TCM Look-Ahead - March 27
Sunday, 03/29
04:00 a.m. PST Petulia. Richard Lester's "Pepsi Generation" masterpiece is probably still a bit undervalued. All of Lester's instincts and New Wave influences (particularly Resnais and his elliptical cutting), exercised in the Beatles films, find fruition here. Julie Christie (the Kook), George C. Scott (the square center whose inner pain is assuaged by a liaison with said Kook) and Richard Chamberlain (as a beautiful monster) form a strange love triangle and give career-best performances. Great score by John Barry. An essential 60s time capsule. "You bring me COOKIES?!"
09:30 p.m. PST Never Give a Sucker and Even Break. It's W.C. Fields day on TCM and you can't go wrong with any of them, but this one is my favorite, a very knowing meta-movie about Fields as a screenwriter who is trying to sell a screenplay to Esoteric Studios. Quintessentially titled. Hilarious for all of its 75 minute running time. Fields never goes out of fashion, the irredeemable curmudgeon who somehow remains to only sympathetic character in site.
Monday, 03/30
01:45 a.m. PST Moana: A Romance of the Golden Age. Not to be confused with the Disney animated film or its soon-to-be live version (shudder) but this inspiration for it, this is the great documentary film maker Robert Flaherty's follow up to his classic Nanook of the North. Flaherty's style is controversial in that he unapologetically staged his actors under the guise of documentary, but the depictions are real and beautiful. A poem for a lost world.
04:00 p.m. PST The Phenix City Story. Blistering docudrama of the notoriously sleazy Southern town, directed by master craftsman Phil Karlson. It concerns the murder of a real-life Attorney General who is bent on cleaning up the city and the "Dixie Mafia" running rampant therein. Packs a punch.
Tuesday, 03/31
04:15 a.m. PST Don't Make Waves. I am a ride or die for this dodgy, dated 60s sex comedy. Tony Curtis plays a beach bum who does well with the ladies (Claudia Cardinale and Sharon Tate, who is gorgeous and funny. It was her best role.) but whose life is going nowhere. A bit like Shampoo, also about a lothario whose life is going nowhere, which comes a few years later, there is an undercurrent of desolation in the midst of the beachy vibes. Directed by the great Alexander Mackendrick, who disavowed the film. I think it is as important an artifact of a certain time and temper of the 60s as Petulia.
Wednesday, 04/01
08:00 p.m. PST Love Me or Leave Me. TCM is paying tribute to Doris Day today, and this is by far the most worthy entry. A biopic about the singer Ruth Etting with James Cagney (in an Oscar-nominated performance) as her overbearing Gangster/manager/lover. Day shows serious chops as singer and actress.
Friday, 04/03
02:00 p.m. PST Land of the Pharaohs. A disreputable film from the Howard Hawks canon, this is nevertheless a wildly entertaining wide screen epic whats-itz about the building of the pyramids. A guilty favorite of Martin Scorsese.
