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From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.

Tuesday 04/07/09

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Petrified Forest (1936 USA): Robert Sherwood's downbeat play made a glorious transition to the big screen in 1936, with stage star Humphrey Bogart coming along for the ride as nihilistic gangster Duke Mantee. The film made Bogie a star, but Leslie Howard was the film's initial box-office draw, and he's excellent as Alan Squier, a mentally-scarred World War I veteran who falls in love with waitress Gabby Maple, played by Bette Davis in one of her most affecting performances. It's a surprisingly mature film for the mid-1930s, and somehow got away with featuring a black actor (Slim Thompson) as a moody gang member distinctly out of sync with Hollywood's preferred view of African-Americans as comic sidekicks or servants. One of the highlights of Warner Bros' considerable catalogue of crime pictures, this is an unforgettable classic that also features Dick Foran and Charley Grapewin.

Wednesday 04/08/09

5:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Smart Set (1928 USA): Handsome William Haines headlines as a polo superstar in this late-period silent comedy from MGM. Haines plays Tommy Van Buren, a Long Island layabout with an eye for the ladies and a penchant for the ponies. When Tommy meets cute with Polly (Alice Day), romantic sparks fly — and conflict appears in the person of polo team captain Nelson (Jack Holt), who also has a claim on the lovely lass. If you're familiar with the Haines oeuvre, you'll know what to expect here — it's not very different from his West Point, another MGM rom-com about a hell-raising child of privilege.

10:20 AM Encore Western
Hellgate (1953 USA): Sterling Hayden made some crummy movies, but I can never resist his deep, hyper-masculine siren song. Here's one of his least known pictures, a decent pseudo-western about innocent Gil Hanley (Hayden), accused of spying on behalf of the Confederacy and sent to a notorious New Mexico prison camp operated by sadistic warden Voorhees (Ward Bond). The film is elevated by good location footage, fine performances from Hayden and Bond, and some pretty outrageous (for the time, at least) torture sequences. Look for Gunsmoke star James Arness in a supporting role, as well as future Purple People Eater-singer Sheb Wooley and the great Timothy Carey in bit parts.

4:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Morris Engel: The Independent (2007 USA): The charming, unique, and important films of Morris Engel were released on DVD last year by Kino, and now get some small screen attention thanks to TCM. Tonight's programming commences with this brief documentary that fills in the blanks about this virtually unknown filmmaker: a World War II veteran from Brooklyn, Engel only made three films, but what films they are! His first effort, The Little Fugitive (1953), follows at 5:00 PM, and was a huge inspiration for Francois Truffaut, who credited the film with being a source text for the Nouvelle Vague. It's the utterly compelling tale of a little boy (Richie Andrusco) who fears he has murdered his brother and runs away to Coney Island to escape his guilty past. Naturally, he didn't really kill his sibling, and the film is a series of neo-realist adventures. It's followed at 6:30 PM by Lovers and Lollipops (1956), in which Engel examines a mother and young daughter's life in New York City, and at 8:00 PM by his final film, Weddings and Babies (1958), about a shutterbug trying to find the right balance between his personal and professional lives. Engel was a true independent, a left-wing gadfly who would never have made it in red-baiting Hollywood, and also a colleague of Russ Meyer, with whom he shot much of the extant footage of the D-Day landings. The documentary and films air again immediately following the conclusion of Weddings and Babies.

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