This week on TCM things start off slow and really pick up for Thursday and Friday. I feel like the TCM weatherman with that description. As always, all times are EDT and program days begin at 6:00 AM.

Saturday September 12

7:30 AM Shield for Murder (O’Brien, Koch, 1954) - BW-82 mins. - Edmond O’Brien received co-directing credit and starred in this noir drama as a bad cop in L.A. who’s first seen killing a man before taking $25,000 cash off his dead body. The material has a good pedigree, with novelist William P. McGivern’s work also inspiring The Big Heat and Odds Against Tomorrow and writer John C. Higgins a veteran of several Anthony Mann pictures like T-Men and Raw Deal. The cast also includes John Agar as O’Brien’s partner and Carolyn Jones as an easy blonde. United Artists was the original distributor so MGM probably now has the rights. It doesn’t seem to be on DVD.

Tuesday September 15

10:30 AM See Here, Private Hargrove (Ruggles, 1944) - BW-101 mins. - Hooray for Robert Benchley, who was born this day back in 1889 (120 years ago!). Few character actors of the ’30s and ’40s delight me with their presence more than Benchley. His “How to” shorts are always great fun. TCM is paying tribute to him by airing 7 films he appeared in during today’s lineup. This one stars Robert Walker as the title character, a real life figure whose memoirs form the basis of the picture. His misadventures in the Army make it a comedy and his interest in Donna Reed’s character adds the romance. Keenan Wynn plays a fellow private. MGM released the movie, meaning Warner Bros. now controls it. No DVD has been released.

Wednesday September 16

6:45 PM The Affairs of Martha (Dassin, 1942) - BW-67 mins. - An early Jules Dassin-directed picture for MGM. Marsha Hunt stars as a maid who writes a novel inspired by things she’s seen at work. Scandal erupts. There’s another strand with Richard Carlson as the family son who’d married Martha before going away but now returns with a new would-be wife. And it’s all a comedy! The plot could have been played up as a melodrama just as or even more easily. Warner Bros. would have the rights and the film isn’t on DVD.

11:45 PM Juarez (Dieterle, 1939) - BW-121 mins. - TCM’s description calls this the “[t]rue story of Mexico’s Abraham Lincoln and his fight against Napoleon’s empire.” Gotta love those stretched points of reference. The Sincero Abe here is Paul Muni’s Benito Juarez, who led a revolt against the French-placed Maximilian (Oscar-nominated Brian Aherne) and his wife Carlotta (Bette Davis). The Napoleon mentioned is, of course, not the well known Monsieur Bonaparte since this all happened around the 1860s, but his nephew Louis Napoleon (aka Napoleon III), played in the film by Star of the Month Claude Rains. The cast list goes on and on and also includes John Garfield as Porfirio Diaz, Donald Crisp, Joseph Calleia, and Gale Sondergaard. John Huston was one of the screenwriters. Huston later commented that Muni had “ruined” Juarez because of his insistence on shifting the focus to his character instead of Maximilian and Carlotta. Warner Bros. was the studio behind the picture, though not yet behind a DVD release.

Thursday September 17

7:00 AM Hearts Divided (Borzage, 1936) - BW-76 mins. - Here’s the payoff after watching Juarez because Claude Rains plays Napoleon Bonaparte in this film. The casting takes an odd turn from there, with Dick Powell as Bonaparte sibling Jerome and Marion Davies as his American love Elizabeth Patterson. Charlie Ruggles plays a Senator Henry Ruggles. The director was Frank Borzage. If it seems like Borzage made a lot of pictures in the ’30s it’s because he did. A quick count shows his name on 25 movies just that decade. He did this one for the Warner Bros. and it’s not found its way to DVD so far. A couple more films with Claude Rains, Stolen Holiday co-starring Kay Francis and Lady with Red Hair with Miriam Hopkins, immediately follow.

1:15 PM The Sea of Grass (Kazan, 1947) - BW-124 mins. - This might be Elia Kazan’s most obscure film (after The Visitors, at least), which initially seems peculiar considering it stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. It was only Kazan’s second feature. He was under contract at Fox, but it wasn’t an exclusive deal so he was allowed to work at MGM on this project. Production was apparently tenuous, with Kazan initially envisioning the film about land struggles driving a married couple apart as needing to be shot on location, with unfamiliar and hardened faces in the lead roles. The result was instead Tracy and Hepburn on a soundstage with rear projection.

5:00 PM Rancho Notorious (Lang, 1952) - C-89 mins. - A pretty great western from Fritz Lang, with Arthur Kennedy as a rancher who seeks revenge against the murderers of his fiancee. This quest takes him to the gambling and outlaw haven known as Chuck-A-Luck, run by Marlene Dietrich’s Altar Keane. Mel Ferrer is memorable (for once) as Altar’s man Frenchy, with whom Kennedy strikes up a short-lived bond. It’s a classic Lang picture and one I’d love to see on R1 DVD. Not really a fan of the theme song though. Apparently Lionsgate controls the rights to Rancho Notorious here, which doesn’t bode well for a high quality release. There is an edition available in R2 from Optimum, but negative reviews have kept me away from it. Nick Ray’s Johnny Guitar, which shares some things with Lang’s western, airs later at 10:00 PM.

Friday September 18

9:30 AM Greta Garbo Part 1: The Temptress (1986) - BW & C-60 mins. - Ms. Garbo would’ve been 104 years old today. TCM celebrates with three of her films and the two parts of this Swedish television documentary, narrated by Bibi Andersson. Clips abound since MGM helped out with the production, but the special wasn’t included on Warner Bros.’ Signature Collection from a few years back. Part 2: The Clown follows at 10:30 AM. Garbo’s last film Two Faced Woman, which was a re-teaming with Melvyn Douglas, then comes on an hour later at 11:30 AM.

4:30 PM Dust Be My Destiny (Seiler, 1939) - BW-88 mins. - A screenplay by Robert Rossen is generally a positive so I’d like to catch this John Garfield-Priscilla Lane (a year after Four Daughters) crime picture. Garfield is, what else, a tough guy with bad luck who’s just getting out of prison for a burglary he didn’t commit. He doesn’t stay out long, soon finding himself back on the chain gang at a prison farm. While there he falls for the daughter (Lane) of his prison boss. Garfield had such a strong presence on film and it’s terrible that he became typecast in these sorts of films when much stronger roles ideally should’ve been there. That hardly any of Garfield’s films are on DVD proper, particularly the ones like this which are controlled by the WB, is a further insult.

4:00 AM Mudhoney (Meyer, 1965) - BW-93 mins. - TCM has shown this before but not in a long while. It’s preceded by Russ Meyer’s slightly more famous Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! at 2:00 AM. Neither is readily available on R1 DVD. The Depression-era plot involves a drifter who goes to work on a farm in Missouri. The land is owned by an older man with an attractive niece, but the niece’s husband is abusive and you can sort of see where things are going from there. If you’re familiar with Meyer, you can also easily picture some of the other details in Mudhoney.