Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, this time for the week of April 7-13, 2008. This thread is far more interesting than listening to the ramblings of some retired football player's agent. I can assure you that not only am I not retired; no, I can also guarantee that you won't have to listen to my agent blathering on about playing for anybody else. As for the schedule, the usual caveats apply about all times being in Eastern, checking your local listings, and so on.

Please also note that as of this writing, TCM hasn't announced a tribute for Charlton Heston. I'm sure something I've selected will be pre-empted

And now, on to the movies. We start off with Gary Cooper in one of his final movies, Wreck of the Mary Deare, Monday at 10:00 AM on TCM. Cooper stars as a crewman on a ship that's found drifting in the English Channel. Charlton Heston, who found the ship, helps Cooper scuttle it, with a maritime investigation upcoming on exactly how the Mary Deare ended up the way it did. Cooper insists that the captain was doing something untoward, but can't prove it unless he can get back on the ship. He and Heston are the only two who know where they scuttled the ship, and it's a race against time as to whether they can get back to the ship first, or whether the ship's owners, who may be in on the plot, can get there to sink the ship and destroy the evidence. Cooper was quite ill during the filming, so he's not nearly as vital as he was in his earlier movies, but this is still a silly little story that's fun enough to watch if you sit back with a bowl of popcorn.

TCM had also previously scheduled Charlton Heston's "Private Screenings" interview at 9:00 AM Monday, immediately preceding The Wreck of the Mary Deare.

Monday marks the 75th anniversary of the theatrical release of King Kong. TCM is celebrating by showing the movie at 8:00 PM Monday. You know the story: Gorilla meets white woman. Gorilla falls in love with white woman. White men capture gorilla to make him stage show in New York. Gorilla escapes and goes on a date with white woman atop the Empire State Building. Fay Wray is famous as the woman, although she doesn't have to do much in the way of acting other than scream when she feels threatened. Watch for the stop-motion animation of Kong, especially on Skull Island, when he kills a giant lizard.

Following King Kong, TCM is spending the rest of Monday night showing several classic movies that, like King Kong, were also released in 1933. I've recommended all of them before:

Dinner At Eight, in which an all-star cast have dinner with Billie Burke and Lionel Barrymore, Monday at 10:00 PM;
Little Women, based on the Louisa May Alcott novel, at midnight Tuesday (that's 11:00 PM Monday for those of you out in Sconnieland!);
42nd Street, the classic backstage musical which launched the career of choreographer Busby Berkeley, at 2:00 AM Tuesday; and
Queen Christina, in which Greta Garbo portrays the 17th century Swedish queen, at 3:45 AM Tuesday.

A few hours later, you can switch to HBO Signature for the classic Breakfast at Tiffany's, Tuesday at 6:30 AM. Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, the young woman in New York leading a relatively unhappy life -- until she meets George Peppard, a writer struggling from writer's block, when he moves into an apartment in their building. They begin a romantic fling, even though they both know that it's not going to work out. (To be honest, it's probably 20 years since I've last seen this one, so going into any more detail will make it certain that I'll get things wrong.) Enjoy the Henry Mancini music, written back in the days when songs actually had lyrics you could understand.

A movie I have seen more recently is The Visit, airing Tuesday at noon on the Fox Movie Channel. Based on the play by Swiss playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit tells the story of an older widow (Ingrid Bergman), who returns to her home town, an indeterminate city-state roughly where Trieste would be (that is, part Italian, part Yugoslav). The town has fallen on hard times, while she's extremely wealthy, having married into it. The townsfolk would like some of her largesse, and she's willing to give them a substantial sum of money -- but with a proviso. It seems that when she was young, she was knocked up by one of the town's young men (Anthony Quinn) and forced to abandon her child and leave town. Now, she wants revenge, and wants the town to make what Quinn did a capital offense, try him, and execute him -- otherwise, they won't get their money! Needless to say, the destitute townsfolk have no scruples, and immediately set about changing their constitution and more or less making life a nightmare for poor Anthony Quinn. It's an interesting and thought-provoking movie, although despite the star power of the leads, it does feel as though there's something missing.

On Tuesday night, TCM is giving us several movies starring Richard Harris, even though it's not his birthday.

Then, on Wednesday at 11:30 AM, TCM is showing the Upper Peninsula movie Anatomy of a Murder, in which James Stewart defends a man accused of murder after he kills the man he claims raped his wife. Have fun watching Stewart talking about women's panties.

Wednesday night continues the theme of movies about trains on TCM, and the night begins with one of the best: The Narrow Margin, Wednesday at 8:00 PM. Charles McGraw stars as a policeman given the task of bring a mob wife (Marie Windsor) halfway across the country to Los Angeles by train, where she'll divulge some important information to the grand jury. Needless to say, the mob is liable to find out which train she's on, which is of course a problem since they'd have no compunction about killing her before she can testify. It also doesn't help that Windsor can't stand McGraw. This movie was made on a very low budget, with cheap tricks like handheld camera used to try to simulate the feeling of being on a train with its tight spaces. (In fact, only one or two scenes were filmed on an actual train.) However, it's excellent evidence of the theory that a good story is just as important to making a great movie as stars or a budget for effects. The Narrow Margin is tense throughout its 72 minutes, keeping you on the edge of your seat until the final shot.

An updated version of The Narrow Margin, 2006's Snakes on a Plane is aiirng this week as well, at 7:10 PM Thursday on HBO Signature.

Later on Wednesday night, TCM and the trains go to Europe, in Berlin Express, Wednesday at 10:30 PM. Robert Ryan stars as an American going to Germany to work with the Allied occupation. The only problem is, before they can get to Berlin, one of the passengers, an important German working with the Allies, is apparently killed by a grenade in his train compartment. Ryan and the rest of the passengers are detained in Frankfurt while the Allies start their investigation. Eventually, though, the passengers have to investigate the case themselves, a problem since they represent the various nationalities of the occupation, along with the man's German secretary. The idea of setting the mystery in a bombed-out city is nice, although the story doesn't really go anywhere, and left me wanting more. Still, it's one of those movies, like the aforementioned The Wreck of the Mary Deare, that is fun to watch sitting back with a bowl of popcorn.

On the recent thread Slobknocker started about movies to watch while having a cold, somebody mentioned What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. That's airing this week, at 5:35 AM Thursday on MoMax. You know the story; Bette Davis plays Jane, who was a child star whose flower faded as she grew up. Her sister, played by Joan Crawford, became a big star as an adult, until her career was cut short by a car accident that left her a cripple. Davis is caring for her now, if you can call it caring: it's more like torture. By all accounts Davis and Crawford absolutely hated each other, with Davis not just acting during one scene that called for her character to kick Crawford! Watch also for the famous scene in which Davis serves Crawford a very special dinner.

Saturday, April 12 marks the birthday of one of our favorite dancers, Ann Miller. She's not as well known as the more elegant Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers or Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse, but she had a more energetic, brassy style that's a joy to watch. TCM is honoring her with two of her movies, followed at 9:00 AM by a "Private Screenings" interview she did with Robert Osborne in 1997. The two movies are:

Eve Knew Her Apples at 6:00 AM, a 1945 remake of the classic It Happened One Night, with Miller taking the Claudette Colbert role; and
Reveille With Beverly at 7:30 AM, in which Miller plays a tap-dancing disc jockey.

Every Saturday night, TCM airs "The Essentials", movies they think are essential for any movie buff to have seen. TCM host Robert Osborne sits down with the lovely Rose McGowan to discuss the movies, and this week's selection is one of McGowan's favorites, which she selected when she wsa a Guest Programmer during last November's Guest Programmer month: Night of the Hunter, Saturday at 8:00 PM. Robert Mitchum stars as an ex-convict preacher who learned from one of his fellow prisoners (later executed) about a bank robbery which netted him $10,000 that's still missing. Needless to say, Mitchum wants that money. So he marries the dead man's wife (Shelley Winters), thinking she'll have some idea of where the money is. But, she apparently doesn't, so he kills her and goes after the kids, who apparently do know where the money is. They run away to escape from him, heading down the Ohio River until they meet up with an elderly farmer (Lillian Gish) who takes in orphans. Charles Laughton directed; this was the one and only movie he directed -- and what a good one it is! Unfortunately, though, Laughton hated kids, which made directing this movie a bit tough. In fact, Robert Mitchum had to serve as a go-between on a number of occasions.

Following Night of the Hunter, TCM is spending the rest of Saturday night with Shelley Winters, showing some of her lesser movies (or at least, movies for which other people are better known). These include Winters with John Garfield in He Ran All the Way at 10:00 PM, and Winters with James Mason in Lolita at 11:30 PM

I just mentioned Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur when it aired a few weeks ago, but TCM is showing it again at 8:00 AM on Sunday. It's one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, so I could mention it again and again. However, I'll go into more detail about the movie TCM is showing after Saboteur: The File on Thelma Jordon, Sunday at 10:00 AM. Barbara Stanwyck plays a part she had done already in Double Indemnity, that of a blonde temptress who tries to get away with murder and bring a man along with her for the ride. In this movie, that man is the terribly miscast Wendell Corey, who is thoroughly unsuited to play such a romantic lead. Corey is a prosecuting attorney who wants to get ahead in the world, so after Stanwyck kills her aunt, and she tries to get Corey to help her cover it up, the district attorney offers him the prosecution case! (Yes, it's an unbelievably sillly plot twist.)

TCM's Charlton Heston tribute will be on Friday April 11, into Saturday April 12, comprising the following movies:

2:30 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston
3:30 PM The Buccaneer (’58)
5:30 PM The Hawaiians
8:00 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston
9:00 PM Ben-Hur
1:00 AM Khartoum
3:30 AM Major Dundee

Note that the last two are overnight between Friday and Saturday.

I'm sure the Buccaneer flick was awful.