This week:
Monday: Vera Miles checks into the Roach Motel. Anthony Perkins gets devious. He ultimately collides with bureaucracy.
Tuesday: James Garner and Rod Taylor play a game of cat-and-mouse. Humphrey Bogart does his impression of Dillinger.
Wednesday: William Powell and Ginger Rogers are Nick and Nora Charles in everything but name.
Thursday: Joe E. Brown has an endless supply of excuses.
Friday: William Campbell is under pressure. Mickey Spillane goes to the bigtop. Alfred Hitchcock gets dull. Sidney Poitier makes his film debut.
Saturday and Sunday: William Powell goes to the dogs. Robert Donat gets attached to a blonde. Robert Cummings is on the lam. Joseph Cotten has female troubles. Joel McCrea’s fear of flying is perfectly justified. So are Joan Fontaine’s feelings about Judith Anderson. And Salvador Dali occupies Gregory Peck’s subconscious.
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Monday—April 6th
9:30 AM—Psycho (1960)
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-109 mins, TV-PG
"Psycho is more than familiar to us today; it is one of those pop culture artifacts that has seeped far into the general consciousness and vernacular. Who hasn’t, at some point, jokingly made a stabbing motion accompanied by a vocal imitation of those shrieking violins, or regarded with trepidation a rundown motel off the beaten path? It may be difficult, then, to recall just how shocking, even revolutionary, it seemed in 1960. Here was a very popular and respected director of suspenseful entertainments turning away from big budget Technicolor productions to make what looked and felt like a low budget exploitation film with suggestions of illicit sex, nudity, transvestism, and insanity; some conservative reviewers even accused it of being pornographic. Perhaps most audacious of all, Hitchcock killed off his star less than halfway through the story in a moment of horrific violence so artfully done that audiences swore they saw more than was actually shown; some even believed the film had switched from black-and-white to color revealing the victim’s red blood gushing from deep knife wounds."
(Source: Rob Nixon on TCM Movie Database)
1:45 PM—Five Miles to Midnight (1963)
Cast: Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young, Jean-Pierre Aumont
Director: Anatole Litvak
BW-108 mins, TV-PG
"Five Miles to Midnight falls into that subgenre, ‘the insurance fraud film,’ and bears some striking similarities to The Running Man with Lee Remick and Laurence Harvey that was released the following year. The film wastes no time in establishing the volatile relationship of Robert Macklin (Perkins) and his wife Lisa (Loren) which erupts in an angry separation after an incident in a Parisian nightclub. Robert immediately departs on a business trip and is reported killed that same evening in a plane crash that leaves no survivors. No wonder Lisa is shocked when a disheveled Robert turns up revealing he escaped from the plane unharmed …"
(Source: Jeff Stafford on TCM Movie Database)
3:45 PM—The Trial (1963)
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider, Elsa Martinelli
Director: Orson Welles
BW-120 mins, TV-14
"Without a doubt, one of the most successful adaptations of a Kafka novel is The Trial (1963), a.k.a. Le Proces, directed by Orson Welles. No less visually stunning than Welles’ masterpiece, Citizen Kane (1941), The Trial depicts the nightmarish existence of Joseph K (Anthony Perkins), a clerk who is accused of an unspecified crime, and then begins an elaborate search for justice within a labyrinth of office buildings populated by dehumanized bureaucrats."
(Source: Jeff Stafford on TCM Movie Database)
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Tuesday—April 7th
12:00 PM—36 Hours (1965)
Cast: James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor, John Banner
Director: George Seaton
BW-115 mins, TV-PG
"Rugged leading man James Garner stars as Major Jefferson Pike in 36 Hours (1964), a tense World War II espionage thriller. During an American intelligence assignment in Lisbon, Pike is drugged and captured by the Germans on the verge of D-Day. In an elaborately executed ruse, the enemies attempt to trick him into revealing the details of the Allies’ impending attack plan. The outcome of the war rests squarely on Pike’s shoulders in an edge-of-your-seat race against time. Rod Taylor co-stars as the psychiatrist assigned to extract the information from Garner, and Eva Marie Saint plays the complicated Anna, a concentration camp survivor forced to play a part in the Germans’ scheme."
(Source: Andrea Foshee on TCM Movie Database)
8:00 PM—The Petrified Forest (1936)
Cast: Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Genevieve Tobin, Dick Foran, Humphrey Bogart
Director: Archie L. Mayo
BW-82 mins
"[Robert] Sherwood based the character Duke Mantee on public enemy #1 at the time, John Dillinger. Bogart happened to closely resemble the gangster, and he studied film footage of Dillinger to perfect his mannerisms. Fascinated audiences flocked to both the play and the movie to see this version of the infamous gangster. Filmed entirely on a Warner Bros. soundstage, The Petrified Forest definitely retains a stage-bound feel. The camera rarely leaves the interior of the diner, and the movie is driven by such evocative but stagy dialogue as ‘you’re the last great apostle of rugged individualism’ (Howard speaking to Bogart). However, unlike other films for which such qualities are the kiss of death, The Petrified Forest is vital and engaging, partly due to the strength of the play itself and partly due to its first-rate performances."
(Source: Jeremy Arnold on TCM Movie Database)
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Wednesday—April 8th
12:30 PM—The Tip-Off (1932)
Cast: Eddie Quillan, Robert Armstron
g, Ginger Rogers, Joan Peers
Director: Albert Rogell
BW-71 mins, TV-G
(Note: Go here for a description of this film. Warning: SPOILERS.)
5:45 PM—Star of Midnight (1935)
Cast: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart
Director: Stephen Roberts
BW-90 mins, TV-PG
(Note: For a description of this film—with SPOILERS—go here.)
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Thursday—April 9th
7:45 AM—Alibi Ike (1935)
Cast: Joe E. Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Ruth Donnelly, Roscoe Karns
Director: Ray Enright
BW-72 mins, TV-G
"… the charming 1935 adaptation of the Ring Lardner baseball rib tickler Alibi Ike (the final and best of Brown’s ‘national pastime’ trilogy, preceded by Fireman Save My Child and Elmer the Great) resulted in a re-teaming the following year for Earthworm Tractors. Brown’s … penchant for the sport nearly won him a spot with the New York Yankees in the mid-1920s …"
(Source: Mel Neuhaus on TCM Movie Database)
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Friday—April 10th
6:30 AM—Man in the Vault (1956)
Cast: William Campbell, Karen Sharpe, Anita Ekberg, Berry Kroeger
Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
BW-73 mins, TV-G
(Note: Here is a description of this film. Beware of SPOILERS.)
7:45 AM—Ring of Fear (1954)
Cast: Mickey Spillane, Clyde Beatty, Pat O’Brien, Sean McClory
Director: James Edward Grant
C-93 mins, TV-PG
"Ring of Fear (1954) is one of the Wayne-Fellows productions that the Duke didn’t star in, a high concept circus picture that is as much a stunt as a movie: part thriller under the big top, part Technicolor circus spectacle. It plays like a low budget knock-off of The Greatest Show on Earth (1952, or more specifically, one of that film’s odd subplots) reworked as a revenge thriller with a tough-guy attitude … Ring of Fear weaves so wildly between comedy, circus spectacle and psycho thriller that you can never be sure where it’s going. That’s part of the fun of this loopy collision of genres mixing it up under the big top."
(Source: Sean Axmaker on TCM Movie Database)
11:45 AM—Topaz (1969)
Cast: John Forsythe, Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, John Vernon
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
C-142 mins, TV-PG
"At the time it was released in 1969, Topaz did indeed stir up controversy among Alfred Hitchcock fans. First of all, many were puzzled as to why the director wanted to adapt Leon Uris’ popular but sprawling novel to the screen and more importantly, why he failed to inject it with his trademark suspense … audiences at the time gave the film a big thumbs down, making it Hitchcock’s third flop in a row."
(Source: Frank Miller on TCM Movie Database)
4:30 PM—No Way Out (1950)
Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
BW-107 mins, TV-PG
"A pivotal early film in the wave of racially progressive dramas throughout the 1950s and 1960s, No Way Out (1950) earns its place in the history books thanks to the searing feature film debut of Sidney Poitier, offering a formidable performance as a doctor tending to slum residents whose ethics are put to the test when confronted with blind racism (personified by Richard Widmark as the hateful robber Ray Biddle)."
(Source: Nathaniel Thompson on TCM Movie Database)
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Saturday—April 11th
6:00 AM—The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
Cast: William Powell, Mary Astor, Eugene Pallette, Ralph Morgan
Director: Michael Curtiz
BW-73 mins, TV-G
"As with his other films at Warner’s, [director Michael] Curtiz kept things moving in The Kennel Murder Case. He used dissolves and wipes to race from scene to scene, while within scenes he used a mobile camera to cover up the genre’s inevitable talkiness. He also was proving expert at getting actors to do their best. Powell gave his best performance of the year as Vance, with strong support from leading lady Mary Astor and sidekick Eugene Pallette. Thanks to Curtiz, the picture turned a surprising profit of almost $400,000, which helped him win better assignments at the studio."
(Source: Frank Miller on TCM Movie Database)
7:30 AM—The 39 Steps (1935)
Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-86 mins, TV-G
"For a follow-up [to The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)] Hitchcock and his producer Michael Balcon turned to the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by the suspense author John Buchan. By the time Hitchcock and his scriptwriter Charles Bennett were through the only details remaining from the novel were the chase from London to Scotland and back and the idea that the hero was pursued by the police while he chased the spies. The resulting screenplay was a marvel of compression. Hitchcock and Bennett broke all the action into a series of set pieces, and then made the transitions between those scenes as rapid as possible."
(Source: Brian Cady on TCM Movie Database)
8:00 PM—Saboteur (1942)
Cast: Robert Cummings, P
riscilla Lane, Otto Kruger, Alan Baxter
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-109 mins, TV-PG
"Here … are a number of elements that would be refined and repeated in future films: the ‘wrong man’ theme; the innocent hero in pursuit of the real villain with the law closely on his tail; the cultured, attractive villain whose outward respectability masks evil; the reluctant or hostile blonde heroine who finally capitulates to the hero’s quest; the mystery story as journey toward self-discovery and romantic/sexual fulfillment; the use of important monuments and sites for spectacular set pieces; and, of course, the sardonic humor."
(Source: Rob Nixon on TCM Movie Database)
10:00 PM—Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey, Henry Travers
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-108 mins, TV-PG
"Alfred Hitchcock especially liked Shadow of a Doubt (1943), he once said, ‘because it was one of those rare occasions where you could combine character with suspense. Usually in a suspense story there isn’t time to develop character.’ In this picture, it’s the very nature of the relationship between two richly-drawn characters—Teresa Wright’s ‘Charlie’ and Joseph Cotten’s ‘Uncle Charlie’—which creates suspense for the audience. The two share an almost telepathic connection, with Wright especially devoted to her beloved uncle, who has come to visit her family in Santa Rosa, California."
(Source: Jeremy Arnold on TCM Movie Database)
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Sunday—April 12th
12:00 AM—Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-120 mins, TV-PG
"To work the script into shape, Hitchcock and [Walter] Wanger brought in a total of fourteen writers, yet the final vision is undoubtedly the director’s. Several scenes prove to be textbook examples of the Hitchcock technique; in one, an assassination occurs in a crowd of people holding umbrellas, in another purely visual scene the turning of a windmill reveals an important clue to the film’s mystery. Perhaps the most famous scene in Foreign Correspondent is a frightening and spectacular plane crash that still packs a punch today. Aiding Hitchcock in his visualization on the film were atmospheric set designs by the brilliant William Cameron Menzies."
(Source: Jeff Stafford and John M. Miller on TCM Movie Database)
2:15 AM—Rebecca (1940)
Cast: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-130 mins, TV-PG
"Forced to bring Daphne Du Maurier’s novel to the screen faithfully, Hitchcock for the first time in his career displayed his skill at using psychologically complex characters to generate suspense. Rebecca would pave the way for such later psychological thrillers of his as Suspicion (1941), Rope (1948), Strangers on a Train (1951), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960). Maxim de Winter’s relationship with his second wife represents the first portrait of a controlling male figure in Hitchcock’s films, a theme that would prove central to such later works as Vertigo and Marnie (1964)."
(Source: Frank Miller on TCM Movie Database)
4:30 AM—Spellbound (1945)
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
BW-111 mins, TV-PG
"In addition to the great dream sequence, the film is filled with other wonderful visual effects. [One] scene in particular deserves mention: When Bergman and Peck are hiding out in Michael Chekhov’s cottage, Peck comes down the stairs in a stupor, a straight razor in his hand. Chekhov gives him a glass of drugged milk and we see the scene distort as the glass is brought up to the camera and the milk poured (seemingly) into the lens. The shot was made by placing a giant glass pail in front of the camera and then pouring a large amount of milk into a trough below. (This was Hitchcock’s second special effects glass of milk; in Suspicion [1941], he put a light inside the glass of milk that Cary Grant brings to Joan Fontaine.)"
(Source: Mark Frankel on TCM Movie Database)
—Mike Gray