TCM Look-Ahead July 3
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.
Yes, there are the usual suspects of patriotic films this week, but TCM is showing remarkable restraint in leaving most of the week free for plenty of non-flag-waving choices.
(And, since you asked, here are five Independence-Day-appropriate titles, sadly, not appearing on TCM this week):
Adventureland (Greg Mottola)
Nashville (Robert Altman)
Revolution (Hugh Hudson) Insanely underrated.
Blow Out (Brian de Palma)
Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater)
Anyhootenanny...
Friday, July 3
11:00 p.m. PST Criss Cross (1949) Quintessentially titled noir with Burt Lancaster as the big handsome sap (he's right there with Robert Mitchum in this category). In this one the big lug can't keep it in his pants and is forced to take part in an armored car robbery.
Saturday, July 4
12:45 a.m. PST Thieves Highway (1949) Another on the road-movie theme, director Jules Dassin, pre-blacklist and exile to Europe, spins a tight yarn about returning veteran Richard Conte trying to live a straight civilian life but inevitably gets pulled into a life of crime (and capitalist critique).
Sunday, July 5
Midnight PST and 10:00 a.m. PST Angel Face (1953) Another in the long line of the Robert-Mitchum-handsome-poor sap noirs, this one from Otto Preminger. Here he is an ambulance driver who he falls for an against-type cast Jean Simmons (generally the ingenue, here, not so much), and essentially follows her anywhere that face leads him. One jaw dropping composition after another from the maestro Preminger.
10:00 p.m. PST Escape from New York (1981) You probably don't need me to recommend the master John Carpenter's classic about New York city being turned into a maximum security prison, and Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) being employed to rescue the U.S. President, whose plane crashes in the supposedly impenetrable prison. One remarkable set piece and very bad behavior which misanthropic (and somehow beloved) Carpenter relishes in showing us. A movie they will inevitably remake (as Carpenter did in his failed Escape from L.A.), but will never be duplicated.
Monday, July 6
02:00 a.m. PST The White Balloon (1995) An early film from the great Jafar Panahi (whose film It Was Just an Accident was my favorite film of 2025). Panahi's tale is well known. Banned from making films in his homeland of Iran because of his regime-critical films, which are hardly blatantly incendiary. This film, an irresistibly charming (but also at times harsh) tale of a little girl who goes to buy some goldfish with a handful of money given to her by her mother, and the impediments she meets along to way, is a great place to start with Panahi.
Tuesday, July 7
10:30 a.m. PST The Merry Widow (1934) It's Lubitsch. Not necessarily my favorite, and Maurice Chevalier balances on the border between charming and annoying, but it's Lubitsch from his pre-code glory period (read, naughty) and the film dances by effortlessly.
09:30 p.m. PST Hell's Angels (1930) Howard Hughes was a weirdo, but the guy had onions. Not only did he finance the most expensive Hollywood movie ever made up until that time, he also directed it. And the aerial sequences are still absolutely dazzling, the best ever depicted (the romantic triangle at the plot's center not as much, but any chance to see Jean Harlow is a plus).
Wednesday, July 8
Midnight PST The Hitch-Hiker (1953) I bow to no one in my love for Ida Lupino's 50s noirs. This time two regular Joe's (Edmund O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy) just want to do a little fishing, but ill advisedly pick up the titular psycho, who has a physical deformity (an eye that won't close, so he is always watching you, even when asleep) and a gun, which is the great equalizer.
Thursday, July 9
06:15 a.m. PST The Cry of the Hunted (1953) I am a sucker for escaped-convict dramas, and this is a good and weird one. Italian superstar Vittorio Gassman, in his American film debut, plays a convict on the run in the Louisiana swamps from an obsessed cop (Barry Sullivan) who has pretty un-veiled feelings for the handsome fellow. They even share a cigarette after a terrific fight sequence, and come to have a mutual, um, understanding. Helmed by B-genre-master Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy).
Friday, July 10
06:15 a.m. PST Sherlock, Jr. (1924) Buster Keaton's meta-cinematic masterpiece, has never NOT appeared on reputable lists of greatest films of all time. Influential to Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo and any other number of "where does the film start and life begin" movies. Show your patriotism by watching the supreme work by, arguably, America's premiere artist.
