This week:
* Monday—Cary Grant gets up Lincoln’s nose;
* Tuesday—The Asphalt Jungle takes a turn to the west;
* Wednesday—Elizabeth Taylor falls for a bad’un;
* Thursday—Richard Basehart hangs out for fourteen hours;
* Friday—Walter Slezak dies a very happy man;
* Saturday—Bogie dabbles in the black market;
* Sunday—Robert Ryan gets really tough in Tokyo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Monday—November 2nd
12:00 PM—Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
A young man about to be married discovers the two aunts who raised him have been poisoning lonely old men.
Cast: Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre. Dir: Frank Capra. BW-118 mins, TV-G, CC, DVS
8:00 PM—Vertigo (1958)
A detective falls for the mysterious woman he’s been hired to tail.
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-130 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
10:15 PM—North by Northwest (1959)
An advertising man is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
Cast: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-136 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format, DVS
———-
Tuesday—November 3rd
12:45 AM—Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
A small-town lawyer gets the case of a lifetime when a military man avenges an attack on his wife.
Cast: James Stewart, Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick. Dir: Otto Preminger. BW-161 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
3:30 AM—Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
A distraught mother searches for her seemingly non-existent daughter, bringing her sanity into question.
Cast: Carol Lynley, Keir Dullea, Laurence Olivier. Dir: Otto Preminger. BW-107 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
8:45 AM—The Badlanders (1958)
Western outlaws join forces for a daring gold robbery in this remake of The Asphalt Jungle.
Cast: Alan Ladd, Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado. Dir: Delmer Daves. C-84 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format
———-
Wednesday—November 4th
10:00 AM—The Woman in White (1948)
Classic mystery about the adventures of a young tutor sent to a ghostly country estate.
Cast: Gig Young, Eleanor Parker, Sydney Greenstreet. Dir: Peter Godfrey. BW-109 mins, TV-G, CC
12:00 PM—Hunt the Man Down (1950)
Lawyer uncovers secrets behind a decade-old murder case.
Cast: Gig Young, Lynne Roberts, Willard Parker. Dir: George Archainbaud. BW-68 mins, TV-PG
5:15 PM—The Girl Who Had Everything (1953)
A criminal lawyer’s daughter falls for one of his clients.
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, William Powell, Fernando Lamas. Dir: Richard Thorpe. BW-70 mins, TV-G
———-
Thursday—November 5th
1:45 PM—Woman Wanted (1935)
An innocent woman is chased by both gangsters and the police.
Cast: Maureen O’Sullivan, Joel McCrea, Lewis Stone. Dir: George B. Seitz. BW-67 mins, TV-G, CC
8:00 PM—Fourteen Hours (1951)
A policeman tries to talk a desperate young man off the ledge of a New York skyscraper.
Cast: Richard Basehart, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes. Dir: Henry Hathaway. BW-92 mins, TV-PG, CC
———-
Friday—November 6th
10:00 AM—Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
The Arabian Nights hero sets off to find the lost treasure of Alexander the Great.
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Maureen O’Hara, Walter Slezak. Dir: Richard Wallace. C-117 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
———-
Saturday—November 7th
8:00 AM—The Man Between (1953)
An East Berliner helps a British woman trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
Cast: James Mason, Claire Bloom, Hildegard Knef. Dir: Carol Reed. BW-102 mins, TV-G
10:00 AM—Family Plot (1976)
A phony psychic takes on a pair of kidnappers.
Cast: Barbara Harris, Bruce Dern, Karen Black. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. C-120 mins, TV-14, Letterbox Format
12:15 PM—Tokyo Joe (1949)
An American in post-war Japan gets caught up in the black market.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Sessue Hayakawa, Alexander Knox. Dir: Stuart Heisler. BW-89 mins, TV-PG
8:00 PM—Take the Money and Run (1969)
An incompetent criminal becomes the subject of a documentary.
Cast: Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, Marcel Hillaire. Dir: Woody Allen. C-85 mins, TV-14, CC, Letterbox Format
———-
Sunday—November 8th
12:00 AM—Gumshoe (1971)
A would be private eye gets mixed up in a smuggling case.
Cast: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay. Dir: Stephen Frears. C-88 mins.
3:15 AM—The Delinquents (1957)
When he’s separated from the girl he loves, a teen turns to crime.
Cast: Tom Laughlin, Peter Miller, Richard Bakalyan. Dir: Robert Altman. BW-72 mins, TV-PG, Letterbox Format
4:30 AM—The Young Stranger (1957)
A neglected teen gets into trouble with the law.
Cast: James MacArthur, Kim Hunter, James Daly. Dir: John Frankenh
eimer. BW-84 mins, TV-PG, CC
6:30 AM—Murder at the Gallop (1963)
Elderly sleuth Miss Marple suspects foul play when an old friend is supposedly scared to death by a cat.
Cast: Margaret Rutherford, Robert Morley, Flora Robson. Dir: George Pollock. BW-81 mins, TV-G, CC, Letterbox Format
10:00 AM—Les Miserables (1952)
An obsessive policeman relentlessly hunts a man who escaped prison after stealing bread.
Cast: Michael Rennie, Debra Paget, Robert Newton. Dir: Lewis Milestone. BW-106 mins, TV-PG, CC
12:00 PM—The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Hard-boiled detective Sam Spade gets caught up in the murderous search for a priceless statue.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet. Dir: John Huston. BW-101 mins, TV-PG, CC, DVS
8:00 PM—House of Bamboo (1955)
An Army investigator infiltrates a Tokyo crime syndicate to solve a colleague’s murder.
Cast: Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Shirley Yamaguchi. Dir: Samuel Fuller. C-102 mins, Letterbox Format
~~~~~~~~~~~
—Mike Gray
Thanks, Mike. It looks as if I’m going to have to carve out some time to watch Fuller’s House of Bamboo. I know I’ve seen it, but I can’t remember anything from it.
Sam — Great insights about FOURTEEN HOURS. It was based on a real-life situation that ended very differently.
For folks who like tough guy noir, the one to see this week is HOUSE OF BAMBOO. Although I last viewed it almost thirty years ago, some scenes still stick in my mind.
Great listing, Mike, as usual. The Thursday movie Fourteen Hours is very interesting and worth watching. It could have been very smarmy and undermine a sense of personal responsibility by making the potential suicide’s motivations seem to justify killing himself, but in Henry Hathaway’s sure hands it doesn’t do so at all. The real protagonist of the film is the policeman played by Paul Douglas, and he does an excellent job of conveying the officer’s compassionate nature but also his dedication to his duty.
If anything, Basehart’s character comes off as weak and pitiful, as of course he should, given the situation we find him in. Yet in response to the strong character and decency shown by Douglas’s character, he begins to find some strength. It’s an interesting film that tends not to take the obvious melodramatic routes but instead follows the logic of the characters and situation.