Welcome to another edition of Fedya's "Movies to Tivo" thread, for the week of August 25-31, 2008. It's the last week of TCM's "Summer Under the Stars" for 2008, so we'll be focussing almost exclusively on TCM this week. (The fact that they've saved seven excellent stars for the last week, with some outstanding movies in prime time, helps.) As always, all times are in Eastern, unless otherwise mentioned.

The star for Monday is Ingrid Bergman. This means that one of MsPacman's favorites, Notorious, shows up at 8:00 Monday on TCM. MsPacman will also be thrilled to learn that this isn't the only Cary Grant film showing up this week -- but more on Mr. Grant later. Getting back to Bergman, Notorious is bookended by two other of her classics: Casablanca at 6:15 PM; and Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound at 10:00 PM. (I know what I'll be doing Monday evening!)

One Bergman film that shows up much less often is the 1941 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this version of Robert Louis Stevenson's story, Spencer Tracy plays the title role(s), and does so with relatively little makeup compared to the Fredric March version 10 years earlier. Here, Bergman is atypical as a barmaid/prostitute whom Tracy loves, but who is also frightened by his love for her. Also to watch out for is a young Lana Turner, playing Dr. Jekyll's fiancée.

We move next to the star for Tuesday, Janet Leigh. Did you know that she did one of the Lassie movies back in the 1940s? That movie, 1948's Hills of Home, shows up at 8:00 AM Tuesday on TCM. However, she would do much better movies in her life, such as Touch of Evil, which kicks off prime time at 8:00 PM. The star of this is, of course, the obese Orson Welles, who plays a corrupt cop in a town on the border with Mexico. When there's a car bomb that was planted in the town on the other side of the border, Mexican narcotics agent Charlton Heston is sent in to investigate. The two cops quickly end up at loggerheads as Heston learns that Welles isn't exactly up to good. Leigh plays Heston's wife, who gets left at a hotel in one particularly frightening scene, and gets assaulted by a gang of thugs. Also watch for an older Marlene Dietrich, who plays a bar owner, and is quite good in her limited role.

Leigh suffers an even worse fate in the following movie, Psycho at 10:00 PM, getting knifed by poor Norman Bates' mother.

Psycho is followed by a movie I don't think I've ever recommended here before, The Naked Spur, at midnight Wednesday (that's 11:00 PM Tuesday in the Central Time Zone). The star of this movie is James Stewart, who plays a man chasing a criminal (played by Robert Ryan) in the Colorado Territory. Stewart is in it for the bounty, because he really needs the money. Unfortunately, he needs other people's help, and tries to avoid telling them about the bounty. They capture Ryan, and he tells them about the bounty. The rest of the movie involves Stewart and the two men he's deputized trying to escort Ryan back to Kansas for a hanging, while Ryan tries to drive wedges between them, in what is really an effective psychological thriller. Leigh plays Ryan's girlfriend, for whom Stewart seems to have a thing....

Our next star is Tony Curtis. I mentioned that Cary Grant shows up a few times this week, and he starred alongside Curtis in Operation Petticoat, which airs at 12:45 PM Wednesday. Grant plays the captain of a World War II submarine that has to run from the Japanese despite not being fully refitted and not having the best of crews. Along the way, they're forced to pick up a group of nurses who are trying to escape the Japanese as well (watch for TV star Marion Ross as one of the nurses). Curtis plays Grant's first officer, a man who has a knack for finagling materials for the submarine, even if his methods are somewhat illegal. It's a fun service comedy with a cast that was adept at comedy. (A few other TV stars I haven't mentioned yet who show up are Dick Sargent and Gavin MacLeod.)

Operation Petticoat is an enjoyable comedy, but TCM's prime time lineup on Wednesday is kicked off by one of the greatest comedies of all time, Some Like It Hot at 8:00 PM. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play musicians who witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and have to dress up in drag to escape with an all-girl band to Florida. In Florida, Curtis falls in love with fellow band member Marilyn Monroe, while Lemmon, when he's in drag, is wooed by millionaire Joe E. Brown.

Some Like it Hot is followed by a movie I've never recommended before, Sweet Smell of Success, at 10:15 PM Wednesday on TCM. Tony Curtis plays a press agent in 1950s Manhattan who is desperate to get some positive press for one of his clients. Unfortunately, he has to deal with a sadistic, all-powerful gossip columnist played by Burt Lancaster. In fact, Lancaster is so nasty that Curtis tries to get back at him by blackmailing him regarding his mentally unstable sister, whom Lancaster looks after, and a relationship she's in. For all of you who thought the Brett Favre saga this summer was nasty, watch Sweet Smell of Success and see just how bad and manipulative the press can really be.

Moving ahead to Thursday, TCM's star for the day is Charlton Heston. He won has Oscar for the 1959 version of the epic Ben-Hur; TCM is airing this at 4:00 PM Thursday. Heston stars in the title role, the Jewish prince who is taken into slavery by a Roman who was his former friend (played by Stephen Boyd), but eventually regains his freedom. Ben-Hur is of course best known for the magnificent chariot race, but the whole movie is stunning, if a bit long. (The silent 1925 version tells the story in about 80 minutes less running time, but the 1959 version has by far the better cinematography).

Heston is also the star of Soylent Green, which airs again at 1:30 AM Friday. I'm sure you all know the story, and since I recommended this back in July, I won't go into much detail, other than to point out that it's also Edward G. Robinson's final film, and he's excellent as always.

Friday is given over to a man who is frankly not one of my favorites, Marlon Brando. (Somebody should have taught him to enunciate clearly.) However, I have to mention him because he's in one of the great movies of all time, On the Waterfront, which kicks off prime time at 8:00 PM Friday on TCM. Brando plays a dockworker in Hoboken, where the docks are controlled by a corrupt union of which his brother (Rod Steiger) is one of the leading members. The union bigwigs get Brando to participate unwittingly in getting his best friend murdered. This leads Brando to a crisis of conscience, and possibly becoming willing to testify before the grand jury investigating mob corruption of unions. In addition to Brando and Steiger, the rest of the cast is outstanding, including Eva Marie Saint as the sister of the murder victim, with whom Brando falls in love; and Karl Malden (still alive at 96, and married to the same woman for the last 69 years) as a priest with a conscience who tries to get Brando to do the right thing.

On Saturday, TCM will be honoring Katharine Hepburn. MsPacman will be thrilled to know that two of her movies with Cary Grant will be shown: the classic screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby at 2:30 PM Saturday, and the not-quite-as-good Sylvia Scarlett (in which Hepburn dresses up as a man to evade the police) at 4:15 AM Sunday.

I don't recall if I've mentioned Hepburn's first Oscar performance before; that would be 1933's Morning Glory, which TCM are showing at 6:00 AM Saturday. Hepburn stars as a young, aspiring actress who comes to New York to make it big on the stage. Of course, it's not easy, and there are a lot of tribulations along the way for her. There's also the love story aspect; Hepburn loves producer Adolphe Menjou, who doesn't really love her. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., on the other hand, plays a writer who loves her, but she doesn't realize it. Watch also fro the great British actor C. Aubrey Smith at the beginning of the movie as on older man in Menjou's office with whom Hepburn has a conversation.

Our final star for Summer Under the Stars is Spencer Tracy; his movies will be airing on TCM all day and night Sunday. The first one is one that I've mentioned before, but not for some time; it's worth recommending again: San Francisco, airing at 6:00 AM Sunday. Tracy stars as a priest in San Francisco's Barbary Coast in the spring of 1906, ministering to all sorts -- notably, Clark Gable, who plays a barkeeper, and Jeanette MacDonald, who plays a nightclub singer at Gable's club who has greater ambitions. It's a reasonably good period piece/love story made better by the fact that the characters are all rushing headlong into the Great Earthquake of 1906. MGM had some pretty good special effects for 1936 in showing the earthquake.

Wow! Thanks, Fedya.

What a great week for me! Grant/Hepburn/Bergman movies from start to finish!

I'm also looking forward to seeing San Francisco as I haven't seen that in years. Mom was a big Jeanette McDonald (and Nelson Eddy) fan so I grew up watching a lot of her movies.