Classic Movie Picks: April 2021

by Lani

I used to scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule each month for upcoming films that I couldn’t miss and post the highlights here for your reading and viewing pleasure! It’s been a few...years, but who’s counting? (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.)

After a delayed start, it is finally award season in Hollywood, which means it's time for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Each day in April features films which were Academy Award winners or nominees and the films are being shown from A to Z, ending with Best Foreign Language Film winner Z on May 1. Coincidentally this was the gimmick in 2017, which was the last time I blogged about 31 Days of Oscar. By the way, if you don't have cable, you can stream films on the TCM app, but they don't stay available for very long after the air date, or usually find the films to stream or rent through other platforms. Here are my top picks for the month:

4/3, 9:45 PM - Carol (2015) 

I was happy to see that TCM has included several movies from the 2000s in this year’s 31 Days line-up. The canon of classic films is not a fixed list; it should always be re-evaluated and refreshed as new art is made. Carol was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but notably not Best Picture. Director Todd Haynes combines the lush elegance of a Douglas Sirk melodrama with contemporary storytelling in this romantic drama about a shopgirl and a housewife drawn to each other, but restricted by 1950s conventions. 

4/7, 10:15AM - Gaslight (1944)

“Gaslighting” has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the last few years. But how many people have actually seen the film that gave us that term? Technically, “gaslighting” means when someone lies to you so that you begin to doubt your own sanity and then you can be committed to an asylum and your tormentor can steal your aunt’s jewels. Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for her performance as a woman driven mad. The film received seven nominations in total, including Best Picture, which it lost to Going My Way. Keep an eye out for a young Angela Lansbury in her first film role as Bergman’s maid, she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

4/10, 3PM - Hope and Glory (1987)

The title may sound generic, but this charming and warm story of British civilian life during WWII will stick with you. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the film is based on writer-director John Boorman’s own experiences during the London blitz. The film received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but did not win any awards; in fact it lost in almost every category to that year’s big winner, The Last Emperor. 

4/18, 8PM - Nebraska (2013)

Omaha-born Alexander Payne is one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. His films - including Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways - depict familiar, everyday people with biting dark humor. Nebraska is no exception as the story of a cantankerous elderly man and his adult son on a road trip to collect sweepstakes winnings. While several of Payne’s films have earned Oscar nominations, 2013’s Nebraska received the most with six. Surprisingly, it did not win in any category, though lead actor Bruce Dern and Phedon Papamichael’s black and white cinematography were certainly top contenders that year. 

4/23, 10:30PM - The Red Shoes (1948)

This film about a dancer torn between a devotion to her art and a desire for a conventional life was the 10th collaboration of the celebrated filmmaking team of director Michael Powell and producer Emeric Pressburger. It was nominated in Best picture and four additional categories, winning much-deserved awards for the art direction and the score. It is visually dazzling, particularly the ballet sequences starring real-life ballerina Moira Shearer. Anton Walbrook, a favorite character actor for Powell & Pressburger is also particularly good as Lermontov, the impresario who gives Shearer’s character her big break. 

4/28, 1:15AM - The Third Man (1949)

If you’ve never seen this one, set the DVR, get the app, whatever you need to do - just watch it. This atmospheric post-WWII noir follows an American investigating a friend’s suspicious death in Vienna. Though Orson Welles gets all the memorable lines, this is really a Joseph Cotten film. Cotten came to Hollywood with Welles as a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company and after a large supporting role in 1941’s Citizen Kane, Cotten transitioned into a successful, decades-long movie career (including a role 1944’s Gaslight). The film received nominations for direction and editing, but the striking cinematography garnered the film’s only win. 

Classic Movie Picks: June 2017

by Lani

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.)

6/9: Traveltalks in Europe
9:45 PM - Looking at London (1946)
10 PM - Seeing Spain (1953)
10:15 PM - Paris on Parade (1938)
James A. Fitzpatrick, a.k.a "the voice of the globe," produced and narrated a popular series of Traveltalks shorts which took viewers around the world to famous and "exotic" destinations. The shorts featured tonight were filmed in Technicolor and distributed by MGM. TCM often inserts the Fitzpatrick shorts in between scheduled films, but as part of their "European Vacation" programming on Fridays in June, the shorts are getting prime time play. The films concentrate on showing scenery and cultural heritage sites, rather than the daily lives of the people living there, and avoid any mention of politics or social issues. Made at a time when the average movie goer did not have the opportunity or means to travel, these shorts gave them a look at the places that Fitzpatrick believed any tourist would want to see. Today, the shorts are notable for the glimpses of landscapes from a bygone era, before major cities became dominated by skyscrapers or urban sprawl reached the countryside. Looking at London highlights historic landmarks in the UK capital city, as well as areas damaged during WWII. Seeing Spain features several cities around that country, while Paris on Parade provides a tour of the Paris International Exposition of 1937.


6/9, 2:15 AM - To Paris with Love (1955)
In this romp through the City of Light, Alec Guinness stars as Sir Edgar, a British widower who brings his 20 year old son, Jon, to Paris to give the boy an education on romance. Edgar seeks out just the right woman to set up with his son, while Jon tries to find the perfect match for his dad. Of course, it gets complicated when the women turn out to have romantic ideas of their own. Perhaps not as funny as Guinness's other comedies of the era, but as light romantic comedy, this film is a fizzy sip of champagne. It's worth seeing for Guinness's charming lead performance and comedic skill.

6/13: Starring Marlene Dietrich
8 PM - Desire (1936)
10 PM - Song of Songs (1933)
11:45 PM - A Foreign Affair (1948)
2 AM - Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
4:15 AM - Rancho Notorious (1952)
Highest-paid woman in America in the 1930s, WWII war hero, Medal of Freedom recipient, world's most glamorous grandmother -- believe it or not, these are all titles applied to tonight's featured star Marlene Dietrich. Chances are that you have a very specific image of Dietrich: platinum hair, pencil-thin eyebrows arched over bored eyes, and that husky, German-accented voice. She had an iconic style, but as tonight's line-up shows, Dietrich took on personas in her films as diverse as those in her real life, while somehow maintaining that essence of "Marlene" with each one. The films tonight also pair Dietrich with some of the best directors of the era, demonstrating her ability to be equally at home in a Billy Wilder comedy or a Frank Borzage romance.
In Desire, directed by Borzage and produced by rom-com master Ernst Lubitsch, Dietrich plays a jewel thief and phony European aristocrat who falls for all-American Gary Cooper. Song of Songs, a TCM premiere directed by eclectic innovator Rouben Mamoulian, gives Dietrich a suitably scandalous role as a German peasant girl who gets caught up with free-living artists in the nightclub culture of Berlin. In Wilder's satire of post-war Germany, A Foreign Affair (released the same year she became the world's most glamorous grandmother), she spoofs her own image as a sultry cabaret singer; and cast as a former saloon girl in Fritz Lang's Western-noir Rancho Notorious, Dietrich brings new depth to this familiar character as she intimidates and beguiles while presiding over a den of criminals. Witness for the Prosecution, also directed by Wilder and based on an Agatha Christie story, shows another side of Dietrich in a less overtly glamorous and sexual role as the wife of an accused murderer; however, as in many stories by Christie, the characters are not all that they seem. 

6/19, 1:15 PM - My Name is Julia Ross (1945)
I've recommended this sharp little thriller before, but think it's good enough to recommend again! The story begins with a young woman, Julia, who takes a job as a live-in secretary for an older lady. After going to sleep in her employer's London apartment, she wakes up in a remote Cornwall estate on the southern coast of England. She's told that her name is Marion and she is the wife of the lady's son, a spoiled creep who likes to play with knives. Nina Foch (perhaps recognizable as Milo in An American in Paris) is excellent as Julia/Marion as she struggles to maintain her sanity and identity while her captors' scheme unfolds. At a breezy 65 minutes, you could watch this movie on your lunch break; however, the gothic atmosphere is probably more effective late at night.
If you enjoy the plot of My Name is Julia Ross, consider seeking out 1987's Dead of Winter starring Mary Steenburgen, Roddy MacDowell, and Czech actor Jan Rubes -- the story of an actress held captive in service of a blackmail plot bears a strong, though uncredited, resemblance to this earlier film.


6/19, 3:45 AM - Gaslight (1940)
Consider making a double feature with My Name is Julia Ross and this psychological thriller set in the Victorian era about an evil husband who attempts to drive his wealthy wife mad in order to get at some jewels hidden in their home. As the husband, Anton Walbrook serves cold sophistication masking cruelty, which he did so well again as the ballet svengali of The Red Shoes. Diana Wynyard, an Oscar nominee for 1933's Best Picture Cavalcade, co-stars as the wife. 
This British film was made four years before the Ingrid Bergman/Charles Boyer film of the same name and source material; however, despite being well-received, it is much less familiar even to film fans. That may be by design -- according to Hollywood legend, MGM ordered all copies of the 1940 film destroyed to avoid competition for the Bergman version. Fortunately, they did not get the negative and so now we can enjoy both films. Here's a chance to make that comparison which MGM feared so much -- is one better or are they just as good in their own ways? (By the way, the 1944 version, for which Bergman won an Oscar, will air on TCM in August.)