As promised, here is the second part of highlighted selections on the Fox Movie Channel schedule for June. All five of these actually sound very intriguing, and I’ll be trying to catch each one. This seems to be going well enough to continue in July so I’ll be doing it again just before the first of the month. These times are all Eastern and I’ve kept 6:00 AM as the starting point of each day. This means, for example, that Hard Contract airs at 2:00 AM Tuesday night which is technically Wednesday morning.

Tuesday June 9

2:00 AM Hard Contract (Pogostin, 1969) - C-106 mins. - Directors who only get one shot tend to catch my interest. S. Lee Pogostin was a writer on the above average Sidney Poitier-Bobby Darin movie Pressure Point, did some television writing, and then tried his hand at movies with this hit man drama starring James Coburn and Lee Remick. Pogostin was the only credited screenwriter and also directed, but didn’t helm another picture. The film has Coburn play a contract killer who goes to Europe with the intention of getting out of the business after a hit. The supporting cast is quite good and includes Lili Palmer, Burgess Meredith, Claude Dauphin, Karen Black, and the great Sterling Hayden. I wonder if FMC will honor the Scope format this film was shot in. The channel does often present in original aspect ratio, but not always. Hard Contract hasn’t made it to DVD.

Wednesday June 10

2:00 PM Wild River (Kazan, 1960) - C-110 mins. - It’s inexplicable that Fox has not released this well-regarded Elia Kazan film on DVD in R1 when editions exist all across Europe, including the UK, France and Spain. Montgomery Clift stars as a Tennessee Valley Authority agent sent to a rural town along the river to drum up support for a dam project. The residents, including Jo Van Fleet and Lee Remick, are initially suspicious of Clift. Also in the film is Barbara Loden, Kazan’s wife and star and director of Wanda. This was Loden’s first film role. A CinemaScope picture, Wild River is, I believe though I’m not certain, typically shown on the Fox Movie Channel in letterbox format. You can even buy a download from Amazon.com, but no DVD stateside.

Thursday June 11

6:00 AM The Bowery (Walsh, 1933) - BW-87 or 92 mins. - A pre-Code movie set in 1890s New York City and starring Wallace Beery and George Raft as pals with eyes for the same girl (Fay Wray). Jackie Cooper, reuniting with co-star Beery from The Champ, is also here. The success of Paramount’s Mae West vehicle She Done Him Wrong apparently paved the way to get this picture made, though I’d hope The Bowery has aged better. Raft’s character, Steve Brodie, was a real guy who gained fame for supposedly having jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. Not on DVD.

Wednesday June  17

6:00 AM A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Kazan, 1945) - BW-128 mins. - Elia Kazan’s feature directing debut has been on and off Fox’s R1 release schedule, but ultimately never made it to DVD here. There are other editions in the world, and Fremantle put one out in the UK which now seems to be unavailable. Fathfully based on a popular book, the film is about a girl (Peggy Ann Garner) whose family struggles to make ends meet in turn of the century Brooklyn. James Dunn won an Oscar as the father with a drinking problem. Dorothy McGuire plays the mother and Joan Blondell is the promiscuous aunt. Worth noting, future director Nicholas Ray, a left-wing theater acquaintance of Kazan’s, worked on the film behind the scenes, and this was his first time on a Hollywood set. The film also airs on June 25 and 28 at 7:30 AM.

Thursday June 18

7:30 AM Anne of the Indies (Tourneur, 1951) - C-81 or 87 mins. - Technicolor production starring Jean Peters as a pirate captain (really!) who takes control of an English ship. Louis Jourdan just happens to be on the ship, but claims he’s not on the British side. Debra Paget and Herbert Marshall round out the cast. Should be interesting and having Jacques Tourneur as the director can’t hurt. The adventure film isn’t on R1 DVD, but it looks like R2 releases exist in France and Germany.