TAC correspondent Mike Gray has the scoop on some fine movie mysteries being shown on TV next week. Read now, watch later!
When it comes to genuine whodunits, Hollywood has lagged far behind its literary forebears. (The same can be said of science fiction and Tinseltown, but we’ll save that discussion for another time.)
Yes, the Hollywood dream factory has produced thousands of films with cops and criminals and even detectives, but seldom have they actually tried to challenge and bamboozle the viewer with an out-and-out puzzle plot mystery. Film critic William K. Everson expressed it well:
Curiously, the movies have seldom exploited the public’s familiarity with the cliches of the detective formula. Anticipating the audience reaction to a given set of circumstances—leading them astray—giving them credit for tumbling to the deception and carrying it a step further—this is the kind of gambit thinking that COULD have made the movie mystery an entertainment form quite separate from the [written] detective STORY. But few directors (or writers) have ever chosen to play with their audiences like that.
One of the few Hollywood directors who did choose to play with his audience like that wasn’t even an American. The great Billy Wilder surprised a lot of people by adapting a story by Agatha Christie to the big screen and doing a great job with it. Witness for the Prosecution and two of his earlier forays into film noir, Sunset Boulevard and Double Indemnity, are being shown on Turner Classic Movies next week.
We also recommend a couple of musicals with criminous overtones, one featuring a marvelous send-up of Mickey Spillane, the other a splendidly demented send-up of Broadway producers by the splendidly demented Mel Brooks.
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(Note: All dates and times are East Coast, USA.)
February 16th–Monday
12:00 PM—Boomerang (1947)
A prosecutor fights to prove the defendant in a scandalous murder case is innocent.
Cast: Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb, Cara Williams
1:30 PM—Naked City (1948)
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor
3:30 PM—Double Indemnity (1944)
An insurance salesman gets seduced into plotting a client’s death.
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall
Dir: Billy Wilder
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February 17th–Tuesday
4:30 AM—The Public Enemy (1931)
An Irish-American street punk tries to make it big in the world of organized crime. [Cagney is superb, and this is one of his defining roles. And Jean Harlow and Joan Blondell together in the same film. It’s a wonder the nitrate movie prints didn’t burst into flames in the projectors.—STK]
Cast: James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Joan Blondell
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February 18th–Wednesday
3:00 PM—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, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O’Connell
6:00 PM—Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
A British lawyer gets caught up in a couple’s tangled marital affairs when he defends the husband for murder. [A must-see!—STK]
Cast: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester
Dir: Billy Wilder
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February 20th–Friday
10:00 PM—The Conversation (1974)
A surveillance expert uncovers a murder plot within a corrupt corporation.
Cast: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Frederic Forrest
"I’m not afraid of death, but I am afraid of murder."
—
"I’m not following you, I’m looking for you. There’s a big difference."
—
"Every time I see one of those old guys, I always think the same thing."
"What do you think?"
"I always think that he was once somebody’s baby boy."
—
"He’d kill us if he got the chance."
—
"We’ll be listening to you."
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February 21st—Saturday
[War movies all day] [Watch ’em!–STK.]
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February 22nd—Sunday
8:45 AM—The Band Wagon (1953)
A Broadway artiste turns a faded film star’s comeback vehicle into an artsy flop. [Make sure to watch this one! It’s a classic, and one of my absolute favorite films.—STK]
Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray
"She was bad. She was dangerous. I wouldn’t trust her any farther than I could throw her. But she was my kinda woman."
— "The musical’s biggest number was, thankfully, much easier on the dancers. Associate producer Roger Edens saw a ‘Life’ magazine article on hard-boiled detective writer Mickey Spillane and decided to spoof it with ‘The Girl Hunt’ ballet. Michael Kidd, star choreographer of Broadway’s ‘Guys and Dolls,’ was brought in to bring some of that show’s lowlife flair to the piece. Kidd was scared to show Astaire the muscular moves he had planned for the ballet, knowing it was so alien to the elegant Astaire style. To his surprise, Astaire loved it and later called it one of his favorite film dances."
[Source: Brian Cady and Frank Miller on the TCM website]
10:45 AM—The Producers (1968)
A Broadway producer decides to get rich by creating the biggest flop of his career.
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars
"Gut da, por day!"
"Uh, I beg your pardon?"
"Gut da, por day!"
"Ah, gut da! (Max, have you gone mad? A receptionist who
can’t speak English? What will people say?)"
"They’ll say, ‘A wuma wa wa wa wa!’"
4:00 PM—Sunset Boulevard (1950)
A failed screenwriter falls into a mercenary romance with a faded silent-film star. [Another must-see—STK]
Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson
Dir: Billy Wilder
"The poor dope—he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool."
—Mike Gray