This week check out a couple of hard-to-find films on TCM on Monday/Tuesday – Paul Mazursky’s Alex in Wonderland and Janet Gaynor’s first talkie Sunnyside Up, neither of which are available on DVD. Also note the great Pink Panther sequel A Shot in the Dark on Monday (RIP Blake Edwards), John Ford’s Cavalry trilogy plus classic western Rio Bravo on Wednesday, a double feature of horse-centric family features in National Velvet and The Black Stallion on Thursday, plus a whole string of classic Disney live-action family films on Sunday, including Old Yeller, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Parent Trap.

Monday, December 20

11:00am – 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.

6:00pm – TCM – The Odd Couple
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau have made a lot of movies together over the years, and this mismatched buddy film (written by Neil Simon) remains one of the best, as neatnik Felix (Lemmon) and slob Oscar (Matthau) become roommates and try not to drive each other nuts.
1968 USA. Director: Gene Saks. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau.

10:00pm – TCM – The Shop Around the Corner
The original version of You’ve Got Mail has James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as feuding employees of a shop who are unknowingly exchanging romantic letters. Ernst Lubitsch directs, bringing his warm European wit to bear.
1940 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan.
(repeats on the 25th at 8:00am)

11:45pm – TCM – The Great Dictator
Chaplin’s first completely talking film, and one in which he doesn’t play his Little Tramp character. Instead, he’s both Hitler and a Jewish man who looks strikingly like Hitler. This obviously creates confusion. Brilliantly scathing satire – it always amazes me that it was made as early as 1940.
1940 USA. Director: Charles Chaplin. Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard.
Must See

12:00M – IFC – Requiem for a Dream
Darren Aronofsky’s breakthrough film (Pi remains a cult favorite) follows a quartet of people as their lives spiral out of control due to drug addiction.
2000 USA. Director: Darren Aronofsky. Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans.

2:00am (21st) – TCM – 8 1/2
Federico Fellini translates his creative block in making his next film into a film about a director with a creative block – and in so doing, makes one of the most brilliant and creative films of all time.
1963 Italy. Director: Federico Fellini. Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée.
Must See

4:30am (21st) – TCM – Alex in Wonderland
A very self-reflexive New Hollywood film about a director who wants to make a challenging film but is being pushed by the studio into making a commercial one. Director Paul Mazursky did Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, one of my most enjoyable finds of my New Hollywood marathon this year, so I’m looking forward to checking this out – and note that it’s not available on DVD and I’ve never seen TCM play it before, so if you’re interested in it, this may be your best chance.
1970 USA. Director: Paul Mazursky. Starring: Donald Sutherland, Ellen Burstyn, Meg Mazursky.
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Tuesday, December 21

6:30am – TCM – Wait Until Dark
Audrey Hepburn is a blind woman set upon by a trio of home invaders in search of some smuggled heroin they think ended up hidden at her house – an all-around good little thriller, with a fantastic climactic set-piece.
1967 USA. Director: Terence Young. Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

8:00am – IFC – Dancer in the Dark
Bjork plays a factory worker whose increasing blindness threatens to keep her from being able to do her job, which will keep her from earning the money she needs for an operation that will prevent her son from suffering the same blindness. Add in the relationship with her not-as-happy-as-they-seem neighbors and a trenchant critique of the justice system and death penalty, not to mention several musical numbers juxtaposed throughout, and you have a film that’s unlike any other.
2000 Denmark. Director: Lars von Trier. Starring: Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare.
(repeats at 3:30pm)

12:45pm – Sundance – Army of Shadows
One of Jean-Pierre Melville’s most highly regarded films covers the French Resistance during WWII with a great deal of depth and nuance. From all reports anyway, I actually still have not gotten around to seeing it.
1969 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Lion Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simone Signoret.

8:00pm – TCM – Sunnyside Up
Janet Gaynor was one of the biggest stars of the 1920s (the first Academy Award winner, in fact), and this was her first talking picture. It isn’t actually that good, but it has a lot of quaint charm. It’s also not available on DVD, so check it out now if you’re interested.
1929 USA. Director: David Butler. Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Marjorie White.
Newly Featured!

10:00pm – TCM – Swing Time
Many people call Swing Time the best of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, and it’s certainly up there. Frothy story? Check. Jerome Kern music? Check. Fantastic dances? Check. Of course.
1936 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Helen Broderick, Victor Moore, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore.
Must See

11:00pm – IFC – The Crying Game
British soldier Forest Whitaker is captured by an IRA cell, and one of the IRA members (Stephen Rea), against his better judgement, befriends him. Later, Rea leaves the cell and makes his way to London to find Whitaker’s lover and ends up getting involved with her under an assumed identity. There’s an additional twist that you likely know if you play any film trivia at all, but the rest of the film is a solid exploration of terrorist guilt with director Neil Jordan’s characteristic angst.
1992 UK. Director: Neil Jordan. Starring: Stephen Rea, Forest Whitaker, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson.

12:00M – TCM – The Thin Man
If there’s such a genre as “sophisticated comedy-mystery,” The Thin Man is the apex of it. William Powell and Myrna Loy starred in thirteen films together, but never did their chemistry sparkle quite so much as here, in their first of six outings as husband-and-wife detectives Nick and Nora Charles. In between cocktails and marital moments, they investigate the disappearance of the titular thin man (later in the series, “thin man” erroneously became associated with Nick). There’s so much to love about this film – the great dialogue, hilarious supporting characters (only a few of which go too far over the top), and honestly, most of all, the amazing portrayal of a solid, loving marriage in the midst of so much chaos.
1934 USA. Director: W.S. Van Dyke. Starring: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan.
Must See

1:45am (22nd) – TCM – Adam’s Rib
Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn take on the battle of the sexes as married lawyers on opposite sides of an assault case involving gender politics. It’s a great movie in dialogue and acting, and still interesting for the 1949 view of women struggling for even basic equality. Some of its approach to gender may be a bit strange today, but…that’s why it’s interesting.
1949 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, Jean Hagen, Gig Young

Wednesday, December 22

8:00am – TCM – Fort Apache
The first entry of John Ford’s informal Cavalry trilogy has John Wayne and Henry Fonda posted to the eponymous Fort following the Civil War, dealing with Indian uprisings, and delving in Fonda’s character of a man driven to reclaim his lost honor in the military by any means possible.
1948 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple.

10:15am – TCM – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
The Cavalry Trilogy continued with this film after Fort Apache; it’s my least favorite of the trilogy, but if you’re a fan, it’s a solid film.
1949 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Joanne Dru.
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12:00N – TCM – Rio Grande
One of several collaborations between John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, and John Ford, and the last in the informal Ford/Wayne Cavalry trilogy. This time Wayne and O’Hara play an estranged couple brought together when their teenaged son enlists and shows up to Wayne’s outpost for training, with O’Hara on his heels to try to take him home. Family relations and escalating conflicts with the Apaches combine to make, if not one of the best Ford/Wayne films, at least a very good one.
1950 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Ben Johnson, Claude Jarman Jr., Harry Carey Jr., Victor McLaglen.

1:45pm – TCM – The Searchers
Deservedly considered one of the greatest westerns ever made, a high point in the careers of both John Wayne and John Ford. Wayne is the almost anti-heroic main character Ethan Edwards, driven by anger and revenge to find the group of Indians who killed his nearly estranged family and kidnapped his young niece. Along with the contemporary films of Anthony Mann, The Searchers marks a point in the Western genre where we can no longer necessarily accept the motives of the good guys to be pure, and in fact, are forced to question if the good guys are actually good – perhaps the beginning of the revisionist western. Ford’s command of cinematic space and the language of the frame here is unparalleled, and the performances and everything else in the film match it.
1956 USA. Director: John Ford. Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Natalie Wood.
Must See

8:00pm – TCM – True Grit
John Wayne had a career full of iconic western roles before he won an Oscar for this one, as tough old U.S. Marshall “Rooster” Cogburn, recruited by a young woman to help her avenge her father’s death, a quest that takes them deep into Indian territory.
1969 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper.

8:00pm – IFC – Blood Simple
The Coen Brothers’ first feature is already a pretty good indication of their style – a noirish thriller with a black comedy edge where everything goes more and more wrong the more people try to fix their mistakes. When the “mistakes” involve murder, leaving evidence at murder scenes, and having the worst time ever trying to get rid of a body, you’re in for a good time at pretty much every character’s expense.
1984 USA. Director: Joel Coen. Starring: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh.

10:15pm – TCM – Rio Bravo
A ragtag group made up of a sheriff, a cripple, a drunk, and an untried youth guard a man in jail against the expected rescue attempts by his brother, the local bad guy. One of the most enjoyable westerns ever made, with all the actors having a great time with their characters.
1959 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan.
Must See
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11:00pm – IFC – Pulp Fiction
Tarantino’s enormously influential and entertaining film pretty much needs no introduction from me. Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta give the performances of their careers, Tarantino’s dialogue is spot-on in its pop-culture-infused wit, and the chronology-shifting, story-hopping editing style has inspired a host of imitators, most nowhere near as good.
1994 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Tim Roth, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames.
Must See

Thursday, December 23

9:00am – 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

3:30pm – TCM – National Velvet
One of my favorite movies growing up, probably not least of all because I was mad about anything to do with horses. Even so, National Velvet stands pretty tall among family friendly films, with a young Elizabeth Taylor fighting to run her beloved horse in England’s most prestigious steeplechase with the help of world-weary youth Mickey Rooney.
1944 USA. Director: Clarence Brown. Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Anne Revere, Angela Lansbury.

6:00pm – TCM – The Black Stallion
I wouldn’t dare to guess how many times I saw this movie as a horse-crazy kid, but I would dare argue that its central section with its almost total lack of dialogue as Alec and The Black get to know each other while shipwrecked on a deserted island is still among my favorite sections in any family movie. The bombast of the beginning and ending always exhausted me in comparison.
1979 USA. Director: Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Hoyt Axton.

Friday, December 24

9:15am – IFC – Spirited Away
Often considered Hayao Miyazaki’s finest film, it’s easily among the best family-friendly animated films in existence, full of magic and wonder, gods and spirits, and shapeshifting spells.
2001 Japan. Director: Hayao Miyazaki. Starring: Rumi Hiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki.
(repeats at 4:00pm)

2:00pm – TCM – The Man Who Came to Dinner
A rare comedic film for Bette Davis, though the film mainly focuses on Monty Woolley as an acerbic newspaper critic forced to take up residence with a midwestern family when he breaks his hip outside their house. Woolley was a great character actor here given the spotlight, and he takes it and runs with it. A great script by Julius and Philip Epstein (of Casablanca) doesn’t hurt, either.
1942 USA. Director: William Keighley. Starring: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Monty Woolley, Jimmy Durante, Billie Burke.

4:00pm – TCM – In the Good Old Summertime
A musical remake of Ernst Lubtisch’s The Shop Around the Corner, and understandably not as good, but the story is still solid and it’s a decent enough time waster. Look for a three-year-old Liza Minnelli playing Judy Garland’s daughter (appropriately enough) at the end.
1949 USA. Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Starring: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington.

9:00pm – IFC – Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Easily one of the most absurd, random, hilarious, and quotable comedies of all time. A more hapless bunch of Round Table knights couldn’t be found, and Monty Python has never been better than they are here.
1975 UK. Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones. Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones.
Must See
(repeats at 2:30am on the 25th)

2:00am (25th) – TCM – Meet Me in St. Louis
The ultimate nostalgia film, harking back to the turn of the century and the year leading up to the 1903 St. Louis World’s Fair. Judy Garland holds the film and the family in it together as the girl who only wants to love the boy next door, but it’s Margaret O’Brien as the little willful sister who adds the extra bit of oomph, especially in the manic Halloween scene and the violent Christmas scene that carries the film from an exercise in sentimentality into a deeper territory of loss and distress.
1944 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Judy Garland, Tom Drake, Lucille Bremer, Margaret O’Brien, Leon Ames, Mary Astor.
Must See

Saturday, December 25

6:00am – TCM – Little Women
This first sound version of Little Women has a young Katharine Hepburn in the lead, along with a roll-call of great 1930s starlets and character actors. It’s a bit wooden compared to the 1994 version, but it’s got a lot of charm nonetheless.
1933 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Edna May Oliver, Jean Parker, Frances Dee.

9:45am – Sundance – Le doulos
Jean-Paul Belmondo brings his signature style to Jean-Pierre Meville’s excellent crime film as a possible police informant working with another criminal on a jewel heist. These two men are played off each other in a sort of doubling motif – it’s often even difficult to tell which is which, due to careful cinematography and lighting work by Melville.
1962 France. Director: Jean-Pierre Melville. Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, René Lefèvre.

1:00pm – TCM – Ben-Hur
Charlton Heston is the titular character, going through pretty much everything a Jew in the first century could expect – mistreatment from the Romans, being sold as a galley slave as punishment for a minor offense, fighting for his life as an arena chariot racer, and becoming convinced by Jesus of Nazareth’s promises of hope and a better kingdom to come. Ben-Hur practically defines the word “epic,” and remains one of the best of the sword-and-sandal films so popular in the ’50s and ’60s.
1959 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Jack Hawkins, Hugh Griffith, Cathy O’Donnell, Martha Scott.
Must See

8:00pm – TCM – The Lion in Winter
Katharine Hepburn won her third (of four) Oscars for her role in this film as Plantagenet matriarch Eleanor of Aquitaine, a woman who probably had more to do with the course of British and European history than most men. The film concerns her, her husband King Henry II of England, and their quarrelsome sons Richard and John (who’d make their fair share of history as King Richard Coeur de Leone and King John, of the Magna Carta) during a particularly tense Christmas reunion. It can be difficult to make medieval-set films seem immediate, but this one does.
1968 UK. Director: Anthony Harvey. Starring: Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Nigel Terry, Timothy Dalton, Jane Merrow.

10:30pm – TCM – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis both won acting awards for their parts in Mike Nichols’ version of Edward Albee’s dysfunctional dinner party play. Remains probably the most well-remembered team-up of erstwhile couple Taylor and Richard Burton.
1966 USA. Director: Mike Nichols. Starring: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis, George Segal.

2:50am (26th) – Sundance – Tokyo!
I haven’t seen this yet, but Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho and Leos Carax doing an omnibus film set in one of the liveliest and most varied cities in the world? Sign me up.
2008 France/Japan/South Korea/Germany. Directors: Michel Gondry, Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax. Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Sohee Park, Julie Dreyfus.

3:00am (26th) – TCM – Ordinary People
Robert Redford’s drama about a family torn apart by a son’s accidental death won both Best Picture and Best Director when it came out.
1980 USA. Director: Robert Redford. Starring: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, Timothy Hutton.
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Sunday, December 26

6:30am – TCM – Old Yeller
One of the great tear-jerker family films, about a family in the old west who adopt a stray dog, growing to love and depend on the animal in the absence of their father (away on a cattle drive). Ah, yes, the good old days, when kids movies weren’t all happy-peppy all the time.
1957 USA. Director: Robert Stevenson. Starring: Dorothy Maguire, Fess Parker, Tommy Kirk, Kevin Corcoran.

8:00am – TCM – Pollyanna
Thanks to the book this film is based on, the term “pollyanna” came to mean someone with an almost unnaturally optimistic person – tons of bad things happen to Pollyanna, but she can always find the positive spin, which makes this movie tend a bit toward the saccharine side. I enjoy it because it has some classic older stars in it, some of them very close to the end of their careers – Jane Wyman, Agnes Moorehead, and Adolphe Menjou to start with.
1960 USA. Director: David Swift. Starring: Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead.
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12:00N – TCM – Swiss Family Robinson
Disney’s classic version of the quintessential family adventure story, as the Robinson family are shipwrecked and must learn to survive and thrive in the jungle wilderness on their own. It’s basically impossible to watch this movie and not immediately want your own elaborate treehouse.
1960 USA. Director: Ken Annakin. Starring: John Mills, Dorothy Maguire, James MacArthur, Janet Munro, Sessue Hayakawa, Tommy Kirk.

4:15pm – TCM – The Parent Trap
The original 1961 version of this story has Hayley Mills as the twin girls who find each other at summer camp and set out to bring their divorced parents back together. A ton of fun, especially for families.
1961 USA. Director: David Swift. Starring: Hayley Mills, Maureen O’Hara, Brian Keith.
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10:00pm – Sundance – Little Children
Todd Field’s perfectly written (and acted) story of intersecting unhappy suburbanites reminds us why melodrama shouldn’t be a bad word – this is melodrama at its very best, and its very best is stunning. Kate Winslet turns in a should’ve-been-Oscar-winning performance as the frustrated wife and mother grasping for an emotional connection with another neighborhood dad (Patrick Wilson), while Jackie Earle Haley registered a comeback as a sex offender.
2006 USA. Director: Todd Field. Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Gregg Edelman, Jackie Earle Haley.

2:00am (27th) – TCM – Bicycle Thieves
One of the best and most iconic films from the Italian Neo-Realist movement. A man finally acquires a job, because he has the requisite bicycle needed to do the job. But when his bicycle is stolen, he and his son go on an increasingly desperate odyssey to try to recover it. Neo-Realism is known for its use of urban, location shooting and non-actors to deliver an authentic picture of life, and Bicycle Thieves succeeds superbly on every front. (aka The Bicycle Thief)
1948 Italy. Director: Vittorio De Sica. Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda.
Must See