TCM Look-Ahead - Sept. 25
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, September 25
A day that appears to be dedicated to psychoanalysis and/or psychosis, then shifts rather imperceptibly into a series of films about Fascist dictators. TCM, I cannot quit you.
01:30 p.m. PDT Experiment Perilous (1944) Late notice on this, but smash that Record Button for this underseen Jacques Tourneur work. Apparently a Gaslighting story (made around the same year as Gaslight, as a matter of fact), with a heavy dose of Freud. I cannot say much about it because it is underseen (even by the freakishly completists likes of me), but Tourneur rarely missed.
The densely layered plot doesn’t always add up, but in the end that enhances the sense of mystery, which Tourneur sees not as some narrative puzzle to be solved but as an irreducible aspect of human experience. – J.R. Jones
09:00 p.m. PDT The Great Dictator (1940) It's wonderful, don't you think, that an entire generation of You Tubers and Zoomers have been introduced to the art of Charlie Chaplin through the 4 minute or so speech given by Chaplin at the conclusion of his brilliant political comedy, The Great Dictator. It's a corny as hell, deeply sincere, magnificently performed call for decency at a time in the world where it was very possible the fascists might win.
What is Chaplin’s peculiar gift? It is his power to stand for a sort of concentrated essence of the common man, for the ineradicable belief in decency that exists in the hearts of ordinary people, at any rate in the West. – George Orwell
11:15 p.m. PDT To Be or Not To Be (1942) A perfect companion for the Chaplin. This, by another from the Pantheon, Ernst Lubitsch, an arch comedy about life under the rule of Hitler ("heil myself") that uses satire as a machine to kill fascists. A troupe of Polish actors led by, rather incongruously, Jack Benny (but also Carole Lombard!), use their dramatic chops to foil Nazis at every turn. We find Lubitsch winding down a bit after his 30's masterpieces, but he still throws his fastball here.
One of the most profound, emotionally complex comedies ever made, covering a range of tones from satire to slapstick to shocking black humor. – Dave Kehr
Saturday, September 25
02:00 p.m. PDT Limelight (1952) Chaplin day concludes with his last film made in America. Shortly after its completion as he sailed from New York to London for its world premiere his re-entry permit to return to the U.S. was revoked (for his political views and "Moral Behavior" as this was the height of the McCarthy era) and he was exiled to Europe for good. He never returned except to receive a special Oscar in 1972. The crowd that night stood as one, but they could never make it right. Limelight is a touching swan song about a circus clown (Chaplin) who takes a young, beautiful dancer (Claire Bloom) under his wing. What follows is a deeply moving meditation on age and art. A touching cameo from Buster Keaton, the only time the two legends appear in a film together.
This man of sixty-four is still in the vanguard of the cinema. At one stroke, [Chaplin] has forged ahead of everyone else; more than ever, he remains an example and a symbol of creative freedom in the least free of the arts. – Andre Bazin
04:30 p.m. PDT The Late Show (1977) Gumshoe revisionism was a popular genre in 70s cinema and Robert Benton's The Late Show is one of the best. They generally deal with a Private Eye who seems stuck in time, dealing with the kookiness of the modern world but keeping old-school codes of honor in tact. Art Carney plays the curmudgeonly dick this time, is hired and frequently flummoxed by a new-agey Lily Tomlin to find her cat. If this sounds vaguely reminiscent of the finest example of this genre, The Long Goodbye, it can come as no coincidence that The Late Show was produced by Robert Altman (who was once attached to direct, before being replaced by the more-than-capable Robert Benton).
The Late Show is fast and exciting, but it isn't a thriller, exactly. It's a one of a kind movie – a love hate poem to sleaziness.– Pauline Kael
Sunday, September 27
12:30 a.m. PDT and 10:00 a.m. PDT Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) (1951) Resonate in these deeply cynical times, where getting the story is far greater than its cost. Billy Wilder, as always, of his time and ahead of his times. Kirk Douglas, a corny, scenery-chewing ham who finally found his ideal director, plays a down-on-his luck newspaper reporter (remember those?) who seizes on the opportunity of a hapless miner stuck in the titular hole to generate a national story and cover himself in glory and fame ("Bad news sells best. Because Good News is no news"). Things don't work out all that well for him, or for the schnook in the hole. A wonderful supporting turn as the no-goodnik wife of the schnook who inevitably cannot resist Douglas' by the otherwise sadly underutilized Jan Sterling ("I don't pray, kneeling bags my nylons"). A must see, but you may feel like a shower after. A wonderful
In Ace in the Hole style and purpose achieve for the most part a fusion more impressive even than in Sunset Boulevard, and the result is perhaps [Billy Wilder's] most remarkable film. – Penelope Houston
04:15 a.m. PDT Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) The best Dracula (Christopher Lee, in his second-to-last Hammer/Count D film) finds himself inexplicably transported to modern swinging London. It's actually pretty terrible but wonderfully watchable. Nosferatu meets Austin Powers.
This isn't a terrific rationale for another horror flick but, given Miss Beacham's ability to heave, and her bosom to heave with, it will have to do.– Roger Ebert
Monday, September 28
09:30 a.m. PDT The Earrings of Madame de...(1953) If you are Max Ophuls-curious (and why not?) this is probably the best place to start. The title character, played by the tumescent Danielle Darrieux, is forced to sell some beloved earrings to pay off her debts, which triggers a chain of lies, deceit and romantic entanglements. A feast for the eyes. There will be dolly shots.
Three good reasons you should see The Earrings of Madame de ... are the presence and performances of Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica. This celestial triangle has never been surpassed in grace, charm and, yes, wit and humor.– Andrew Sarris
Watch P.T. Anderson on this Movie
Thursday, October 1
11:30 p.m. PDT The Honeymoon Killers (1970) What the hell became of Leonard Kastle? He directed this dirty-beautiful masterpiece of lust and greed right on the cusp on the American film revolution and then essentially disappeared. We might have expected bigger things. The magnificent Shirley Stoler and Tony LoBianco play aesthetically mismatched lovers/killers who manage to somehow move us. A scuzzy Badlands.
Unusually seedy in all its particulars, utterly unflattering to all its characters, sufficiently horrible (but never gratuitously shocking) in the details of its murders, Kastle's film succeeds as a kind of chamber drama of desperate attraction and violent death – Roger Greenspun
Friday, October 2
03:00 a.m. PDT Diabolique (1955) Influenced by Hitchcock but not really anything like him, this Gaslighting noir classic by Henri-Georges Clouzot is a jet-black, misanthropic and, it has to be said, misogynist thriller with one of the great shock endings in cinema. Clouzot, who would have made a fine sidekick for Billy Wilder, was always a little too cynical for his own good, but he is an undeniable stylist who knows how to pay off a story.
What is certain is that Clouzot has achieved 100 percent of his goal and that the viewer cannot help but experience all the emotions the director has prepared for him, as if along a scenic highway. – Andre Bazin
