TCM Look-Ahead (Feb. 13)
The dreaded 31 days of Oscar has begun on TCM, so lots of official classics that are either not great or don't need my recommendation. There are a few exceptions, below....
Tuesday, 02/17
06:30 a.m. PST The Desert Song. Dunes and Tunes! Utterly ridiculous musical contemporaneously set during World War II on General Rommel's stomping grounds. Not your typical setting for an anti-Navi propaganda Hollywood film, but somehow it works. From the underrated auteur Robert Florey. The technicolor is worth the price of admission. Won the Oscar for Best Art Direction.
10:45 a.m. PST Morocco. Speaking of utterly ridiculous desert sagas...except Morocco is ridiculously great! This Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration achieves the Apex of romantic expressionism. Dietrich at the height of her powers (it was her only Oscar nomination). Gary Cooper as object of the Female Gaze. A must see.
06:15 p.m. PST Them. A classic of the mutant monster genre in the aftermath of Hiroshima (everything seemed to be growing or shrinking), this giant Ant film very likely traumatized you as a kid. Oscar nominee for best special effects (shoulda won).
Wednesday, 02/18
02:30 a.m. PST Seven Days to Noon. I know little of this Boulton brothers directed early 1950s film from England, but it proports to be the first nuclear-bomb themed thriller. I am always ready for a surprise. It won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture story, which is now known as Best Original Screenplay.
Thursday, 02/19
12:00 Noon PST Festival. Murray Lerner's sprawling classic doc about the Newport Folk Life Festivals covering the seminal years of 1963 to 1966. Much referenced in the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and a must-see for fans of folk, blues and bluegrass. Johnny Cash steals the movie. Nominated for best documentary that year, but inexplicably didn't win.
