tcm alert thread (Jun '23 - tcm alert: dead)

I don't keep up with TCM at all--sorry I missed that.

His intros and afterwords have been kinda hilariously OTT.

surm Stanwyck thread's good:
Barbara Stanwyck: An ILX Film Snobs Thread

That must mean over the top...He did a panel on the Pauline Kael biography that turned up on YouTube, and I liked him there. That's probably the only time I've seen him speak, though. (xpost)

oh thanks dow!

For any and all who check out the Summer of Darkness schedule, I'm interested in recommendations. (Nhex's upthread are noted.)

There's so many we should probably just bump this thread every Thursday

For Week 1 (6/5), I can say that Journey Into Fear is straight up gobbidge.

oooh summer of darkness. amazzing.

La Jetee bout 2 commence!

Best. Movie. Ever. (My sister tuned in to watch it.)

TCM sponsored Film Noir MOOC class if anyone wants in: https://learn.canvas.net/courses/748

Friday, 6/05

6:00 AM / M (1931)
8:00 AM / La Bete Humaine (1938)
9:45 AM / Letter, The (1940)
11:30 AM / Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)
12:45 PM / High Sierra (1941)
2:30 PM / Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
4:15 PM / Journey Into Fear (1942)
5:45 PM / Johnny Eager (1942)
8:00 PM / Nora Prentiss (1947)
10:15 PM / Woman On The Run (1950)
11:45 PM / Dark Passage (1947)
1:45 AM / Born to Kill (1947)
3:30 AM / L.A. Confidential (1997)

Note: all festival titles will be on WatchTCM, which is nice.
Never saw M, always meant to.
The Maltese Falcon is an obvious classic, Noir 101.
L.A. Confidential was entertaining enough when I saw it so many years ago, not sure if it holds up. It felt like there hadn't been a conscious return to noir in mainstream movies for a while at that time.
Haven't seen the others, thoughts? Tell me what to DVR.

la bete humanite is required watching
high sierra is too
william wyler is fuckin' awesome and i never saw the letter
m is canonical
the rest are all new to me (except la confidential which never got me); i'm taping them all

The Letter is WW's best film with Davis imo, maybe best fullstop

i'm psyched to see it.

Here's a collection of openings and vignettes from the first batch of films:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC55WRXRuDkzNnGOn5Am4MQ3u8EEiyyqI

damn, recording six of these

over the past two days watched: M, The Letter, The Stranger on the Third Floor
Good stuff!

it's been at least a decade since I saw dark passage, gonna rewatch that soon

To celebrate (this) summer of noir, The Nitrate Diva's gifting us w noir gifs. Here's today's; click back at top right for all previous:
https://nitratediva.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/raymond-chandler-in-double-indemnity-1944/

ugh 'm so srry i missed Friday

watched high sierra tonight. end sequence is great but in general not an awesome film.

much better than Dark Passage!

I meant to ask something about High Sierra -- I noticed Ida Lupino's name was above Bogart's in the opening credits. Was she a bigger star than he was in 1941?

Lupino was going back and forth on suspensions with Warner Brothers at the time but Bogart wasn't yet a star at the start of 41 even following the success of Petrified Forest... here's some wiki info about Bogie's life from '36 until High Sierra/Maltese Falcon made him an unlikely leading man with a few minor bolded emphases on my part:

In spite of his success, Warner Bros. had no interest in making Bogart a top star. Shooting on a new movie might begin days or only hours after the previous one wrapped. The studio system, then at its most entrenched, restricted actors to their home lot, with only occasional loan-outs. Any actor who refused a role could be suspended without pay. Bogart disliked the roles chosen for him, but he worked steadily. Between 1936 and 1940 he averaged a movie every two months, at times working on two simultaneously. Amenities at Warners were few compared to the prestigious MGM. Bogart thought that the Warners wardrobe department was cheap, and often wore his own suits in his movies. In High Sierra, Bogart used his own pet dog Zero to play his character's dog, Pard.

Bogart... made films like Racket Busters, San Quentin, and You Can't Get Away with Murder. The only substantial leading role he got during this period was in Dead End (1937), while loaned to Samuel Goldwyn, where he portrayed a gangster modeled after Baby Face Nelson. He did play a variety of interesting supporting roles, such as in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (in which his character got shot by James Cagney's). Bogart was gunned down on film repeatedly by Cagney and Edward G. Robinson, among others. In Black Legion (1937), for a change, he played a good man caught up and destroyed by a racist organization, a movie Graham Greene described as "intelligent and exciting, if rather earnest".

In 1938, Warner Bros. put Bogart in a "hillbilly musical" called Swing Your Lady as a wrestling promoter; he later apparently considered this his worst film performance. In 1939, Bogart played a mad scientist in The Return of Doctor X. He cracked, "If it'd been Jack Warner's blood ... I wouldn't have minded so much. The trouble was they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."

We're likely gonna watch maltese falcon tonight as the gal hasn't seen it, though it'll be my fifth time through or so.

https://learn.canvas.net/courses/748/pages/the-case-of-film-noir-lecture-transcript-number-1

I didn't know Pard/Zero was Bogie's dog! I saw the last 30" the other day, and thought, although his part as written was a bit wet, like everybody else's, he did the best with it. Good to see HB and *Ida Lupino* together, though---did they team up again??

Don't think so... I recall reading they didn't get along?

all the stuff on the mountain is beautiful and brilliant but the multiple nonsensical b-plots (the two dueling toughs for lupino's affections, the effete songbird hotel clerk, cutie mcclubfoot, the crooked cop and the criminal doctor) do not help business.

Yeah, made the mountain chase and showdown even better, breaking through all that clutter! Maybe Bogie's character subconsciously/secretly yearned for such. And Pard proved crucial, at the last second. Good dog.

Well he did get bogie killed so maybe not! I kinda think he's meant to be a jinx.

It was time to *go*,somewhere and maybe B's dead-end character knew that, deep down. Lupino: "Oh, GET IT OVER WITH!" Or words to that effect. She also pointed out that he would never surrender. So it was a mercy, at least as far as she was concerned, and the audience was primed too. He was always something of a jinx, yeah, but good at bringing on the next turning point, and a reminder of life's inescapable details ( for example,chasing down B's car, when the Big Heist was finally underway).

"He" Pard, of course.

Wish I wasn't out tomorrow night: I haven't seen Going in Style since it came out.

"Gentleman Jim" is insanely good.

unsurprisingly, a rewatch of Maltese Falcon was very rewarding.

Woman on the Run was very very good! highly recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP17gzfzO5M

Yeah, that happened to be starting when I knocked off work the other night. Good performance from Sheridan.

I just watched that too, got it from Netflix on a whim. Very enjoyable.

the script is tart, the acting is excellent and san francisco in the late forties looks gorgeous
i did not see the twist coming!

caught most of Dark Passage - not particularly great (well, Bacall is great) mostly caught my eye cuz of the local landscape

man, high sierra is so fucking good.

i'm sick so I didn't get around to posting the schedule last night.
just realizing Detour is on now - i'll have to watch that on demand

Gun Crazy is the only one I've seen today, and I love it. Peggy Cummins is fantastic

Taping everything here:

FRIDAY, JUNE 12
6:00 AM THE GLASS KEY (1942)
7:30 AM LAURA (1944)
9:00 AM MINISTRY OF FEAR (1944)
10:30 AM MURDER, MY SWEET (1944)
12:15 PM DANGER SIGNAL (1945)
1:45 PM DETOUR (1945)
3:00 PM MILDRED PIERCE (1945)
5:00 PM DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946)
6:30 PM JOHNNY ANGEL (1946)
8:00 PM THE GANGSTER (1947)
9:45 PM GUN CRAZY (1950)
11:30 PM TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951)
1:15 AM NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)
3:30 AM NIGHT MOVES (1975)

oh yeah, Ministry of Fear is pretty enjoyable too. unusually light for Fritz Lang.
Laura's a goddamn classic

Glass Key is slept on.

mm been meaning to see Gun Crazy forever

I recorded Ministry of Fear for later, and watched Murder, My Sweet while I waited for work clients to get off their asses.

i was a big Dashiell hammett fan as a kid; never seen Glass Key but it's basically the same plot as yojimbo, right?
this looks like a pretty great lineup for this week.

You're thinking of Red Harvest ... the film that most resembles The Glass Key is probably Miller's Crossing.