TCM Look-Ahead - April 17
A weekly feature here on Big Heads that looks forward to the week ahead on the mighty Turner Classic Movies, for your viewing and recording pleasure.
Friday, April 17
08:00 p.m. PST Targets. Probably the greatest artistic achievement of the Roger Corman production method, leveraging up and coming talented directors (Peter Bogdanovich in this case) eager to get a foothold in the industry and using every means necessary to spend as little money as possible as possible. In this case, Corman challenged Bogdanovich to use discarded footage from his 1963 film The Terror, starring Boris Karloff, because waste not want not. The result is a staggering vision of the America of 1968, where violence played out on our zeniths every night on the news. This is a take on the Charles Whitman Texas tower shootings, where our fresh faced hero, whom no one could ever suspect, snaps. And, yes, Karloff stars, along with that weird The Terror footage, and gives a touching final performance. The Terror, which I am not recommending, is however, playing later in the morning in this Roger-Corman heavy rotation on TCM this week.
09:45 p.m. PST Piranha. Another Corman teaming with a soon-to-be Hollywood superstar director, this time Joe Dante. No doubt exploiting the Jaws phenomenon, but surpassing any of the other imitators by a country mile.
Saturday, April 18
04:15 p.m. PST Experiment Perilous. This is from beloved auteur Jacques Tourneur and I have never seen nor heard of it, so naturally I will be setting my DVR. I mean, Hedy Lamarr!
Sunday, April 19
Midnight and 10:00 a.m. PST His Kind of Woman. Maybe the one I would choose if you told me I could have one film noir, this teaming of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell (who were basically made for each other physically and spiritually) in Mexico entangled with gangsters, one of whom the not-so-subtlety gay horn dog Raymond Burr (he is horny for Mitch, natch). Vincent Price is along for the ride as a romantic rival. Full of twists and turns and more comic than most noirs, evidence once again that John Farrow was Hollywood's most underrated auteur.
Monday, April 20
12:15 a.m. PST Limite. Bless TCM and what they do. This very difficult to see 1931 film from the wunderkind director Mario Peixoto at the ripe age of 21 (he was sort of the Brazilian Jean Vigo)! Sadly, it would be his last film. This silent abstract concerns three castaways on a boat who have a series of reveries about the past. The musical score contains works by Satie, Debussy, Stravinsky, Prokofiev...an aural and visual masterpiece long thought lost. A must see.
02:45 a.m. PST YoYo. Pierre Etaix is a film comedian much more beloved in his home country of France that never really took off here in his time. But his series of mostly silent, slapstick-oriented features got a revival a few years back and has made him many more fans. A bit of a acquired taste (those who hated The Artist may be taken aback), but I find his character-centered comedy quite amusing. This, his second feature (he only made four) is a satire on class, as the rich protagonist loses it all in the stock market and has to go to work as a circus clown. Much admired by Jerry Lewis, who though him to superior to Tati (I would disagree). Lewis would later cast Etaix in his ill-fated and still-not-seen The Day the Clown Cried.
Tuesday, April 21
03:30 a.m. PST A Special Day. A beautiful two-hander set in an Italy on the precipice of complete capitulation to fascism, with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. These two were paired romantically in films several times, but in this one she is a blowsy housewife and he a repressed homosexual. It is, arguably, the best work of either of their careers.
Wednesday, April 22
Noon PST. Born to Kill. Tidy noir with a nasty and unforgettable lead by the great Laurence Tierney (Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs, in his younger days). Claire Trevor, an axiom of Noir, plays a scheming divorcee. Rotten to the core, even for its time, it was almost banned upon release. Directed by Robert Wise as we was making his way from the editing bay to the director's chair.
Thursday, April 23
It is Frank Borzage day! Often derided as ersatz Lubitsch, it has become clear to a generation of film scholars he is a giant in his own right. I am just going to list a few of the featured films, many of them quite rare, and you are just going to watch them and go "aaaahhhhhh." You're welcome.
06:00 a.m. PST Big City.
07:30 a.m. PST Flirtation Walk.
09:15 a.m. PST Green Light.
10:45 a.m. PST Living on Velvet.
Friday, April 24
09:45 p.m. PST Rock 'n Roll High School. You know all those oh-so-serious musical biopics cluttering up the multiplexes these days? This is NOT one of them. Created as a way of promoting the fledgling and seminal punk band The Ramones, it becomes an exuberant and subversive paean to youth. And while the Ramones, especially Joey, have zero screen charisma, the tunes kick ass.
