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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 07/28/09

3:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
On With the Show! (1929 USA): I'm generally neutral regarding the comedy stylings of Joe E. Brown. His gurning is, on occasion, intolerable, but he's absolutely brilliant in Some Like It Hot. TCM has a robust roster of ten fairly familiar Brown vehicles on tap today, but along with the usual suspects comes this lesser known early Warners' talkie. Joe stars as Joe Beaton, comic performer in a musical revue about to be capsized by debt. Boss Jerry (Sam Hardy) is readying to ring down the curtain for the final time, but a last minute loan from employee Dad (Thomas Jefferson) means the show will go on. Further troubles arise, however, when the box office receipts are stolen and the star turn (Betty Compson) refuses to take the stage. It's good, breezy, predictable fun - and it'll be interesting to see if TCM airs On With the Show! in its original two-strip Technicolor.

Wednesday 07/29/09

10:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Fashions of 1934 (1934 USA): A superb cast is the main reason to watch this frothy musical comedy from director William Dieterle. William Powell takes the male lead as Sherwood Nash, a confidence trickster who makes a living manufacturing cheap knock-offs of top Paris fashions. Sidekick and female lead Lynn (Bette Davis) is the spy who infiltrates the shows to take surreptitious snapshots of the clothes, but a new innovation - the security camera - captures her in the act and puts Nash on the spot. Given lemons, Nash decides to make lemonade, and he, Lynn, and comic third wheel Snap (reliable Frank McHugh) decide to turn their notoriety into a successful business. Co-starring Hugh Herbert and Verree Teasdale, Fashions of 1934 also features fabulous choreography by Busby Berkeley featuring a multitude of ostrich feathers.

11:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Good Companions (1933 GB): For those who enjoyed First a Girl, a Jessie Matthews cross-dressing musical that aired on TCM a few months ago, here's another rarely seen Matthews feature. This time she plays singing sensation Susie Dean, member of a traveling troupe of performers who also include failed music teacher Inigo Jollifant (John Gielgud), mill worker Jess Oakroyd (Edmund Gwenn), and independently wealthy spinster Elizabeth Trant (Mary Glynne). The four "Good Companions" are struggling to make the most of their sorry Depression-era situation, and finally hit some luck when rain-sodden tourists trying to keep dry happen across their show. Based on a novel and play by J.B. Priestley, the film was an "A" list effort from Gaumont-British, and though it can't compare to the best Hollywood musicals of the era, remains a pleasingly quaint artefact of the times. It was also the first film shown as part of a Royal Command Performance. Also in the cast: future Hollywood character actors George Zucco and Dennis Hoey and an absurdly young Jack Hawkins.

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