The Legend of Hell House, playing Monday on Fox Movie ChannelAfter a dearth of newly featured ones last week, there are quite a few to peruse this week, as well as plenty of great previously featured ones. TCM continues their Monday horror classic series with some Hammer and Vincent Price greats, while Fox Movie Channel horns in on the action with The Legend of Hell House. More Nicholas Ray from TCM on Tuesday, including the excellent and underseen Bigger Than Life. This being the horror season, I went ahead and threw on Saw on IFC on Thursday, even though it’s not a franchise that I’m particularly interested in watching myself. Saturday brings a couple of Oscar-winning dramas on TCM, 1960′s Elmer Gantry and 1978′s Coming Home, while the tribute to Buster Keaton continues overnight on Sunday.
Monday, October 17
8:15am – TCM – Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Frank Capra puts on his idealist hat to tell the story of Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an inexperienced young man appointed as a junior senator because the corrupt senior senator thinks he’ll be easy to control. But Smith doesn’t toe the party line, instead launching a filibuster for what he believes in. Wonderful comedienne Jean Arthur is the journalist who initially encourages Smith so she can get a great story from his seemingly inevitable downfall, but soon joins his cause.
1939 USA. Director: Frank Capra. Starring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Eugene Pallette, Thomas Mitchell.
Must See
10:30am – TCM – A Foreign Affair
A lesser Billy Wilder film, but Billy Wilder nonetheless, and though Jean Arthur’s opening plot line of an uptight congresswoman going to Berlin to “keep up morale” among the post-war occupying US soldiers (by which she really means “keep up morals”) gets old quickly, Marlene Dietrich’s worldly cabaret singer – and possible Nazi collaborator – keeps things interesting.
1948 USA. Director: Billy Wilder. Starring: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell.
Newly Featured!
11:15am – IFC – Volver
Pedro Almodóvar deftly straddles the line between drama and comedy in one of his more accessible films. Two sisters return to their home at the death of their aunt, only to find their mother’s ghost – or is it a ghost? And as always in Almodóvar’s films, there are related subplots aplenty. Penélope Cruz is incredible as the younger, fierier sister – she’s never been more moving than in her passionate rendition of the title song, nor funnier than when calmly cleaning up a murder scene.
2006 Spain. Director: Pedro Almodóvar. Starring: Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanco Portillo, Yohana Cobo
Must See
12:00N – Fox Movie – I Wake Up Screaming
Better known for bright and sunny musicals, Betty Grable took a turn for the noir in this crime film, playing the sister of a recently-murdered model with a rising career. It’s a slight noir, but fun nonetheless, especially for the chance to see Grable in a role unusual for her.
1942 USA. Director: H. Bruce Humberstone. Starring: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis.
(repeats at 9:00am on the 18th)
2:15pm – TCM – The Lady from Shanghai
Most of Welles’ films, no matter the genre, feel a little noirish in mood, but The Lady from Shanghai is the real thing, complete with fatalistic hero who gets dragged into a murder plot by a femme fatale (Rita Hayworth). And noir set-pieces don’t get much better than the chase sequence set in a bewildering hall of mirrors.
1948 USA. Director: Orson Welles. Starring: Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth.
3:45pm – TCM – Red River
Howard Hawks’ brilliant transposition of Mutiny on the Bounty into the Old West has John Wayne as a tyrannical cattle drive leader and Montgomery Clift (in one of his earliest roles) as his adopted son who soon defies him.
1948 USA. Director: Howard Hawks. Starring: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru.
Must See
6:00pm – 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.
7:55pm – MGM – 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.
(repeats at 12:05am on the 24th)
8:00pm – TCM – Horror of Dracula
Hammer Studios’ first take on the Dracula story mostly follows Bram Stoker’s novel, but with some very noticable departures; faithful or not, it’s a great, colorful, florid take on the vampire legend, with Christopher Lee inhabiting what would become his role as much as it was Lugosi’s in the 1930s and Peter Cushing giving us a definitive Van Helsing.
1958 UK. Director: Terence Fisher. Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh.
8:00pm – Fox Movie – The Legend of Hell House
A disparate group of people go to the notorious Hell House to try to prove whether or not it’s haunted – previous attempts ended in madness or death. One of the quintessential haunted house films.
1973 UK. Director: John Hough. Starring: Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicutt, Roland Culver.
Newly Featured!
(repeats at 10:00pm, at 10:00pm on the 22nd, and 2:00am on the 23rd)
9:30pm – TCM – House on Haunted Hill
Eccentric Vincent Price invites a group of strangers to his haunted mansion, promising ten thousand dollars to the ones who can stay overnight. But there’s more than ghosts threatening their safety. A gleefully fun William Castle film with a few genuine chills.
1959 USA. Director: William Castle. Starring: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal, Carlyn Craig, Elisha Cook Jr.
11:00pm – TCM – The Tingler
One of William Castle’s best-known films and most elaborate gimmicks – seat buzzers that activate throughout the cinema when the titular fear-powered creature gets loose in a crowded theatre. The film is campy as can be, but it’s a huge amount of fun – it’ll be decent enough on TV, but if you get a chance to see it done in a theatre tricked out with seat buzzers, do not miss it.
1959 USA. Director: William Castle. Starring: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts, Pamela Lincoln.
Newly Featured!
12:30am (18th) – TCM – House of Wax
A master sculptor has his nearly-complete wax museum destroyed in a fire, and his hands along with it. To try to recreate his life’s work, he goes to rather drastic means. This was one of the premiere films of the 1950s wave of 3D, and with Vincent Price in the lead, it has its costume drama thrills.
1953 USA. Director: André de Toth. Starring: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones, Paul Picerni.
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