It coulda been a Hitchcock....

TCM is airing the interesting, if flawed, movie The Wreck of the Mary Deare, tonight at 10:30 PM ET.

Charlton Heston stars as the skipper of a salvage vessel somewhere in the foggy English Channel. The ship collides wiht another one, and Heston goes aboard the other ship to investigate. Thing is, he finds that the ship is on fire and has been scuttled, with nobody aboard. Well, almost nobody. One rough-looking old man, played by Gary Cooper, is still aboard. He's claiming that the captain deliberately set the ship on fire and scuttled it, because the captain (and rest of the crew) was involved in some sort of dark, nefarious business. He (Cooper) knew that there was something fishy going on, and the captain had him locked up for that.

Heston isn't so certain whether to believe the guy, but he keeps his mouth shut at the court of naval inquiry that follows, but Cooper wants the exact location of the wreck kept a secret, because otherwise, his former bosses will find the wreck and do away with the incriminating evidence. Indeed, there's already a race on to find the Mary Deare, and Heston, with his salvage boat, is the only one who can help Cooper....

The Wreck of the Mary Deare isn't a bad movie, although it comes across as being a bit by-the-numbers. Most of the story is about the Heston and Cooper characters, so nobody else in the cast really gets their characters developed. Watch, though, for some very good actors, such as Alexander Knox as an investigator working on behalf of the owners, and a young Richard Harris as the second officer of the Mary Deare, and the villain of the movie.

The more interesting thing about it is the fact that Alfred Hitchcock was originally supposed to be involved as director. However, he and his preferred screenwriter didn't particularly like the idea behind the movie, and wanted to come up with something else. They didn't tell the studio bosses at MGM until they did come up with that "something else" -- which just happened to be North by Northwest.

All of the Thriller, none of the Michael Jackson

TCM has been showing thrillers every Friday night in prime time in October. Tonight sees three more thrillers, two of which I've recommended before:

The wonderful The Narrow Margin, in which a police detective tries to shepherd a witness in a Mob trial on a cross-country train trip, kicks off the night at 8:00 PM ET.

At 10:30 PM, Lucille Ball is in danger in Lured, as a showgirl who may or may not be dating a killer.

The third movie is the 1944 version of The Lodger, a retelling of the Jack the Ripper story, with the Ripper character played here by Laird Cregar; it airs at 12:30 AM.

Perhaps more interesting, though, is a documentary on thrillers. TCM aired it two weeks ago, as a way to start the month-long festival, but they're showing it again tonight at 9:30 PM ET. A lot of it looks at the movies of Alfred Hitchcock, since he's probably the director most closely associated with the genre, but it's still not a bad little documentary. Note, however, that it's scheduled in a 60-minute slot, but with Robert Osborne's commentary before the showing, it might run over by a minute or two.

Mervyn LeRoy, 1900-1987

Today marks the birth anniversary of director Mervyn LeRoy. He directed a whole host of movies across genres from the early 1930s through the early 1960s, of which I've already recommended several:

I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, the Paul Muni classic about a man sent to a chain gang for a minor crime, who had to escape from it twice;

Three on a Match with Bette Davis (in her undies!) before she became a star, and Humphrey Bogart in one of his earliest roles, before he even reached the second tier;

Gold Diggers of 1933, a movie about neon violins and Ginger Rogers singing in Pig Latin. Well, that's not quite what it's about; it's one of those musicals with a threadbare plot that's more fun to watch for Busby Berkeley's ridiculous production numbers;

The dreadful epic Quo Vadis; and

The Bad Seed, about a girl who will go to pretty shocking lengths to get what she wants.

Interestingly, despite directing all of these wonderful movies, some of which are true classics, none of these earned LeRoy an Oscar nomination. He only got one nomination for Best Director, that being for the dreadfully treacly romance Random Harvest. It just goes to show how versatile the directors were back in those days, largely because they had to be -- the studios were putting out so many movies each year that the directors had to learn to do whatever type of movie the studio bosses were telling them to do.

Wheeler and Woolsey

TCM is honoring one of the earlier comic duos in Hollywood history, Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, by showing four of their movies. Wheeler and Woolsey are, for whatever reason, not very well-remembered today. It's most likely because their work came at the beginning of the sound era, and the sound technology wasn't quite so ready for the more rapid verbal comedy that the pair did. (By the same token, the Marx Brothers' earliest works, such as The Cocoanuts seem quite dated compared to stuff just a few years later.) Also, they are a bit of an acquired taste, and not because of the fact that comedy dates over 80 years. However, Wheeler and Woolsey did a few movies with scenes in two-strip Technicolor, and are also responsible for the original movie version of Girl Crazy, which was later made into a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musical. However, Girl Crazy and the Technicolor movies aren't among the selections for tonight.

Angels With Dirty Faces again

It's been almost six months since I made a brief reference to the James Cagney movie Angels With Dirty Faces. It's airing again overnight at 3:45 AM ET (that is, very early on the morning of the 14th).

I was going to use the airing to do a post on the various gangsters that James Cagney played. Goodness knows he played enough of them. However, it turns out that I already did that last October.

Columbus Day

Today being a holiday, and there not being any particularly exciting movies on, it's time for another Lazy List Post. (Heck, there aren't even any major birthdays.) It's Columbus Day, which means any nmber of things:

Explorers. Quite a few biopics have been made about explorers. Columbus himself was the subject of one back in the late 1940s, and another pair on the 500th anniversary of his first voyage, in 1992. Marco Polo got one in the late 1930s, while Lewis and Clark were portrayed by Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston in 1955's The Far Horizons. As for fictitious explorers, you can see some Antarctic explorers in Dirigible.

Italian-Americans. One of the obvious stereotypes of Italian-Americans is as the Mob; see Little Caesar. There's also Italian-American food, such as spaghetti, although that's really Chinese, as was seen in The Adventures of Marco Polo. Spaghetti is rather interestingly mentioned as being new to America at the turn of the previous century in The Strawberry Blonde.

Leaf Peeping. Autumn Leaves isn't really about the autumn, and it's in black and white, so we wouldn't see the brilliant colors anyhow. Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound sems set at some point in autumn when Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman go picnicking, but only a week or so later, they face a heavy snowfall more indicative of winter. Besides, it too is in black and white. A better movie with the brilliant autumn colors would be Hitchcock's The Trouble With Harry.

Eight arms to hold you

TCM has selected a pair of movies starring Lon Chaney for its Silent Sunday Night feature. The first of these is The Unknown, starting just after midnight tonight.

Chaney stars as a circus knife-thrower who doesn't have any arms; instead he uses his feet. The young woman at whom he throws the knife is a very young Joan Crawford, who was about 19 at the time. She's not bad-looking here; at least, she looks good enough to have all of the "regular" men in the circus wanting to paw her. Unfortunately for them, she's got a thing about their dirty arms and minds, and can't bear to be held by men, which makes Chaney a natural protector for her -- if not a love interest. Indeed, Chaney falls in love with her, but it's a more or less unrequited love.

That's not the only problem for Chaney, though. He's got what's best called a dark secret that should remain a secret until it's revealed in the movie. Suffice it to say that Chaney is willing to go to pretty shocking lengths in order to win Crawford's love. But wouldn't you know that those lengths are all for naught, as Crawford is able to overcome her fear of being held in a man's arms, falling for the circus strongman. This enrages Chaney, who vows to take revenge....

If you haven't seen The Unknown, it's a pretty shocking movie, and one that holds up well over 80 years. It's the sort of movie that proves that you don't need large amounts blood and gore to frighten and unnerve people. But then, Tod Browning, who directed the movie, was a master of doing precisely this during the silent era, and the beginning of the sound era. The Unknown isn't quite as shocking as, say, Freaks (which will be airing at 6:00 AM ET this coming Saturday), but it's still a pretty darn good movie. And if you want to introduce silent films to people who only think of the slapstick comedy of the silent era, a movie like The Unknown isn't a bad place to start.

Odd advertising

TCM promote their upcoming movies by showing theatrical trailers. If you've been watching TCM recently, you've probably seen that Love Affair, the 1939 romance starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, is coming up tonight at 8:00 PM ET.

However, there's somethinf wrong with that trailer. It's made of entirely of publicity stills, with a voice-over. I honestly can't recall seeing a trailer like that before. I could imagine something like this being made for a re-release, since the studio wouldn't put so much energy into editing a promo for an older movie. But, the blurb at the end calls it an RKO picture, with no evidence that this is a re-release. (If you watch other trailers carefully, you'll note that some of them state that the movie is a re-release.) Also, I can't imagine such drivel as we hear in the voice-over actually convincing the moviegoers of 1939; it sounds more like something that would have been used on TV. So what prompted making an odd trailer like this?

Glenn Ford, bad guy

TCM is airing the original version of the classic western 3:10 to Yuma at 6:15 PM ET this evening.

Van Heflin plays a rancher in the dry Arizona Territory who is trying ro fetch his herd along with his two sons. However, his attempt is interrupted when he comes along a stagecoach holdup in progress, committed by a gang of crooks led by Glenn Ford. It's a life-changing experience for all of them. Naturally, Ford is wanted by the law, and he's got a princely sum on his head. Nobody has the courage to turn him in to the authorities, though, because they know that his gang will come after them if they do so. Heflin, however, has rather more pragmatic concerns. It's those cattle in bone-dry Arizona. The place is going through a drought, and it questionable whether or not he'll be able to save the ranch. The reward money for turning in Ford would go a long way toward saving it. So, all Heflin has to do is apprehend Ford, and hold him until the authorities can come and take him away on the train -- the 3:10 to Yuma of the title -- where Ford has a date with the hangman's noose.

There's that pesky little word "all", though. It's really not that simple, or else we'd have a very different movie. Ford, despite being a remorseless killer, is also an exceedingly charming man, and quickly turns to trying to charm Heflin into letting him go, and trying to put doubts into Heflin's mind as to whether he'll even be able to succeed in turning Ford in. After all, Ford does have a gang to back him up, and they're bound to be waiting for the 3:10 to Yuma, too.

Glenn Ford has the looks of a leading man, and is definitely the lead here. He looks as though he's relishing his chance to play a bad guy, since many of the stars of that day didn't get the chance to play the bad guy all that often. Heflin, on the other hand, didn't have the looks of a leading man, and it certainly shows here, much to the film's benefit. Heflin looks uncomfortable, mostly because that's how his character should look: the man, it must be remembered, has never done anything like hold a criminal in custody awaiting transfer. (Who among us has?) He's not doing this because it's the right thing to do; he's doing it for the money. Both actors get great roles to play in a movie that has relatively little action: like the previously-mentioned No Name on the Bullet, it's more of a psychological suspense movie that just happens to be set in the Old West.

3:10 to Yuma was remade a few years back, and sadly, a lot of the search engine image searches yield more pictures from the remake than the original. The more important thing, though, is that the movie has been released to DVD.

The more modern all-star cast

There were a few great movies in the 1930s with ensemble casts full of stars, such as Dinner at Eight. The genre, however, was probably at its most prevalent in the 1970s, when it combined with the disaster movie, to make such schlock as The Cassandra Crossing, which TCM is airing today at 4:00 PM ET.

With so many stars, the plot is bound to get a bit convoluted, so let's see if I can get this right in one go without screwing things up too badly: Burt Lancaster is a US military man, working on biological weapons at a Swiss facility with doctor Ingrid Thulin. Terrorists break into the facility, but their attack goes wrong, and at least one of them ends up infected with the new superbug. Worse, in getting away, the bad guy gets on an international train full of American and European movie stars! Fortunately for them, one of those stars is a doctor, Richard Harris, who is going through marriage problems with Sophia Loren. The bad news, though, is that nobody has a cure for the bug yet, so Lancaster decides that the best thing to do is "quarantine" the train and its passengers by diverting the train to Poland. What he doesn't tell everybody is that just inside the Polish border, there's a no longer used trestle known as the Cassandra crossing, which has fallen into disrepair and will likely buckle under the weight of this train. (Perfect for Lancaster, since he'd really rather have nobody know about the military's involvement in this plague.)
Who else is on the train? Martin Sheen is playing sugar baby to Ava Gardner; OJ Simpson as a priest (and then some); and folks like Alida Valli (the female lead in The Third Man), acting teacher Lee Strasberg, and Lionel Stander.

The disaster movies of the 1970s were filled with casts like this, going back at least to Airport (which coincidentally also starred Lancaster). By 1976, when The Cassandra Crossing was released, however, the genre was running out of steam. As such, the movie is mostly overblown and rather a failure. But, it's one of those really fun failures, the sort of movie that's just so nuts that you can't help but have a good time despite it's being so crummy and cliché-ridden.

If you miss today's TCM showing, The Cassandra Crossing is available on DVD.