Heads-up re: TCM, 11/23

At 4:45PM this afternoon TCM will show Nicholas Ray’s A Woman’s Secret (1949), a film I’ve never seen and won’t be able to catch due to a couple of prior obligations; however, if you find yourself near a TV with cable, you could definitely do worse than to check this one out. According to imdb, A Woman’s Secret was the production during which Ray met the actress who’d become his second wife, Gloria Grahame (who happens to be, as my devoted reader[s] ought to know by now, a CineMadison favorite). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: TCM’s presentation of these second-tier Rays is invaluable. After all, the great thing about Ray’s oeuvre is that the second-tier’s a lot like the first: ruddy, combustible, disheveled, volatile, etc.

Double Heads-up re: TCM, 8/12 and 8/13

Since I’ll be taking an up-north trip later today and won’t be back in Madison until tomorrow afternoon, today’s Heads-up will have to be a double; and what a double it is.

Today’s “Summer Under the Stars” marathon features an actor who’s no less iconic than yesterday’s subject, Audrey Hepburn: I’m referring, of course, to Clark Gable. I doubt I was alone in having woken up too late this morning to catch Manhattan Melodrama at 7:00AM, so that’s something of a bummer. A pair of W.S. Van Dyke romance films, both teaming Gable with Ms. Johnny Guitar herself, Joan Crawford, will bat clean-up this afternoon: Forsaking All Others (1934; 83 minutes), which also features performances by Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) and Robert Montgomery, begins at 4:00PM; and Love on the Run (1936; 80 minutes) gets started immediately after at 5:30PM. Today’s main event may very well be the John Ford-directed safari adventure Mogambo (1953; 116 minutes), which pairs Gable with Grace Kelly (jeez, what a guy), and that starts at 8:30PM.

Tomorrow will be one of the most stacked “Summer Under the Stars” programs yet as it’s devoted to the former Mrs. Nicholas Ray, Gloria Grahame. Grahame gets all mixed up with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in the Josef von Sternberg-directed (most of it, at least) Macao (1952; 81 minutes), which gets going at 12:30PM; it’s a basically dopey but solidly fun little film. The first of two Nicholas Ray films playing tomorrow begins at 3:30 with A Woman’s Secret (1949; 83 minutes), which I personally haven’t seen and am actually quite bummed about not being able to see, so go ahead and watch it for me. Vincente Minelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful (1952; 118 minutes) is well worth a look at 5:00PM, nevermind the ferociously unsubtle acting that pervades it. It’s tough to imagine a double feature stronger than the combination of Ray’s In a Lonely Place (1950; 93 minutes) at 7:00PM and Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat (1953; 89 minutes) at 9:30PM; both films are cadillacs of the gritty-and-moody-but-not-quite-noir pseudo-genre, and they’re both mandatory viewing.

Today’s schedule is here and tomorrow’s is here.

Heads-up re: TCM, 8/7

Dear readers, my brain’s a bit crispy this morning: the Deerhunter/No Age/Dan Deacon show last night at the Memorial Union Terrace was really excellent (it’s funny how much slack one essentially has to cut a musician with regard to how they sound live vs. how they sound on their album; Deerhunter sounded roughly 65% cruder live than they do on, say, Microcastle, but I’m also sincerely glad that this is the case), but as my Republican friends (and Mark McGwire) like to say: that was in the past and we’re not here to talk about the past, we’re here to talk about the future… like, what’s playing on TCM today.

“Summer Under the Stars” continues with 24 hours of Glenn Ford. You’re probably trembling with excitement at the prospect of seeing Ford lust after and get all tangled up with Rita Hayworth in Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946; 110 minutes), which will be on at 7:00PM; I’m genuinely thrilled about seeing that one. You’re also on the fence about watching Ford in the original 3:10 To Yuma (1957; 92 minutes), which will be on at 10:30PM. Finally, you’re dismayed by the absence of Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat (1953), because watching Ford get revenge for Gloria Grahame by punching a smarmy Lee Marvin’s teeth in never gets old. To laugh off your disappointment about this lack of Lang, you’re going to check out Ford and Henry Fonda in The Rounders (1965; 85 minutes), a western-comedy directed by Burt Kennedy, at 12:15AM. Not a bad day at all, really.

The rest of the schedule is here.