Bob's Picks: Several Premieres?

Tonight is a night of "Bob's Picks" on TCM, when Robert Osborne picks four movies more or less the way a Guest Programmer would, except of course Robert doesn't sit down with himself to present them. The films Robert Osborne has selected are:

8:00 PM Frenchman's Creek, a pirate movie with Joan Fontaine;
10:00 PM My Cousin Rachel, based on a story by Daphne Du Maurier;
Midnight Who Done It?, with Abbott and Costello becoming detectives; and
1:30 AM The Ritz in which Jack Weston, trying to escape from his gangster brother-in-law, accidentally winds up in... a gay bathhouse!

I have a feeling the last three movies may be TCM premieres. Normally, when you look at the printable monthly schedule, there's a nice one-sentence synopsis of the movie. For Frenchman's Creek, for example, that's "A British noblewoman flees the life of the court to run off with a French pirate." But for the last three films, there's no synopsis. That's a sign that the movies haven't been on TCM before.

The folks on the TCM boards claim that the last time Frenchman's Creek aired (I didn't see it), TCM had a very bright print, so be warned.

Sun Valley Serenade

A movie I got around to watching off of my DVR over the weekend is Sun Valley Serenade. It's showing up tomorrow morning at 7:25 AM on FXM Retro, so you have another chance to catch it.

The movie starts off at what looks like a recording studio. A big band is auditioning for the had of the Sun Valley, ID ski resort, hoping to win the lucrative contract to perform over the Christmas season. However, there's a dispute between the arranger and their singer, Vivian Dawn (Lynn Bari). By a stroke of good luck, another orchestra, led by Glenn Miller (although he actually has a character name and technically isn't playing himself) showed up. And when Vivian stiffs the first orchestra, Glenn's arranger and pianist Ted Scott (John Payne) offers Vivian a song to sing with them. This gets Miller's band the job, much to the delight of all the members and their manager Nifty (Milton Berle). Especially deligted is Ted, who is clearly in love with Vivian. She likes him, but isn't necessarily ready for a permanent relationship yet.

So they're off to Sun Valley. Well, not just yet. They had been out of work for a while, and to try to drum up publicity and possible work, Nifty came up with a publicity stunt that's about to turn around and bite them in the rear end. With the war going on in Europe (Sun Valley Serenade was released a few months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor), Nifty got Ted to sponsor a refugee, thinking that the band helping raise a refugee child would be great publicity. And now with them about to set off for Sun Valley, they've been informed that their refugee is arring in New York soon. This shouldn't be too much of a problem, at least until they get to the harbor and meet their refugee. She is an all grown-up Karen (Sonja Henie). Karen makes matters worse by deciding, when she finds that Ted doesn't have a wife, that she's going to convince him to marry her. Vivian isn't going to like that.

Nifty tries to get Karen to stay with his aunt so that she won't screw things up for the band, but Karen convinces Nifty to let her go to Sun Valley too, although they don't tell anybody else about this. They're right not to tell anybody else about it, since Ted's none too pleased when he finds out, while Vivian really starts to get ticked when she sees how much time Karen is spending with Ted. Of course, since Sonja Henie is top-billed, you can probably guess what's going to happen in the last reel. Well, the last reel before the ice capades begin.

Sun Valley Serenade is a movie that I'd have qualms about recommending for its lousy plot. It's predictable, and Karen is frankly a bit of a jerk. She needed Fredric March and Myrna Loy from The Best Years of Our Lives to ask her if she was going to break up Vivian and Ted's relationship with an axe. And yet we're supposed to sympathise with her even though there's little sign that Vivian and Ted would ever have been unhappy if Karen hadn't shown up. There's some good cinematography, at least as well as you can do with black-and-white photography of scenery. The location shooting cries out for Technicolor. But there's also some truly horrible rear-projection scenes.

That having been said, Sun Valley Serenade is still worth watching. That's because it's got the music of Glenn Miller. And you can't possibly go wrong with that. Miller plays his old hits "Moonlight Serenade" and "In the Mood", and introduces "Chattanooga Choo-Choo", which was nominated for an Oscar. This last song is particularly worth mentioning, since it's an extended musical number that, after showing off Miller's orchestra, switches to a dance number with a very young Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers. They, like Glenn Miller, are well worth watching.

Overall, Sun Valley Serenade certainly deserves one viewing. You may even enjoy the story a lot more than I did. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't seem to be available on DVD, so you'll have to catch it on FXM before they put it back in the vault.

Nancy Davis (Reagan), 1921-2016

Nancy Davis in The Next Voice You Hear

By now you've probably heard about the death of Nancy Reagan, née Davis, who died yesterday at the age of 94. Of course, the reason her obituaries were so prominent were not because of her acting, but because of what she did after her acting career. She married fellow actor Ronald Reagan, and then in the 1960s helped his political career, all the way to the White House, where she spend two terms as First Lady to his President. It's partly because of that, and partly because she wasn't a star as an actress, that pictures of her work aren't quite as common as many of the other actors of the day.

Davis, I think, wasn't a bad actress, but I also think she never would have become a star even if Ronald hadn't gone into politics. Nancy is one of those many people who provided valuable supporting roles in all of those second-billing movies the studios were putting out. She's more of the female lead in The Next Voice You Hear, pictured above, but that's a smaller movie; I don't think she ever got such a big role in any of the prestige movies. She had a similar-sized role in Talk About a Stranger.

The Nancy Davis roles I've seen tend to have her as a bit stern, but ultimately sympathetic, as with the teacher she played in It's a Big Country, where she has to convince Fredric March that his son needs glasses. It may be that sternness that kept her from becoming a bigger star; it always gives me a vibe of not a true big-time leading lady. That having been said, having watched the movies that both she and her husband made, I've long felt that if they hadn't gone into politics, they could have had a long career playing neighborly grandparent types on episodic TV, things like the Wilsons in yet another version of Dennis the Menace.

The latest block of shorts

I've commented several times when TCM shows a block of shorts that for whatever reason, the daily schedule on their site, the printable monthly schedule, and whatever you get for your box guide seem not to agree on the order in which the shorts are airing. Such is the case tonight. Tonight's Silent Sunday Nights lineup, starting at midnight tonight, contains five Laurel and Hardy silent two-reelers. (They'll be on again next Sunday night/very early morning, too.)

The order on the TCM website:

Angora Love
Big Business
Double Whoopee
Berth Marks
Habeas Corpus

On the monthly schedule, however, it's:

Double Whoopee
Habeas Corpus
Big Business
Berth Marks
Angora Love

The one really worth watching (well, they're all worth a look, but the one that's extra worth giving a look if you haven't seen it before) is Double Whoopee, since it's got a very young Jean Harlow in a brief appearance.

Another pair of obituaries I should have mentioned earlier

Tony Dyson's death was announced on Thursday. Who is he, you may ask? I have to admit I'd never heard of him either, but it turns out that he's the man who designed R2-D2, the Star Wars robot, or at least, the one that looks even less human than C3-PO, if I'm spelling that right. I have to admit that I've never been all that interested in the Star Wars movies. I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater with my sister, who I remember had a thing for the Ewoks. But I never went to the theater to see any of the prequels, and haven't seen the most recent one either. Still, R2-D2 is an iconic character, as I think most people would recognize it. Dyson was 68

Author Pat Conroy died on Friday at the age of 70. Several of Conroy's books were turned into movies, with probably the most famous of them being The Prince of Tides since it starred Barbra Streisand. Conroy, in the early 1970s, spent some time teaching on one of the barrier islands just off the coast of South Carolina, and wrote a book about that, which was turned into the 1974 film Conrack. That's one of those Fox films that was in the rotation some years back but hasn't shown up in ages. Conroy is also responsible for The Great Santini.

TCM's Essentials is delayed

Tonight being the first Saturday after the end of 31 Days of Oscar, it means that it should be the first week of a new season of TCM's Essentials. I was under the impression that Sally Field was going to be returning for another season of presenting the movies with Robert Osborne, but did a bit of googling just to make certain. I was surprised, however, when I went to the TCM page for the Essentials, to get this message:

Due to a production delay, The Essentials with Robert Osborne and co-host Sally Field has been delayed. In the meantime, Ben Mankiewicz will be stepping in every Saturday night in March introducing the classic movies you love, along with the ones you will hopefully come to love.

One of the posters at the TCM boards who apparently follows these things more closely than I do gives the following explanation. Apparently, Fields and Osborne were supposed to record the segments over about a week or so in January. By my understanding, it should take them a good four or five days to do it since they have whatever pre-show preparations they do; I don't know if either of them changes outfits in between each movie they do a wraparound for. Viewers who are more eagle-eyed would spot this. I'd guess scheduling an hour for each movie would be reasonable, and in order not to send the crew into overtime, they, like game shows, would probably tape three or four in one shot before breaking for lunch/dinner and then returning afterwards to do another three or four. With 30 movies, that comes out to four or five days' worth of shooting. I would also think the regular prime time intros go more quickly since the scripts are already prepared, and they're reading off of teleprompters. An hour for one night's lineup sounds reasonable to me.

Anyhow, when the January tape dates came along, Osborne was sick with the flu. The guy is turning 84 in a few months; cut him some slack. So they couldn't tape then, and afterwards, Field couldn't make it because she had other projects on her schedule. So they weren't able to get the production done before March, and here we are. From the TCM boards, it sounds as if the movies on the schedule for Saturday nights this month are going to be a part of the Essentials; after all TCM came up with the schedules before the delay in producing the Essentials wraparounds. But Ben Mankiewicz is going to be presenting them this month, with wraparounds for them being done whenever Osborne and Field are able to sit down and do them.

TCM Star of the Month March 2015: Merle Oberon

Merle Oberon as Cathy in Wuthering Heights (1939)

Once again with 31 Days of Oscar over, we get back into the regular TCM programming features, such as the Star of the Month. This month's star is Merle Oberon, and her films will be showing on Fridays in prime time. Oberon, who was born in British India and had an interesting early life story, to say the least, first appeared on film in the early 1930s, with her role as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (early tomorrow morning at 4:30 AM, or overnight if you're out on the west coast) being, I think, a sort of breakout role for her.

Probably her best-known role is as Cathy opposite Laurence Olivier and David Niven in Wuthering Heights (9:30 PM next Friday), a movie that I really don't care for, in part because Oberon really overdoes the death scene at the end. At least, I found myself laughing at how silly it was. But then, I think it's not a story I particularly care for, never mind how well acted it might be.

This film is condemned

With 31 Days of Oscar over for another year, as I mentioned yesterday, we're getting back into the regular programming feautures. The TCM Spotlight returns tonight, as Sr. Rose Pacette, from the Pauline Center for Media Studies comes on to discuss the Catholic Legion of Decency and the films it condemned. The Legion was founded in 1933, at a time when the studios were flouting the morals code suggested by former Postmaster General turned morals judge Will Hays. For fairly obvious reasons devout Catholics had problems with many of the movies the studios were putting out. To be fair, I can see people being uncomfortable with something like the roller-skating baby peeping Tom in Gold Diggers of 1933 in general, and more specifically with it being portrayed as something funny.

Of course, there were a lot of Catholics, and in those days they were more united, I think, than today, in that more of them went to Mass and listened to what the priests were telling them. So the Legion, getting ticked at the alleged filth in movies, threatened to boycott. And the studios were worried, since something like a quarter of the population was Catholic; that's a pretty big portion of your potential audience to lose. That's what led to the Production Code, with Joe Breen enforcing it, coming into effect in July 1934.

This week sees a couple of pre-Codes, along with some foreign films. Foreign movies weren't subject to the code in the same way Hollywood movies were, in that the foreign filmmakers weren't submitting scripts to the Code office for approval; as far as I know however there would have been the same restrictions on what theaters wouldn't show movies that hadn't been approved and who would run advertisements for them. So in addition to the pre-Codes this week, we're also getting a British movie, Michael Powell's Black Narcissus, in the lineup this week (9:30 PM). That one would have been condemned because of the presentation of nuns as having desires; you can see why the Catholic hierarchy would condemn that. Later in the month we'll be getting And God Created Woman, which has much more traditional condemnable material.

Unfortunately, TCM's website for the spotlight is terrible as always. Although it's not Flash this time, it seems to be just a bunch of images with one link to a PDF. You can get the schedule from the traditional schedule pages.

A once-every-four-years birthday salute

Monday was leap day, the 29th of February. I didn't look up who celebrates a birthday that day, however; if I had wanted to do a post on somebody born on February 29, I would have looked up the birthdays on Monday. Instead, I mention it because I'd like to mention TCM's programming for tomorrow.

Normally, when there are only 28 days in February, TCM's 31 Days of Oscar runs from February 1 through March 3. But this year, with a February 29, means that 31 Days of Oscar ends on March 2 and regular programming resumes on March 3. This is of particular interest considering that March 3 is the birth anniversary of one of Hollywood's legends, Jean Harlow. TCM made her their Star of the Month for her centenary in 2011, but they couldn't run any movies on her birthday.

TCM is running a morning and afternoon of Harlow's movies, including at least one I know I haven't seen before, The Girl From Missouri at 5:15 PM. I can't recall whether I've seen Platinum Blonde before; that kicks off the morning at 7:00 AM. In between are a bunch of Harlow's lesser-known performances. No Dinner at Eight or Red Dust, although we do get Red-Headed Woman (1:00 PM)

Perhaps in four years' time TCM can get the rights to enough movies to run a birthday salute to Edmund Lowe.

George Kennedy, 1925-2016

George Kennedy, who won a Best Supporting Actor for Cool Hand Luke

George Kennedy, whose long career included a lot of tough guy roles early on as well as comedy later in his career, has died at the age of 91. Kennedy won a Best Supporting Actor for his role opposite Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, pictred above. Kennedy has a wonderful "Word of Mouth" piece that shows up on TCM from time to time in which he mentions the making of one particular scene where he and the other prisoners have the hots for a young woman, helpfully informing us that the prisoners and the young woman doing her thing were actually shot in two completely separate sequences, so all the actors had to show themselves getting aroused without the young woman around. That's acting.

Other roles for Kennedy in the 1960s included one as a cop who makes life difficult for Kirk Douglas in Lonely Are the Brave, as well as a farmhand with a mean streak in Strait-Jacket, pictured at left. Strait-Jacket is one of those movies which isn't all that good, but is enormously entertaining, including Kennedy's performance. I suppose I should also mention The Dirty Dozen, although it's been years since I've seen that one.



Who can't help but love Airport? The first of the great all-star disaster movies of the 1970s, George Kennedy is one of those stars, playing the man whose job it is to keep the runways clear by getting any plane that should get stuck in the snow out of the snow banks, something that puts him at odds with Burt Lancaster.



And then later in his career, Kennedy played Leslie Nielsen's boss in the Naked Gun series of films; that's Kennedy behind Nielsen in the photo above.

As best as I can tell, TCM hasn't announced whether there's going to be any programming change to honor Kennedy. I haven't been watching enough to see whether they've even aired a "TCM Remembers" piece yet.