The red light is on and we are recording. Last week’s picks didn’t get written up, which was unfortunate since the John Gilbert and Lee Remick days were great, but here are some things to consider for the end of Summer Under the Stars and the start of September. Vivien Leigh will get special attention as the Star of the Month. Also, I added a nice Ava Gardner header to the rotation. She will be Star of the Month in November. As always, all times are EDT and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday August 28

7:30 AM The Night of the Generals (Litvak, 1967) - C-144 mins. - I can’t let the Summer Under the Stars day for one of my favorite actors go unnoticed. The great Peter O’Toole gets a total of nine films on the schedule this Saturday. No surprise that Lawrence of Arabia is the prime time headliner, and that a lot of what’s being shown seem like the usual suspects. Still, The Night of the Generals is a lesser known one, and an underachiever. With a cast also including Tom Courtenay, Omar Sharif, and Christopher Plummer, expectations are high for this story of prostitutes being murdered in Poland and Nazi generals being the lead suspects. I did try to watch it once before but didn’t succeed. Perhaps I’ll try again. The cinematographer was Henri Decae, dear to me for having also done several films for Jean-Pierre Melville. There’s a DVD out in the UK but the film, which I believe is a Sony property, hasn’t been released on disc here.

Monday August 30

11:30 AM Hips, Hips, Hooray (Sandrich, 1934) - BW-68 mins. - Lots of Thelma Todd on the schedule today, and I mean that not just in the sense that she’s the star of the day but also because there are a ton of shorts and features being shown. Most of these are things I’m not familiar with, but I did notice that she often appears with the same co-stars more than once. The first couple of things on the schedule have her with Joe E. Brown, then there are shorts with Charley Chase, a pair of features with Wheeler and Woolsey (including this one), more shorts but now as a lead alongside Zasu Pitts and then Patsy Kelly, and finally the pictures she did with the Marx Brothers and some Laurel and Hardy comedies. I guess a title like Hips, Hips, Hooray is somewhat of an obvious choice to pick. It’s pre-Code, has Wheeler and Woolsey as lipstick salesmen, and also features musical numbers. According to IMDb, Finland banned it in 1936. Looks to be an RKO property, likely now with Warner Bros., and not on DVD.

Wednesday September 1

6:00 AM The Bishop Misbehaves (Dupont, 1933) - BW-86 mins. - This sounds like a nice little way to spend an hour and a half. The Oscar-winning Kris Kringle himself, Edmund Gwenn, stars as the bishop of the title, a lover of mysteries who falls into a real one by accident. It involves Maureen O’Sullivan and tourist accomplice Norman Foster and a robbery. The picture was released by MGM, putting it in the burned and purple hands of the Warner Bros. folks now. It isn’t on DVD.

7:30 AM Petticoat Fever (Fitzmaurice, 1936) - BW-80 mins. - Robert Montgomery and Myrna Loy play cute in this screwball romance set in Alaska. She’s engaged to Reginald Owen, on his way to a conference, but they end up in the lonely area where Montgomery is a weather radio operator. Two actors I’d watch in anything so I’m sure it’ll be charming. MGM again, with Warner Bros. currently with the rights and no DVD available.

2:00 AM Middle of the Night (Mann, 1959) - BW-117 mins. - It’s worth acknowledging that TCM will shine the spotlight on Kim Novak this evening. The recent Sony box set featuring her in five films is well-represented here, with four being aired including Middle of the Night. I read somewhere, and she might say it on the new extras for this disc, that she’s really fond of Middle of the Night. It stars Fredric March as a widowed man in his fifties who meets the much younger Novak, his secretary, and pursues her romantically. The Notorious Landlady, one I just watched recently where she co-stars with Jack Lemmon and Fred Astaire, follows at 4:15 AM. I enjoyed it despite some flaws, and the film can be had in Sony’s Lemmon box.

Thursday September 2

10:15 AM So Big (Wise, 1953) - BW-102 mins. - From an Edna Ferber novel and directed by Robert Wise, this melodrama stars Jane Wyman as a schoolteacher who marries Sterling Hayden. His eventual death causes her to cling to their farm as a son grows up. Nancy Olson is among the supporting cast. It sounds a little soggy for my taste but still interesting. Warner Bros. is the studio. It isn’t available on DVD.

5:00 AM Paid (Wood, 1930) -BW-86 mins. - This recently hit DVD-R via the Warner Archive Collection, which is all the more reason to see it for free on TCM if you’re among the curious. A young Joan Crawford comes out of prison for something she didn’t do and wants revenge on those responsible. Robert Armstrong is the male lead. Pre-Code, of course!

Friday September 3

6:15 PM The Badlanders (Daves, 1958) - C-84 mins. - This can be had from the Warner Archive also but you’re better than that. It’s a remake of John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle, done just eight years earlier. That would be like remaking The Bourne Identity now. Except turning it into a western, because that’s what Delmer Daves and company did here. Alan Ladd stars with Ernest Borgnine, Katy Jurado and several other recognizable names and faces. Ladd isn’t Sterling Hayden though. Widescreen cinematography by Billy Wilder’s Paramount cameraman John Seitz.

8:00 PM Así era Pancho Villa (Rodriguez, 1957) - C-90 mins. - TCM celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution this month, beginning with three films directed by Ismael Rodriguez and starring Pedro Armendariz as Pancho Villa. I have no idea what the quality of the prints or the actual  movies will be but it’s interesting to see such rarely shown material on the channel. This first installment promises to be told from the point of view of Pancho Villa’s disembodied head and includes several stories rather than a single narrative. Pancho Villa y la Valentina comes on next, at 10:00 PM.

12:00 AM Cuando ¡Viva Villa..! es la muerte (Rodriguez, 1960) - C-92 mins. - Stay up for all three of the Rodriguez and Armendariz films being shown if you like. Here it’s the common folk like teachers and even prisoners who recount stories about Pancho Villa. When else will you have the chance to see these movies? IMDb only has 11 votes on this one. Later in the month, Viva Zapata! is scheduled.