By David in TN
Friday, January 3, 2020 at 6:30:00 P.M. EST
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 a.m. ET is Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), based on Raymond Chandler’s novel. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in their most famous pairing, along with Martha Vickers, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, John Ridgely and Louis Jean Heydt, with a brief, memorable scene with a young Dorothy Malone.
Film Noir Guide: “Bogart stars as Raymond Chandler’s famous private eye Philip Marlowe in this sordid tale of murder, blackmail, illicit sex, and gambling. Bogey is hired by wealthy invalid Waldron to find out who’s blackmailing his younger daughter (Vickers). While investigating, Bogey falls for Vickers’ sultry sibling (Bacall), covers up a murder, shoots a few bad guys, wards off the sexual advances of several cuties and takes a couple of vicious beatings. All in a day’s work (for twenty-five bucks plus expenses)...
“The plot is borderline incomprehensible (even Chandler is said to be unsure of the identity of a murderer), but the real attraction of this film is the chemistry between Bogey and Bacall, who heat up the screen with their thinly disguised sexual banter. Bogart’s gritty portrayal of the tough but foursquare private eye was a hint of things to come in film noir. Look for B western star Bob Steele as Ridgely’s hit man.”
David in TN: I wish Eddie would screen the pre-release version but he indicated in his outro last week it would be the usual 1946 movie.
There is a Noir bonus this week. After the midnight showing of The Big Sleep, TCM at 2:15 a.m. ET has Kiss of Death (1947). Victor Mature plays a former crook trying to go straight while threatened by a psycho named Tommy Udo, memorably played by Richard Widmark, whose over-the-top performance resulted in “Tommy Udo” fan clubs springing up around the country.
After Kiss of Death at 4 a.m. ET is the “Extended” Touch of Evil (1958), with Charlton Heston and Orson Welles, directed by Welles, with a script allegedly by Orson Welles, based on Whit Masterson’s novel, Badge of Evil, and by uncredited writers Franklin Coen and Paul Monash (probably the real scriptwriters).
Saturday, January 04, 2020
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning is a Triple-Header! At Midnight ET and 10 a.m. ET, is Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), Based on Raymond Chandler’s Novel, Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, with Martha Vickers, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, John Ridgely, Louis Jean Heydt and Dorothy Malone; Followed by Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death (1947), Stolen by the Over-the-Top Richard Widmark as Psycho Killer “Tommy Udo”; and then a Surprise Masterpiece for the Triple!
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET and 10 am ET is Joseph Losey's The Big Night (1951), with John Drew Barrymore, Preston Foster, Howard St. John, Philip Bourneuf, Joan Lorring.
Film Noir Guide: "Barrymore (a.k.a. John Drew Barrymore, Drew's dad) plays an awkward 17-year old high school student who's teased by his peers because he's different. His macho father (Foster) is the owner of a bar where the boy hangs out after school. Shortly after a disappointed Foster witnesses his son taking a 'birthday beating' from other students, he submits himself to a vicious caning by a crippled sportswriter (St. John) in front of his customers and son. Barrymore, humiliated by his father's behavior and hell-bent on vengeance, steal's Foster's gun and goes hunting for St. John. During the course of a mystifying evening, he hooks up with a happy-go-lucky drunk (Borneuf), commits an unconscious but hurtful racial gaffe and romances a sensitive older woman (Lorring) who hides his gun and tries to talk him out of his plan. At the end of the evening, the disturbed boy learns the reason for his father's beating. Painfully slow at times but interesting."
Early Monday Morning, January 13, TCM shows two circa 1959 foreign films. First at 2 am ET is Kapo. Susan Strasberg plays a young Jewish woman who collaborates with her captors out of survival but redeems herself.
At 4 am ET, showing on TCM for the first time is the German film, The Bridge, or Die Bruecke, directed by Bernard Wicki. A few days before the fall of the Third Reich, a group of young Germans guard a bridge, placed there to keep them out of the way. A chain of events causes a battle with disastrous results. Wicki intended this as an antiwar film showing the callousness of a brutal regime sacrificing lives to no purpose.
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