Dirty Harry’s Place…

A new meme’s caught up to me via my buddy Robert Avrech and Mr. Loophole over at The Shelf.
And away we go…

1. Barbara Stanwyck: Number one for no reason more complicated than the fact that I’m desperately in love with her.
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2. Judy Garland: Because there will never be another. Not even close.

TCM - 11pm PST - Heaven’s Gate (1981) - A Wyoming sheriff tries to protect immigrant farmers from ruthless ranchers. Cast: Kris Kristofferson , Christopher Walken Dir: Michael Cimino C-219 mins, TV-MA
Everyone should see the film that killed off the 70’s auteur at least once, right? I mean, except for me. No way in hell…

TCM: 2:15pm - PST -  Guns of Navarone, The (1961) - A team of Allied saboteurs fight their way behind enemy lines to destroy a pair of Nazi guns. Starring: Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn Director: J. Lee Thompson C-157 mins, TV-PG
One of the all-time classic Men On A Mission films and my […]

Bound For Glory (1976) - True story of folk singer Woody Guthrie, who rose to the top while fighting for the rights of migrant farm workers. Cast: David Carradine, Ronny Cox, Melinda Dillon Director: Hal Ashby - C-148 mins, TV-14
On of the best biopics ever made thanks to Carradine’s outstanding performance as Guthrie and Haskell Wexler’s Oscar-winning […]

3:15am PST - Remember the Night (1940) - An assistant D.A. takes a shoplifter home with him for Christmas. Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beaulah Bondi. BW-94 mins, TV-G
Just saw this for the first time myself last week, and what a treat it was that will certainly take the place of something in any new, re-jiggered, top […]

7:30am PST - My Favorite Spy (1951) - A comedian poses as an international spy to recover mysterious microfilm. Cast: Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr, Francis L. Sullivan. Dir: Norman Z. McLeod. BW-93 mins, TV-G
Some of his later films and decades of those sweet but corny NBC Christmas specials make it easy to forget that for twenty-plus […]

The thing with watching this on YouTube is the timer. You’re not halfway through before the loss overwhelms and then you realize you’re not halfway through…
Thanks to the many readers who forwarded this.

6:45am PST - Paths Of Glory (1957) - A military lawyer comes to question the status quo when he defends three men accused of cowardice. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready. Dir: Stanley Kubrick. BW-88 mins, TV-PG
Said this before but it’s worth repeating: If present-day Hollywood were capable of making anti-war films half as […]

There are two television movies in the top ten, here’s the first of them. Best known as George C. Scott’s A Christmas Carol, this is, thus far, the most emotionally satisfying adaptation of the Dickens’ classic thanks to an exceptionally well written script and, of course, The Mighty George C. Scott, who offers up my favorite portrayal […]

 
5:45am PST - Autumn Leaves (1956) -A woman falls for a younger man with severe mental problems. Cast: Joan Crawford, Cliff Robertson, Vera Miles. Dir: Robert Aldrich. BW-106 mins, TV-PG
Anyone interested in suing me over my weakness for melodrama might want to file now. Joan Crawford was 52 (if you believe her), Cliff Robertson right […]

And so we finally reach the top-ten. Admittedly, from here there will be few surprises. These are the greats, the perennials, the timeless classics we all grew up on, pass on to our children, and that give us another reason to love the holiday.
Everything about Miracle On 34th Street works, but what makes it extra special is […]

Pretty much ignored when released in 1985, One Magic Christmas has hung around and found an audience thanks to a solid script and Mary Steenburgen’s effectively melancholy  lead performance as a mother whose Christmas spirit’s been buried under unpaid bills, a soul-crushing job, and impending eviction.
Help arrives in the form of Harry Dean Stanton as the unlikeliest of angels charged […]

Bob Hope’s The Lemon Drop Kid, so named because of his affinity for a certain candy. The Kids hustles through life as a racetrack tout steering suckers to this bet or that in order to keep the odds profitable for the house. After he mistakenly convinces a ganster’s girl to change her bet from winner to loser he fast […]

This warmly produced version of the Dickens’ classic is a perfect example of the kind of atmosphere the dream factory that was MGM during its glory years could create even on a moderate budget. While nowhere near as deep (or dark) as the widely regarded Alistair Sim version, which, somewhat justifiably, overshadows this one - the warmth and spirit of […]

Love that poster. The steamy/noirish look is probably the most deceptive piece of advertising I’ve come across since Bill Ayers’ Friend said he wasn’t because A Holiday Affair is about as sweet and innocuous as you’d expect from a 1949 post-war American Christmas film.
The ridiculously gorgeous Janet Leigh plays a war widow raising a precocious young son and […]

3pm PST - Remember the Night (1940) - An assistant D.A. takes a shoplifter home with him for Christmas. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi. Dir: Mitchell Leisen. BW-94 mins, TV-G
Who knew Double Indemnity was the second film MacMurray and Stanwyck made together?
Remember The Night is one of those elusive movies you keep hearing […]

 
Murnau’s Sunrise
To the nerdy delight of we cinephiles, Twentieth Century-Fox is mining their past with exquisite DVD box-sets examining the early careers of the first filmmaking pioneers. Last year it was John Ford, but this year it’s Fox founder William Fox along with director’s F.W. Murnau and Frank Borzage.
A friend of mine, who may not want to be […]

A truly beautiful spiritual story enriched by the warm and complicated subtext found in the growing affection between the Bishop’s wife (Loretta Young) and Dudley the Angel (Cary Grant), who’s been sent from Heaven to remind David Niven’s Bishop that monuments to God must first be built at home.
The holiday spirit leaps off the screen in every snow-covered scene: Shopping, […]

Do you know what a movie list is without a Barbara Stanwyck film? A completely unserious movie list.
Christmas In Connecticut is as light as the souffle Stanwyck’s magazine writer, Elizabeth Lane, pretends she can cook for thousands of magazine readers and now will have to in reality if she’s to keep her job. Lane has crafted an identity for […]

10:30pm PST - Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The (1974) - Gunmen hold a New York subway train and its passengers for ransom. Cast: Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam. Dir: Joseph Sargent. C-104 mins, TV-MA  

As a wee lad, before cable and home video, a network (ABC?) would broadcast a theatrical film every Sunday […]

A Muppet Christmas Carol is of course elevated, as all things are, by the presence of The Mighty Michael Caine, but it works on more levels that just an inspired bit of casting. Within seconds you completely buy into the world and tone created by Brian Henson who doesn’t miss a step picking up where his father, Jim, […]

12:45pm PST - Lust For Life (1956) - Passionate biography of painter Vincent van Gogh, whose genius drove him mad. Cast: Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, James Donald. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. C-122 mins, TV-PG
All kinds of great stuff tomorrow, but that’s what happens when you program Kirk Douglas all day.
This is one of Douglas’s more famous roles but […]

A lovely, low-key, tender family film with a rich spiritual theme about a young, imaginative girl who finds and protects one of Santa’s reindeer.
Thanks to a wonderful performance by the young lead, Rebecca Harrell, and Sam Elliott and Cloris Leachman ably bringing life to a couple of well-crafted and surprisingly complicated characters, what might’ve been cloying and fantastical remains grounded […]

Captains Courageous (1937) - A spoiled rich boy is lost at sea and rescued by a fishing boat, where hard work and responsibility help him become a man. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore. Dir: Victor Fleming. BW-117 mins, TV-G
Spencer Tracy won his second Oscar in as many years for this beautifully plotted, written, […]

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If you lay the structure of the first Home Alone over the second you’ll find it’s exactly the same movie (not that that’s a bad thing), but not executed as well in the heart and warmth department. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work in a number of ways. The Manhattan setting, soundtrack (both score […]