New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

8:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Mission to Moscow (1943 USA): One of the films later accused of being too nice to our (then) Soviet allies, Mission to Moscow stars Walter Huston as Ambassador Joseph Davies, whose autobiography supplied the basis for Howard Koch's screenplay (which WASN'T nominated for an Academy Award, you'll be relieved to know). Directed by Michael Curtiz, the film is too long and is, indeed, quite generous in its assessment of Stalin and his pals — understandable indiscretions in 1943 that later came to the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee and led to the blacklist, which counted Koch amongst its victims. As a film, Mission to Moscow is pretty boring — even for me, there's a limit to the effectiveness of endless speechifying by Huston — and now is little more than a curate's egg. As social document and propaganda, however, it's priceless.

Monday 02/09/09

1:00 AM Starz
The Counterfeiters (2007 OST): A Holocaust film unlike any other, The Counterfeiters tells the true story of labor camp inmates with a very special assignment: helping produce enough counterfeit Allied currency to bring down the West's financial system and bring glorious victory to the dear old Fatherland! Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, whose earlier film The Inheritors cast a cheeky eye upon Austrian land disputes, the film features Karl Markovics as Salomon Sorowitsch, a highly skilled Jewish counterfeiter sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and assigned to super secret Operation Bernhard. Last year's surprise winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, The Counterfeiters also airs at 4:00 AM.

11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Angry Silence (1960 GB): Hey, guess which Academy Award The Angry Silence was nominated for? No prizes for a correct answer, I'm afraid. Directed by Guy Green and written by Bryan Forbes, the film features Richard Attenborough as Tom Curtis, a working man less than willing to go along to get along. When his union calls a wildcat strike — and bashes a few heads to keep the awkward squad in line — Tom refuses to cooperate and crosses the picket line. Trouble down at mill ensues. Produced at a time when unions were powerful enough to bring down British governments, The Angry Silence is the serious flipside of Peter Seller's acerbic anti-union comedy I'm All Right, Jack, which had been released a year earlier. It remains uncomfortable viewing for those of us who support the labo(u)r movement, but that aside, Forbes and Attenborough are adept at depicting the damage wrought upon Curtis' family by his steadfast bloody-mindedness.

Continued:       1       2       3       4