M, playing on TCM on Sunday.

The thing I’m most excited about this week is the beginning of TCM’s seven-part Moguls and Movie Stars series on the history of Hollywood, starting tonight with a segment on early film, followed by a bunch of, well, early films. But if you’re not as into that as I am, there’s still plenty of other stuff. Like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a 1950s version of the Wyatt Earp story, playing Tuesday on TCM. And underground Iranian film No One Knows About Persian Cats on IFC on Tuesday. And catch most of the Rat Pack in Ocean’s Eleven on Saturday. Let horror bleed over into November with IFC showing Carrie on Sunday. And for sure don’t miss the Fritz Lang triple-feature on Sunday night, because those are some of the best films ever made.

Monday, November 1

6:15pm – TCM – While the City Sleeps
The head of a New York newspaper dies, leaving it in his son Vincent Price’s hands to choose someone to promote: managing editor Thomas Mitchell, lead reporter Dana Andrews, or a couple of other people. The way to get the job? Get the scoop on the serial killer taking out women around the city. It gets a little plot-heavy at times, but it’s so full of classic character actors and the noirish feel that director Fritz Lang does so well that it’s still very worthwhile.
1956 United States. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Ida Lupino, George Sanders

8:00pm – TCM – Moguls and Movie Stars, A History of Hollywood
If you’re interested in the history of film, TCM is starting a series tonight providing an overview of American film history from the very beginning (Edison films in the late 1890s) through the 1960s, one episode a week. Tonight is the dawn of early film, with “Peepshow Pioneers,” followed by collections of films from Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffith, Georges Melies, early silent Shakespeare adaptations, and a 1910 Mary Pickford short. They have the full schedule both for these short programs and for the series as a whole at the official site.
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, November 2

7:30am – TCM – The Station Agent
One of the most pleasant surprises (for me, anyway) of 2003. Peter Dinklage moves into a train depot to indulge his love for trains and stay away from people, only to find himself befriended by a loquacious Cuban hot-dog stand keeper and an emotionally delicate Patricia Clarkson. A quiet but richly rewarding film.
2003 USA. Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale.
(repeats at 2:15pm)

9:30am – TCM – From Here to Eternity
There’s the famous part, yes, where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr make love on the beach among the crashing waves. But there’s also a solid ensemble war tale, involving young officer Montgomery Clift and his naive wife Donna Reed, and embittered soldiers Frank Sinatra and Lee J. Cobb.
1953 USA. Director: Fred Zinnemann. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Montgomery Clift, Lee J. Cobb.

11:30am – TCM – Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
There are a lot of good movies about the Wyatt Earp-Doc Holliday friendship and conflict, and this is…the most explicitly titled one? No, really, this is a good film, though perhaps not as memorable as My Darling Clementine or Tombstone. Still worthwhile if you’re a fan of westerns, as I am.
1957 USA. Director: John Sturges. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming.
Newly Featured!

1:45pm – TCM – Sweet Smell of Success
One of the most acidically witty films of the 1950s, Sweet Smell of Success turns its gaze on Broadway gossip columnist Burt Lancaster, who connives with press agent Tony Curtis to break up his sister’s romance – a searing indictment of unscrupulous newspaper men, yes, and a bitingly funny one to boot.
1957 USA. Director: Alexander Mackendrick. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Sam Levene.

10:05pm – Sundance – No One Knows About Persian Cats
A pair of Iranian rock musicians, unable to perform their music publicly because the government won’t give them a permit, try to put together a final underground gig to raise money to escape the country – it’s based on the actual story of the two people playing the musicians, so there’s an intriguing intersection of reality and fiction. Plus I’m always fascinated by underground Iranian film, and I’m glad to see Sundance playing this one.
2009 Iran. Director: Bahman Ghobadi. Starring: Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 4:05am and 11:20am on the 3rd)

4:05am (3rd) – IFC – Barton Fink
One of the Coen Brothers’ most brilliant dark comedies (heh, I think I say that about all of their dark comedies, though), Barton Fink follows its title character, a New York playwright whose hit play brings him to the attention of Hollywood, where he goes to work for the movies. And it all goes downhill from there. Surreal, quirky, and offbeat, even among the Coens work. It’s based loosely on the experiences of Clifford Odets, whose heightened poetic style of writing has clearly been influential on the Coens throughout their career.
1991 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Turturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, Michael Lerner, Tony Shalhoub.

Wednesday, November 3

6:00am – IFC – The New World
Terrence Malick may not make many films, but the ones he does make, wow. Superficially the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, The New World is really something that transcends mere narrative – this is poetry on film. Every scene, every shot has a rhythm and an ethereal that belies the familiarity of the story we know. I expected to dislike this film when I saw it, quite honestly. It ended up moving me in ways I didn’t know cinema could.
2005 USA. Director: Terrence Malick. Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer.
Must See
(repeats at 1:00pm)

9:15am – Sundance – Nights of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria, one of the films Federico Fellini made during his sorta-neo-realist phase, casts Masina as a woman of the night, following her around almost non-committally, yet with a lot of care and heart. And Masina is simply amazing in everything she does – not classically beautiful, but somehow incredibly engaging for every second she’s onscreen.
1957 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi.
Must See
(repeats at 4:55pm)

3:15pm – TCM – This is the Army
One of several revue-style films made in the early 1940s cramming a bunch of stars and musical numbers into a film usually centered around the war effort in some way. Most of them, including this one, aren’t that great unless you’re just a big fan of 1940s musicals), but this one is interesting historically because all of the proceeds (from the film and the Irving Berlin stage revue upon which it is based) were in fact donated to the war effort.
1943 USA. Director: Michael Curtiz. Starring: George Murphy, Joan Leslie, Ronald Reagan.
Newly Featured!

4:30am (4th) – TCM – Show People
A pretty well-regarded silent film, with Marion Davies in one of her best roles as a Hollywood starlet.
1928 USA. Director: King Vidor. Starring: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson.
Newly Featured!

Thursday, November 4

8:00pm – TCM – The Killers (1946)
Burt Lancaster made his film debut in this excellent noir, an expansion of an Ernest Hemingway short story. Lancaster is a quiet gas station attendant killed in the opening of the film by two hitmen – the events that lead up to his death (involving, among other things, a classic femme fatale played by Ava Gardner) are told in flashback throughout the rest of the film.
1946 USA. Director: Robert Siodmak. Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene.

Friday, November 5

6:00pm – TCM – The Palm Beach Story
Similar in tone but less consistent than The Lady Eve, this Preston Sturges film follows bickering couple Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert as she leaves him to gold dig for a richer man. He follows her, pretending to be her brother, and they get all entangled with a wealthy brother and sister. The ending is a weak bit of trickery, but there are enough moments of hilarity to make it worth watching.
1942 USA. Director: Preston Sturges. Starring: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Rudy Vallee, Mary Astor.

8:00pm – TCM – The Bridge on the River Kwai
British prisoners of war are commanded to build a bridge over the River Kwai for their Japanese captors – a task which becomes a source of pride for old-school British commander Alec Guinness. But American William Holden is having none of that and makes it his mission to blow the bridge up. One of the great war films.
1957 USA/UK. Director: David Lean. Starring: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Sessue Hayakawa.
(followed by a making of)

12:00M – IFC – Blow Out
Sound man John Travolta is recording sound samples one night, and may have accidentally recorded a murder occurring. As he tries to investigate, he’s drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. Inspired to some degree by Antonioni’s photography-based Blow-Up, but this is definitely DePalma’s film all the way.
1981 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz.

Saturday, November 6

7:45am – IFC – Strictly Ballroom
The first of Baz Lurhmann’s “Red Curtain” trilogy, about a Latin ballroom dancer who shakes up the Australian ballroom competition circuit with his unorthodox choreography. Among other things. A little shrill at times, but mostly funny and endearing, and less borderline schizophrenic than the rest of the trilogy (which I love, don’t get me wrong).
1992 Australia. Director: Baz Luhrmann. Starring: Paul Mercurio, Tara Morice, Bill Hunter, Pat Thomson, Gia Carides.

1:00pm – TCM – Ocean’s Eleven (1960)
The original version of Ocean’s Eleven is a Rat Pack buddy hangout film first and a heist film second, but when you’ve got Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford all in the same film, that’s a-ok with me.
1960 USA. Director: Lewis Milestone. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson.
Newly Featured!

6:00pm – TCM – Dial M for Murder
Glossy Hitchcock film with Ray Milland hiring a hitman to off his wife Grace Kelly after discovered she’d been unfaithful to him, but when she turns the tables on the would-be killer, Milland is forced to ever more devious cover-ups and plots. Really solid suspenser, if not quite top-level Hitchcock for me. Still a must-see if you’re a Hitchcock fan.
1954 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Grace Kelly, Ray Milland, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson.

7:25pm – Sundance – The Darjeeling Limited
Not perhaps my favorite Wes Anderson film, but that’s not really that much of a negative statement for one of my favorite directors. Certainly the central image of the train is a fitting one for his flat, widescreen visual style, and the Indian setting allows for great use of color, so if nothing else, it looks freaking gorgeous.
2007 USA. Director: Wes Anderson. Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Angelica Huston.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 6:35am and 4:40pm on the 7th)

Sunday, November 7

6:00am – IFC – Maria Full of Grace
Once in a while a film comes out of nowhere and floors me – this quiet little film about a group of South American women who agree to smuggle drugs into the United States by swallowing packets of cocaine did just that. Everything in the film is perfectly balanced, no element overwhelms anything else, and it all comes together with great empathy, but without sentimentality.
2004 USA. Director: Joshua Marston. Starring: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Virginia Ariza, Yenny Paola Vega.

6:00am – TCM – Till the Clouds Roll By
MGM throws its bevy of musical stars at a biopic of Jerome Kern that, like most of MGM’s 1940s biopics, has very little in common with Kern’s actual life. What it does have, is Kern’s great songs performed by some great singers and dancers. The most interesting section looking back on it now is an extended section from Show Boat starring Kathryn Grayson and Lena Horne – Grayson would get the part of Magnolia five years later when MGM produced Show Boat in full, but they were unwilling to actually cast Horne as mulatto Julie, instead giving the role to Ava Gardner.
1946 USA. Director: Richard Whorf. Starring: Robert Walker, Dorothy Patrick, Judy Garland, June Allyson.

1:00pm – Sundance – Ran
Akira Kurosawa’s inspired transposition of King Lear into medieval Japan, mixing Shakespeare and Japanese Noh theatre tradition like nobody’s business.
1985 Japan. Director: Akira Kurosawa. Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryu.
Must See

2:00pm – TCM – The Wrong Man
Alfred Hitchcock made many films based on the idea of the wrong man being accused for some crime, but this is the most on-the-nose one. Innocent Henry Fonda is mistaken for a suspect in a crime, and undergoes a vast extended ordeal at the hands of the police and witnesses who constantly identify him as the criminal even though he is not. The effects on him and his family are devastating. Not one of Hitchcock’s very best, but worth watching for Fonda’s performance and the distillation of one of Hitchcock’s most prominent themes.
1956 USA. Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Starring: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone.

4:00pm – TCM – A Shot in the Dark
Here’s your counter example for the “sequels are never as good as the original” argument. This second film in the Pink Panther series is easily the best, and stands as ones of the zaniest 1960s comedies ever.
1964 USA. Director: Blake Edwards. Starring: Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom.

6:30pm – IFC – Carrie
There aren’t that many movies that you can say are equally loved by horror fans and feminist academics, but Carrie is one of them – Carrie’s physical coming-of-age sparks telekinetic abilities, allowing her to take bloody revenge on the schoolkids who mistreated her. And who can’t relate to that, really?
1976 USA. Director: Brian DePalma. Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 12:00M)

8:00pm – TCM – Metropolis
I’m not sure if TCM is showing the new Complete Metropolis print (I’d wager they are not), but even the previous restoration is still good. The new one is better though. But TCM is playing a documentary directly after the film called Metropolis Refound, which I assume is about the discovery and restoration of the footage in the most Complete version, which would be pretty fascinating to watch.
1927 Germany. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frohlich, Alfred Abel.
Must See
Newly Featured!

8:15pm – TCM – Layer Cake
Sounds like an unusual title for a crime film, but it’s also an unusually solid crime film, with Daniel Craig in one of his breakthrough roles as a drug dealer given a couple of tough jobs just before planning to retire. Last jobs never go well, so you can kind of predict all won’t go as planned.
2004 UK. Director: Matthew Vaughn. Starring: Daniel Craig, Tom Hardy, Sally Hawkins, Burn Gorman.
(repeats at 1:45am on the 8th)

12:00M – TCM – Spies
This Fritz Lang film isn’t quite as well known as some of his other, but I’ve been wanting to see it for a while, so I’m glad TCM is pulling it out of the vault. The plot sounds like a fairly standard double-agent affair, but Fritz Lang and spies? I’m in.
1928 Germany. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Gerda Maurus, Lien Deyers.
Newly Featured!

2:30am (8th) – TCM – M
Peter Lorre is the child abductor sought by both police and criminal organizations, and he gives here perhaps the definitive German Expressionist performance, matched by Lang’s wonderful use of shadows and angles. The sound design is also very progressive for the time, using a distinctive whistle as a major plot point – though ambient sound is still largely missing from the soundtrack. The ins-and-outs of the manhunt get a little uninteresting now and again, but once the climactic chase and impassioned “trial” get going, you’ll remember little else.
1931 Germany. Director: Fritz Lang. Starring: Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Grundgens.
Must See
Newly Featured!