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Guest Programmer

posted 14 years ago by schappe1
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Watching TCM, I was interested in the “guest programmers” Robert Osborne had on: celebrities who talked about their favorites films that were in the TCM “vault” with their comments being a “wrap-around” to showing of the films They are usually on for a month or so, introducing two films a night in a weekly show. I wondered what films I would pick if I were a “guest programmer“. As a fantasy project, I decided to figure it out. I found I couldn’t have cut it off with four shows, so I wound up with ten weeks of shows. That’s too many I know but it is a fantasy-and Alec Baldwin seemed to be on there forever . I decided to post it to see if it interested anyone. You could respond by critiquing my choices or interpretations of these films and/or by telling us what films you would select if you were a TCM “guest programmer” and what you would say about them.

I didn’t list films simply because I liked them- I grew up on Errol Flynn movies but there are none here. Instead I decided to concentrate on films along a particular theme- how we viewed ourselves and the world we lived in, as reflected by Hollywood. Tinseltown did a great job of entertaining us over the years but didn’t often take a good look at the real world we lived in. The results were interesting when it did. I also wanted to look for themes that still resonate with us today. I love old movies and they are TCM’s stock in trade. I decided to limit myself to films that came out before 1960.

The video revolution of the 80’s and beyond were a Godsend to me: I was able to fill in so many blanks in my understanding of the past and see many films I’d only been able to read about before and judge them for myself. I developed the habit of renting two films at once: one is sure to be better than the other. They usually were related in some way to each other: originals and sequels or re-makes; two films by the same actor or director; two films in the same genre or which came out in the same year, etc. The TCM guest programmer typically introduces two films in a night so this seemed to fit in.

I chose 20 American films that came out from 1928-1957. I don’t know if TCM would have all of them. They all had a general relationship to each other in that they were related to my theme of how we saw ourselves through this period but I paired them up so direct comparisons could be made between films that seemed connected in some way. Some of these films can be seen on the internet, (mostly U-Tube), in their entirety. For some of them there were only clips. You may be able to find them in your video store- if you can find a video store. I’ve provided some links: if you see “Part 1”, that means that parts 2, 3, 4, etc. are also available. U-Tube will usually offer the next part so you can just click on it. If you click on the box with the arrows pointing outwards, you can get the image “full screen”. Some of them you’ve seen before and I hope my take on them will be interesting. Some you haven’t seen, at least not in their entirety. There may be a couple you‘ve never heard of.

The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are priviledged to witness

[–] schappe1 14 years ago

King Vidor was one of the legendary directors of the Golden Age of Hollywood and later did blockbusters like Duel in the Sun (1946) and War and Peace (1956). But he first made his reputation with some gritty, innovative movies in the late 20’s and early 30’s. The Crowd and Our Daily Bread were two of the most memorable, the second a sequel to the first. Both are about young couples trying to make their way in the America of their times, which changed markedly in six years.

The couple in 1928 was part of the rising corporate structure. The man, (with the common name of John Sims, played by James Murray), gets a job with one of them and he makes enough to live on and start a family and even have occasional fun with his friends at an amusement park. But he tires of being one man at one of a hundred desks in a massive, impersonal room. He has ambitions to do great things and comes to feel that his job is preventing his ambitions rather that aiding them. He abruptly quits only to find his more practical wife, (Mary Sims, played by Eleanor Boardman), aghast that they have lost their only source of income. Not only does he find no way to begin to achieve anything on his own, but he can no longer support his family, which comes apart. He gets down so low he contemplates suicide but, in an incredibly moving scene, is dissuaded by his young son. He eventually rallies and regains his job and his family, giving the film the happy ending the studio demanded. But, subversively, Vidor ends it with a shot of the family having a good time at the movies but pans back so far we can no longer make out which people they are. They’ve been swallowed up by modern society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ivu5bhZ6jY&feature=related
The film features many artistic touches involving camera movement that would be impossible once sound took over, which required cameras to be largely stationary

Vidor wanted the same actors, James Murray and Eleanor Boardman, back for the sequel, Our Daily Bread, five years later but Murray was too drunk, (he fell or jumped into the Hudson River in 1936 and drowned), and Boardman recently divorced- from Vidor. She’d basically retired from acting anyway. So Vidor hired Tom Keene and Karen Morley to replace them. Here John and Mary, battling the Depression, can no longer pay the rent for their apartment. They ask an uncle for help but he’d been hit hard, too. But he owns an abandoned farm in the country and he gives it to them. They know nothing about farming but encounter many homeless people who do or are willing to learn and they form what amounts to a commune to work the farm and survive. The film makes a point of rejecting any “socialism” or “communism” as an answer. In fact they reject all isms- political as well as economic to co-exist in a community based simply on what Jefferson Smith would later call “Love Thy Neighbor”. But the people are very self-sufficient as well as religious, so right-wing groups could accept the film as well. They survive legal interventions and draughts, with the film ending on a positive and exciting note as the people combine their efforts to create an irrigation ditch and save their crops.

The film has been compared to “The Grapes of Wrath”, (John Qualen is in both of them), but it’s really very different. These people go to the country for their salvation, rather than running from it. And they don’t depend on government hand-outs to survive- they use their own abilities and efforts to do so. Karen Morley was later a victim of the blacklist while Tom Keene became a “B” western star, ending his career in the famously bad Plan 9 from Outer Space, a far cry from Our Daily Bread. Strangely, Vidor later became an admirer of Ayn Rand, whose philosophy seems very different from this film. He joined the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, which lead the charge in blacklisting people like Morley. And he wound up directing The Fountainhead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuNesSxUHDc

The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are priviledged to witness