Monday, May 20, 2013

“Sorry, ma’am…the bridge to Mayberry is washed out…”


Before everyone starts in with the wisecracks—“Whatsa matter?  Did you lose the R.F.D. DVD, too?”—I need to state that I do have the disc and that I actually got started on the Mayberry Mondays on Sunday.  But Sunday was also the natal anniversary of my nephew Davis, and one of the gifts he received (from Mater and Pater, if memory serves me correct—I, in turn, got him a seaplane from Green Toys) was a container of Lincoln Logs that he wanted his “Uncle Ivan” to help him suss out.  (Seriously—he was so excited about this that he started waving his arms up and down repeatedly, which his moms have assured me is the universal sign of his approval.)

We set aside time to play with them today because Davis came over for a couple of hours…and by the time we were done with that and his new fire truck, I still had my ClassicFlix material to assemble, plus a blog post you’ll find at Radio Spirits tomorrow at 8am.  So I apologize for sloughing the MM off till next week…but seriously—could you refuse a face like this?


I didn’t think so.  Meet me here next week for the postponed Mayberry shenanigans.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Don Winslow of the Navy (1942) – Chapter 8 ½: Shore Leave


You may recall my mentioning on Thursday that I had hoped to have an installment of our semi-regular Serial Saturdays feature up today: Chapter 9 of the classic gee-whiz-there’s-a-lot-of-stock-footage-in-this-serial, Don Winslow of the Navy (1942).  Well, I’m here to tell you that I failed miserably in that regard…and there’s an explanation for this.

I’ve lost the @!#$% DVD.

Please to be stopping laughing right now.  This is kind of a serious situation—okay; maybe not too serious because this chapter play is kind of boring the crap out of me, and I’m banking I’m not the only one—but only because it is a none-too-subtle indication that I have too much crap collected in my bedroom and it’s time to give it a thorough straightening-out.

Honest to my grandma, I’ve searched high and low for that doggone thing and have no idea where I could have put it.  (I heard that, wiseass.)  I’m ashamed to admit that my sleeping environs are not the tidiest in the world; I have stacks upon stacks of DVD’s piled everywhere that I keep meaning to arrange on the various shelves designed for that very purpose…but since this attention span of mine comes perilously close to resembling that of my soon-to-be-four-year-old nephew, that project is both unfinished and wildly over-budget.  (I’d show you a picture of what it looks like but I think we’re all in agreement that the Internets could get by with at least one less shocking image.)

So the only remedy available to me at this juncture is to get some of this cleaned up.  Don’t think I didn’t explore other avenues: the serial is available for viewing at YouTube, and I gave serious consideration to just embedding the ninth chapter here and calling it a day.  But then I had a vision of you good people enjoying it without the trademark TDOY snark, and it pained me to think I’d be letting you down.

There is good news on the horizon, however—I did not misplace the DVD with this Monday’s Mayberry Mondays episode.  (Though after I finish hosing down the bedroom, it’s possible it could go missing as well.)  I’ll definitely have that on tap for ya, and once again…mucho apologias for skipping out on Winslow and Company this week.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Howard, Whistler and a fabulous prize


Among the various birthdays I put together for the ClassicFlix Facebook and Twitter shout-outs today is one belonging to an all-too-familiar face here at Rancho Yesteryear:  Jack Dodson, a.k.a. The Man Who Would Be Sprague.  The Pittsburgh, PA native would have been eighty-two years old this May 15—but in the world of TV reruns, he lives on in immortality as fastidious mama’s boy Howard Sprague, county clerk of the Mayberry township on both The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D.

I know my opinion on this is not a popular one—particularly when a large contingent of people have no use for neither R.F.D. nor any TAGS color episode—but Howard is one of my favorite characters in that sleepy little Southern town, and is really the only reason why anyone would want to watch R.F.D. to begin with.  And that’s as good a time as any to mention that there will be an installment of Mayberry Mondays this Monday (May 20); I know it’s been over a month and I really do apologize—I have had other projects competing for my attention, plus my parents are insane.  (Don’t get me started on this last one; we’ll be here all night.)

Also, too: I hope to have an installment of Serials Saturdays ready by this Saturday; chapter—what the hell chapter are we on, anyway?  Oh, that’s right: Chapter 9 of the not-quite-as-thrilling-as-was-sold-to-me saga of Don Winslow of the Navy (1942).

To make up for my laxity in blogging regularly (I should probably take a laxative for that), I have a nifty gifty to give away to some lucky TDOY reader (if any of you are still left, that is)—a brand-spanking-new Radio Spirits 10-CD collection of Dragnet programs for which I wrote the liner notes in January.  (I had two of these to give away, but I’ve already promised one to a loyal TDOY supporter.)  All you have to do to enter is drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com before 11:59pm EDT next Thursday (May 23) with “Crime to Punishment” in the subject header.  Friday morning, I will draw a winner at random (via Random.org) and mail their prize out to them on winged feet—by the way, in the body of the e-mail, you don’t necessarily have to include your snail mail address unless you want to wait until you’ve been confirmed a winner…but if you do, I can get those winged feet in motion that much quickly.  The set retails for $39.98 and would make a dandy gift for the Jack Webb fan amongst your family or friends—or you can keep it for your very own.  (If it were me, I would.)

In the meantime, whilst I head off to the laboratory and see how preparations for SS and MM are doing, you’re welcome to stop by the Radio Spirits blog for cake and ice cream—because today is the seventy-first anniversary of the debut of The Whistler, one of our true favorites here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Coming distractions: June 2013 on TCM

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, SundayTCM 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 8:45amBullet 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, ThursdayTCM 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, FridayWhat 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, MondayTCM 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, SundayTCM 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, TuesdayTCM 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, ThursdayTCM 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, SaturdayMad 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 EssentialsTCM 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

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Anniversary and announcements


Today over at the Radio Spirits blog, we serve up hefty portions of cake and ice cream to celebrate the 76th anniversary of The Chase and Sanborn Hour…which premiered on this date in 1937.  We are talking big-time radio here, cartooners—a full hour of entertainment with singer Nelson Eddy, the lovely Dorothy Lamour, actor Don Ameche (Don would sing a little, too, when called upon) and The Great Man himself, W.C. Fields.  But little by little, these headliners would abandon the program (okay…not entirely true—Ameche resurfaced on the show in the 1940s as an announcer and actor-comedian-singer) because the true stars of the show (at least in terms of audience approval) were a ventriloquist named Edgar Bergen…and his smart-assed dummy, Charlie McCarthy.  (Not to slight Mortimer Snerd or Effie Klinker…but they came later.)

With that out of the way, I have a few TV-on-DVD announcements to run by you, beginning with the news that CBS DVD-Paramount will be closing the franchise known as Perry Mason on soon with the release of Volume 2 of the ninth season.  The pre-order listing over at Amazon is a little fuzzy on the exact date of release, but the SRP pricing will be a low, low $45.98, he said with unbridled sarcasm.  (Volume 1 is still scheduled to be released on June 11.)

Gunsmoke fans (holy smoke…that’s meeeeee…) will be excited to hear that the ninth season of the venerable boob tube oater will be released soon…though their enthusiasm might be tempered by the fact that like Perry Mason, a) Season Nine will be split into two volumes at $44.99 SRP each and b) no definite release date has yet been decided either.  I guess there is a slight silver lining in that both volumes will be made available at the same time…so cheer yourself with that news while you’re plunking down ninety simolians for two sets (if you haven’t price compared online, that is).

I’ll say this for the Warner Archive, though: they may be caught up in the same split season crapola but their newest release from two weeks ago (April 30), the third season of Eight is Enough, is sold at a single price of $49.95 SRP.  Truth be told, I was never a big fan of the show (sister Kat, on the other hand, thought it was all that and a bag of chips) so I probably won’t make any overtures toward purchasing it—but I thought I’d throw in a mention of it for those interested.

In the cold-cereal-and-footy-pajamas department, the Archive released yesterday (May 7) the first of what appears to be several volumes of cartoons from the 1960s made-for-TV version of Popeye the Sailor, which we mentioned here on the blog a while back.  When I was but a mere sprat, I thought these cartoons were the greatest…and then I discovered the black-and-white Fleischer classics on WFLD in Chicago when visiting my cousins back in the 1970s.  I have all three of those Warner collections now and I really see no pernt in purchasing these inferior (if admittedly enjoyable…sometimes, anyway) shorts.  (I might be persuaded to buy some of the Paramount-Famous entries from 1943 on should they ever see the light of day…but that looks like that will be a while.)

TVShowsonDVD.com also announced this week that the 1965 anime classic Kimba the White Lion is getting a re-release this July 9th.  The fifty-two episodes of the Saturday morning favorite (from Osamu Tezuka, the folks that brought you Astro Boy) were made available on a set back in 2003, but that collection is now OOP.  Here’s my favorite part of TSOD reporter David Lambert’s announcement: “If you're a fan of Disney's classic film The Lion King and have never seen Kimba, then you might be astonished at various similarities.”  Really, Dave?  Will ceases never wonder…?  Reminds me of the time The Duchess, The Duke and I took their kidlets to see Lion King: Duchess asked me how I liked the movie and I cracked: “I liked it better when it was Hamlet.”

This is going to be a short TV-on-DVD post this week, but I thought you might like to get a gander at what the honkin’ big The Lone Ranger: The Complete Collection will look like:


Believe it or don’t, I have already shown this to Mother Shreve, and she is completely on board with a purchase…only she wants to get it for me for a birthday-type present in September.  So maybe the price will come down on it when my natal anniversary rolls around.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The Mary Astor Blogathon – Checkmate: “Brooding Fixation” (03/14/62)


The following is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution to The Mary Astor Blogathon, currently in progress from May 3-10 this week and sponsored by Dor at Tales of the Easily Distracted and Ruth at Silver ScreeningsFor a list of the participants and the films/TV shows covered, click here.  (Warning: This review contains spoilers.)


Young Daniel Brack (Scott Marlowe) returns home from Europe because his father, industrialist Arnold Brack, has died—apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  But Daniel is puzzled by the details surrounding Dad’s death…and what’s more, he’s disturbed by the behavior of his mother Esther (Mary Astor) and his uncle Martin (Frank Overton), neither of whom shows any outward grief or emotion over Brack’s demise.

Fortunately for Daniel, one of his father’s friends is criminologist Dr. Carl Hyatt (Sebastian Cabot), a consultant to a detective agency known as Checkmate, Inc.  Daniel tells both Hyatt and Felice O’Neill (Olive Sturgess), the daughter of the manager of the Brack Estate, of his suspicions regarding Esther and Martin.  Arnold Brack had a taping system in his office (shades of Richard Milhous Nixon!) that recorded every single conversation that went on in that space—and yet no tape of the day of Brack’s death has turned up.  Daniel is also convinced that he was followed by a mysterious individual in the cemetery when he stayed behind to grieve at his father’s grave.

Hyatt swings into action and contacts associates Don Corey (Anthony George) and Jed Sills (Doug McClure) at Checkmate, who head out to Brack Acres for an investigation.  Meanwhile, at Brack Industries, the company’s board unanimously agrees to appoint Martin in charge of the company—seeing as how he’s essentially been running the day-to-day operations anyway.  Daniel is not quite able to hide his loathing for his uncle and mother, and the fact that he’s putting away a lot of booze doesn’t help.

Don questions Martin in detail when he learns that the story he gave to the police isn’t entirely accurate (there’s a three to four hour gap in which he disappeared and refuses to explain); Carl and Jed, in the meantime, have learned that the estate manager, head groundskeeper Paul O’Neill (Ford Rainey), stood to benefit from Arnold Brack’s death owing to a large investment he made.  Daniel becomes more and more obsessed that Uncle Martin and Mom are plotting against him—and it doesn’t look good when he catches both of them in an embrace in Esther’s bedroom.

The missing tape finally surfaces—it was O’Neill who hid the recording in the greenhouse, and he asked his daughter (who conveniently stumbled across it) to continue to conceal it from Daniel.  But because Felice is in love with the young Brack, she turns it over to him and all the suspects have a listen in the presence of the Checkmate detectives. 

The tape reveals that Arnold wasn’t particularly wild about the relationship between Daniel and Felice (after all, she’s merely a groundskeeper’s daughter)…and he goes positively ape shit when Esther tells him she’s through with the charade that is their marriage: she’s getting a divorce and marrying Martin, whom she truly loves.  Further listening reveals that Arnold was killed in a struggle with Martin over the gun—and Daniel finally gets peace of mind knowing that his mom and uncle are pretty cool…it was his dad that was a real dick.

If it all sounds a little like Hamlet…well, scribes Oliver Crawford and Mark Rodgers bend over backward to make sure the viewer doesn’t miss the comparison (Daniel refers to the play about “the melancholy Dane” several times during the episode, even grabbing a copy of the Shakespearean classic off the shelf and reading that it was autographed to his father from “Jack Barrymore”—seriously, I did not know The Great Profile ever went by that).  I knew the first time the reference was made I was going to loathe this episode—I’ve always considered Checkmate to be a cut above the usual detective drama, with witty, intelligent scripts and engaging turns from both the regulars and guest performers.  They seemed to really want to dumb this one down for the audience (assuming none of us went to school)…but I guess you can’t hit one out of the park every time at bat.


I’ve talked about Checkmate on the blog before—it was a short-lived CBS-TV series that ran two seasons from 1960-62, and sprung from the mind of acclaimed mystery novelist Eric Ambler.  Ambler’s idea for the series was to spotlight the talents of a trio made up of a private detective, his girlfriend and her professor father…and that those talents would be put to use not solving crimes, but preventing them.  The show would be produced through a partnership with Jack Benny’s JaMco Productions and Revue, the television arm of Universal Studios.

Actor Doug McClure was under contract to Revue at the time Checkmate was taking shape, and his last series was a short-lived western called Overland Trail.  Since Revue was already giving McClure a weekly paycheck, they decided to eliminate the girlfriend (who was to be played by Joan O’Brien) and just cast Doug—something that Ambler wasn’t too crazy about, and so he ended his association with the show (though he still received a mention as the show’s creator in the credits).  That’s the story that star Anthony George told an interviewer in 1997…and while it certainly sounds plausible, the casting of McClure might also have been an attempt to imitate some of the successful Warner Brothers TV crime dramas (77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye) with its insistence on casting actors of various ages to attract a strong female demographic.  (I guess they hired Cabot to lure in the elderly women wild about tweeds and walking canes.)

The other problem regarding Checkmate was…CBS didn’t really want the show.  They were forced to put it on the air because they desperately wanted to renew Jack Benny’s contract, and they were as surprised as anyone when the series became a big hit, ranking #21 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1960-61 season.  NBC came a-courting, trying to get the series to switch networks…and instead, CBS moved it from its prime Saturday spot (where it had preceded Perry Mason) to Wednesdays, where its audience eventually lost interest.  That’s how a show written up in TV Guide on six different occasions (even getting a rare rave review from the magazine’s critic, Cleveland Amory) died after just seventy episodes and quickly faded into obscurity.

Timeless Media Group would come to Checkmate’s rescue, as far as classic TV aficionados were concerned.  The company released two “Best of” sets of Checkmate shows in 2007 and 2008, and then two years later released the entire series to disc in a 14-DVD collection.  Some of the episodes make for very entertaining television, and while I suspect that the Jack Benny association might have had something to do with it (Benny even appeared in a January 3, 1962 installment, “A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the Game”) the show never skimped when it came to celebrity wattage.  Episodes featured such guest stars as Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, Cyd Charisse, Charles Laughton (in one of his rare boob tube showcases) and Lee Marvin—even TDOY bête noire She Who Must Not Be Named was in an entry entitled “Deadly Shadow” (11/12/60)…and she was actually quite good.

So naturally I was curious to see how one of my favorite actresses—and the subject of this here blogathon, as they say ‘round my neck of the woods—would fare…namely Mary Astor.  Alas, she’s a bit of a disappointment—though it’s not a reflection on her performance; I think it’s simply because she doesn’t really have much to do.  The episode focuses mainly on the tortured Scott Marlowe, an actor who specialized in juvenile delinquent roles in several 50s movies (notably The Cool and the Crazy)…and to be honest, his shtick starts to get old by the first commercial break.  (I was actually rooting for Mar and Frank Overton’s characters—Overton is another favorite of mine; yet he, too, is wasted in his part—to put Marlowe out of his misery so we could knock off early for the day.)

The problem with Astor’s part is that it really could have been played by any other matronly actress, it’s that underwritten.  (I guess they were sort of hoping that the novelty of seeing Mary would make people overlook how thin the part is)  But to be fair, the old saw about “there are no small parts, only small actors” doesn’t apply here because Mary is very convincing in several scenes as a weary woman who’s just fed up with the sham that was her marriage—manacled to a man who constantly put his business and family name ahead of everything.  (How and why she expects things will be different once she’s married to his brother goes unexplained—but then again, they only have 48 minutes.)

Not every episode of Checkmate is must-see television, but I think overall the series had a pretty high batting average.  I’ve stated before that it’s my favorite vehicle for the talents of Sebastian Cabot, who is unfortunately best known as nanny to three irritatingly repugnant children in the TV sitcom Family Affair.  Doug McClure is also a necessary tonic at times; his signature role as Trampas on the TV western The Virginian waiting in the wings (and it took sometime for Doug to find his rhythm on Checkmate; his early episodes have him coming off as something like a jerk).  As for Anthony George…well, I know I’m bound to get some hate comments…but he just never made that much of an impression on me—I even forgot he used to be on The Untouchables until I caught him in a rerun on Me-TV one night.

As for Mary Astor…she was nearing the end of her interest in show business: she did a few more guest appearances on shows like The Defenders, Burke’s Law and TV’s paradox (Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey) before exiting the stage with a small role in Hush, Hush…Sweet Charlotte (1964).  I wish her Checkmate role had been more of a showcase for such a talented thesp…but even Academy Award winners have to buy groceries.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Tales of shameless self-promotion


Over at the Radio Spirits blog (the paying gig), glasses are raised in tribute to the eighty-second anniversary of Lum and Abner, one of the true delights of the Golden Age of Radio and, as I stated in the first post on this blog (that would be the non-paying gig) so many years ago, the very first old-time radio program I listened to.  (It was broadcast over WCAW in the city of my birth, Charleston, WV—and according to my paisan Jeff Lane, is still heard weekday mornings around 7:30am on WVOW in Logan.)  Nothing puts a smile on my face than visiting from time to time with the residents of Pine Ridge and for those of you who are interested RS has several collections available of this one-of-a-kind comedy serial.

Some outside RS projects are going to keep me occupado for the next couple of weeks, so I won’t be able to get to any of the usual shenanigans involving Don Winslow or the gang that make up Mayberry Mondays.  I do, however, want to thank a couple of my fellow classic film scribes for doling out coveted blog trophies to TDOY within the past few weeks or so: from the irrepressible Brian Schuck (I don’t actually know if he’s irrepressible—I just like using that adjective) at Films from Beyond the Time Barrier (dun-dun-DUN!!!), the highly-sought-after and green-with-envy-coveted Liebster Award.  (“Liebster” is German for “meme,” by the way.)  I profusely apologize for not thanking Brian earlier for this award (he slid it my way back in the early part of April); I had it in my “to-do” box and for one reason or another kept ignoring it until it finally grew to gargantuan proportions and went on a rampage, heckbent on destroying the world!  (Well, in keeping with the theme of his blog and all.)

Just when I was convinced that this couldn’t possibly be topped, Aurora at Once Upon a Screen risked certain embarrassment and ostracization through cue card reading by bestowing upon this ‘umble scrap of the blogosphere the Versatile Blogger Award.  (Aurora also maintains a classic TV blog, How Sweet it Was—I need to remind myself to mention this more often.)  Multiple mea culpas to her for not acknowledging her kind gesture in a more timely fashion...and suffice it to say, both of these honors have left my gob positively smacked.

And now here’s the disappointing part: I’m supposed to be a good net citizen and pass these on to other worthy blogs but I’ve just recently started a rebellious phase whereupon I’m breaking all the rules.  Seriously.  (Just yesterday, I only waited a half-hour to go swimming after eating.  Born to be mild, baby.)  These awards also want people to reveal things about themselves, and I’ve just run out of interesting things to say about me.  (I could make some up—“I’m married to…uh…er…Morgan Fairchild...yeah...that’s the ticket!”—but it wouldn’t be right.)

Besides, if you’re curious to hear me prattle on about myself, I invite you to walk, single file, over to All Good Things—where my friend Monty had me over as the subject of his monthly “Be My Guest” feature.  I had a lot of fun answering his questions despite the fact that I always get a little self-conscious about things like that…as a famous cartoon rabbit once remarked: “Oh, I’m so unimportant!”

The next time we get together on the blog, it will be to talk about a classic episode of the TV series Checkmate, “Brooding Fixation” (03/14/62)—which I will be writing as my entry in The Mary Astor Blogathon, sponsored by Dor at Tales of the Easily Distracted and Ruth at Silver Screenings.  (I’m scheduled for May 7.)

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