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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 7/19/11

8:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Gangster Story (1959 USA): Here’s an interesting one: the only feature film helmed by actor Walter Matthau. Matthau directs himself as Jack Martin, a hoodlum laying low in a small California town after committing the ultimate sin—killing a cop. Jack can’t resist an easy mark and pulls off a bank job in the sleepy burg, annoying both the F.B.I. and the local crooks, who don’t take kindly to an outsider moving into their territory. Trouble ensues. No one’s going to mistake this 62-minute long second feature for Little Caesar or Scarface, but it’s an intriguing footnote to Matthau’s long and illustrious screen career. Look for Vic Tayback in an uncredited cameo as Norm the resort guard.

11:50 PM Starz
Inside Job (2010 USA): Prepare to be pissed off. Well, you should have been pissed off for the last couple of years, but if you’ve been living under a rock or simply haven’t kept up with the news, Inside Job will bring you up to speed in a hurry. Long story short: Wall Street financiers have not only being playing fast and loose with our money, they’ve also been gaming the system, giving themselves massive bonuses, and sucking on the public teat. Directed by Charles Ferguson, whose No End in Sight was one of the first docs to critically analyze the Second Iraq War, Inside Job was the surprise winner of this year’s Best Feature Length Documentary Oscar. If you suffer from high blood pressure, you might want to avoid it—all others, tune in and fume along with the rest of us. Also airs 7/20 at 2:50 AM.

Thursday 7/21/11

4:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Daybreak (1931 USA): One of only three American films directed by the great French filmmaker Jacques Feyder, Daybreak is a drama about an Austrian soldier who gets himself into trouble with his debtors. Ramon Novarro plays Lieutenant Willi Kasder, an Imperial Guardsman whose commanding officer (C. Aubrey Smith) advises him to marry into money in order to solve his financial problems. Willi, however, doesn’t much care for moneybags Emily (Karen Morley), preferring poor little piano teacher Laura (Helen Chandler) as a potential soul-mate. Will common sense or true love prevail? Daybreak is a fairly typical, fairly static early talkie, but looks handsome thanks to Cedric Gibbons’ superior art direction.

12:35 PM Flix
The Great Diamond Robbery (1953 USA): Quite why this MGM comedy is airing this afternoon on Flix instead of TCM, I can’t explain—but here it is. The Great Diamond Robbery was Red Skelton’s last feature for the studio and features the funny-man as Ambrose C. Park, an adult orphan bound and determined to locate his biological parents. Ambrose works as a diamond cutter, and succumbs to temptation when a crafty lawyer (James Whitmore in an out-of-character bad guy role) cooks up a plan to introduce him to Mum and Dad in exchange for some under-the-counter hot rocks. Only catch: they’re not really Mum and Dad. If you’re a Skelton fan or simply enjoy jokes about marrying your sister, here’s your film. Look for the wonderful Kurt Kaszner as Ambrose’s ‘Uncle Tony’.

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Drums of Africa (1963 USA): Frankie Avalon in a pith helmet? Actually, I think he wore one in Bikini Beach too—remember the Potato Bug? Anyhoo, in Drums of Africa Frankie plays Brian Ferrers, a Victorian-era explorer trying to end slavery on the Dark Continent. Yes, it’s as absurd as it sounds, and yes, the film is lousy, but do you really want to miss Frankie freeing the black man? The low-rent supporting cast includes Mariette Hartley, Lloyd Bochner, and the great Hari Rhodes (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes).

Friday 7/22/11

12:30 AM Sundance
Older than America (2008 USA): Here’s an obscure but deeply worthwhile indie flick. Written and directed by Native American actress Georgina Lightning, Older than America relates a shameful tale of the Indian boarding schools—establishments where young Indians were sent against their will by the federal government for education and religious indoctrination. (This sort of thing also happened to indigenous peoples in Australia and other countries, of course.) Shot in Minnesota, the film tells the story of Rain (played, appropriately, by Lightning), an adult trying to come to terms with her childhood experiences at such an institution. The film stars other Native American actors of considerable repute, including Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Windtalkers) as police chief Johnny, Tantoo Cardenal (Silent Tongue) as Auntie Apple, and the great Wes Studi (Dances With Wolves, Avatar) as Richard Two Rivers.

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