Elevator to the Gallows, playing Monday on TCM.

Tuesday is the last day for TCM’s Jean Harlow tribute, with a couple of films I’ve seen and a couple I haven’t (and thus didn’t highlight), then they’ve got a short series of sparkling Lubitsch comedies on Wednesday night. Somehow I apparently haven’t ever had a chance to feature the original Frankenstein in this column, which I find surprising, but it’s coming up on Saturday – probably my favorite of the Universal monster cycle. Also don’t miss Louis Malle’s great proto-New Wave Elevator to the Gallows late Monday night, or extremely solid British noir The Fallen Idol on Wednesday. Most everything else has played before, but there’s still some definite gems in there.

Monday, March 28

8:00pm – TCM – Annie Hall
Often considered Woody Allen’s transition film from “funny Woody” to “serious Woody,” Annie Hall is both funny, thoughtful, and fantastic. One of the best scripts ever written, a lot of warmth as well as paranoid cynicism, and a career-making role for Diane Keaton (not to mention fashion-making).
1977 USA. Director: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane.
Must See

11:45pm – TCM – Elevator to the Gallows
A jazz-infused odyssey through Paris juxtaposing Maurice Ronet being caught in an elevator after murdering his boss, and his fiance Jeanne Moreau’s attempts to find Maurice, unsuspecting his plight. A fresh breath of barely pre-New Wave crime from Louis Malle, with Miles Davis’ score tying everything together gorgeously.
1957 France. Director: Louis Malle. Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly.
Must See
Newly Featured!

Tuesday, March 29

8:30am – IFC – 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.

6:05pm – Sundance – Mammoth
A favorite among a few Row Three writers, though not unanimously, this film from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson gives a three-faceted look at the modern world, contrasting an American businessman, his family, their Filipino maid, and her family.
2009 Sweden. Director: Lukas Moodysson. Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Michelle Williams, Marife Necesito.
(repeats at 1:00am and 11:05am on the 30th)

8:00pm – TCM – Dinner at Eight
Dinner at Eight is one of the best examples of a 1930s MGM ensemble comedy. You got two Barrymores (Lionel and John), Jean Harlow (one of her best couple of roles), Wallace Beery (fresh off an Oscar win), Marie Dressler (largely forgotten now, but also just a recent Oscar winner at the time), and others converging for a dinner party. Sparkling dialogue is the real star here.
1933 USA. Director: George Cukor. Starring: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Billie Burke.

11:30pm – TCM – Platinum Blonde
An early Jean Harlow role, a bit before they knew quite what to do with her – she’s cast here as a society lady, a role which ill-fits her, but the studio knew they had something in her, renaming the film halfway through production to highlight her most obvious feature. The story concerns a reporter smitten with Harlow, while ignoring noble girl Friday Loretta Young. A solid script from Robert Riskin and direction from Frank Capra keep it snappy and interesting, though you’ll probaby wish Young and Harlow had just swapped roles.

Wednesday, March 30

5:00pm – IFC – Marie Antoinette
Though Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is unconventional, it is a solid and riveting re-interpretation of the giddy but not untroubled courts of Louis XVI and Louis XVII. The use of actors like Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman, who are not known as period actors, as well as anachronistic music, sounds like an ill-conceived attempt to make the story feel contemporary, but it actually works. Coppola took some serious risks with this film, but they paid off beyond all expectation.
2006 USA. Director: Sofia Coppola. Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne.
(repeats at 12:15pm on the 31st)

9:30pm – TCM – The Fallen Idol
A murder mystery unusually told through the eyes of a child. The “idol” of the title is a butler, highly regarded by his employer’s lonely young son. When the butler’s wife (generally a shrewish woman that neither the butler nor the son particularly like) meets an untimely end, the boy is certain she was murdered – but how badly may he have misconstrued what he’s seen? It’s a simple plot, but the point of view and how it changes the way we react to the events in question is astoundingly well done.
1948 UK. Director: Carol Reed. Starring: Ralph Richardson, Bobby Henry, Sonia Dresdel.
Newly Featured!

1:00am (31st) – TCM – Trouble in Paradise
Lubtisch excels in sophisticated comedies set among the fading European nobility, and this is right up there with his best, as classy thief Herbert Marshall and pickpocket Miriam Hopkins join forces to infiltrate and fleece the rich.
1932 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Edward Everett Horton.

4:30am (31st) – TCM – To Be or Not to Be
If you never listen to anything else I ever say, listen to this: To Be or Not To Be is one of the greatest films of all time, and you should see it. It’s a comedy about Nazi Germany. I know. Jack Benny plays the leader of a Polish theatre troupe, specializing in playing Hamlet alongside his philandering wife, played by Carole Lombard. I know. When Hitler takes over Poland, the troupe engages in an act of espionage both dangerous and ridiculous. I know! It’s simultaneously hilarious, ominous, and heartbreaking. Director Ernst Lubitsch’s finest hour? For me it is. Carole Lombard’s best role (the final one of her career, before she was killed in a plane crash returning from a war bond tour)? For me it is.
1943 USA. Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Starring: Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Sig Ruman.
Must See

6:00am (31st) – TCM – Only Angels Have Wings
I’ve never gotten into Only Angels Have Wings as much as I have into other Howard Hawks films – why I don’t know. It has elements I like – Cary Grant as a daring pilot making dangerous cargo runs in exotic locales, Jean Arthur in an uncharacteristically dramatic turn, and a sighting of a young Rita Hayworth. Just doesn’t seem to come together in a memorable whole for me.
1939 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell.

Thursday, March 31

7:25am – Sundance – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Luis Bu˜uel made a career out of making surrealist anti-bourgeois films, and this is one of the most surreal, most anti-bourgeois, and best films he ever made, about a dinner party that just can’t quite get started due to completely absurd interruptions.
1972 France. Director: Luis Buñuel. Starring: Fernando Rey, Paul Fankeur, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel.
(repeats at 1:30pm)

7:30am – IFC – Away from Her
A very strong directing debut film from actress Sarah Polley, about an older woman (Julie Christie) suffering from Alzheimer’s and her husband’s difficulty in dealing with essentially the loss of his wife as she has more and more difficulty remembering their life together. It’s a lovely, heartbreaking film, bolstered by great understated performances.
2006 Canada. Director: Sarah Polley. Starring: Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Stacey LaBerge.
(repeats at 2:45pm)

8:30am – TCM – Love Me Tonight
MacDonald and Chevalier were a quite successful pairing in early sound-era operettas, and this is one of their best – a pretty excellent musical comedy of noblemen and peasants and mistaken identity directed by Rouben Mamoulian doing his best Ernst Lubitsch impersonation (Lubitsch actually did do a couple of films teaming MacDonald and Chevalier, but none as good as this one).
1932 USA. Director: Rouben Mamoulian. Starring: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy.

9:10am – Sundance – Man on Wire
One of the most highly-acclaimed documentaries of recent years tells the story of high-wire walker Philippe Petit as he embarks on perhaps his most dangerous stunt yet.
2008 UK/USA. Director: James Marsh. Starring: Philippe Petit, Jean François Heckel, Jean-Louis Blondeau.
(repeats at 3:20pm)

6:00pm – TCM – Black Narcissus
Powell & Pressburger bring their fantastic use of color and solid understanding of melodrama to this story of a group of nuns in the Himalayas, battling nature, the nearby townspeople, and their own inner natures along the way.
1947 UK. Director: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger. Starring: Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, Jean Simmons, David Farrar.
Must See
(repeats at 12:00N on the 3rd)

8:00pm – TCM – All About Eve
One of the very best show business movies ever made, with Bette Davis in one of her many signature roles as Margo Channing, a Broadway actress just about to fade from the top of her game, with Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington, the kid waiting to take her place. The supporting cast are all wonderful as well, and the script? One of the greatest Hollywood has ever seen. It just crackles.
1950 USA. Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Celeste Holm, Thelma Ritter.
Must See

8:05pm – 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.
(repeats at 2:30am on the 1st)

Friday, April 1

6:45am – Sundance – A Town Called Panic
One of the most delightful films I saw in 2009, a whacked out stop-motion film from Belgium that follows Horse, Cowboy, and Indian throughout a series of adventures, mostly focused on trying to rebuild their house which keeps getting stolen every night. This is mile-a-minute absurdity with more inventiveness in 75 minutes than I usually see all year.
2009 Belium. Directors: Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar. Starring: Stéphane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Bruce Ellison, Vincent Pater.
(repeats at 11:15am and 3:45pm)

12:00N – TCM – Two Weeks With Love
A slight but enjoyable teen musical comedy of the type that MGM excelled at during the 1950s – this one has both Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds, two of MGM’s darlings at this sort of thing, at their brightest. It’s not a particularly good movie, but if you’re a fan of the genre, it’s a fun one. TCM is playing a bunch of these today, starting early in the morning; I only picked one to highlight because they’re largely interchangeable and this is probably the best, but like I said, if you’re a fan, take a look at the rest of TCM’s schedule today.

8:15pm – IFC – Cache
Very deliberate but intensely thought-provoking film from director Michael Haneke, delving into issues from privacy and surveillance to war guilt and revenge. It’s a difficult film, and one that stretches the limits of the suspense thriller, but if you’re willing to go along with it, it’s well worthwhile.
2005 France. Director: Michael Haneke. Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Bénichou.
(repeats at 3:15pm)

Saturday, April 2

7:30am – TCM – On Dangerous Ground
A tough cop gets too tough once too often and gets sent away from the city to upstate New York to cool off for a bit and investigate a murder up there; in the process, he meets and is captivated by a blind woman whose simple brother is a prime suspect in the case. A quieter than usual take on film noir (and unusually set in the country), but worth watching, as is most anything from director Nicholas Ray.
1952 USA. Director: Nicholas Ray. Starring: Robert Ryan, Ida Lupino, Ward Bond.
Newly Featured!

8:15am – IFC – Hero
Jet Li is the titular hero in this Zhang Yimou film, arguably the best of Yimou’s period action-on-wires films (though I’m partial to House of Flying Daggers myself). The story unfolds in flashback as Li explains to a warlord how he eliminated three would-be assassins (who happen to be three of Hong Kong cinema’s biggest stars, incidentally) – but all may not be precisely how it seems.
2002 China. Director: Zhang Yimou. Starring: Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung.
(repeats at 3:45pm)

9:00am – TCM – Frankenstein
The most recognizable image of Frankenstein’s monster comes from this film, rather a departure from Mary Shelley’s novel, but nonetheless iconic as a film. More a tragedy than a horror film, almost, with Dr. Frankenstein’s god-like experiments yielding a monster whose very simplicity becomes his downfall, and self-righteous townspeople who become monsters themselves. Lots more subtlety and tenderness than you’d expect.
1931 USA. Director: James Whale. Starring: Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Mae Clarke.
Must See
Newly Featured!

12:00N – TCM – Tarzan, the Ape Man
Get your pre-code action right here, as swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller brings Tarzan to life and Maureen O’Sullivan teaches him the ways of the human world as Jane. Generally, the sequel Tarzan and His Mate is considered the best of the series, but hey. Gotta start somewhere.
1932 USA. Director: W.S. Van Dyke. Starring: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan.

3:25pm – Sundance – L’auberge espagnole
A French student moves into an apartment with six other people in Barcelona. The interactions of these roommates with diverse cultural backgrounds and personalities forms the basis of the film as a whole, which may be short on plot but is great on the interpersonal relations and conversations that the French are so good at putting on film.
2002 France. Director: Cédric Klapisch. Starring: Romain Duris, Judith Godrèche, Kelly Reilly.

3:30pm – TCM – On the Beach
After nuclear war, most of humanity is destroyed; a small outpost in Australia survives, but not for long. See David’s longer take here;.
1959 USA. Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire.

10:15pm – IFC – Evil Dead 2
The sequel/remake to Sam Raimi’s wonderfully over-the-top demon book film, set in the same creepy wood-bound cabin, with even more copious amounts of blood and a lot more intentional humor. I’m still not sure which I like best, but either one will do when you need some good schlock. (I still haven’t seen Army of Darkness, I’m shamed to admit.
1987 USA. Director: Sam Raimi. Starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks.
(repeats at 4:15am on the 3rd)

Sunday, April 3

10:00am – TCM – The More the Merrier
A World War II housing shortage has Charles Coburn, Joel McCrea and Jean Arthur sharing an apartment; soon Coburn is matchmaking for McCrea and Arthur, and we get a wonderful, adorable romance out of it.
1943 USA. Director: George Stevens. Starring: Jane Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn.

2:00pm – TCM – Some Came Running
Frank Sinatra gets to prove his acting chops again as a cynical soldier returning to his small-town home. Shirley MacLaine is a revelation, and Dean Martin gets probably his best role, as well. Meanders a bit in the middle, but thanks to strong performances and incredibly well-done yet subtle mise-en-scene from Minnelli, ends up staying more memorable than you might expect.
1959 USA. Director: Vincente Minnelli. Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine.

4:30pm – TCM – The Defiant Ones
Convicts Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier escape, but are chained together and must learn to work with each other to evade the authorities. Made in 1958, just a few years into the Civil Rights Movement, it probably falls squarely into the message picture arena, but sometimes those are needed.
1958 USA. Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring: Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel.

6:00pm – IFC – Barton Fink
One of the Coen Brothers’ most brilliant dark comedies, 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.