With complete sincerity, and clear recognition of how sad this is, one of the things I am most thankful for this year is my reacquisition of the beloved Turner Classic Movies channel. Yes I have family, friends, a roof over my head, a semi-reliable source of income — all beautiful and humbling things — but at the end of the day, who do I kind of want to spend my time with most? Robert Osborne. Still, life does have a way of interfering, and I’ve managed to keep my job and not completely alienate loved ones in the face of 24/7 B&W temptation, at the cost of accumulating five tapes of TCM programming I haven’t had time to watch.

And so I will dedicate much of my four-day weekend to clearing those tapes and properly appreciating the joy TCM brings to my life. No time to write thoughtful reviews of any length, then, but perhaps a few notes dashed off in haste to remember the films by, here in my first and probably doomed attempt at liveblogging. Updating all weekend — and starting off sleep-deprived and disinterested. I’m not excited; are you?

I don’t have any idea what is on half these tapes, but looks like Janet Gaynor night is up first, and we join in progress (put me to sleep the other night)…

Wednesday, 10:48PM So I don’t think I had seen Gaynor in anything before TCM’s feature, and I find I like her well enough, but I don’t have much need for her type when I’ve already got a Myrna Loy and an Irene Dunne. She may have been a star first, but all I see in her is Myrna’s nose scrunching and gentle sarcasm and Irene’s scathing glances and eyebrow acting. This seems sacrilege. I like her well enough but real stars ought to be definite and exclusive types, yes? It’s to her credit that I think she would have been a fine Theodora. But truly, who wants for a fine Theodora when one already has an Irene?

10:52 “I’m a blockhead for blocks!” Poor Bill Wellman.

10:54 Half the humor in this film seems to rely on the extreme height disparity between Gaynor and Jimmy Stewart — pre-stardom and so also-ran to Robert Taylor, who is also tall, though less freakishly. Robert Taylor may be prettier than Janet Gaynor. I’m glad men have started grooming their eyebrows again, but it’s time to take it to this level.

11:01 Girl, you don’t turn down a chance to go to Boston. With such a well-groomed man.

11:04 “I’ve wanted to get married all my life, and so have you. Everywhere, normal happy people, getting married and having fun!” Drunken midnight marriage to manscaped playboy is my new escape route to Boston. …Maybe I will identify a little with this Janet Gaynor character after all.

11:15 When a handsome man is engaged to a woman named Priscilla, you know she’s not right for him. Especially if his pet name for her is Priss.

11:16 I love that he’s pissed (another near-homonym) she’d marry him for money, but not so much that she’d marry him just to get out of Carvel. I guess it isn’t a moral gray area; I’m so doing it.

11:19 (Likewise Elmer.)

11:22 Back Bay scion. Yes. This is what I need in my life.

11:29 All at once, she looks up slowly like Myrna, says “Ohhh” like Irene. Does anyone else see this? Flashes a judgmental Nora Charles smile and then unleashes some rapid-fire Lucy Warriner blinking. I’ll never be able to see Janet Gaynor as her own person.

11:32 Still and all, from Boston to shipboard romance, this movie couldn’t be any more tailored to my girlish notions.

11:56 And I mean, Myrna & Irene with a lot less edge. She is of that wholesome, adorable class I feel the other two are often mistakenly put in with. I’ve made my case for Irene. Have you seen Myrna in Love Me Tonight? No, Janet is not these things. Robert Taylor is no sex god, either. And so, Wellman notwithstanding, this can be nothing more than pleasant. But for that matter it’s unrecognizable as Wellman.

12:22 Cute. Recommended with little enthusiasm.

12:23 Robert says Bill & Janet didn’t get along and he tried to get out of the picture. Good for him. So why does TCM always play movies all out of order? Small Town Girl gossip and then A Star is Born, eh? And then, what’s the big idea grand premiering Sunrise after 1AM? Oh, Sunrise. Sunrise deserves better than this treatment, up late, grumpy, drinking wine, giving so little real consideration. But I suppose there should be a great film or two in the mix. Well, let’s see how it goes and how guilty I feel about it.

Thursday, 12:40AM This song of the Man and his Wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it anywhere, at any time.

12:43 Vacationist hasn’t the ring of flaneur but still I think I’d like to be one. (Decidedly not the right note for this film.)

12:44 Ah, I see how the Woman from the City is. She’ll show her legs to anyone, including the woman who shines her shoes.

12:46 The Man looks out the window, expresses irresistible primal urges. His Wife putters about being wifely. She is also Janet Gaynor. You can’t blame him really.

12:53 Shut me up. This is unbelievably dark, violent, compelling.

1:26 Yeah, there’s no way to “liveblog” this.

1:27 As they observe the wedding ceremony, and he realizes where he’s gone wrong as a man and a husband, and he collapses in her lap and she forgives him, and they walk down the church steps in each other’s arms as the bells ring — actually this film only becomes more terrifying. Which is satisfying, and of a piece with the whole viewing experience, but I think not the reaction that was intended; I’m impressed I could remove myself enough from my “modern standpoint” to not bristle at the “will you protect her?” &c vows, but this new pathological romance, probable cycle of abuse, easy abdication of selfhood, given all that I will continue to see this as basically a horror film even as the music turns upbeat and playful.

1:36 Out comes the pocketknife, and I think my reservations have been validated by the document itself. But back to the dance tune. This film gets to me.

2:01 Note to self — tomorrow revisit what that moron Tom O’Neill wrote about this being “schmaltzy” or whatever; warmed-over drama and scandal should still be sweet. ‘Cause I’m not getting that about this at all.

2:04 NM, here we go, for laffs: Gold Derby

2:21 I don’t doubt that he’s learned his lesson, but once a violent psychopath always a violent psychopath, right?
That was amazing. I’m completely shaken. Murnau made the most beautiful, disturbing films. “Paper-thin, hilariously schmaltzy,” hahahaha…

One more Gaynor film to go; it will wait for a free moment tomorrow. This one has Robert Montgomery, who will bring the sexy back to TCM.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Thursday, 11:14AM Poor Robert Montgomery, just can’t escape MGM romantic comedies with gowns by Adrian.

11:15 He was always a goon and I love him all through for that, but what a sudden difference between hunky Bob with hair and straight-up goon going bald. I think around 1938 you weed out the Bob fans who were only in it for his looks. I love him truly.

11:21 I sense a budding bromance between Robert & Franchot.

11:23 Not to belabor the point, but she’s cold-droppin’ letters all over the place like mah Irene. “T’day.” Where is she from?

11:24 Philadelphia. There goes that theory.

11:26 Oh she was married to Adrian — interesting.

11:37 Robert just kissed Franchot.

11:40 Claire Dodd has so completely cornered the bitchy heroine-foiling other woman market, excepting all the other actresses who look just like her.

11:44 “I’ve had a lovely evening, but this wasn’t it.” Ha!

11:56 Another problem with hindsight is one cannot hear a simple phrase like “makes me feel like dancing” without getting disco tunes lodged in one’s brain.

12:29 Small-town manners loose in New York high society — this is fairly funny. Better than Small Town Girl anyway at playing the same tune.

12:32 Now Robert & Franchot are sharing a bed.
Franchot sleepwalks. You know, somnambulists have been known to do other things.

12:33 Oh, these boys are too hopelessly cute, domestic. Wrestling over covers. Janet is looking more and more the other-woman spoiler herself.

12:48 Hahaha, anti-Republican humor. This plays well today as 70 years ago.

12:54 OK, this was pretty good, but when love triangles involve only worthy suitors I prefer a compromise solution like Too Many Husbands. Especially when they’re clearly fighting for more than just the woman.

One tape down, four to go. I have no idea what’s on this one — this is exciting. Ah, Jean Harlow! Here’s one to please my one confessed reader. And Loretta Young to likewise please me.

Thursday, 2:42PM That was said with facetiousness, for any less familiar with our tastes. In fact this is an awfully uninspiring cast, but pre-Code and Capra bode well.

2:57 Haha, it’s Constable Slocum from Bringing Up Baby! “I don’t smoke cigareets!” And he is, in fact, playing with cigars.

3:03 It’s true, Jean Harlow is really not pretty, or a good actor, or at all sexy; she says “come on, lover,” but can’t purr it or make eyes at her victim; she’s kind of goofy, but doesn’t have the ability to translate that into comedy. But still there is something interesting about her (beyond the whole what were they thinking? factor). Hm.

3:07 I have no such faint praise to level at Loretta Young. Faker than Norma Shearer and ten times the innocent.

3:12 That single-file long take with Jean sauntering through the Schuyler mansion was pretty righteous, though. That may be Capra’s work, but Jean could certainly fill the frame. (So maybe when she isn’t talking.)

3:20 Fountain scene — amazing.

3:27 Robert Williams died days after this film was released, and as only people who have seen this film may know, he is an extraordinary lost talent. Shockingly good — as much as I love the staginess, Britishisms, and snooty trilled r’s of 1931 acting, I’m floored to find this unsung proto-Dean naturalism.

3:37 Candidate for Best Tagline Ever: “She Was Gorgeous – He Was A Man . . . So, the other girl had to wait!”

3:39 Oh my god, the sock garters song — if Sunrise hadn’t set the bar so high so early, this might very well have turned out to be the best of the bunch. I don’t know, Harlow & Young may not be able to undermine this, the whole film is so wonderfully natural and playful and energetic and human.

3:53 “‘I wear the pants!’ ‘The pants’! Not even ‘the trousers’!”

4:01 Smythe putters with his hands. “Some people are born putterers. Some people can never master it.” This is the most charming thing, our hero trying to amuse if not content himself in this mansion and enlisting the butler. The Smith/Smythe conversation about an eagle in a cage and being out of place may be too on the nose compared with similar ones articulated in Cluny Brown and the whole Lubitsch universe. And for a cautionary romance about marrying out of class and affinity this is nothing next to Holiday. But for what it is I still find it quite amusing and contenting.

4:20 Most romantic ending ever.

Back later tonight. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving day, everyone!

Thursday, 11:58PM Fredric March is the kind of guy who, though he may enter a scene deep in the background, and though he may be unrecognizable twenty years older than you have ever seen him before, you will know him simply by the way he takes off his hat.

12:06 May seem a strange thing to tape, March aside. Separate Tables is one of my favorite films of the decade. I don’t know much about Delbert Mann but I’m appraising him for a possible championed-underdog station.

12:35 Very probably, Mann simply has an aptitude for translating theater into film (not a small thing) and surrounds himself with great talent. A film could do quite well just on March reading Chayefsky. His style is pretty reserved — mostly static long takes — but as natural and fluid as the product is I can only see this as controlled confidence, and he exploits dramatic climaxes beautifully. This is so raw, and tender. I also don’t think it’s a small thing to succeed in turning Kim Novak’s vacancy and vulnerability to good use.

Friday, 10:11AM ! Time for my favorite sport: mocking George Brent!

10:14AM “A risky business but not a glamorous one. This is called COUNTER-ESPIONAGE.” So the titles instruct us. Oh I doubt that.

10:21 “Oh, by the way, I saw Mata Hari.” This is wonderfully nerdy. And Myrna is typically bubbly. This is precisely Nora Charles the spy. …And flashing naked limbs and undies. Wow, this must’ve gotten out right before the Production Code.

10:24 Goody, there’s GB. Provided that’s the point of this, it is absolutely impossible to believe either Myrna or George as secret agents. Hence their effectiveness, perhaps. Ah, fisticuffs! Love when his hair gets all mussed.

10:27 I do believe him in a tux, drink in hand, making embarrassing jokes. George can pull off half a James Bond, but that’s the limit. Not an action hero, and only a clumsy seducer of women.

10:35 Oh, look, Myrna called Mata Hari out on falling in love with her Russian assignment and here she is falling in love with George. Can’t trust those lady-spies for nothing.

10:51 So if GB does turn out to be a spy, and I suppose he must, his usual hammy desperate lover act is a brilliant cover. I’ll be a little shocked. I hope he turns all… grave and cruel. Mm.

10:59 Hm, but if he were, he’d be better at pretending to be her servant. Could be he’s just a stray doof. Or this movie wasn’t all that well thought out. I already know the latter is true.

11:11 At this point the question of whether GB is or is not a spy will make the difference between this being an interesting little film or a boring trifle. If he is, he’s a genius, and she’s totally blowing her cover. If not, it’s just a run-of-the-mill romance in an exotic location. The surer I am that it’s the second case, the awesomer it will be if it turns out to be the former. But I’m sure it’s not the former.

11:21 Myrna may be cooking up a scheme that will be a satisfying alternative to the brilliant and sexy ending I’d've written. Hmph.

11:40 It is an interesting little film after all.

Friday, 1:27PM You can see why Goldwyn wanted to make Anna Sten into the Russian equivalent of Garbo and Dietrich. She reminds me a little of Dietrich in the beginning of Scarlet Empress, even. But you can also see why it just didn’t work. She’s beautiful and charming, but she doesn’t have any of IT.

1:31 Mamoulian is so brilliant. This doesn’t have all the usual flair of his earlier films, but are their ever moments. These seduction scenes ought to have been in Jekyll & Hyde. (Mango, did I send you Song of Songs? Did that one work?)

1:41 And I’m not surprised to learn Toland did the photography. …And it’s Tolstoy, and I will insist that Fredric March was one of our ten or so great actors. So why is this so awfully lifeless?

1:42 I’m blaming the Code, naturally. “Production Code enforcer Joe Breen praised the script as a model for treating illicit sex on screen.” (TCM) Yeah.

1:53 I realize how preposterous the “and it’s Tolstoy” remark was. Tolstoy in the hands of Hollywood would always be a disaster. But still.

Saturday, 12:36PM Everything about these people is wonderfully charming, but first and foremost I must say I want a kitten paperweight.

12:39 And I’m sorry this post largely reads as a list of actors loved, hated and met with indifference, but Jean Arthur is terrific.

12:41 (Jimmy Stewart is still freakishly tall.) But I like him best — exclusively? — in romantic comedies. His earnestness is good for proclaimations of love, and his goofiness and gangliness for screwball buffoonery. Put the same in Mr Smith or Wonderful Life and it’s galling — then give me Gary Cooper. So Capra had the right idea in Meet John Doe (the only serious Capra I seriously like?). But Cooper and Stewart — they seem like equivalents and opposites. Lubitsch put them each in their right place. Was an actor ever miscast in a Lubitsch film? I honestly can’t think of one — daring and strange choices worked for him.

1:10 A comparative study in Capra/Lubitsch philosophy would be interesting, if I ever write interestingly again. I’d do well to take this film to heart, if just a little.

2:10 Man, Capra really knows how to mess up a perfectly good comedy with a half-hour tagged-on fanfare for the Common Man. (This is still working on becoming my favorite Capra, but we’re getting into Mr Smith territory…)

2:11 Seriously want to write a Lubitsch/Capra essay, as their prescriptions for the good life are so similar, but there are gaping dichotomies in terms of audience (intellectual elite v everyman), tone (joyous v maudlin), effect (enlivening throughout v dispiriting till the end) &c.

Sunday, 8:04PM Joining in progress. I started watching this the night it aired — a week and a half ago perhaps. Feel like I wish I had written down some saucy lines at the time, delivered I’m sure by the delightful Lilyan Tashman, someone I’d like to immerse myself in in the near future. When I locate some good reading materials, I think. Evelyn Laye is also wonderful, and already I wish she had done more films.

8:14 You know, puerile, awesome pre-Code dialogue like this:
-She’s the worst woman in Budapest.
-How bad would that be?
-Well, that depends upon how bad you are.
-Oh. Does she dress quietly?
-I’ve never watched her.

8:20 -You couldn’t find me one that’s a bit more …promiscuous, could you?
-There’s a chap up the road who rents out a male once in a while.
-Oh, the very thing!
-But the males run a bit rougher than the females.
-But not as rough as those [points to rearing horses]!
They are talking about bicycles somehow, and this is really awful both as pun and provocation, but I still love it. Pre-Codes are forgiven all measure of inanity simply for being pre-Codes.

8:34 Rum, lime juice… well, we won’t bother with the lime juice, because really nothing is gained from lime juice.

8:39 So anyway, the plot of this movie: shy Laye admires cabaret singer Tashman, who is sentenced to exile from Budapest for her exploits, and sends Laye in her place, so she must pretend to be filthy and free as her idol. (I say it again and again — but I wish this operetta had been given to Lubitsch!) There’s something in this conflated identity / feminine sexuality line that interests me all out of proportion. (I wonder if, and hope that I have the earlier Laye/Tashman scenes on this tape. Really beat all the rest of this.)

8:55 I mean, ’cause in a way she’s kind of more being raped by her concept of what-would-Fritzi-do than by Boles’ actual pursuit of her…?

Sunday, 10:08PM I don’t remember what the theme was the night this aired — Toland photography? — but it amounted to a run of pre-Codes and so, indifferently, I just let the tape run and capture this. But it does sound quite interesting to me now, the similar Colman vehicle Prisoner of Zenda airs tomorrow morning, and I’ve never seen Elissa Landi in anything but my curiosity has been piqued since someone drew a [not evident on-screen] parallel between her and my Ruth Chatterton — “Italian-born Landi was a real beauty with a brief film career mostly in the 1930s. She projects a palpable sensuality here beneath her calm surface, and emits far more sex appeal than does Juliette Compton’s mistress Diana. Landi later became a novelist and poet before she died young (age 43) of cancer.” (TCM) (The point being I guess I want to care about more actors who also wrote so that I will care to read their books. So I hope I will care for Landi.) Anyhow we shall see presently, for the credits are coming to a close.

10:19 Must have, or ought to have been, Toland night. These scenes of the two Colmans are an enormous credit to the guy — they look flawless by today’s standards. Noirish, gorgeous, too.

10:57 Weird flavor to this, suited to screwball, skirts comedy, but… basically serious, always recenters itself. It doesn’t seem to want to be any one thing, and it does feel badly disjointed, but I like it.

11:07 –In that it’s kind of a comedy of remarriage, except it studiously avoids the comic read on obviously comic situations, and there’s the added extra-screwball element of this not being her husband but rather her husband’s kinder lookalike cousin. I love movies that are way more awesome in my head than as actually set on film.

11:10 Ah, but I love this masquerading tenderness! Landi is sexy, and Colman too, but above all the situation is incredibly sexy.