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Thursday 11/13/08

3:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Bigamist (1953 USA): Not sure how I failed to recommend this film last time it was on TCM, but sure enough and yes I didn't. Directed by Ida Lupino, The Bigamist stars Edmond O'Brien as Harry Graham, a man with a wife in every port, or at least, TWO ports. He and wife number two (Joan Fontaine) are planning on adopting a baby, but Harry gets nervous when agency representative Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) starts digging through the skeletons in his closet. Needless to say, Jordan turns up wife number one (Lupino), and the whole sordid story is revealed in a flashback style. All things considered, this was quite a daring picture for the button-down '50s, and Collier Young's screenplay is surprisingly subtle and sympathetic. Still and all and this being 1953, however, the Production Code was still in full force, and Harry gets taught a serious lesson just in time for the final credit crawl.

Friday 11/14/08

1:45 AM More Max
Unfaithfully Yours (1948 USA): Unfaithfully Yours, I said to myself as I browsed through the movie listings. Unfaithfully Yours. Can't say I've heard of that one before. Sounds like a musical, or a romantic comedy. Can't be much good, can it? Better do some research, I suppose. What?!? It was written and directed by Preston Sturges? How have I NOT heard of it before? AND it's got Rudy Vallee, from Sturges' Palm Beach Story, in it? Rex Harrison, okay, that's not too exciting — but Lionel Stander? Edgar Kennedy? Kurt Krueger? Sign me up! And it got REMADE in 1984? How come I don't even remember the remake? It had Dudley Moore and Nastassja Kinski in it. And Betty Shabazz. BETTY SHABAZZ? Mrs. Malcolm X was in a crummy Dudley Moore comedy?!? Just when you feel like you know a lot about the movies, something like Unfaithfully Yours comes along and bites you on the keister. Hard.

9:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Hairy Ape (1944 USA): William Bendix delivered perhaps his greatest screen performance in this fine adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play of the same name. Bendix portrays Hank Smith, a ship's stoker who finds himself enamored with Mildred Douglas (Susan Hayward), a society gal well above his station. He's in competition with fellow engineer Tony (the slightly more attractive John Loder), but Mildred rejects them both, setting up a potential tragedy (see: the original play) that evolves into an existentialist statement about the dignity of labor (see: Robert Andrews' neutered but still powerful screen adaptation). Bendix was as adept at playing big soft-hearted lugs as he was rough hewn working men, and he's in top form here, building on his portrayal of an all too human German sailor in Hitchcock's Lifeboat, released only six months earlier.

4:30 PM Showtime
a.k.a. Tommy Chong (2005 USA): The REALLY stoned half of the Cheech and Chong comedy duo, Tommy Chong got in big trouble with the feds, who busted him for selling — cough, cough — "smoking accessories" in early 2003. This enjoyable puff piece, which stems from the joint efforts of writer-director Josh Gilbert and his crew, plants seeds of doubt about the efficacy of the War on Drugs. Caught in the snares of Operation Pipe Dreams (I kid you not!), Chong was found guilty of selling drug paraphernalia and ended up serving a nine-month stretch in a minimum security prison. That's not the worst thing that can happen to someone, I suppose, but if there's one thing the Bush administration has enjoyed so much over the last eight years, it's putting the prosecutorial boot in, unless your crime is torturing people on behalf of the American people, in which case you get promoted. They couldn't track down either Osama bin Laden or the Weapons of Mass Destruction ™, but hey, they found some bongs. Also airs at 7:30 PM and throughout the month.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Suspiria (1973 ITA): Dario Argento's operatic horror classic makes its widescreen television debut tonight on TCM Underground. Jessica Harper stars as Suzy, an American youngster enrolled at the Tanzacademie, a West German ballet school. Arriving at the academy on a dark and stormy night, he's greeted by headmistress Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett) and befriends fellow student Sara (Stefania Cassini), but a shower of maggots suggests all is not well on campus — and things rapidly get much, much worse. Everything about Suspiria is big: from the incredibly over-amplified (in a good way) score by art-rockers Goblin, to the copious blood-letting and the florid performance by Bennett, this is one film unafraid of embarrassing itself with the unsubtle gesture. As a result, it's one of the most memorable films of the period and a true landmark of horror cinema, and it made Argento a household name. Well, in MY household, at least.

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