Turner Classic Movies Vintage Movies Top Picks Great Directors June 18 - 20 Review

Classic Films by some great directors are spotlighted by the cable station  Turner Classic Movies.

The films of Jules Dassin are spotlight during the day on Thursday June 18th and if you aren't familiar with this superb director then let me direct your attention to a couple of the gems he helmed that are being shown on TCM.  One of the best and still quite brutal prison break movies is 1947's Brute Force starring Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford and Yvonne De Carlo.  It airs at 3:15 p.m PST.

For a somewhat breezy caper movie that totally blows away the Oceans 11 nonsense, tune into 1964's Topkapi which featured  Peter Ustinov, Maximillian Schell, Robert Morley and Melina Mercouri who have their eyes on a priceless treasure under heavy guard in a museum.  It airs at 1 p.m. on the West Coast.

The best Dassin film being shown in this bunch is 1948's Naked City one of the first and best of the gritty docudrama style still utilized by filmmakers today.  Everything from television's Law and Order and CSI to Fincher's Zodiac  owes a debt to Dassin's Naked City  starring  Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff and Don Taylor.  It airs 11:00 a.m. PST.

At night it's several films from Former French movie critic turned master director, Francois Truffaut...  one of my very favorite Truffauts  Shoot the Piano Player is NOT being show but   Jules Et Jim (at 5 p.m.), 400 Blows (at 7 p.m.) and Small Change (airing at 11 p.m.)  are three NOT TO BE MISSED.   You might want to add  1970's  The Wild Child  airing at 1 a.m. to the list and consider looking at Truffaut's Hitchcock like thriller  from 1968, The Bride Wore Black (airing at 9 p.m.).  Enjoy.

Friday the 19th during the day, TCM shows films by  Blake Edwards who though very inconsistent has turned in some comic gems  and 3 gems starring Peter Sellers  air in the late afternoon;  1968's The Party  airs at 11:15 p.m.,  the best Pink Pather  film from 1964;  A Shot in the Dark  airs at 1 p..m. followed by the original Pink Panther  which airs at 3 p.m.  Lots of fun here.

In the evening it's time Scorsese time.  TCM showcases the documentary  Scorsese on Scorsese which is an 86 minute overview of his life and career from 2004  (airs at 7 p.m. PST).  The Films they are showing are all good ones... the surprise one being  King of Comedy from 1983 (  which is an odd, quirky black comedy film that most will need to see a few times to truly appreciate.  Robert DeNiro plays an utterly deluded wanna-be celebrity who has little talent but lots of dreams and misguided ambition.  He teams up with a crazed groupie (Sandra Bernnhard) and together they scheme to kidnap a Johnny Carson-like talk show host (played by Jerry Lewis in the best performance he has ever given).  The underlying commentary on celebrity is poignant, the film alternately funny and chilling. It airs at 8:30 p.m.

1974's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is a lot better than the sitcom Alice it spawned.  It features a superb performance by Ellen Burstyn as a widow, waitress whose trying to be a good single mom and meets an interesting man she's not sure she's ready to trust (well played by Kris Kristofferson).  Great film.. don't miss it.   It airs at 5 p.m. PST.

One of the best films about organized crimes that doesn't glamorize the criminals it portrays is 1990's Goodfellas.  Memorable shots, characters, dialogue and brilliant performances from DeNiro,  Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco.  Based on a true story.  It airs at 10:30.

The film that put Scorsese on the map was 1973's Mean Streets, a somewhat autobiobraphical film structured like one of M.S.'s favorite Fellini films it tells the story of a conflicted small time hood growing up in New York City.   Harvey Keitel  has the most screen time and he's brilliant but Robert DeNiro is unforgettable.  Mostly Los Angeles locations doubled for New York ones (believe it or not). It airs at 1:00 a.m.

On Saturday one of the great classic golden age directors of Hollywood, Mervyn LeRoy  is the spotlight.

He was a journeyman, contract director taking on varied subjects and films in a long, long career.  In fact films from 30's, 40's , 50s and 60s are being shown.   Nice representation.   One of comic Joe E. Brown's best films, 1933's  Elmer the Great (he plays a country bumpkin who bats his way to fame) start LeRoy day off at 3 a.m. Saturday Morning  PST.  It's followed by a still effective 1932 classic with a stunning performance from Paul Muni; 1932's  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang,  airting at 4::14 in the morning which is followed by the Edward G. Robinson ganster classic,  1930's Little Ceasar at 6:00 a.m.   Greer Garson plays the 1943 Hollywoodized version of Madame Curie the famil scientist who keeps her family life together as she discovers radium (it airs at 7:30 in the morning).  At 10 a.m.  Esther Williams stars in the true story the world first swim star Annette Kellerman in 1952's Million Dollar Mermaid.  Then at noon it's time for a Hollywood literary adaptation of Anthony Adverse,  LeRoy's 1936 film stars Fredric March and Olivia De Havilland.  1961's The Devil at Four O'Clock is one of Spencer Tracy's last film and he  stars with Frank Sinatra , Kerwin Matthews and Jean Pierre Aumont in a story about three convicts, marooned on a South Sea Island with a volcanoe about to erupt.   Entertaining but hardly a classic.

Better is Random Harvest a romantic drama starring Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman.  He plays a shell shocked World War 1 Veteran who marries while still suffering amnesia and when he recovers forgets the wife he loves.  It was nominated for 7 Accademy Awards and remains a very much loved romantic film.   Worth a look if you like the stars or romantic dramas.

1956's  The Bad Seed  is a film that was compromised a bit by the censors at the time but it sure was a shocking hit in the 1950s and might work for you if you can keep in mind when it was made. Patty McCormack played the evil murdering child and was more effective than  Linda Blair would be two decades later playing the possessed Anti-Christ in The Exorcist.  The Bad Seed was based on a play by Maxwell Anderson.   The ending had to be changed, but the film is pretty dark and chilling still.

1944's  Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is the semi-documentary patriotic  telling of America's retailliation for the bombing of Pearl Harbor and stars Van Johnson in his first major role at Captain Lawson  with Spencer Tracy and Robert Mitchum.   It doesn't have as many clichés, nor any tired subplots and lame attempts at humor that many war films of its day had.  It's screenplay was by Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got his Gun).  Better than most of its type.  It won a special Oscar for its special effects.

1951's Quo Vadis was a huge  MGM production and one of the most popular of its days.  Huge sets and costumes and lost of extras were used in the story of Emperor Nero slaughtering innocent Christians in ancient Rome.    It's got some memorable scenes, campy big star casting like  Peter Ustinov playing the insane Nero, and Robert Taylor a stiff Marcus Vinicius who falls in love with Christian Girl  Deborah Kerr which means they'll both be thrown to the lions, right?  Right....  Look closely and you'll see people like Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor in bit parts...  The huge film starts at Midnight on the West Coast and Rome burns about 3 hours later.