Yes, more shilling for my favorite channel, TCM. They really should start paying me for all this free advertising. I’m sure I’ve given them at least one or two viewers, and that’s got to be nearly 1/10 of their entire audience.
I kid … I joke. We always make fun of the ones we love.
Anyway, it’s the home stretch kids, and the rest of the month looks pretty good featuring four of the greatest male movie stars to every grace the silver screen as well as a swimmer. Friday features the always suave Cary Grant, Saturday is all about the strong and stoic Gary Cooper, and Sunday reveals the nobility of Gregory Peck. On Monday, TCM gives us a break from the heavy stuff with a day of popcorn from the 40s and 50s featuring Esther Williams. And on Tuesday you might as well just call in sick (especially if you’re in NYC and trying to avoid the RNC) since it’s a day filled with truly great Kirk Douglas movies. (Seriously, you could do much worse than spending your day watching Mourning Becomes Electra, Lust For Life, The Bad and the Beautiful, Cast a Giant Shadow, Paths of Glory, The War Wagon, The Way West, Out of the Past and Two Weeks in Another Town.)
Check out the remainder of the month. My “highlights” and suggestions for these days can be found after the jump. If you want to see my complete original post about this month’s TCM programming, you can find that here.
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Aug. 27 — Cary Grant: The people behind De-Lovely like to make the point that their film is a true representation of songwriter Cole Porter’s life because it doesn’t shy away from his homosexuality. They say that specifically because of Night and Day (11:30 AM) in which Grant takes his own stab at portraying Porter, albeit in a highly fictionalized, and cleaned-up, version of his life. The two highlights (albeit somewhat obvious ones) of the day for me would have to be North By Northwest (2 PM) and Arsenic and Old Lace (6 PM).
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Aug. 28 — Gary Cooper: I actually often find Cooper a little bland, but in his best roles, he used that dry, sometimes monotonous delivery to the benefit of the overall film. And looking at the full schedule for Gary Cooper day, it’s hard to refute the impact he and his films had on Hollywood. There are three “don’t miss” movies being shown by TCM, the most important of them being High Noon at 8 PM. Easily one of the best Westerns of all time, it was also a highly political polemic against McCarthyism and all forms of “witch-hunt” mob mentality. In a society where honest disagreement actually leads some people to call others unpatriotic, High Noon is as relevant today as it always was. I would also encourage you to catch his moving portrayal of Lou Gehrig in The Pride of the Yankees (even those Red Sox fans out there) at 11:15 PM. And you Adam Sandler fans who thought Mr. Deeds was so funny, take a look at the original Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1:30 AM). It may be simpler and not as whacky, and it’s definitely a bit quaint and dated, but it’s also from the mid-30s and quite simply, it’s just a better movie.
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Aug. 29 — Gregory Peck: Peck was well-known for playing the noble hero, the defender of the defenseless, the champion to the underserved. In Gentleman’s Agreement (not on the TCM schedule), he played a journalist who goes undercover as a Jew to blow open rampant anti-Semitism. The whole concept seems funny now, but it was that kind of role that Peck made the hallmark of his career. The most notable example, of course, being his Oscar-winning portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird which airs at 10 PM. But this evening presents a great double-bill as well if you start at 8 PM with the original Cape Fear in which Peck played the lawyer whose family is terrorized by an absolutely riveting Robert Mitchum.
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Aug. 30 — Esther Williams: Of all 31 stars on this schedule, Williams is the one with whom I’m least familiar. She was the queen of the swimming/bathing beauty movie musicals, and plenty of them are on hand on this day. In fact, I think I’ve only seen one of the movies on the schedule, and I don’t know that Williams even puts on a bathing suit. Take Me Out to the Ballgame (3:!5 PM) is a fun little musical comedy romp also starring Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Betty Garrett and directed by the legendary Busby Berkeley, although it was at the end of his career. If you want to check-out Williams, start there. If you want to see one of her swimming flicks, give Million Dollar Mermaid a try. It’s directed by Mervyn LeRoy, but Berkeley apparently helped choreograph the swimming numbers.
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Aug. 31 — Kirk Douglas: Is it the end of the month already? My how time flies. With Douglas, TCM definitely saved one of the best for last, giving us a great lineup. My personal “don’t mss” will be The Bad and the Beautiful (2 PM) because I’ve wanted to see it for a long time and never have. I have a thing for movies about the movies and Hollywood (hence my worshipping of Sunset Blvd.), and Vincente Minnelli’s film is often considered one of the best. But wait, there’s more. See Minnelli direct Douglas again a the actor brings the life of Vincent van Gogh to the screen in Lust For Life (11:30 AM). And at 6:30 PM is Stanley Kubrick’s masterful early war film Paths of Glory (6:30 PM). But the noir-addict in me can’t help but demand that you watch Out of the Past at 12:15 AM. This film was just released on DVD, and I wrote a bit about it recently. It’s one of the two or three most important (and best) films of the noir grouping (I hesitate to call noir a specific genre because it can span so many), and Douglas is simply remarkable in it.
Out of Focus 