The Devil is a Woman, playing on Wednesday on TCMSummer Under the Stars over at TCM finishes up this week, with the final three days of the month filled out by Anne Francis, Howard Keel, and Marlene Dietrich. If you like MGM musicals, you’ll be set on Tuesday with Keel’s tribute, but I know my DVR is going to be tuned squarely to the quartet of Marlene Dietrich/Josef von Sternberg films on Wednesday night. I’ve only seen a couple of them, and I’ve been dying to see the others for quite some time.
Monday, August 29
5:00pm – TCM – Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand tied Katharine Hepburn, no less, to win an Oscar for her role as Ziegfeld comedienne Fanny Brice, and well-deserved, too – she captures Brice’s mannerisms and her combination of winsome self-deprecation mixed with raucous comedic talent perfectly. The film is crafted strongly around her, too, with Wyler (with one of his last films) filling the widescreen beautifully and not letting the film, despite its long running time, stray too far into indulgence.
1968 USA. Director: William Wyler. Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon.
8:00pm – TCM – Blackboard Jungle
Glenn Ford is the teacher who takes on rowdy inner-city kids in one of the earlier “heroic teacher” films. A young Sidney Poitier is one of the students, and a scene in which a record of “Rock Around the Clock” is played is reputed to be the first time rock n’ roll appeared in a film.
1955 USA. Director: Richard Brooks. Starring: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Sidney Poitier.
8:00pm – IFC – The Descent
There aren’t too many people better at straight-up genre fare with flair than Neil Marshall, and this spelunking adventure gone wrong is a prime example – claustrophobia mounts as our characters are trapped in a cave, but that’s not all they have to deal with down there.
2005 UK. Director: Neil Marshall. Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Jackson Mendoza, Alex Reid.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 12:05am on the 30th)
8:00pm – Fox Movie – Call Northside 777
One of Jimmy Stewart’s first films after spending the war as a fighter pilot; he plays a reporter compelled to reopen an eleven-year-old murder case, coming to believe the wrong man was sentenced to life in prison. A good combo of film noir and mystery.
1948 USA. Director: Henry Hathaway. Starring: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb.
(repeats at 12:00M)
10:00pm – TCM – Forbidden Planet
What’s better than Shakespeare’s The Tempest? Why, a science fiction film set on a planet run by a maverick genius, his robot, and his daughter, of course. Okay, Forbidden Planet isn’t really better than The Tempest, but it is an interesting take on the play, and an obvious influence on the original Star Trek.
1956 USA. Director: Fred M. Wilcox. Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen, Anne Francis.
10:00pm – MGM – Fiddler on the Roof
A Tzarist-era Russian Jewish village doesn’t seem a particularly likely place to set a musical, but Fiddler on the Roof does a good job of it, exploring the clashing cultures as patriarch Tevye tries to marry his daughters off to good Jewish husbands with decreasing success.
1971 USA. Director: Norman Jewison. Starring: Topol, Norma Crane, Leonard Frey, Rosalind Harris, Michele Marsh, Neva Small, Michael Glaser.
» Read the rest of the entry..
(4.5/5)
