Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)
7/7, 8 PM - All the President's Men (1976)
This film is showing as part of a series on Thursday nights: America in the 70s - The Films that Defined a Decade. All the President's Men certainly fits the bill since it deals with the Watergate scandal, one of the defining events of the 70s which led to the first and only time in history that a sitting President resigned from office. The plot follows Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) as they look into the Watergate break-in and uncover the shocking details -- shocking not only because it went to the highest levels of the executive branch, but also because of the unbelievable stupidity and ineptitude of some of the players. Dramatic and suspenseful, but also surprisingly funny, I think it's pretty close to perfect. The film received Academy Awards for art direction, sound, screenplay, and supporting actor Jason Robards. What beat it out for best picture? Another decade-defining film: Rocky.
7/15: Starring Olivia de Havilland
8 PM - The Snake Pit (1948)
10 PM - The Heiress (1949)
12:15 AM - To Each His Own (1946)
Olivia de Havilland, one of the last surviving stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, is the Star of the Month for July in honor of her 100th birthday this year. As an ingenue in the 30s, her beauty was undeniable and she was paired with the equally attractive Errol Flynn in nine films. But she wanted to be more than a pretty love interest and desired to gain respect for her acting ability by taking on more challenging roles. Eventually de Havilland received five Oscar nominations, winning Best Actress twice, and three of those performances are featured tonight.
In The Snake Pit, a "social issues" picture about the state of mental hospitals, Olivia plays a young woman who is institutionalized. With greasy hair and no makeup, this character is a far cry from her more glamorous roles, but she does a good job portraying someone whose sense of reality is at odds with the world around her. As the title character in The Heiress, Olivia is once again de-glamorized to play a plain, lonely woman who longs to escape from her overbearing father and falls for a handsome fortune-hunter (as played by Montgomery Clift one can hardly blame the girl). In To Each His Own, our leading lady finally gets to wear some lipstick to play an unwed mother who must give up her son, then encounters him later in life. The combination of her natural beauty, expressive face, and ethereal manner make de Havilland a wonderful screen presence. I'm looking forward to seeing many more of her films on Friday nights this month.
Walter Matthau: Man of Action
7/16, 10 PM - Charley Varrick (1973)
7/21, 8 PM - The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Walter Matthau's most familiar roles tend to be in comedies as an irascible slob, seedy fast-talker, or grumpy old man. However, in his long and varied career Matthau was also an unlikely romantic lead several times, as well as the star of several crime/caper films in which he played both the heavy and the hero.
As the title character in Charley Varrick, Matthau is an anti-hero, "the last of the independents." After his gang of small time bank robbers accidentally steals the mob's money, Matthau must use all his wits to outrun a mob hit man (played with hammy glee by Joe Don Baker) and get away clean. Though he won a Best Actor BAFTA (the British Academy Award equivalent) for this role, Matthau was very vocal about not liking the film because he thought it wasn't understandable. There are definitely some twists, but whether you can anticipate the plot or not, it is still a fun ride.
In Pelham, Matthau is on the right side of the law as a NYC transit police lieutenant up against Robert Shaw as the leader of a criminal gang who holds a subway train hostage. As the hilariously over-the-top poster tells us, the gang will kill a passenger a minute until they get the $1 million ransom -- but even if they get the money, how will they possibly get away? This one also has it's share of surprises and sets the bar for clever crime thrillers.
These two picks are great examples of a type of crime film which had a bit of a renaissance in the mid-70s. These films featured intelligent criminals and, though violent, kept the action on a human scale. They are filled with the mundane locations of everyday life - subways, trailer parks, modest apartments - and everyone, from cop to criminal, looks like a regular guy off the street. Just contrast this with a film in the same genre from the 1980s, Die Hard (which is also great, by the way). Instead of the likes of Matthau, Robert Shaw, and Martin Balsam, you have the dapper Alan Rickman and his crew of body builders pulling off a heist in a fancy LA high-rise. It's still a good movie, but one with an entirely different aesthetic which favors spectacle over realism.
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