Less than two weeks until Christmas now and plenty of those movies popping up on the TCM schedule. I really like that the channel tries to go a bit beyond the usual things. Also lots of Frank Capra and Humphrey Bogart choices this week and throughout the month. I saw the March schedule a couple of days ago and was excited at the idea that a Jules Dassin picture starring Marcello Mastroianni which is very tough to find is planned. Also, Akira Kurosawa gets a night each week and all day on the anniversary of his birth to celebrate his centennial. As always, all times are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Sunday December 13

6:00 PM Travels with My Aunt (Cukor, 1972) - C-109 mins. - Maggie Smith was Oscar-nominated for her role as the eccentric aunt to a young man (Alec McCowen) whose mother has just died. The two hit it off and take trips across Europe. Louis Gossett, Jr. is among the supporting cast. The film is an adaptation of a Graham Greene book. Since MGM released the film theatrically, Warner Bros. should now control the rights. There isn’t a DVD release so far.

4:45 AM Private Potter (Wrede, 1962) - BW-89 mins. - TCM has the silent Ben-Hur at midnight, followed by Dreyer’s Ordet at 2:30 AM and this little seen, little known Tom Courtenay picture. If you’re familiar with what the first two share then you might be able to guess some of the subject matter of Private Potter. It turns out to involve, yes, God in that Courtenay’s character stops fighting a military mission in Cyprus because he claims divine intervention. This was Courtenay’s film debut and he also made The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner the same year. Knowing that, I’m in for a watch. Another person of note involved was screenwriter Ronald Harwood. It was his first movie too. With MGM and now probably Warner Bros., the film doesn’t seem to have been put on DVD.

Monday December 14

8:00 PM The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Capra, 1932) - BW-87 mins. - On the strength of It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, there was a time when Frank Capra was probably my favorite director. I’ve, for better or worse, grown up since then and despite still loving both of those films as well as a few others Capra made I can see why his status critically isn’t on par with Ford and Hitchcock and their ilk. That said, the great, rarely discussed section of Capra’s work might be his Columbia films with Barbara Stanwyck in the early ’30s. TCM is showing an avalanche of Capra this month (though, due to rights reasons, not It’s a Wonderful Life) and I believe all are on the schedule. The two best are The Miracle Woman, which airs next week, and this one, with Stanwyck as an American who travels to China and slowly forms a bond with the man of the title (played by Nils Asther, a native Scandinavian who I incidentally just watched in the absolutely charming James Whale picture By Candlelight). Both Capra movies are on DVD in the UK in a Stanwyck set but still waiting to be released here in R1. I’ve read rumblings that Sony has something in the works, maybe for 2010.

3:45 AM The Younger Generation (Capra, 1929) - BW-84 mins. - Early, partial talkie from Capra here, which follows Dirigible (1931) and Flight (1929). It sounds pretty interesting. Ricardo Cortez is a Jewish businessman (last name: Goldfish) whose methods and ambitions contrast with those of his more traditional parents, played by Jean Hersholt and Lina Basquette. Apparently there are both silent and talking sequences. It was done for Columbia and isn’t on DVD.

Wednesday December 16

11:15 AM It All Came True (Seiler, 1940) - BW-97 mins. - With so many Humphrey Bogart pictures being shown on TCM this month, finding a couple each week not on DVD that sound worthwhile isn’t too tough. Most are crime movies and this is no exception. Bogie plays a nervous gangster who transforms a boarding house into a criminal enterprise. Add Ann Sheridan and that’s a recommendation in itself. Mark Hellinger was a producer, which usually promises a slightly more polished film. Warner Bros. for this one.

1:00 PM The Wagons Roll at Night (Enright, 1941) - BW-84 mins. - In the Bogart timeline, 1936’s The Petrified Forest is what really lead to all of those gangster pictures where he was usually playing the same tough character who’d often find his death before the film was over. That went on for about five years, until High Sierra came along in 1941 and The Maltese Falcon followed later in the same year. Between those two, this quite different film opened. I don’t know if it made much of an impact on making Bogart a star, but the subject matter was certainly a departure. Here he’s a carnival manager with an escaped lion. The lion is found by Eddie Albert, who somehow transitions into being lion tamer for the show. Things are fine until Albert gets eyes for Bogie’s younger sister played by Joan Leslie. This same basic story was done just a few years earlier as Kid Galahad (and years later too, with Elvis Presley) but without the circus hook. Bogart had been in that picture too. Here he’s also reunited with Dead End co-star Sylvia Sidney. Warner Bros. was the studio and it’s not available on DVD.

Thursday December 17

6:30 AM Have a Heart (Butler, 1934) - BW-80 mins. - Even with its significant flaws, IMDb tends to be the best place to figure out what’s worth mentioning on the TCM schedule from week to week and finding information about the things I do pick. I try to place as little worth in the User Comments as possible but they are always there on the screen, lurking and waiting to be read. In a pinch, they sometimes can’t be avoided. So what we end up with is finding a film like Have a Heart, directed by David Butler (who has several movies on today’s schedule), and starring James Dunn and Jean Parker as, respectively, the scrappy Irish guy and a dancer who can no longer use one of her legs after a fall. Going by these User Comments, I learned that the picture could be a nice little rainy weekend watch, that it gives Una Merkel a scene-stealing turn in support, that it’s dated, will break your heart, and, in a one-star review, that it’s a “strange little movie.” I don’t yet know whether I’ll enjoy Have a Heart, but I do know that I tend to like strange little movies. So there. The wasteland successfully navigated once again. MGM produced and Warner Bros. should now control. No DVD.

11:30 PM Never Say Goodbye (Kern, 1946) - BW-94 mins. - Errol Flynn gets a rare romantic comedy opportunity in this Warner Bros. film with a Christmas touch. He’s a magazine editor whose marriage to Eleanor Parker (an excellent and quite nice-looking actress I tend to mention frequently) has taken a rough turn. Their young daughter plots to reunite the couple. Of interest particularly in this Bogart-centric month is an impression Flynn does of the actor which Bogart himself apparently voiced. Promises to be fun. IMDb User Comment calls it a “predictable puffball.” Maybe I like predict- Oh nevermind. The picture is absent from DVD.

Friday December 18

6:00 AM Bachelor Bait (Stevens, 1934) - BW-75 mins. - Several 1930s George Stevens pictures are being shown today. This, the Fred Astaire starrer A Damsel in Distress and the excellent Vivacious Lady are all in need of R1 DVD releases (particularly the latter which I fear will be Warner Archive-d any week now). Bachelor Bait is about a marriage agency for lonely bachelors to find wives. Stuart Erwin and Rochelle Hudson headline. Skeets Gallagher is also in the cast. I’ve seen probably half a dozen thirties pictures with Gallagher and he seems to always play the same guy - a leaching drunk - but I enjoy it every time for some reason. This one was done for RKO, meaning Warner Bros. probably has R1 rights. It’s not on DVD to my knowledge.

12:00 AM Amazing Grace and Chuck (Newell, 1987) - C-115 mins. - Not one of TCM’s more inspired programming decisions, and it deviates heavily from what’s listed in my Now Playing guide, tonight’s line-up is dedicated to films directed by Mike Newell. Three of them actually, starting with Enchanted April and Four Weddings and a Funeral - not the usual TCM fare and for good reason. Some people might be interested in the chance to see this drama concerning nuclear proliferation. The plot is about a promising little league baseball player who vows to stop playing until nuclear weapons are disarmed. His idea catches on, first with a Boston Celtics player (played by real life NBA star Alex English, who never did play for the Celtics) and later with other athletes. The cast is certainly varied, with Jamie Lee Curtis, Red Auerbach as himself, William L. Petersen and even the great Gregory Peck as the President. I’m not overly familiar with this film so I don’t know what the hold-up regarding a DVD release is. You would think it would be available but it’s never been released here in R1. IMDb lists TriStar as theatrical distributor and Warner Bros. as the studio behind the VHS. HBO, now part of the same umbrella as WB, actually put the VHS out, which seems weird since TriStar is connected to Columbia/Sony.

After a much longer than expected absence, I’m cranking up the TCM Ten again this week. The Mickey Mouse Mafia will be knocking down my door any day now if I don’t get a few things reviewed very soon, but December is such an exciting month on Turner Classic Movies, with hours upon hours being devoted to Humphrey Bogart, that I have to get things going here. As always, all times listed are EST and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday December 5

8:30 AM Street Scene (Vidor, 1931) - BW-79 mins. - Producer Samuel Goldwyn paid big money for the rights to this popular play, set entirely in a New York tenement location, and handed it off to director King Vidor. The early sound picture has an ensemble cast including a young Sylvia Sidney, Beulah Bondi, and Walter Miller. A murder takes place, but little otherwise occurs plotwise. Anything Vidor directed around this time is worth a watch. Hard to believe, but the out of print R1 DVD from Image will now cost you at least $300 through Amazon’s third party sellers.

12:00 PM Fitzwilly (Mann, 1967) - C-102 mins. - That would be Delbert Mann of the (unrelated) filmmaking Manns behind the camera for this one. Dick Van Dyke stars as a loyal butler to an old lady (Dame Edith Evans) whose fortune has run out. Not wanting to let their boss down, Van Dyke and other staff members conceive ways of redistributing the wealth via criminal enterprise. Barbara Feldon (yes, Agent 99) plays a new secretary and love interest to Van Dyke’s character. The Christmas Eve department store raid explains the film’s two appearances on the schedule this month, with another showing set for December 10th at 10:00 PM. Walter Mirisch produced and United Artists originally released the movie. It’s not on DVD and should be controlled by MGM (though who will control MGM is of course another matter).

Sunday December 6

12:00 AM Miss Mend (Otsep, 1926) - BW-250 mins. - TCM kills two birds with a single Soviet serial tonight as both the silent and import quotas are met by this airing. I can’t claim much familiarity with this four-plus hour serial but the plot seems to involve three reporters who must stave off western capitalists’ plans to spread germ warfare in the USSR. It sounds fascinating and fun. If you miss the TCM showing or just want it for your library, Flicker Alley will be releasing a two-disc set with bonus features on December 15.

Tuesday December 8

3:30 PM The Prize (Robson, 1963) - C-135 mins. - Most of Monday’s schedule is devoted to Frank Capra, and it’s interesting to see the WWII documentaries airing during the day. All, or almost all, are on DVD. Completely unrelated to that, The Prize is a Paul Newman movie about Nobel Prize winners embroiled in intrigue while in Stockholm. Edward G. Robinson and Elke Sommer co-star. People seem to really go for this film, often making comparisons to Hitchcock, but Warner Bros. opted not to release it on DVD either with the Newman box a few years ago or in the more recent wave of single titles. Who knows if it’ll see the light of day now.

Wednesday December 9

11:30 AM Racket Busters (Bacon, 1938) - BW-71 mins. - Bogart Bonanza continues with several of his pre-stardom crime and adventure pictures that haven’t made it to DVD yet. Men Are Such Fools, directed by Busby Berkeley, immediately precedes this one, at 10:15 AM. The Manhattan produce racket is the subject of Lloyd Bacon’s Racket Busters and Bogie plays the leader. George Brent is the good guy truck driver while Walter Abel gets to be the buster of the title, reportedly based on Thomas E. Dewey. What drew me to the film was Robert Rossen being credited for the story and screenplay. He’d later direct The Hustler and All the King’s Men, but his writing credits (films like Blues in the Night and The Roaring Twenties) were typically strong as well. Warner Bros. is the studio and no DVD of the film yet. Barring another Gangsters Collection or Bogart box, I’ll expect the Warner Archive treatment at some point.

5:45 AM King of the Underworld (Seiler, 1939) - BW-67 mins. - W.R. Burnett wrote the story for the earlier Paul Muni film Dr. Socrates and this picture is a remake with a gender twist where Kay Francis plays the Muni role of a doctor forced into providing medical services for gangsters. Humphrey Bogart ended up with top billing as the main tough guy/arm twister. This too is not on DVD and a Warner Bros. property. The Oklahoma Kid, a Cagney and Bogart western that I like a whole lot, airs in prime time at 8:00 PM.

Thursday December 10

12:00 PM Lonelyhearts (Donehue, 1958) - BW-103 mins. - A Nathanael West novella formed the basis for this film starring Montgomery Clift as a young advice columnist who gets too emotionally involved in the plights of his readers. A lot of sadness runs through the story, with Robert Ryan as a newspaper editor who berates his alcoholic wife (an against type Myrna Loy) and Oscar-nominated Maureen Stapleton making her film debut as one of the paper’s correspondents. John Alton was the cinematographer. I’m not sure why now but I watched this a long while ago and didn’t get much out of it. I probably owe it another shot. United Artists released and there’s no DVD available to my knowledge. MGM should control the rights.

2:00 AM Susan Slept Here (Tashlin, 1954) - C-98 mins. - Dick Powell is a Hollywood screenwriter and Debbie Reynolds plays the juvenile delinquent runaway who combine to form an unlikely romance. Not your typical holiday fare. This was one of director Frank Tashlin’s earlier features and he’d further his “live-action cartoon” style with movies starring Jerry Lewis and the best two appearances of Jayne Mansfield’s career. The film was made for RKO and hasn’t been brought to DVD yet. It’s with Warner Bros. here. If you can’t catch this showing, TCM also has Susan Slept Here lined up for the 13th at 2:00 PM and again on Christmas Day.

Friday December 11

10:15 AM This Land Is Mine (Renoir, 1943) - BW-103 mins. - It looks like a Spanish R2 DVD exists for this Jean Renoir picture, but nothing yet here. Charles Laughton is a school teacher in Nazi-occupied France who’s reluctant to choose sides at first but ultimately finds himself drawn to the resistance. I really have to see this, and it seems amazing to consider a film with this sort of plot would have been made when it was. Maureen O’Hara and George Sanders are among the supporting cast. Released by RKO, Warner Bros. likely controls in R1.

2:00 PM The Bribe (Leonard, 1949) - BW-98 mins. - More Laughton, after Jules Dassin’s enjoyable The Canterville Ghost at 12:15 PM. I’m mentioning The Bribe because, for one thing, it’s an excellent little noir starring Robert Taylor as a federal agent tempted by Ava Gardner. John Hodiak plays Gardner’s husband and Vincent Price rounds out the sleaze. What bothers me is that Warner Bros. threw this very deserving film into the Archive trash compactor so there’s virtually no hope in getting a proper DVD release of it. It’s the sort of picture I like well enough to own on DVD but not really so essential that I have to have an overpriced DVD-R of it right now.

Samuel Fuller says in Pierrot le fou that “film is like a battleground. Love. Hate. Action. Violence. Death. In one word, emotion.” Fuller wrote in his autobiography that he didn’t know what director Jean-Luc Godard expected from him on the set, that there hadn’t been any rehearsal, and the scene was done in a single take. It’s a nonetheless immortal moment, revealing so much of Fuller’s filmmaking philosophy. Sony recently released a Samuel Fuller Film Collection which I’ve just reviewed for DVD Times, and you can see traces of what he was saying in the five films included which used Fuller’s ideas but weren’t directed by him. The two pictures found in the set which he did make liberally apply the Fuller cinema theory to an exhilarating extent. The Crimson Kimono and Underworld U.S.A. are reason enough to want the collection, though the other films are never less than entertaining.

It’s been tough trying to more or less will Fuller’s films onto DVD. With these two now out, the focus hopefully will be on making Park Row available (perhaps via Criterion if it can be done) and finding Verboten! a disc in R1. I’d love to see China Gate and Run of the Arrow too.

(I think I wrote this more for myself than all of you wonderful readers, but I don’t mind sharing.)

It’s possible my level of compassion is below normal, but usually when I hear of someone’s pet dying, particularly after a long life, it doesn’t really yield the same reaction as when a human family member dies. I’d imagine most of us are this way, that we value human life significantly above that of an animal. (Unless we’re watching a movie.) In some way, if it’s not your pet, a creature with four legs seems comparatively disposable. And yet, we often spend more time with our ever reliable pets than with human loved ones. They are there at home when no one else is, never judging and always a source of warm companionship. When we have to say goodbye, as I had to this morning, they are the strong ones while we often weep like young children.

Johnnie came into my life over seven years ago. He was part of the package of domesticity provided by my better half, who had literally dreamed of a little orange and white ball of fur nine years earlier and found him the following day sitting inside a shelter cage just as he’d been in her dream. That was the cat for her and, eventually, Johnnie was the cat for me too. I missed his younger years but she had plenty of stories to tell me. There was the one of a too curious Johnnie getting pecked on the nose to the point of bloodshed by her pet bird (and never bothering the latter again apparently). I’ve seen pictures of him wearing this hideously funny children’s shirt that had pictures of baby chickens all over it. He didn’t seem as thrilled by that as everyone else. Johnnie also used to burrow himself under the bed covers for maximum comfort. All pet owners have memories like these, and they always seem more entertaining the closer you are to the animal.

By the time I did finally meet Johnnie he was as sweet and mischievous as ever, but he’d recently been diagnosed with feline diabetes. This would require the poke of a syringe into his little cat body every twelve hours for the rest of his life. Johnnie hardly minded. The somewhat frequent visits to the veterinarian bothered him much more, and it wasn’t uncommon for the brave but nervous fella to soil himself on the way. He never liked to leave the comfort zone of our apartment. Johnnie had such a good temperament but even the mildest threat of a doctor visit (real or imagined by him) could trigger the quick, almost involuntary creation of puddles or piles of waste on the floor. Baths weren’t his thing either.

His diabetes was kept under control by almost constant care and, I like to think, a good amount of love. But as Johnnie got older things didn’t seem to work as well as they once did, particularly his digestive system. That required another daily medicine, a liquid that must have tasted horrible since he clearly did not like having the substance more or less shot down his throat every night. I was worried as to why he couldn’t properly digest the special diabetes management dry food he’d been taking for years without incident, but the medicine was mostly effective. More bothersome was the loss of muscle mass Johnnie had experienced slowly but surely. He had been a big, robust cat at one point. I’ve seen him almost flaunt his girth by laying on his back with a furry white belly proudly facing upward. Even at the end he still liked to eat. I’d introduced him to cold cuts and he never looked back. In my mind he’s now in some kitty afterlife enjoying a deli tray of thinly sliced meat while sharpening his front claws (one of his favorite habits). Dinner plates seemed to require an investigation from our Johnnie cat in later years.

His increasingly bony frame did concern me. At this point he was already fifteen or so years old and we’d decided that putting him through any sort of treatment for cancer or the like was out of the question. His quality of life was always the main priority. Physically, Johnnie would sometimes limp after hopping out of the litter box and his attempts to jump on the bed were occasionally unsuccessful. (Not deterred, he’d usually try again right away and have better luck.) The signs of his deterioration were starting to be more obvious, but the spark in this cat’s eye was blindingly bright. His actions always indicated he was happy and full of life. Over the course of my time with Johnnie he’d provided the loyal devotion I normally associate with a dog rather than the enigmatic, often selfish nature typical of a cat. Nothing had changed in that regard nor would it.

His most recent trip to the vet also yielded positive signs, indicating that his diabetes, in the seven years since he’d been known to have it, had never been under control any better. In some irrational part of my mind I started to wonder just how long Johnnie could go. Another year? Two? Would he make it to twenty? I must’ve fooled myself into thinking he was in great shape. Then came this past Saturday night. I was home alone and heard something in the other room. Now I figure he must have tried to jump on the bed but not made it. When I got in there I saw Johnnie wobbling off balance but trying to fight it. After what couldn’t have been more than a minute or two he seemed to collapse, awake but with the side of his face and body against the floor. His mouth was open and he was struggling to breathe. I was scared. My initial fear was that he was dying in front of my eyes. I then watched him gradually regain his breath but remain on the floor hardly moving beyond the very labored breathing. About fifty minutes later, he got up, seemingly fine. Nothing the rest of the night indicated anything had been wrong.

Of course, we knew this had been a serious attack of some kind. Maybe we didn’t want to believe just how serious the problem was, but taking him to the doctor on a Sunday wasn’t really an option. An almost identical episode followed the next night and it was clear he needed immediate medical attention. Johnnie was less active than usual the rest of the night and eventually made his way over to the floor on her side of the bed when it was time to go to sleep. I probably should’ve better prepared myself for the idea that when we took Johnnie to the doctor’s office this morning he might not be coming home again but maybe it was for the best. Fluid surrounded his lungs. There was nothing anyone could have done Saturday night, Sunday night or today. I know we did the best thing for everyone but I still miss my cat. I miss my friend.

^ That’s the shot from Murder by Contract that leads into Vince Edwards’ hitman Claude posing as a barber and taking the first step in his new career. Great, sly use of humor there. I felt like there was probably more to explore with that film than time and space comfortably allowed in my new review of the Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics I set, but I can always give it a greater focus here at some point down the line. The DVD Times review I did takes portions of my previous thoughts on The Sniper and The Big Heat, expands a little on the latter, and also includes writing on The Lineup, Murder by Contract, and, briefly, 5 Against the House.

I’ve just finished and uploaded a review of the Masters of Cinema Series Complete Fritz Lang Dr. Mabuse box at DVD Times and boy are my fingers tired.

It’s always nice to discover a previously unseen film with the power to surprise and enthrall you. Ernst Lubitsch is one of my favorite directors, easily on a short list of five or ten, but a lot of his movies aren’t available on DVD in R1. So while I’ve seen most of Lubitsch’s work after the silent era there are a couple that have still eluded me. Until now, one of those was Angel, the 1937 feature he made for Paramount starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, and Melvyn Douglas. I’d ordered the Universal R2 disc when it was released but one thing after another had postponed my watching of it. Despite Angel ranking at a healthy 518th in the most recent round-up of They Shoot Pictures Don’t They?’s list of the 1,000 greatest films, it’s flown well below the radar in my own experience. Some of this is no doubt attributable to Universal’s poor treatment of Lubitsch on R1 DVD, with only Design for Living currently available and Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife promised for release next month, both exclusive to sets designed around the films’ stars. An additional five Universal-controlled Lubitsch pictures have been licensed to Criterion, still leaving Angel and his drama Broken Lullaby unreleased in R1. My point here is that the lack of herald and general discussion for Angel has perhaps positioned it as just another Lubitsch film, but I’m now thinking it could perhaps be the director’s most uniquely successful work.

In some way, I guess I’d already imagined what sort of film Angel was given its director and screenwriter (Samson Raphaelson). I’ve seen their other collaborations and they’re all highly entertaining movies which tend to lighten the viewer’s mood on impact. This should be in the same general mold, I figured. Now I realize I was mistaken. Angel doesn’t lighten your mood. It manages to combine Lubitsch’s ability to ease the viewer into pleasant situational humor with a much darker tone favoring misdirection and ambiguity. Far from being the “failure” Scott Eyman calls the movie in his biography Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise, Angel must be seen as a special case where the director relished the internal just as much as or even more than the external. Lubitsch films often masterfully show conflict above the surface, told with a wink and a smile as if to say that silly little diversions can tell us as much about ourselves as complex drama and tragedy. With Angel, Lubitsch seemed to largely leave behind these reassurances.

The film is short and plotted as beautifully as we’d expect, but what caught me off guard was how much gravity Lubitsch gives most every scene. Consider the intangible, feathery quality of the “Lubitsch Touch” in his other films and then look at how Angel manages to cherrypick aspects of that perceived lightness in terms of mood and feeling while still adding emotional weight, sometimes more for the viewer than even the characters. What results is a Lubitsch film that flies by yet unexpectedly devastates us, particularly in the third act. Some degree of seriousness wouldn’t come as a surprise because even the most frivolous of his pictures retain pockets of hidden truth about love or desire or wealth or power or whatever, but Angel impresses with its commitment to shed much of the comfort to which we’re accustomed. This is a piercing of the romantic comedy veil. There are moments of humor and of deep romanticism, but it’s not a romantic comedy. I have a problem with considering Angel a comedy of any sort. It feels airy but never insubstantial, and the tone, aided by a largely absent musical score, seems to also favor more serious ideas.

From the start, Lubitsch revels in establishing an air of mystery. The initial setting is Paris. Marlene Dietrich greets our eyes. Her actual identity is shrouded from the audience just as it is from Douglas’ character. That he meets her in some sort of high class escort service run by the remarkably poised grand duchess, played by Laura Hope Crews, would seem to indicate that Dietrich’s character is at least an interesting lady unafraid of creating secrets. Douglas is there at the recommendation of a military friend. I believe he’s supposed to be as British as Herbert Marshall, to whom we’re later introduced. The way these first few scenes play out could be described as deftly straddling the line between efficiency and confusion. While the situational seeds are certainly planted, the wheres, whos and whys are pretty much all left in the dark. Especially intriguing is that the film never seems to unnecessarily obscure the characters. Dietrich and Douglas meet by chance, make a date and are already on dessert by the time we next see them.

It’s her idea for the two to not exchange any information, including even their names. They next move to a park and a bench where they sit to talk. When she disappears into the night we see neither Dietrich’s exit nor Douglas’ reaction but the look of an older woman selling flowers to the after dark lovers of nightfall. It’s a bold choice to let the scene play out while focused on a largely inconsequential character who appears just once. A similar stray from the obvious occurs later in the film when Douglas is about to make a mental connection as to who Dietrich, his beloved Angel, really is and the camera impolitely abandons his quest entirely. Over and over again, from these two instances of chasing the viewer’s eye away from where it typically should be to the conviction Dietrich shows in denying her past encounter with Douglas then returning again to her behavior in the final scene with Marshall, Angel almost always opts for the unexpected path. It’s simply never the film for which the viewer has been trained.

Since I’d unintentionally dismissed the film sight unseen for months now, my view is that this degree of uniqueness found in Angel is quite welcome indeed. I would never tire of watching a great Lubitsch comedy, but realizing, without any doubt, that he had the ability to more or less subvert the happy cynicism seen in Trouble for Paradise, Design for Living, Cluny Brown, etc. was a revelation. The depth of Angel and its insistence on pitting a half-lonely marriage first against an (apparently) unconsummated fling and, then, itself impressed me a great deal. There’s nothing else I’ve seen from Lubitsch which so boldly tackled the reality of love and its sadnesses. The ending here possibly feels out of place in its seeming neatness, but what of the other party? Isn’t the final shot just another example of withholding the reaction we want and expect? Instead of the quote-unquote loser of the ordeal, we see the perfunctory happiness which very well might be temporary. That there are three main characters ensures that at least someone will be left wanting, thus exploding the entire idea of the happy ending entirely. The characters are carefully positioned as being likable in basically equal amounts so any resolution can only be viewed as, at best, bittersweet. At a time when screwball comedies ruled the day, Lubitsch went for a more delicate and resonant tone.

Interesting selection on Monday and a great Lillian Gish tribute on Wednesday make for a strong week. As always all times are EDT and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday October 10

4:30 PM Sirocco (Bernhardt, 1951) - BW-98 mins. - On DVD in R1 from Sony but now out of print, this Humphrey Bogart starrer was based on a novel by Joseph Kessel, who also wrote the source material for Belle de jour and Melville’s Army of Shadows, and co-adapted for the screen by A.I. Bezzerides, screenwriter of On Dangerous Ground. Bogart plays an American expatriate in the 1920s who becomes involved in gun-running for the Syrians in their fight against the French occupation. Lee J. Cobb and Everett Sloane are among the supporting cast.

12:15 AM Dr. Socrates (Dieterle, 1935) - BW-70 mins. - Paul Muni all night this evening. He’s reunited with Scarface co-star Ann Dvorak in this crime drama from writer W.R. Burnett. Muni plays a doctor forced by gangsters to provide medical treatment. Barton MacLane is the ring leader and Mayo Methot plays his moll. This looks to be one of those quick little gangster pictures Warner Bros. was so good at churning out at the time. It’s not on DVD. Seemed like a good candidate for entry in a Gangsters Collection before the studio gave up on releasing box sets. The Story of Louis Pasteur follows at 1:30 AM.

Sunday October 11

2:30 AM Ecstasy (Machaty, 1933) - BW-87 mins. - Scandalous! Hedy Lamarr (using her given name Hedy Kiesler) caused an international uproar when she appeared nude in this film. It certainly got her noticed, but she still wouldn’t make another picture until 1938’s Algiers. The Vienna-born Lamarr plays a frustrated wife in Ecstasy, which is actually considered to be a Czech film. I’ve tried watching it before but found it tough going filmwise. A DVD is available in R1 from Image (and it has a stunning cover). Those in the New York City area will soon have the opportunity to get a better look at Hedy, on the big screen, when the film shows at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on October 25.

Monday October 12

6:45 AM Five Golden Hours (Zampi, 1960) - BW-90 mins. - An Ernie Kovacs-Cyd Charisse pairing sounds pleasant enough. He’s a con artist specializing in rich widows and she’s, yep, a rich widow. The catch is that her baroness character isn’t quite so innocent. George Sanders does what he does in support. Chris Challis was director of photography. The releasing studio was Columbia, though it’s not on DVD from what I can tell.

6:00 PM The Appointment (Lumet, 1969) - C-115 mins. - TCM rolls on today with a nice tribute to Anouk Aimée. Fellini’s masterful 8½ plays at 1:45 PM in a rare afternoon showing of a foreign language film. It’s followed by Model Shop and this unheralded Sidney Lumet feature. If you noticed my signed Dog Day Afternoon sleeve I posted last week, it won’t come as a surprise that I’m a Lumet fan. He still has a surprising number of films unavailable on R1 DVD, including this picture which also stars Omar Sharif. The two leads play a married couple in Rome. Sharif’s character suspects his wife is spending her free time as a high end prostitute. Doesn’t sound like your typical Sidney Lumet film, though his versatility is sometimes taken for granted. MGM released theatrically, giving Warner Bros. the rights now. It’s not available on DVD.

8:00 PM The Man Who Understood Women (Johnson, 1959) - C-105 mins. - Romain Gary, who’d marry Jean Seberg in 1962 and later write the story on which Sam Fuller’s White Dog is based, had his novel adapted by writer/director Nunnally Johnson for this film. It sounds fascinating. Henry Fonda stars as a Hollywood producer trying to turn wife Leslie Caron into a major sex symbol. She becomes so disenchanted with the whole thing that she leaves him and the business to go back to France, where she also finds another man. Especially intriguing is that the Fonda character in Gary’s book was apparently modeled after Orson Welles (married, of course, to Rita Hayworth at one time). That Gary went on to marry and then direct Seberg before the two divorced also makes for a sad coda to the story. The film was made by Fox, and isn’t on DVD.

Tuesday October 13

10:00 PM Escape Me Never (Godfrey, 1947) - BW-104 mins. - Lucky Errol Flynn gets paired with Ida Lupino and Eleanor Parker in this romantic drama. He’s a composer in Venice who’s engaged to Parker but falls for Lupino, who herself is engaged to Flynn’s brother (Gig Young). The film was made by Warner Bros. and is not on DVD. Flynn pops up again in the Raoul Walsh-directed Northern Pursuit at midnight.

Wednesday October 14

9:15 AM La Boheme (Vidor, 1926) - BW-94 mins. - Lillian Gish was born on this day in 1893. TCM honors the screen legend with seven films on the daytime schedule. She’s paired with John Gilbert in this King Vidor silent about a romance in Paris in the 1830s. He’s an artist and she’s a seamstress, both struggling to make ends meet. Looking forward to this one. It was MGM but now should be in the hands of Warner Bros. Nothing on the DVD front. The Scarlet Letter follows at 11:00 AM.

12:45 PM The Wind (Sjostrom, 1928) - BW-82 mins. - TCM aired this a couple of years ago and I don’t think it’s been on since. It’s truly a masterpiece of silent cinema, and Warner Bros. should be embarrassed at not having yet released a DVD version. Gish plays a somewhat fragile young woman who moves to Texas and faces a tumultous series of events. If you have any interest at all, try to make time for this one. It remains an incredibly affecting film. MGM was the original studio.

Thursday October 15

6:15 AM Parole Girl (Cline, 1933) - BW-68 mins. - Good to see a pre-Code Mae Clarke picture pop up on the schedule. Information is sparse, but it seems to be a drama where she’s paroled from prison for a crime she didn’t even commit. Edward Cline, who also did The Bank Dick, directed. Ralph Bellamy gets the male lead. Made for Columbia, the film hasn’t been put on DVD.

Home to some of the best films in the world as well as some of the finest DVD (and now Blu-ray) editions ever created, the Criterion Collection is beloved by most anyone who takes their movies seriously enough to have not just a few discs lying around the home but a cinematic “library” ready for any mood or occasion. Criterion clearly puts an enormous amount of thought and effort into its releases from top to bottom. The particular films chosen are important but so are the supplements which accompany them and the overall presentation of each edition. It’s often the cover art which gives us the initial impression of a Criterion release. Unlike Warner Bros. and Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series, both of which typically try to use original poster art or some variation of such, Criterion tends to create new designs as part of tying the specific release with the film (though some of my favorite Criterion covers do derive from the film’s poster).

After noticing yesterday that a truly lackluster cover for the forthcoming release of Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale had been abandoned for a far more pleasing alternative, I started to think about which Criterion covers were my favorites. My preference seems to be for the drawn ones rather than covers using film stills. I think I also preferred Criterion’s artwork prior to the rebranding two years ago. Regardless, narrowing it down to just 12 covers wasn’t as easy as I’d expected and I had to leave out some like Diabolique, Charade and The Red Shoes which are early, simple designs but nonetheless perfect in my eyes. The sepia-toned still of Jean Gabin on La Bête Humaine and the covers for Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway and Night and the City also fell just short.

Here are the dozen I chose as favorites, in spine-numbered order because when you’re talking Criterion that’s how it’s done:

M (Lang, 1931)

Mon Oncle (Tati, 1958)

Sullivan's Travels (Sturges, 1942)

 

In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2000)

The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001)

Le Corbeau (Clouzot, 1943)

Eyes Without a Face (Franju, 1960)

Divorce Italian Style (Germi, 1961)

Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch, 1943)

Boudu Saved from Drowning (Renoir, 1932)

Harakiri (Kobayashi, 1962)

The Furies (Mann, 1950)

While usually steeped in the anxiety which met and followed World War II, film noir can, on rare occasions, take place prior to the 20th century. There are a few examples set during the Victorian period (with John Brahm’s Hangover Square being a particular standout), but, otherwise, the only director I’m aware of who was able to effectively turn back the clock with noir was Anthony Mann and he did it twice. The first, Reign of Terror (aka The Black Book) involves Robespierre and is set during the French Revolution. It’s a stunning example of moving beyond the seeming limitations of noir while still creating one of the truly frightening pictures in the cycle. John Alton’s camera was perhaps never more effective. Two years later came Mann’s The Tall Target, a film noir set on a train and starring Dick Powell as a man (named, I promise, John Kennedy) intent on preventing a conspiratorial plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on his way to the 1861 inauguration. The Tall Target is inferior to Reign of Terror, but it does maintain that very specific atmosphere of tension and immediacy so native to noir. The cinematography, here by Paul C. Vogel, is more black and not quite black than black and white.

The Tall Target tracks the determined Kennedy as he makes his way via train from New York to Baltimore. Prior to boarding, he relinquishes his police badge because no one seems to believe his theory that the president-elect is in danger. Kennedy thus becomes a lone wolf, without any authority or help. He also slides comfortably into the Hitchcock mold of the protagonist who faces one difficulty after another in the course of having to establish his innocence when falsely accused. Indeed, there’s much here to associate with the master of suspense as Mann presents the character as a very solitary figure. He does so using the confined spaces of that most cinematic of transportation - the train. The suspense isn’t on par with a Hitchcock picture, this being a 78-minute B-movie and all, and Mann doesn’t bleed that facet as much as, say, Richard Fleischer did in The Narrow Margin, but the few opportunities which arise are hardly wasted. A gun to Kennedy’s back while walking through the train reveals how adept Mann was at making the small seem large.

Even better is a scene where Kennedy is struggling with an impostor near the tracks while the train is stopped but about to resume movement. It’s lit so that darkness and steam obscure the faces almost to the point where the viewer struggles to see who’s positioned where. As the two men struggle, Adolphe Menjou’s Colonel Jeffers blindly fires a shot. This is the first time Jeffers is seen using a gun. The second is equally memorable, and probably even more shocking. Having Menjou, an actor whose screen presence is rarely sympathetic and someone whose actions away from the movies could easily be regarded as despicable, play a character of questionable trustworthiness proved to be a wise choice. He oozes cowardice. Overall, The Tall Target has believability issues, where things that happen seem implausible and reason often falls by the wayside. With Menjou, however, his inherent and almost oblivious sliminess entirely rings true for Colonel Jeffers. The variety of secessionists we meet are treated with almost comedic loathing by Mann. Appropriately, none show any appreciation for being on the wrong side of history. They come across as the 1861 version of teabaggers.

Beyond politics, The Tall Target has time on its side. Part of Mann’s genius in approaching both the French Revolution in Reign of Terror and this semi-factual footnote of history is that the setting becomes incidental. Here, the 1861 time period and the knowledge that Abraham Lincoln is involved do ground the events depicted to a point, but the other aspects of the plot are versatile enough to extend beyond the specifics. Dick Powell trying to stop a political assassination while on a train works for 1861 or 1951, the year of the film’s release. Nothing necessarily limits the action to that period of time. The extra wrinkle of slavery allows Ruby Dee, making the most of her short amount of screen time, the rare opportunity of having a role of some significance. Other than Powell and perhaps Menjou, Dee glows the brightest. Actually, I’ve never found Powell to have a very compelling screen presence in noir, but we are at least able to recognize some of the drive of his character in this film.

It’s probably not Powell or Dee or Menjou or even Abe Lincoln who weighs heaviest on the viewer. The most striking part of such a lean film is how it’s delivered via Mann’s direction and the cinematography (reminiscent of John Alton’s work but actually done by Paul C. Vogel). Unexpected close-ups, usually of Powell, become impactful. The pitch black darkness and steam from the train combine to hide what must have been a low budget film while strongly evoking German Expressionism’s mood of despair. It’s the visuals in The Tall Target that elevate the picture beyond being a simple suspense thriller set on a train. Anthony Mann was one of the key directors of film noir and this was his last effort in that vein. It’s not necessarily among his two or three best really, but the movie is still highly entertaining at times and a strong example of teasing out a story within an enclosed space.

The Warner Archive gets its tentacles on another much-anticipated film by finally bringing The Tall Target to R1 home viewers. That it’s a DVD-R with no additional restoration or extra features, and at a price point just below $20, must be seen as a disappointment to fans of Anthony Mann and/or film noir. Good for us that the progressive transfer isn’t too bad at all. The 1.33:1 image displays frequent speckles of dirt and a stray reel change marker but detail is probably as good as one could hope for from this service. A higher bitrate (on a dual-layered disc) would have likely removed much of the noise and artifacting. The blacks, an essential component here, generally still register as being deep and inky enough.

An English mono track is fair but seems to lose strength in the final third or so of the picture. At one point, Powell whispers and since there aren’t any subtitles offered, the volume has to be raised to understand what he’s saying. The score makes little impact so only the dialogue proves essential. Other than the up and down of the volume, things can be heard cleanly.

Only a trailer (2:15) is offered in the extras department.