Hurricane Sandy

As you can probably guess, I survived Hurricane Sandy. Surprisingly, I didn't even lose electricity. Quite a few people up here in the Catskills did, but thankfully the power stayed on the entire time. The winds got pretty bad, and while I was watching Assignment: Paris on Monday evening, one of the lights in the room where I was watching seemed to be winking, so I was worried that the power was about to go out -- that was also about the time the winds were at their worst. I got to see the end of the movie, even if it wasn't the best movie out there.

The HMS Bounty didn't fare as well, sadly. The ship, made for the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty (the one with Marlon Brando), sank off the North Carolina coast as it was making its way from Maine to Florida. The ship was also used for the 1990 version of Treasure Island as well as some of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Interestingly, Ted Turner actually bought the ship (or more accurately, it was included in the purachase) when he bought MGM back in 1986.

TCM versus everybody else

So today is Halloween. Unsurprisingly, cable channels are showing a lot of horror stuff. TCM's highlight is probably the 1931 Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein at 8:00 PM. Even though it's one that's more well-known -- I should think Karloff set the standard for what Frankenstein's monster has looked like for the past 80 years -- it's still a great movie that's well worth watching again. TCM is following it with another of the Universal Frankenstein movies at 9:30 PM, Son of Frankenstein. Frankly, I think Bride of Frankenstein is better, but I'm not the TCM programmer and I don't know whether TCM couldn't get Bride of Frankenstein this year. Other Universal horror movies showing up are The Mummy, overnight at 12:30; and Claude Rains as The Invisible Man at 4:30 AM.

Some may say it's a bad thing that TCM is showing a lot of the best-known Universal stuff, as well as a lot of Hammer horror this month. But it could be worse; just look at what the folks at Fox are doing. During their commercial-free FMC half of the day, they're showing 1980s schlock. (Although, to be fair, how much in the way of old horror films is their in the Fox library.) When the switchover to FXM comes at 3:00 PM, they're showing Monsters vs. Aliens. Then they're showing it again -- and again and again -- until the switchover back to FMC early the next morning. And you think what TCM does is bad?

Cinemoi

Some months back, DirecTV added the channel Cinémoi to the lineup. From what I can tell, it's the American arm of a British channel, focusing partly on vintage and foreign movies, and partly on style. The last time I watched, the movies were shown commercial free; at least, there were no commercials in the last half hour of the dreadful Girl on a Motorcycle (a film which deserves a full-length post because of its hilarious awfulness, but that's a topic for another day). The only thing is, the channel seems to be permanently letterboxed. That is, latter-day films shot in a 1.85:1 format show up properly if you've got an old CRT TV, but if you're watching something from the days before widescreen, you wind up with both letterboxing and pillarboxing: black bars on all four sides. If you're watching on an old TV, you're out of luck; on HD TVs there should be some format that chops off the top and bottom of the screen and stretches out the remaining image. Or, I suppose, you could finally get an HD satellite dish, but the one I've got now works fine, and having to set up a new dish is a pain in the you-know-what.

As for the vintage films, they've had several with Rita Hayworth. Autumn Leaves is showing up today at noon, while Gilda is showing up at 5:30 PM today and 7:00 PM tomorrow. Check the listings, however.

The Last Hurrah

The Last Hurrah is another of those movies I've been meaning to blog about for some time, but never got around to doing. It's airing tomorrow afternoon at 12:15 PM as part of the last day of Spencer Tracy's turn as Star of the Month on TCM.

Tracy stars as Frank Skeffington, the long-time mayor of an unnamed city, although you can presume it's one of those New England cities that had a large Irish Catholic population and the political machine to go along with it. Skeffington has headed the machine and served as mayor with an iron fist, but we're beginning to get to the era (the movie was released in 1958) when political machines are beginning to weaken. Back then, candidates had to do a lot of pressing of the flesh and speaking at community meetings and stuff, but with the advent of television, savvy politicians realized that they could get their political message out with less effort and without filtering by that other old institution, the partisan newspaper. Skeffington realizes times are changing, and has announced that even if he wins, this is going to be his last term as mayor.

Skeffington in theory should be a shoo-in. He's been good to the little people who support the machine and vote for him, returning the favor with a lot of patronage. Who could possibly be against him? Well, it turns out that with every political machine, there's a lot of corruption. In this case, Skeffington and the machine have more or less been playing favorites with selecting local businesses, and understandably there are money interests who don't like him. Here, the money interests are represented by banker Norman Cass (played by Basil Rathbone). John Carradine edits the local newspaper, which has a decidedly pro-business bent, and even the Cardinal (Donald Crisp) has turned against Skeffington. Still, they, like Skeffington, do all of their dealings in smoky back rooms of the local club.

In many ways, The Last Hurrah is the product of a bygone era. Not only are the political machines and the personalized campaigning here a part of the past (well, maybe with the exception of very small towns where pretty much everybody knows everybody), so is the style of filmmaking. The Last Hurrah is a slow-developing movie, with no effects, little real action, and seemingly nothing big happening. The movie seems to spend an inordinate amount of time at one funeral, for example. I can't imagine a movie about political campaigning being made like this any longer. Finally, a lot of the actors were people nearing the end of their various careers. In addition to the people I mentioned, there are holdover character actors from the 1930s playing the Mayor's closest confidants: Pat O'Brien, James Gleason, and Edward Brophy. That doesn't mean The Last Hurrah isn't a good movie. If you like movies that are grown-up and methodical, this is a very good movie, filled with excellent performances.

TCM's schedule page says The Last Hurrah is available on DVD, but they obviously have a problem with their database, as their listing for the Spencer Tracy movie links to a DVD for a 2009 movie also titled The Last Hurrah. Amazon lists an all-region import DVD available for purchase, but it also seems to be out of print.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World heads-up

As part of this last Monday in October, TCM is showing movies from the end of Star of the Month Spencer Tracy's career in prime time, including It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World overnight at 3:30 AM (technically early Tuesday, but listed at the end of Monday's schedule by TCM). I presume you know the plot about a cast of crazies all trying to find $350,000 buried under a "Big W" in a state park near California's border with Mexico.

Beware that TCM is listing a running time of 159 minutes, and putting this in a three-hour slot. In the past when TCM has run the movie, they've shown a print that had a running time of something just over three hours. That print was a roadshow version, with an overture, an intermission, and exit music, which I would guess aren't in the 159-minute print. (The one good thing about an intermission in a roadshow print is that it's a good time to go to the fridge and, if need be, use the facilities.) My understanding is that one of the longer prints also had an extended scene, I believe with Phil Silvers' car going down the river. I haven't watched the 159-minute print, however, so I'm not quite certain what's going to be showing up in it.

The movie has gotten various DVD releases, but here again I'm not certain which DVD has what on it.

An update and a non-birthday

Three weeks ago, I mentoined something about The Cincinnati Kid not being on the TCM schedule. I must have been looking up the wrong thing on TCM's schedule database, since it was already in the printable monthly schedule for October. In fact, it's airing today at 4:00 PM.

Tomorrow TCM is showing a bunch of George Sanders movies, including a couple where he played The Saint. I see that I've never done a review on any of the Saint movies, nor of the Falcon movies. TCM is showing three of those starring Sanders as well. You'd think it was Sanders' birthday tomorrow or something. In fact, IMDb lists Sanders as having a birthday in July.

Sullivan's Travels

I don't think I've ever blogged about Sullivan's Travels before. It's airing on Sunday, October 28 at 2:15 PM on TCM, and now is a good time to recommend it.

Joel McCrea stars as John L. Sullivan, a Hollywood director who's become prominent -- and wealthy -- by making light fluffy comedies and musicals with titles such as Ants in Your Pants of 1938. Despite the good pay, Sullivan wants to make "serious" pictures; especially something with a social message what with there still being a depression on. Specifically, in order to make the movie he wants to find out what it's like to live on the "other side", as a hobo with only a dime to his name. Needless to say, the studio execs don't like the idea. But they come up with an agreement. They come up with a good idea, however: treat it as publicity. So they follow Sullivan, with Sullivan trying to escape and learn more "authentic" poverty.

Stuck with only ten cents in his pocket at a roadside diner, Sullivan meets The Girl (Veronica Lake), a failed starlet who is going to be leaving Hollywood since she can't succeed there. Oh, Sullivan could have given her the success, but he can't really portray himself as Sullivan now, so he passes himself off as somebody who knew Sullivan, which at least gets him the run of the Sullivan place. The two really wind up living the hobo life, spending a night in a homeless shelter among other things, where Sullivan has his shoes stolen.

This is a problem because part of the agreement Sullivan had with the studio execs involved putting ID in the sole of his shoe while he was going to be on the road. The bosses would be able to prove that this was really Sullivan, but nobody else would, which was just the way Sullivan wanted it. As part of a plan to help the hobos out by distributing cash to them, he winds up at the same railyard as the guy who stole his shoes; the guy gets hit by a train after knocking Sullivan out and giving Sullivan a case of amnesia. Sullivan gets sent to a prison labor camp, and is about to learn what the other side is really like, if he didn't already know it from being a hobo.

Sullivan's Travels sounds like serious stuff, and it certainly does have a serious message, although what that message is could be debated. (I won't say anything more about that, because it would give away the ending of the movie.) The movie was directed by Preston Sturges, however, which means a lot of things. First, whatever message was intended is definitely somewhat anti-establishment. Second, you know there's going to be a lot of comedy here. There's slapstick with the people who would be Sullivan's entourage, and somewhat more intelligent humor for McCrea and Lake. Last but by no means least, you know you're going to get a great movie. McCrea is just right for the Sullivan part: not too glamorous, but not too rough either. I can't imagine somebody like Cary Grant being a believable wannabe hobo, or somebody like John Garfield playing the wealthy director. Veronica Lake is gorgeous as the failed actress, and Sturges was able to get several of his usuals to play the supporting roles, which they do to comedic perfection.

An apology about last night

Back at the beginning of the month, I mentioned that Wolf Blitzer was going to be sitting down with Ben Mankiewicz on the 26th to present the night's line up of politics-themed movies. Well, that was last night, and I should have posted about it yesterday.

To be honest, I've been preparing for Hurricane Sandy, which all the weather forecasters are panicking about, or at least trying to induce panic in the general population: simply giving accurate information doesn't seem to be enough. I mentioned with Hurricane Irene last August that I lost power for 46 hours. Depending on the track of Sandy, I wouldn't be surprised to lose power for a lengthy spell too. So I've been trying to write a few posts that will show up over next week as placeholders, in case I should be unable to post. Unless power stays out through Friday, there should probably be a post every day, but some of them won't be much more than reminding people of the night's TCM lineup.

Spine Tingler

Three months back, I mentioned the documentary Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story, which was airing on the Documentary Channel. I don't know how many of you have the Documentary Channel, although I presume it's fewer of you than have TCM. So you might be interested to know that TCM is running the documentary overnight at 3:15 AM instead of a traditional TCM Underground double feature.

The second movie in Underground this week is Macabre, a Castle-directed movie that I don't think I've seen before. Castle's gimmick for this one involved selling people insurance policies in cast they should die of fright during the movie. Good luck collecting on that!

TCM Guest Programmer: Jim Lehrer

I'll admit that I haven't been watching quite as much TCM in recent weeks, but I haven't seen one promo for this month's TCM Guest Programmer, PBS news host Jim Lehrer. (Does anybody actually watch the News Hour any more?) Lehrer is responsible for tonight's TCM lineup, which is as follows:

All The King's Men at 8:00 PM;
It Happened One Night at 10:00 PM;
My Fair Lady at midnight; and
North By Northwest at 3:00 AM.

There's nothing particularly obscure here, and I'm sure that's bound to tick off those people who think you have to prefer the obscure stuff to be a true movie fan. I've always thought of the Guest Programmers as a way of drawing new eyeballs to the channel: people who don't necessarily know so much about the movies, but might be interested in seeing a famous celebrity. The only problem this month is that it's Jim Lehrer. If some twentysomething had picked this lineup, then great. Promo it someplace where the other young folks will see it, and maybe they'll learn that old movies and -- gasp! -- black and white films don't have to be threatening. Indeed, I think all four of Lehrer's selections are the sort of movie that are good for introducing neophytes to various genres of movies. But Jim Lehrer doing it?