Turner Classic Movies Vintage Movies Top Picks Great Directors June 15 - 17, 2009 Review

Classic Films by some great directors.   Turner Classic Movies, the cable station, spotlights directors (June 2009), showing several films by one director during weekdays, another director is spotlights on weeknights and each Saturday and Sunday 24 hours of programming is devoted to directors.  Sometimes there are documentaries about the director included.

Elia Kazan a very talented stage and screen director was embroiled in controversy for playing ball with the HUAC investigation in the 50s.  It hurt him politically and personally.  He directed great films like  1954's On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb and Rod Steiger,  (showing 6:30 p.m. this evening  PST.   1955's East of Eden with James Dean which plays 8:30 tonight followed by 1947's Boomerang featuring great performances from Dana Andrews, Jan Wyatt and Lee J. Cobb  in a story about a prosecutor who fights to prove the defendant in a controversial murder case is innocent.

And if you haven't seen 1957's A Face in the Crowd which tells the story of a television executive (Ptricia Neal) who turns a folk singing, drifter into a big media star, you are missing a classic and still very timely movie featuring a chilling performance from Andy Griffith.  Yes,THAT , Andy Griffith.  It also features good support from Anthony Franciosa and Walter Matthau.  It screens at 12:30 a.m. so  DVR it if necessary.

I haven't seen the 1995 documentary on Kazan that airs 5 p.m. but it may also be worth a look.

On Tuesday June 16th  during the day there are several films by director Robert Wise.  Captive City is a solid 1952 drama about a small town newspaper editor John Forsythe, defying the mob which airs at 3 a.m. in the morning on the West Coast.   The somewhat dated but still worthwhile robbery, romantic triangle (controversial in its day) 1959 Odds Against Tomorrow  airs at 4:45 in the morning with Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan  and Shelly Winters.   One of  Wise's best is a drama based on  the true story of boxer Rocky Graziano (which served as inspiration for Stallone's ROCKY films).  1956's  Somebody Up There Likes Me stars Paul Newman, Sal Mineo, Everett Sloane and Eileen Heckert. It airs at 6:30 a.m. and shouldn't be missed.  James Dean was going to be cast in the film, but after his untimely death, Newman got the role and he proved himself the best man for the job.  It's one of Paul Newman's most memorable and powerful performances.   It made him a star.  

1954's Executive Suite is another solid film with William Holden, Barbara Stanwyck (always worth watching)  and Fredric March.  It's a boardroom fight for power after a powerful business magnate dies.  It airs at 8:30 in the morning.   1958's  I Want to Live airs at 12:45 and it's a solid melodrama starring Susan Haryward as a woman who fights to escape the gas chamber.

Airing at 3 p.m. is the classic ghost story;  The Haunting from 1963.  It's a superb film and Robert Wise's subtle direction is the reason it works as well as it does.  It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn. There's a reason all other ghost stories are measured against this one-it's the best.

In the evening, TCM shows movies by an obscure director named Orson Welles who directed movies like

1941's Citizen Kane  that many consider the finest motion picture every made.  (Welle's made a handful of masterpieces).  It  airs at 5 p.m. and is followed by the stylish 1948 film noir  The Lady from Shanghai and then at 9;00 p.m. there's  another masterpiece The Magnificent Amberson, and at 10:45 I can't recommend enough that you watch Welle's low budget Macbeth from 1948 a stunning adaptation of Shakespeare classic and then at 12:45 there's the odd 1963 adaptation of Kafka's classic  The Trial  about a man in a nameless country standing trial for a crime that is never explained.  It stars Anthony Perhkins, Jeanne Moreau and Romy Schneider.

Wednesday June 16th  it's some movies directed by director Tony Richardson.  And what a wide range of brilliant films he helmed!  From the ribald 1963 Tom Jones (airing at 12:45 p.m.) that made a star of Albert Finney, to the bittersweet tragic tale of a has been vaudevillian; 1960's  The Entertainer featuring a riveting Laurence Olivier performance (airing at 3:00 p.m.),  to one of the darkest and most controversial black comedies ever made finding sick humor in the funeral business;  1965's The Loved One  featuring Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters and Rod Steiger. Yes, he was Natasha Richardson's dad.

At night it's some movies from the bigger than life Golden age film director, William Wellman who delivered the classic  1931  crime drama  The Public Enemy that made a star of James Cagney and featured Jean Jarlow, Edward Woods and Joan Blondell  which airs at 6 p.m. on the West Coast followed by the almost true story of war correspondent Ernie Pyle in  1945's  Story of G.I. Joe  starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum.   This is followed by 1949's war drama  Battleground  and the best non-musical version of A Star is Born  from 1937 starring  Janet Gaynor, Fredric March and Adolphe Menjou.  He wasn't what I would call a great director but was prolific and worked on several classic and near classic films.