July Picks

Audrey Hepburn is the star of the month for July, but there are still a lot of good movies worth watching on TCM. If I manage to watch every thing that I pick, I wouldn’t be doing much else in July. Descriptions are cribbed from Now Playing.

Friday, July 1

It’s Love I’m After – 6:00 am
Looks like a fun trio of Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland as a squabbling stage couple and an amorous fan.

The Heiress – 4:00 pm
Olivia de Havilland gets picked up by Montgomery Clift for her money – or does she? “Bolt the door Mariah.”

Tuesday, July 5

Red Dust – 6:00 am
Clark Gable and Jean Harlow spark in the red dust of Indochina. Classic!

Wednesday, July 6

The Romance of Rosy Ridge – 6:00 am
Janet Leigh makes her film debut with my boy Van Johnson. Set in post-Civil War, a farmer’s daughter falls in love with a man who fought against her family.

Friday, July 8

Johnny Eager – 2:00 pm
Combine a racketeer and a beautiful D.A.’s daughter and you’ve got an interesting film noir. Add Van Heflin as an alcoholic best friend who quotes Shakespeare and it’s worth watching.

Sunday, July 10

Daddy-Long-Legs – 12:00 am
A silent film version of the book which can’t be any worse than the musical version starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron. Stars Mary Pickford as the orphan who falls in love through the mail.

Monday, July 11

Too Many Girls – 8:30 am
Van Johnson’s film debut and an entertaining yet fluffy musical about life in a Western college.

Texas Carnival – 4:30 pm
A penniless carnival worker runs up a mountain of debts when he’s mistaken for a millionaire. Starring Esther Williams, Red Skelton (boo!), and Howard Keel (the real reason to watch it!).

Tuesday, July 19

Week-End at the Waldorf – 11:30 pm
An updated version of Grand Hotel, only this time set in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Cast includes Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, and (best of all!) Van Johnson.

Madame Bovary – 2:00 am
For a double feature of Vans, catch Van Heflin as the cuckolded husband in this film, also costarring Jennifer Jones and James Mason.

Saturday, July 23

Described in Now Playing as “Big Balls Night” (get your mind out of the gutter!), it looks like a fun night of films featuring dances.

The Magnificent Ambersons – 8:00 pm
One of Orson Welles’s masterpieces, starring Joseph Cotten.

Jezebel - 10:00 pm
One life lesson to learn: unmarried girls never wear a scarlet dress to a ball unless they are able to face the consequences. Bette Davis doesn’t manage to learn that, but Henry Fonda does finally stand up to her.

Wuthering Heights – 12:00 am
Heathcliff!!

Pride and Prejudice – 2:00 am
Not quite the most faithful version, but Laurence Olivier does make a really smokin’ Mr. Darcy.

Sunday, July 24

Summer Stock - 10:00 am
The musical that got me into classic movies. Perhaps not the best musical ever, but probably the best one that Judy Garland and Gene Kelly did together.

FILE UNDER: Lists ; News and Notes

Vertigo

Despite being considered by critics to be Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest film, I have never really found Vertigo to be a very accessible film. Perhaps that is part of its greatness – the film actually manages to evoke some of the affects of vertigo by keeping the viewer off kilter and always questioning things. I have only seen it twice, and the first time I watched it with my mom and sister and they were not so impressed with it either. But a second viewing changed my opinion a little…but first a little bit about the plot.

The film starts with John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) chasing someone over the rooftop. His partner ends up falling to his death off the roof and Scottie gets vertigo as a result of the emotional trauma. After retiring from the police force, Scottie is over at his friend Midge’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) apartment complaining about his acrophobia. She’s as sympathetic as one can be, especially if one was engaged to Scottie years ago. One comment that Scottie makes while at Midge’s apartment is worth remembering – “I’m not going to crack up.”

Eventually, an old college friend contacts Scottie to convince him to keep an eye on his wife. Apparently, the wife is a bit crazy – she thinks she is Carlotta, a historical figure from San Francisco’s past. Madeleine (Kim Novak) leads Scottie around the city to all kinds of different places. (As a side note, how she doesn’t notice that he’s following her is really, really unbelievable, especially if he was a detective, but presumably she does know that he’s following her. But I’m getting ahead of myself.) Madeleine ends up jumping into the San Francisco Bay, but Scottie fishes her out and takes her to his apartment to dry off. She takes off while he’s calling her husband, but Madeleine comes back the next day to give him an apology. The two end up wandering together and see the sequoias. She tries to recount her dreams, which might explain how crazy she is.

Eventually, the two end up at the San Juan Barrista mission outside of San Francisco, where Madeleine runs away from Scottie after cryptically talking about how if she leaves him it will mean that she really loves him. So she runs into the church and up to the bell tower. Scottie tries to follow her, but his vertigo takes over and he can’t make it up the tower in time to prevent her suicide.

There is an inquest, where Scottie is blamed for not being able to prevent her suicide, but in the end, it is considered a suicide. And then the famous weird dream sequence occurs – it’s Jimmy Stewart’s head coming to get you, complete with weird green lighting and everything! Scottie, of course, goes a little crazy and ends up in the hospital where he won’t talk. Midge is there, trying to take care of him and finds out that it’ll be at least six to twelve months before he will be able to talk again. Poor Midge, always cleaning up the pieces.

Flash forward a year and Scottie has pulled himself together. He keeps seeing girls that look like Madeleine, especially ones wearing fitted grey suits. And he does manage to find a girl on the street who looks an awful lot like Madeleine, only with more makeup and brown hair. She acts pretty suspiciously, and we find out that she is Madeleine – or was pretending to be Madeleine. Yes, Scottie was a dupe for his college friend – he got to be the perfect witness to an apparent suicide. And Judy is all mixed up with – only she actually fell in love with Scottie. So Judy allows herself to be made over to look like Madeleine so that she can win Scottie over again. Judy wants to be loved for herself, but Scottie is a single-minded person, which is seriously kind of creepy! Judy goes along with his determination to make her over into Madeleine, dying her hair blonde, buying the right dresses, and being made under. She doesn’t put her hair up until the end when it is apparent Scottie is only interested in her as a substitute for Madeleine.

But Judy has made one fatal mistake – she kept the necklace that she wore as Madeleine and Scottie figures things out. Instead of taking her out to dinner, he takes her to the mission and makes her go up the stairs, recreating the events. As they are talking up at the top of the bell tower, a nun comes out of the shadows and startles Judy into falling off the tower. Scottie had just managed to find his Madeleine again, and she dies in the same fashion.

I can see why Vertigo is considered such a classic. It is a rather unsettling film, and having James Stewart as a character who essentially descends into madness in his obsession to recreate Madeleine really keeps the viewer off balance. Multiple layers and things that you wouldn’t notice on first viewing definitely make it more interesting. The evocation of the sense of vertigo and being off balance by the viewer makes the title very apt. I’m sure that many other critics have said it better than I, but it’s an unsettling film and one that needs to be looked at closely to really understand. I realize that the first time that I saw the film, I probably wasn’t really thinking about it critically. It’s perhaps not a film that one watches for fun – well, maybe that’s not the right way to put it – it’s not as fun as many other Hitchcock films, but it still has a place. A film I might have to look at again, but right now, I’m just going to be happy with a little bit of a better understanding about why it’s good

FILE UNDER: Classic Films

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch...

Well, it has been a long time. I have, indeed, still been watching movies, although not at the same clip as I used to. But I have been thinking about the fact that I am obsessing over work too much, and have decided that posting more in this blog might help out with things.

And I have decided to try again in August, when TCM has its "Summer Under the Stars" again, to repeat last year's challenge -- 31 Movies in 31 Days! So, that shall be something fun to do.

I have also been writing up my TCM Picks every couple of months, so that might also become another feature of this blog. And hopefully, I will actually manage to watch the movies that I pick and write them up!

So, in other news, I am going to be blogging about movies again.

FILE UNDER: News and Notes