Here we are again. Still getting my sea legs back but glad to go through the schedule with you for a second week in a row. I’m keen on several of these, particularly that little Anthony Mann programmer that starts off his day on the schedule. I do have to make it to Film Forum in the next few days to see some of those screenings and possibly report back. As always, all times are EDT and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday June 26

12:00 PM Hearts of the West (Zieff, 1975) - C-102 mins. - Jeff Bridges stars as a young novelist of westerns who improbably finds himself starring in motion pictures in the 1930s. An intriguing cast includes Andy Griffith, Blythe Danner, Alan Arkin and Donald Pleasence. Director Howard Zieff may not be very well known but he had a decent run of comedies, some popular like Private Benjamin and the My Girl films and some less so like Slither and House Calls. Several years after this film a television show starring Jeff’s brother Beau Bridges aired by the name of Harts of the West. No connection. For some reason, Hearts of the West, released in cinemas by MGM so now likely controlled by Warner Bros., hasn’t found its way to DVD.

12:00 AM The Caretakers (Bartlett, 1963) - BW-98 mins. - TCM is “committed” to showing fare set in a psychiatric ward this evening. Terrible joke, sorry. The Snake Pit is given Essential status and is followed by Sam Fuller’s visceral Shock Corridor. Both excellent, largely uncompromising pictures. Next in line is this look at a mental hospital that stars Robert Stack as a young doctor who clashes with the not-so-young head nurse played by Joan Crawford. A notable cast also includes Polly Bergen, Diane McBain, Van Williams, Herbert Marshall and Robert Vaughn, among several others. There isn’t a proper DVD release available of the film, but it can be had on DVD-R through Amazon and MGM. Free and legal streaming is available through Hulu (and on the IMDb site) as well.

Sunday June 27

4:00 AM A Very Private Affair (Malle, 1962) - C-94 mins. - Louis Malle’s Au revoir les enfants is this week’s TCM Import and the channel seems to have paired another Malle film with it. A Very Private Affair has the big star combo of Marcello Mastroianni and Brigitte Bardot in its favor. Her character becomes a movie star but doesn’t like the intrusions upon her privacy. Mastroianni plays a former lover of Bardot’s mother who tries to shield the actress from some of the spotlight’s glare. It’s their relationship that gives the film its title. There are DVD editions available in Europe but nothing yet in R1. I believe Warner Bros. has the rights.

Monday June 28

7:30 AM Chatterbox (Nicholls Jr., 1936) - BW-68 mins. - A selection of Anne Shirley movies dot the day’s schedule. Shirley, first billed as Dawn O’Day in pictures like 4 Devils, City Girl and Liliom, gained notoriety and an Oscar nod for playing Barbara Stanwyck’s daughter in Stella Dallas. She also appeared as the wife of Jabez Stone in The Devil and Daniel Webster before retiring from acting after the 1944 film noir Murder, My Sweet. In Chatterbox, Shirley plays a young woman determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps and be a stage actress. Look for Lucille Ball in a supporting part. Made for RKO, the film should be in the hands of Warner Bros. and is not on DVD.

3:00 AM Penelope (Hiller, 1966) - C-98 mins. - Here’s a Natalie Wood pick for the week. It’s not an exceptional movie so much as it is a good showcase for Wood’s charm. She plays the wife of a bank manager who pulls off a major robbery mostly for the fun of it, and to get her husband’s attention. Peter Falk comes in to investigate. A weird little picture but worth seeing for her fans and not on DVD. MGM made it so Warner Bros. presumably has the rights now.

Wednesday June 30

6:00 AM Two O’Clock Courage (Mann, 1945) - BW-66 mins. - This is one of the few Anthony Mann pictures not being shown at Film Forum’s three-week retrospective. TCM has a day’s worth of Mann scheduled on the 104th anniversary of his birth. The star is Tom Conway (portrayer of the Falcon and brother to George Sanders) as a man suffering from amnesia. Ann Rutherford is the cabbie who gets more than she bargained for after picking him up. It turns out that the mystery man might be involved in a murder plot. Made for RKO, Two O’Clock Courage exists in a Spanish DVD edition but hasn’t found its way to R1. Those interested should probably make it a point to catch this airing. At best, it ends up in the Warner Archive. Desperate, soon to be on DVD in the new Film Noir set, follows at 7:15 AM.

4:00 AM To the Ends of the Earth (Stevenson, 1948) - BW-108 mins. - Dick Powell in tough guy mode as a treasury agent who’ll stop at nothing to take down an international narcotics ring. The film was apparently based on case files and made with the support of the Bureau of Narcotics. A review at IMDb observantly references Popeye Doyle and indeed the plot does sound reminiscent of an early French Connection. Columbia was the studio. Nothing DVD-wise from Sony.

Thursday July 1

3:45 PM To Each His Own (Leisen, 1946) - BW-122 mins. - TCM has shown this a few times lately but I’ve managed to miss each airing. Olivia de Havilland won her first Oscar for playing an American woman who has an illegitimate son during WWI and ends up finding him again in London during WWII. Charles Brackett, still in the middle of sharing a good string of material with partner Billy Wilder, was credited with the story and as co-writer of the screenplay. Since Wilder presumably had nothing to do with the picture, and both his colleague Brackett and frequent director Mitchell Leisen did, you can somewhat deduce what those Paramount films that all three worked on might have looked like had they been Wilder-less. Or maybe I’m stretching things a bit much. If it’s Paramount in the ’30s or ’40s then it’s likely to be Universal-owned and probably not on DVD. Yep, sounds about right. The other Oscar-winning performance of de Havilland’s, in The Heiress, follows at 6:00 PM.

12:00 AM The Delinquents (Altman, 1957) - BW-72 mins. - Robert Altman, yes the same one, wrote and directed this low budget look at teenagers with a proclivity for getting into trouble. It’s a nice curiosity piece, not hardly as bad as I had feared. The star is none other than Billy Jack himself Tom Laughlin. Weird that Altman and Laughlin would be paired here and then go on to make completely different impacts in the seventies. United Artists was the original releasing studio so my best guess would be that MGM now controls the film. It’s not on DVD in R1 but I believe there is an edition available in Australia.

Friday July 2

10:45 AM Success at Any Price (Ruben, 1934) - BW-74 mins. - The younger Douglas Fairbanks stars as a man intent on making money legitimately but doing so at most any cost. Happiness doesn’t follow and the stock market crash provides a devastating blow to the young man. This is a pre-Code picture and one not often shown. It’s also not on DVD. Sounds like a potential gem. Done for RKO so it should be with Warner Bros.