This week:
* Monday—Buster Keaton just wants his train back.
* Tuesday—Look for the big dubyah.
* Wednesday—”Generosity—that was my first mistake.”
* Thursday—The perfect murder by an imperfect murderer.
* Friday—Abraham Lincoln checks the almanac.
* Saturday—Alec Guinness gets an eyeful of the Eiffel.
* Sunday—A communications failure? No, they really understand each other.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday—July 5th

12:30 AM—The General (1927)
In this silent film, a Confederate engineer fights to save his train and his girlfriend from the Union army.

9:00 AM—The Letter (1940)
A woman claims to have killed in self-defense, until a blackmailer turns up with incriminating evidence.

12:00 PM—Sky Murder (1940)
Detective Nick Carter tries to prove a beautiful immigrant innocent of murder.

3:15 PM—An Angel from Texas (1940)
A pair of slick Broadway producers con a wealthy cowboy into backing their show.

8:00 PM—Moby Dick (1956)
Epic adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic about a vengeful sea captain out to catch the whale that maimed him.

“It is an evil voyage, I tell thee. If Ahab has his way, neither thee nor me, nor any member of this ship’s company will ever see home again.”
“Aw, come on, Mr. Starbuck, you’re just plain gloomy. Moby Dick may be big, but he ain’t THAT big.”
“I do not fear Moby Dick—I fear the wrath of God.”

10:00 PM—To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
A young girl grows up fast when her lawyer father defends a black man accused of raping a white woman.

———-

Tuesday—July 6th

5:00 AM—The Paradine Case (1947)
A married lawyer falls for the woman he’s defending on murder charges.

10:30 AM—Safari (1956)
While leading a wealthy couple on safari, a hunter tries to avenge his son’s murder.

2:15 PM—Who Was That Lady? (1960)
A cheating husband convinces his wife his flirtations are actually spy missions.

4:15 PM—An American Dream (1966)
A man suspected of murdering his wife has to elude the police and a gang of hoodlums.

8:00 PM—It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
A group of greedy clowns tears up the countryside in search of buried treasure.

“Oh, Russell, I feel sick.”
“Now take it easy, honey, these things happen ya know.”
“Now what kind of an attitude is that, these things happen? They only happen because this whole country is just full of people who, when these things happen, they just say these things happen, and that’s why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us.”

———-

Wednesday—July 7th

2:30 AM—The Great Race (1965)
A bumbling villain plots to win an early 20th-century auto race.

“We gotta do something.”
“Oh, don’t worry. Before this iceberg melts and we drown like rats, we’re going to do plenty.”
“Yeah? What?”
“We’re gonna starve.”

8:00 AM—A Woman’s Face (1941)
Plastic surgery gives a scarred female criminal a new outlook on life.

12:15 PM—The Magnificent Seven (1960)
Seven American gunmen hire themselves out to protect a Mexican village from bandits.

“Once I rob a bank in Texas. Your government get after me with a whole army. Whole army! One little bank. In Texas, only Texans can rob banks.”

“They are farmers. They talk of nothing but fertilizer and women. I have never shared their enthusiasm for fertilizer. As for women, I became indifferent when I was eighty-three.”

“We aren’t going to a church social.”

5:00 PM—The Journey (1959)
A Communist officer falls hard for a married woman trying to escape from Hungary.

11:30 PM—Odd Man Out (1947)
A wounded IRA man faces betrayal on all sides when the British put a price on his head.

“In my profession there is neither good nor bad. There is innocence and guilt. That’s all.”

———-

Thursday—July 8th

1:30 AM—The Man Between (1953)
An East Berliner helps a British woman trapped behind the Iron Curtain.

3:15 AM—The Third Man (1949)
A man’s investigation of a friend’s death uncovers corruption in post-World War II Vienna.

5:15 AM—Shadowing The Third Man (2004)
Documentary about the classic Cold War thriller The Third Man (1949).

6:30 AM—Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
A novelist frames himself for murder to prove the fallibility of circumstantial evidence.

10:00 AM—The Locket (1946)
A dark personal secret drives a young woman to use every man she encounters.

“How could I ever have liked you, Norman? Arrogant, suspicious, neurotic …”
“It isn’t neurotic to be jealous.”
“It’s worse than neurotic to be jealous of a dead man.”

“Do you approve of foolish marriages?”
“Certainly. They alienate relatives.”

11:30 AM—The Strip (1951)
A jazz drummer fights to clear his name when he’s accused of killing a racketeer.

1:00 PM—The Narrow Margin (1952)
A tough cop meets his match when he has to guard a gangster’s moll on a tense train ride.

“I don’t say I’ve never been tempted. Of course I’ve been tempted; I’m human like anybody else. But to spend the rest of my time worrying when I’ll be caught up with by some hoodlum holding a first mortgage on my life, payable on demand …? Naah. No kind of money worth that.”

“So far they haven’t spotted you, and they don’t know what you look like. But they’ve seen me. If they start shooting in my direction, I don’t want you hit.”
“You’re sure it isn’t the other way around?”

2:15 PM—Born to Kill (1947)
A murderer marries a young innocent then goes after her more experienced sister.

“Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m just warning you. Perhaps you don’t realize—it’s painful being killed. A piece of metal sliding into your body, finding its way into your heart. Or a bullet tearing through your skin, crashing into a bone. It takes a while to die, too. Sometimes a long while.”

“I shall have to forge ahead with my inquiry. And may I remind you that Nevada courts have rather puritanical views. Why some of our more impassioned juries even insist that a man who commits murder pay with his life.”

4:00 PM—The Unsuspected (1947)
The producer of a radio crime series commits the perfect crime, then has to put the case on the air.

“I like matches. You never have to refill them. And when you’re through with them, you simply throw them away … like people.”

“His day of reckoning must come. He is tormented by fear that someday he will make one false move, one slip that will betray him, and when he does, the lightning of justice will strike … the unsuspected.”

6:00 PM—Dark Passage (1947)
A man falsely accused of his wife’s murder escapes to search for the real killer.

“I got the license number. I always had a good head for figures.”
“My only interest in your head is how easy it’ll crack open.”
“Just take it easy, Parry. You’re gonna be better off that you ever were. As soon as I rake in the chips, I walk out of the game. Want your hat?”
“You make it sound pretty simple.”
“It is, and don’t make it complicated by trying to make a break. I’ll have to kill ya and only make myself $5000. One way you die, either way I make money.”

———-

Friday—July 9th

10:30 AM—‘Til We Meet Again (1940)
A dying woman shares a shipboard romance with a criminal on his way to the gallows.

10:00 PM—Young Mr. Lincoln (1939)
The future president solves a murder case.

“Mr. Lincoln should know that the mere fact that a prospective juror knows counsel for the state does not disqualify him.”
“I know that, John. What I’m afraid of is that some of the jurors might NOT know you … and that’d put me at a great disadvantage.”

———-

Saturday—July 10th

2:00 AM—Superstition (1985)
A witch executed in 1692 returns to the present for revenge.

3:30 AM—The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970)
When farmers unearth a strange skeleton, their children convert to Satanism.

7:30 AM—The Housekeeper’s Daughter (1939)
A gangster’s moll runs home to mother, with reporters and amateur detectives hot on her tail.

9:00 AM—The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
An overlooked gold transporter with twenty years’ service plots to steal a million pounds’ worth of gold.

“I propagate British cultural depravity.”

“Mr. Richards, with gold at 240 shillings per fine ounce, that particle, estimating its value at .025, would entail a loss at approximately six shillings.”

10:30 AM—Lucky Losers (1950)
The Bowery Boys almost strike it rich when they break into the stock market.

12:00 PM—Ride Lonesome (1959)
A bounty hunter tries to bring a murderer to justice through perilous territory.

“Brigade, whatever they’re payin’ you, it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.”
“I’d hunt you free.”

“He’s only a boy!”
“He’s as old as his gun.”

6:15 PM—Five Million Years to Earth (1968)
Subway excavations unearth the Devil.

“I did steel armour plating within six inches thick. Swish—just like that. Oh, it was legal. A bloke got shut in a strong room. But I got him out. It was a secret job like this one.”
“Then I’m glad you don’t talk about it.”

———-

Sunday—July 11th

6:00 AM—Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
A young man about to be married devoutly hopes murder isn’t hereditary.

“But, Mortimer, you’re going to love me for my mind, too.”
“One thing at a time!”

2:00 PM—Cool Hand Luke (1967)
A free-spirited convict refuses to conform to chain-gang life.

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

4:15 PM—No Time for Sergeants (1958)
A hillbilly draftee turns the Air Force upside down.

“… the best dang sergeant in the whole dang Air Force.”

“Every man in my whole family’s been in the infantry, clear back to my great-grampa. You know what he done? Fought with Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville, that’s what.”
“Licked him good, too, I bet!”

“Hey, Ben. Maybe you’ll get to like the Air Force. Zoomin’ all over the sky—and shoutin’ ‘Roger’ and ‘Wilco’ and everything. Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

“Why ain’t you dead?”
“No excuse, sir.”

—Mike Gray