Me Never (1947)
June 11, Tuesday
07:30am One for the
Book (1947)
09:30am The Woman in
White (1948)
11:30am It’s a Great Feeling (1949)
June 17, Monday
08:00pm Scaramouche (1952)
10:00pm Interrupted Melody (1955)
12:00am Home from the
Hill (1960)
02:45am Lizzie
(1957)
04:15am How to Steal
the World (1968)
June 18, Tuesday
06:00am The Seventh
Sin (1957)
07:45am Many Rivers to Cross (1955)
09:30am Valley of the Kings (1954)
11:15am Above and Beyond (1952)
June 24, Monday
08:00pm Detective Story (1951)
10:00pm A Millionaire for Christy (1951)
11:45pm Valentino (1951)
01:45am The Man with
the Golden Arm (1955)
04:00am The King and
Four Queens
(1956)
05:30am A Hole in the Head (1959)
June 25, Tuesday
07:45am An American
Dream (1966)
09:45am The Oscar
(1966)
If the movie How to
Steal the World doesn’t look like a familiar entry on Parker’s movie
resume, that’s because it’s the feature film version of a two-part episode from
The
Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Seven Wonders of the World Affair,”
originally telecast in January of that same year. (Personally, I’d jump at the chance to see
1969’s Eye of the Cat again—I
haven’t seen it since it was on TBS many, many moons ago.)
Friday nights in June offers up movies that are right up the
dark alley here at Rancho Yesteryear. It
will focus on films from “noir writers”—either features based on their books or
screenplays written specifically by such authors as Dashiell Hammett, James M.
Cain, Raymond Chandler, etc. In order to
catch some of these classics, I will be forced to slip both the ‘rents a
sedagive so they will sleep the sleep of the peacefully drugged…while I take
control of the remote and get a gander at these 23 films on the schedule:
June 7, Friday (Dashiell Hammett)
08:00pm The Maltese Falcon (1931)
09:30pm City Streets (1931)
11:00pm After the Thin Man (1936)
01:00am The Glass Key
(1942)
02:30am The Maltese
Falcon (1941)
04:30am Satan Met a
Lady (1936)
June 14, Friday (David Goodis)
08:00pm Dark Passage (1947)
10:00pm Nightfall (1957)
11:30pm The Burglar (1956)
01:15am Shoot the Piano Player (1962)
02:45am The Burglars
(1971)
05:00am The
Unfaithful (1947)
June 21, Friday (Jonathan Latimer/James M. Cain)
08:00pm Nocturne (1946)
09:45pm They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
11:15pm Double Indemnity (1944)
01:15am The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
03:15am Serenade
(1956)
June 28, Friday (Cornell Woolrich/Raymond Chandler)
08:00pm The Leopard Man (1943)
09:30pm Deadline at Dawn (1946)
11:00pm Murder, My Sweet (1944)
01:00am The Big Sleep
(1946)
03:00am Lady in the Lake (1947)
05:00am Strangers on
a Train (1951)
Okay, okay…I know what you’re thinking. (And it’s kind of weirding me out…I’m afraid
I’ll turn into a geek like Tyrone Power in Nightmare
Alley…) June is a short month, and
you can’t help but feel shortchanged when it comes to classic movies. Au contraire, mes amis—there are scads of
wonderful features in store for us and I thought I’d take a quick glance at the
highlights…but as always, titles are subject to change and all times listed are
EDT.
June 1, Saturday – Tee Cee Em continues to go through the
catalog of classics from the RKO Falcon
series every Saturday at 10:45am. Kicking off the month is The Falcon in Danger (1943), followed by The Falcon and the Co-Eds (1944; 6/8), The Falcon Out West (1944; 6/15), The Falcon in Mexico (1944; 6/22) and The Falcon in Hollywood (1944; 6/29).
Following the
Falcon
flicks (dig that alliteration!) the channel will present over a period of five
weeks at noon entries from
MGM’s
Lassie series—that’s right, the world’s
most famous collie was a motion picture star before settling in on the small
screen every week with Jeff, Timmy and the rest.
Lassie
Come Home (1943), the first one based on Eric Knight’s novel, starts off
the month…followed by
Son of Lassie
(1945; 6/8),
Courage of Lassie (1946;
6/15),
Hills of Home (1948; 6/22)
and
The Sun Comes Up (1949; 6/29).
Come nightfall, it’s another edition of
TCM’s
Essentials—or
as my Twitter compadre Kristen jokingly refers to it,
“The Drewssentials”—as
TCM
Oracle Robert Osborne and his protégé Drew Barrymore rhapsodize over
Libeled Lady at 8pm…which ushers in a
night of “Libel Suits” movies, namely
Libel
(1959) at 9:45pm, followed by
The Life
of Emile Zola (1937; 11:30pm) and
Sued
for Libel (1940) at 1:30am.
June 2, Sunday – TCM has a
double feature scheduled featuring one of TDOY’s
favorite thespians, the incomparable Basil Rathbone. The
Court Jester (1956) is unspooled at 8pm,
followed by more of Bas’ signature villainy in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) at 10.
But here’s the deal: Rathbone’s birthday is June 13, and the
channel will be celebrating his natal anniversary on that date with
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon
(1942; 6:45am),
Sherlock Holmes in
Terror by Night (1946; 8am),
Confession
(1937; 9:15am),
A Tale of Two Cities
(1935; 10:45am),
The Garden of Allah
(1936; 1pm),
The Last Days of Pompeii
(1935; 2:30pm),
The Magic Sword
(1962; 4:30pm) and
The Mark of Zorro
(1940; 6pm). You’d think they would have
shown a little more originality in the scheduling. (Or referred to this Sunday night as “Basil
Rathbone with a Sword in His Hand.”)
June 3, Monday – Happy birthday, Paulette Goddard! Ms. Goddard celebrates what would have been
her 103rd natal anniversary with a hat doff of TCM
films that starts at 6am with Modern
Times (1936), then it’s Dramatic
School (1938; 7:30am), The Women
(1939; 9am), The Great Dictator
(1940; 11:15am), Second Chorus (1940;
1:30pm), Pot O’Gold (1941; 3pm), An Ideal Husband (1947; 4:30pm) and Paris Model (1953; 6:15pm).
June 4, Tuesday – B-western fans might want to program their
recording devices because the channel has a few oaters starring George O’Brien
on tap beginning with
The Marshal of
Mesa City (1939) at
8:45am.
Bullet
Code (1940;
11:15am),
Legion of the Lawless (1940;
12:30pm),
Prairie
Law (1940: 3pm) and
Triple Justice
(1940;
4:15pm) all follow, and
there’s a bonus Tim Holt saga at
6:45pm,
Robbers of the Range (1941).
At eight o’clock, Uncle Bobby Osbo fights off the urge to
show several hours of footage he shot with his IPhone at the TCM
Film Festival and instead schedules a quartet of his famous “picks”: The Rains Came (1939; 8pm), Billy the Kid (1941; 10pm), That’s Entertainment! III (1994; 12mid) and TDOY fave The Mask of
Dimitrios (1944; 2:15am).
June 5, Wednesday – Spangler Arlington Brugh’s natal
anniversary is August 5, 1911…but
since TCM throws its huge Summer Under the Stars bash in the month
of August, they’ve decided to move Mr. Brugh’s—better known as Robert
Taylor—b-day up a month and schedule it this morning, scheduling Camille (1936) at 6am, then Three Comrades (1938; 8am), Waterloo Bridge (1940; 10am), Flight Command (1940; 12noon), When Ladies Meet (1941; 2pm), High Wall (1947; 4pm) and Westward the Women (1951; 6pm).
Taylor also figures in one of the movies to be shown during
the evening hours—in fact, it’s my favorite Taylor picture: the 1950 western
Devil’s Doorway (11:30pm), directed by
Anthony Mann. The esteemed Mr. Mann and
his westerns are the subject of that night’s programming, with
The Far Country (1954; 8pm), longtime
TDOY fave
Winchester ’73 (1950;
9:45pm),
Cimarron
(1960; 1am) and
The Last Frontier
(1956;
3:45am).
June 6, Thursday – TCM
observes the sixty-ninth anniversary of D-Day with like-minded war film
features that begin with Attack on the
Iron Coast (1968) at 6am, followed by Fighter
Squadron (1948; 7:45am), I See a
Dark Stranger (1946; 9:30am), The
Americanization of Emily (1964; 11:30am), 36 Hours (1965; 1:30pm), Resisting
Enemy Interrogation (1944; 3:30pm), Screaming
Eagles (1956; 4:45pm) and Breakthrough
(1950; 6:15pm)
Once the fog of war lifts, the channel turns its attention
to “Creature Features.” The last one
scheduled for the evening,
Cyclops
(1957; 4am), is recommended only if you’re in a very silly mood (Bert I. Gordon
directed it—do I really need to continue?) and the one before that,
King Kong (1933; 2am), is scheduled at
an ungodly hour (seriously—I support a federal law that mandates this movie
only be shown when kids are able to watch it, so that they may develop the same
love for classic movies as I did as a kid)…but otherwise there are some
first-rate movies in this bunch:
Bride
of Frankenstein (1935; 8pm),
Godzilla,
King of the Monsters! (1956;
9:30pm),
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954;
11pm) and
It Came from Beneath the Sea
(1955;
12:30am—R.I.P. Ray
Harryhausen).
June 8, Saturday – The elusive Ted Tetzlaff-directed Riffraff (1947) will be shown this
morning at 6am…I’ve been trying to
record this one for some time now, so maybe today could be the day, as they
sing in the ads for the Georgia Lottery.
Osborne and Barrymore will unspool Breathless (1959) at 8pm on The Essentials, and follow that up
with two more films starring Jean-Paul Belmondo: The Thief of Paris (1967; 9:45am) and Two Women (1960; 12mid).
Then on TCM
Underground, a showing of the cult documentary Crumb (1994; 2:30am)—for
those of us too cheap to buy the Criterion disc.
June 9, Sunday – Primetime will feature a trio of “crime
comedies” beginning at
8pm with a
true classic,
The Lavender Hill Mob
(1951). Another goodie follows at
9:30 with
A
Slight Case of Murder (1938)…and then you’re on your own at 11 with
A Slight Case of Larceny (1953)—which
features
both Mickey Rooney and Eddie
Bracken in a cinematic experiment I can only deduce was the result after a
night of binge drinking at the local college.
(Fortunately,
TCM’s
Silent
Sunday Nights will run
It (1927)
at 12:30am to get that stale taste of beer out of your mouth.)
June 10, Monday – The 1934 Charley Chase short The Chases of Pimple Street is
scheduled at 6am. (Woo hoo!)
June 11, Tuesday – The channel features a few noir goodies in
the afternoon after Eleanor Parker flicks in the morning: They Drive By Night (1940; 1pm), Detour (1945; 2:45pm), Homicide (1949; 4pm) and The Hitch-Hiker (1953; 5:30pm).
Come evening, an example of how
TCM
is getting kind of desperate when it comes to devising ideas for their “theme
nights”—this one is titled (I swear I’m not making this up): “Working Women Who
Surrender in the End.” (Mark my words,
one of these nights they’re going to do “Movies with People Looking at Their
Watches.”) The lineup isn’t bad:
pre-Code sleepers
Baby Face (1933)
at
8pm and
Female (1933) at
9:30, then
His Girl Friday (1940;
10:45pm),
Woman
of the Year (1942;
12:30am),
They All Kissed the Bride (1942;
2:30am) and
Front Page Woman (1935) closing out the evening at
4am.
June 12, Wednesday – The only color feature film Bela Lugosi
ever made, Scared to Death (1947),
gets a showing at 6am…if you’re brave
enough. (It also features corpse
narration, three years before the better known Sunset Blvd.) If I can swing
it, I’ll try to catch Let’s Make Music
(1941) at noon only because I’m
curious about a movie featuring Bing Crosby’s brother Bob that was written by
Nathaniel West.
At 8pm, a
scheduling of Imitation of Life
(1959) introduces the theme “Lana Turner in the 50s” (well, it was either that
or “Lana Turner in Her 50s”); Life
is followed by The Rains of Ranchipur (1955;
10:15pm), The Sea Chase (1955; 12:15am),
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952; 2:30am) and Latin Lovers (1953; 4:45am).
June 13, Thursday – A primetime look at “Terms of Inheritance”
gets underway with the underrated
Brewster’s
Millions (1945) at 8pm (well, it’s got Eddie “Rochester” Anderson in the
cast—that alone is worth the price of admission), then it’s
Laughter in Paradise (1951; 9:30pm),
Good Neighbor Sam (1964; 11:15pm),
Cinderella Jones (1946; 1:30am),
Next Time I Marry (1938; 3:15am) and
Seven Chances (1925; 4:30am). (Oh, Buster…they’ve done you so wrong.)
June 14, Friday – What
Every Woman Knows (1934) gets a showing at 9:15am. If you’ve never watched this one, you should.
June 15, Saturday – The last time TCM
showed The Palm Beach Story (1942) I
made the observation that I knew Preston Sturges was a great director because
he accomplished the impossible: he made Rudy Vallee funny. Since Story
is the subject of TCM’s Essentials, the channel
will follow that up with a pair of Vallee vehicles that can’t quite match his
peerless performance in the Sturges film…but if you’re game, they’re Gold Diggers in Paris (1938; 9:45pm)
and Sweet Music (1935; 11:30pm).
June 16, Sunday – Since the channel gave mothers their due in
May, it seems only fitting that they set aside the day to honor the patriarchs
on Father’s Day:
06:00am Bonjour
Tristesse (1957)
08:00am The Courtship
of Eddie’s Father (1963)
10:00am Father of the
Bride (1950)
11:45am Citizen Kane
(1941)
02:00pm All the
King’s Men (1949)
04:00pm The Last Hurrah (1958)
06:15pm Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
08:00pm To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
10:15pm Life with Father (1947)
12:30am The Kid
(1921)
01:30am Chaplin
Today: The Kid (2003)
02:00am Close-Up
(1990)
04:00am 12 Angry Men
(1957)
June 17, Monday – TCM
celebrates actor Ralph Bellamy’s 109th birthday with a lineup of his movies: Ever in My Heart (1933; 6am), Flying Devils (1933; 7:15am), Headline Shooter (1933; 8:30am), Picture Snatcher (1933; 9:45am), Spitfire (1934; 11:15am), This Land is Mine (1943; 12:45pm), The Awful Truth (1937; 2:30pm), Boy Meets Girl (1938; 4pm) and Sunrise at Campobello (1960; 5:30pm)
June 18, Tuesday – Back in January of this year, Tee Cee Em set
aside a couple of nights to honor tunesmith James Van Heusen…and several of the
movies scheduled featured collaborations with his partner Sammy Cahn. So because Mr. Cahn will be in the spotlight
this evening (“Sammy Cahn in Hollywood”), you’ll probably experience a slight
bit of déjà vu with the scheduling of Three
Coins in the Fountain (1954; 8pm), Tonight
and Every Night (1945; 10pm), Anchors
Aweigh (1945; 11:45pm), Robin and
the 7 Hoods (1964; 2:15am) and Romance
on the High Seas (1948; 4:30am).
June 19, Wednesday – You know…I didn’t think it possible that
you could schedule a birthday tribute to the venerable Dame May Whitty without
having
The Lady Vanishes (1938) in
the lineup—but
TCM has done it, so go ahead
and spend the money acquiring the Criterion disc. And while you’re waiting for it to arrive,
check out
The Thirteenth Chair (1937;
6:45am),
The Constant Nymph (1943;
8am),
Slightly Dangerous (1943; 10am),
Lassie Come Home (1943; 11:45am),
My Name is Julia Ross (1945; 1:30pm),
Devotion (1946; 2:45pm),
If Winter Comes (1947; 4:45am) and
The Sign of the Ram (1948; 6:30am).
When evening shadows fall, the schedule gives way to a
celebration of films written by playwright-screenwriter Donald Ogden
Stewart. My favorite of the Cary
Grant-Katharine Hepburn collaborations, Holiday (1938), kicks things off at 8pm and that’s followed by Keeper of the Flame (1942; 10pm), No More Ladies (1935; 12mid), A
Woman’s Face (1941; 1:30am) and The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934; 3:30am).
June 20, Thursday – The channel pays tribute to the “cool,
crazy and fantabulous” Mamie van Doren—who turned 82 this past February.
High
School Confidential! (1958) is not on the schedule (boo…hiss) but there’s
plenty of prime Mamie in
Untamed Youth (1957;
8pm),
The Beat Generation (1959;
9:30pm),
Born Reckless (1959;
11:15pm),
Guns, Girls and Gangsters
(1958; 12:45am),
Vice Raid (1959;
2am),
Sex Kittens Go to College (1960;
3:15am) and
The Girl in Black Stockings
(1957; 5am). (Yowsah!)
June 21, Friday – Because TCM
is splitting up the day to celebrate both the birthdays of Judy Holliday and Jane
Russell…this means I don’t get to make the “Every day’s a Holliday” joke, which
is sort of tradition. Be that as it may,
Judy’s got the morning with Adam’s Rib
(1949; 6:30am), Born Yesterday (1950; 8:15am)
and Bells are Ringing (1960;
10am)—then the afternoon is turned over to Jane with The Outlaw (1943; 12:15pm),
Young Widow (1946; 2:15pm), The
French Line (1954; 4pm) and Underwater!
(1955; 6pm). (No doubt about it—Judy
made better movies.)
June 22, Saturday – The hosting of the John Ford-John Wayne western
classic The Searchers (1956) on the Essentials
at 8pm will be followed by two more movies dealing with obsession: Moby Dick (1956) at 10:15pm and TDOY fave Les Misérables (1935) at 12:15am.
June 23, Sunday –
TCM is
calling its primetime double feature of
The
Pirate (1948; 8pm) and
The Crimson
Pirate (1952; 10pm) “Batten down the hatches!”—which kind of reminds me of
a gag from a Bugs Bunny cartoon…which I won’t repeat because I’m pressed for
time.
June 24, Monday – It’s Doppelgänger Day on the channel,
featuring films about look-a-likes: Callaway
Went Thataway (1951; 7am), Kissin’
Cousins (1964; 8:30am), The Scapegoat (1959; 10:15am), The
Prince and the Pauper (1937; 12noon), The
Prisoner of Zenda (1952; 2pm), The
Big Mouth (1967; 4pm) and The Whole
Town’s Talking (1935; 6pm)
June 25, Tuesday –
TCM
devotes the primetime hours to “Schoolgirl Crushes”…which, depending on your
state of mind, you’ll either find beguiling or unsettlingly creepy.
The
Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) starts things off at
8pm, followed by
The
World of Henry Orient (1964; 10pm),
To
Sir, With Love (1967; 12mid),
The
River (1951; 2am) and
International
Velvet (1978;
3:45am).
June 26, Wednesday – A cornucopia of films from the year 1950
are in the spotlight today: Outrage (6am), Double
Deal (7:30am), Born to Be Bad (9am), Quicksand
(10:45am), Destination Murder (12:15pm),
Dial 1119 (1:30pm), Armored
Car Robbery (3pm), Black Hand (4:15pm) and The
Asphalt Jungle (6pm).
Come nightfall, R.O. welcomes fashion designer Joseph Abboud
(yes, I had to look up who this guy was—are you happy?) as the channel’s guest
programmer…and Joe doesn’t disappoint in that he’s just one of so many guest
programmers who’s stuck
Casablanca
(1942; 3am) in his queue.
They Died With Their Boots On (1941)
kicks off the evening at 8pm, followed by
Rebecca
(1940; 10:30pm) and
Notorious (1946;
1am); after
Casablanca, be sure to
check out one of Bogie’s underrated comedies,
All Through the Night (1942) at 5am.
June 27, Thursday – TCM
starts off the morning with a salute to one of my favorite B-movie
directors…and one of my favorites of his films, the 1949 Charles McGraw crime
drama The Threat (1949) at 7am. This
will be followed by The Big Trees
(1952; 8:15am), Donovan’s Brain (1953; 10am) and Pirates of Tripoli (1950; 11:30am). The afternoon finds the channel paying
tribute to the late Patricia Medina (who passed away on April 28 at the age of
92) with showings of The Beast of Hollow
Mountain (1956; 12:45pm), Miami Expose (1956; 2:15pm), Drums of
Tahiti (1954; 3:45pm), The Black Knight (1954; 5pm) and The Lady and the Bandit (1951; 6:30pm).
Primetime features a festival of Sean Connery films—the
venerable Scot will celebrate his 83rd birthday in August (knock wood). A
Bridge Too Far (1977) kicks things off at 8pm, followed by Robin and Marian (1976; 11pm), The Anderson Tapes (1971; 1am), A Fine Madness (1966; 3am) and The Wind and the Lion (1975; 5am).
June 28, Friday – A couple of weeks ago, I found some DVDs at
Oldies.com on clearance and one of them was a Roan edition of
The Vagabond Lover (1929). Granted, I was taking a chance since this was
a Rudy Vallee film not directed by Preston Sturges (and therefore, not funny)
but since I only paid 99 cents for it I figured what the hell. Well, it’s on this morning at
7:15am. I guess there’s a lesson to be learned there somewhere.
June 29, Saturday – Mad
Monster Party (1967) at 9am. A
representative from Lions Gate promised to send me a freebie of this when they
released it in Blu-ray/DVD combo form last
September but she lied…she lied a lot.
So I close the iron door on her.
Finally, it’s Robert & Drew for the last time in June as
they host
Auntie Mame (1958) at
8pm for
The Essentials.
TCM is
calling this and the other two movies to be shown—
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969) and
Hamlet (1969)—“Nephew Night,” which sounds like a Golden Corral
promotion. Afterward, on
TCM
Underground, I’d recommend
The
Psychopath (1966) at
2:30am but
Stacia tweeted the other night that they don’t show it in letterbox…so stick around
for
Lured (1947) at
4am instead
