TCM: The Greatest Movie Channel

[EtheltoTillie]

Twilight of Honor stars recently deceased Richard Chamberlain.  He’s Dr. Kildare playing a lawyer and looking very handsome.  Also features Nick Adams and Claude Rains—and Joey Heatherton doing some sexy gyrations. The plot is essentially a copy of Anatomy of a Murder.  Military hubby kills wife’s lover. Instead of a mental break as the defense he has a bizarre New Mexico law that allows husbands to avenge adultery. I would recommend a watch. 

Edited May 7 by EtheltoTillie

[Calvada]

I re-watched the interview Ben Mankiewicz did with the incomparable Norman Lloyd in 2016.  I have enjoyed this several times before but when I see it come up on the schedule, I find myself watching it again.  I wish this had been a multi-part series since this brief conversation barely scratched the surface of his life.    

[EtheltoTillie]

3 minutes ago, Calvada said:

I re-watched the interview Ben Mankiewicz did with the incomparable Norman Lloyd in 2016.  I have enjoyed this several times before but when I see it come up on the schedule, I find myself watching it again.  I wish this had been a multi-part series since this brief conversation barely scratched the surface of his life.    

I watched it yesterday.  I hadn't seen it before.  Very interesting! 

[SusieQ]

Watched the Norman Lloyd interview, too. I knew most of what he spoke of because of this wonderful avclub article. 

Hope the link works.

https://www.avclub.com/norman-lloyd-on-upstaging-orson-welles-and-playing-tenn-1798286982

[Rinaldo]

On 5/7/2025 at 8:57 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

Twilight of Honor stars recently deceased Richard Chamberlain.  He’s Dr. Kildare playing a lawyer and looking very handsome.  Also features Nick Adams and Claude Rains—and Joey Heatherton doing some sexy gyrations.

The only thing I previously knew about Twilight of Honor was that Nick Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscar for it. That was back in an earlier time of my life when I liked to amuse myself by memorizing all 20 acting nominees for the years 1960 to the present (I gave it up around 1990).

Because Nick Adams's first big break was in Rebel Without a Cause, alongside James Dean and Dennis Hopper, I had always assumed that he was part of the wave of Actors Studio "method actors" around that time. But that was just my ignorance; he had a quite different backstory. I had known him mostly from The Rebel on TV, and as Andy Griffiths's sidekick in No Time for Sergeants.

Further reading up on the movie tells me that it was the film debut of Joey Heatherton (Linda Evans, too). Those with long memories will recall that her "sexy gyrations" were part of the TV landscape, back in the days of musical variety shows. That being so, some might be amused/surprised to know that she was in the original stage production of The Sound of Music, at age 15. (Her father Ray Heatherton had starred in one of the Rodgers & Hart shows.) I doubt that her ensemble duties included singing in the nuns' chorus! -- they all had operatic voices (and some eventually had big opera careers, like Tatiana Troyanos). Undoubtedly she took part in scenes like the party, and she also understudied two of the Von Trapp daughters.

Edited May 10 by Rinaldo

[EtheltoTillie]

Poor Nick Adams and his early death.  I also liked him in Mr. Roberts.   Oh, yeah, I forgot he's also the annoying teen boy in Picnic. 

I too remember Joey Heatherton as a jiggly blond on various TV shows in the mid 60s. 

Edited May 9 by EtheltoTillie

[fairffaxx]

TCM occasionally shows the 2 Japanese monster movies that Nick Adams appeared in:   Frankenstein vs. Baragon, & the 6th Godzilla film, Invasion of Astro-Monster (aka in the U.S. as Monster Zero).  I must confess to watching those as part of my Japanese monsters fixation, but they're not very good.

[Milburn Stone]

14 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

I had known him mostly from The Rebel on TV, and as Andy Griffiths's sidekick in No Time for Sergeants.

He was funny in that movie as I recall. (Not just "supposed to be funny.") Could it be the only comedy on his résumé?

[Charlie Baker]

He was in Pillow Talk, and IIRC, his character had designs on Doris Day, but she of course was only interested in Rock Hudson.

[Rinaldo]

Nick Adams was also in Teacher's Pet, which paired Doris Day with Clark Gable, with Gig Young and Mamie Van Doren in support, and Adams as the copy boy who idolizes the editor (Gable).

[Tom Holmberg]

On Tuesday's (May 13) Western bloc, TCM will be running "The Great Silence", a not-well-known spaghetti Western that is fairly highly rated by spaghetti Western fans, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant (as a mute gunfighter) and Klaus Kinski.  Unlike most spaghetti Westerns, it was film in the Alps in winter.

[Charlie Baker]

Gene Hackman tribute tonight with the least-known movie, the excellent neo-noir Night Moves in the wee small hours.

[EtheltoTillie]

Hackman tribute starts with Bonnie and Clyde, French Connection, Hoosiers and Mississippi Burning. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 5/6/2025 at 4:40 AM, EtheltoTillie said:

Can anyone tell me who the guest host was with Alicia Malone for Festival, which I recorded on April 22.  Documentary about the Newport Folk Festival. I can’t recognize him, I can’t understand what she said when she introduced him, I rewound several times, and the closed captions aren’t working. He’s some kind of musician. 

Ah, listened a bunch more times. It’s a musician named Marty Stuart. 

Shoot.  I need to read more thoroughly before I go running off to try to help, because I found out it was Marty Stuart.  He's a country western musician whose face most people wouldn't recognize but he has a famous song "El Paso"--you might recognize it from the first line:  "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl." 

I came back to report this and then saw your last line.  Oh well. 

Here's TCM's page about the interview:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming Article/021982/marty-stuart-celebrates-music-in-the-movies?icid=homepage-carousel4-marty-stuart-celebrates-music-in-the-movies--april-2025

In the article, they mention "Dean Martin: King of Cool" and that reminded me that I meant to post here that they somehow made a whole documentary without a single mention of the Golddiggers.

[EtheltoTillie]

3 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Shoot.  I need to read more thoroughly before I go running off to try to help, because I found out it was Marty Stuart.  He's a country western musician whose face most people wouldn't recognize but he has a famous song "El Paso"--you might recognize it from the first line:  "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl." 

I came back to report this and then saw your last line.  Oh well. 

 

In fairness, you may have seen my original post before I added the last line--although it was only a couple of minutes later.  Thanks for helping.

Edited May 12 by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

@StatisticalOutlier I suppose you will sympathize with my closed captions problem, as you were posting about the Russian closed captions on Max.  I didn't have that problem, but I do use a Roku. 

[EtheltoTillie]

Door-to-Door Maniac and and Road to Nashville, mentioned in that article, are both on YouTube! 

Good for me, since I missed any showings on TCM. 

Edited May 12 by EtheltoTillie

[SusieQ]

1 hour ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Shoot.  I need to read more thoroughly before I go running off to try to help, because I found out it was Marty Stuart.  He's a country western musician whose face most people wouldn't recognize but he has a famous song "El Paso"--you might recognize it from the first line:  "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl." 

I came back to report this and then saw your last line.  Oh well. 

Here's TCM's page about the interview:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/Programming Article/021982/marty-stuart-celebrates-music-in-the-movies?icid=homepage-carousel4-marty-stuart-celebrates-music-in-the-movies--april-2025

In the article, they mention "Dean Martin: King of Cool" and that reminded me that I meant to post here that they somehow made a whole documentary without a single mention of the Golddiggers.

Here's some trivia for you. Marty Stuart was named for Marty Robbins who actually wrote and recorded "El Paso" back in 1959.

And of course "El Paso" holds a special place in all us Breaking Bad fans!!

[Tom Holmberg]

TCM in June 2025

Star of the Month - Gary Cooper (Wednesdays)
TCM Spotlight - Con Artists (Fridays)
TCM Series - Two for One (Saturdays)
Special Theme - Composer Ennio Morricone (5, 12)
Special Theme - British Productions (10, 17)
Memorial Tribute - Richard Chamberlain (16)

[voiceover]

Question:

I never could find a “TCM Remembers” for Val Kilmer.  Are they still making them?  The last one I saw was for Gene Hackman.

[mariah23]

1 hour ago, voiceover said:

Question:

I never could find a “TCM Remembers” for Val Kilmer.  Are they still making them?  The last one I saw was for Gene Hackman.

I think they're still making them; probably just picky.

[Charlie Baker]

Robert Benton has died--and TCM just included Bonnie and Clyde as part of the Gene Hackman memorial.

Robert Benton obituary

Edited May 13 by Charlie Baker

[Rinaldo]

Robert Benton has a number of memorable titles on his resumé, but the one that means the most to me is The Late Show. Two unlikely, hugely different people, finding their way to a friendship that's deep but in no way romantic... all within a nostalgic genre framework. For some reason, that's it for me, easily in my all-time top 20.

[graybrown bird]

18 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

Robert Benton has a number of memorable titles on his resumé, but the one that means the most to me is The Late Show. Two unlikely, hugely different people, finding their way to a friendship that's deep but in no way romantic... all within a nostalgic genre framework. For some reason, that's it for me, easily in my all-time top 20.

Didn't realize Robert Benton directed this.  Art Carney's performance was a revelation to me, who only knew him as "Ed Norton" from The Honeymooners on tv.

Edited May 14 by graybrown bird
Deleted unneeded words.

[fastiller]

I think this is the most appropriate place to mention this.  I recently found out that my great grandmother's cousin was Mauritz Stiller, the man who directed & 'discovered' the former Greta Gustafson in her first role & who traveled with her to Hollywood in '25, by which point she was known as Greta Garbo.

[EtheltoTillie]

On 5/13/2025 at 11:11 AM, Tom Holmberg said:

TCM in June 2025

Star of the Month - Gary Cooper (Wednesdays)
TCM Spotlight - Con Artists (Fridays)
TCM Series - Two for One (Saturdays)
Special Theme - Composer Ennio Morricone (5, 12)
Special Theme - British Productions (10, 17)
Memorial Tribute - Richard Chamberlain (16)

I watched the Ennio Morricone documentary a few months ago. Maybe they will show it again. Very interesting. 

[Tom Holmberg]

16 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I watched the Ennio Morricone documentary a few months ago. Maybe they will show it again. Very interesting. 

Yes, they are running it twice; on the 5th and the 12th.

[EtheltoTillie]

I recommend A Letter for Evie, which I recorded a couple of weeks ago.  (It aired right before the Norman Lloyd interview, and he even has a small part.)

It's a comic cross between Cyrano and The Shop Around the Corner.  Marsha Hunt is corresponding with a tall soldier with a 16 1/2 inch neck.  (Neck sizes are a metaphor for something else.) 

She works in an army uniform factory.  The girls put pen pal letters inside the shirts so the random recipients might become pen pals and more.)  The actual letters are written by pint-size Hume Cronyn.  He's adorable in this.  Mistaken identities and other wackiness ensue. 

Takeaway:  Gorgeous Marsha Hunt was tlll now mostly known to me as dowdy, nerdy Mary in the 1940 Pride and Prejudice!  Unrecognizable.

Hume Cronyn also usually plays villains; a favorite of mine is the awful college administrator in People Will Talk.

There's a sweet scene near the end where Hunt meets Spring Byington, Hume's mother.  Spring is so happy to meet Hunt and doesn't know about the mistaken identities.  I love those scenes with a nice mother in law who welcomes the new daughter in law.  (I know there are others, but I can't think of any right now.)

Some of the mistaken identity stuff goes too far near the end, but still a recommended watch. 

Edited May 17 by EtheltoTillie

[Milburn Stone]

Thanks for this recommendation, @EtheltoTillie. I didn't know about this movie.

I've heard Eddie Muller and Alan Rode mention Marsha Hunt as sort of a "Queen of Noir."

[Fool to cry]

I looked her up and she was on the 1st season of Star Trek The Next Generation "Too Short a Season" as the wife of an elderly admiral who had been secretly taking age reversing drugs so he temporarily becomes young again. The admiral was played by a young actor in (very bad) old age makeup.

I'm trying to picture them together younger but it's difficult. Like trying to picture Matt Damon with Kathleen Byron(who played "Old Private Ryan"'s wife in Saving Private Ryan)!

 

[Charlie Baker]

Marsha Hunt was an excellent "good" woman in the noir Raw Deal, and some time ago Eddie paired it on Noir Alley with a more recent short film he made himself that had her playing the central role in her 90s.  He profiles her, and many other actresses, in the new edition of his book Dark City Dames, which I'm planning to read.  In the wee small hours of Saturday into Sunday, the documentary Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity is on the schedule.  Maybe it will also turn up on Watch TCM.

[EtheltoTillie]

Setting my DVR now!

[EtheltoTillie]

Ooh, the Marsha Hunt documentary has some very interesting info about the Hollywood blacklist. 

[Milburn Stone]

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Ooh, the Marsha Hunt documentary has some very interesting info about the Hollywood blacklist. 

This is bringing me back to the Foster Hirsch book Hollywood in the Fifties, which has substantial material about the blacklist. I was just reading last night the material in which he basically asked us to put into context the caving of the moguls to HUAC re the Hollywood Ten and the blacklist. The Hollywood operation of all the big studios was in service to the New York operation, because New York was where the money was; and Wall Street and the big banks needed the moguls to cave. He does ridicule and condemn Jack Warner for his egregious testimony before the committee, but says the moguls in general had no choice but to blacklist as they did.

[Milburn Stone]

This may be old news to some, but I'm just reading now on Puck (a news site that covers media; I'd link to the story but it's behind a paywall) that Zazlav has made it all but official that WBD is going to spin off its cable brands (like TCM), and that the most likely buyer will be a small linear company or--worse--a hedge fund that will gut the assets for whatever value they can extract.

The story is dated two days ago.

Edited May 18 by Milburn Stone

[Milburn Stone]

I hope that if TCM goes away, we lovers of classic movies will have a different place to go within the Movies area of Primetimer. Perhaps a topic within that section titled They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To: Classic Movies.

I don't think we should create that topic now, because it will split the discussion, but obviously we should be prepared to do so.

[Charlie Baker]

The international titles on Noir Alley are always at least of some interest.  This week's was the 1954 French movie Touchez pas au Grisbi  ("Don't touch the loot"), directed by Jacques Becker.  It's about the whereabouts and possession of the take of a big gold robbery, set within the circle of some aging mobsters, who most of the time act like friendly business competitors, but... There are stretches where nothing much happens, but there is also grit, and violence, and tension and uncertainty about the outcome.  The very fine cast is led by the great Jean Gabin, who gets high praise from Eddie, and includes Jeanne Moreau in an early role.  

[MissAlmond]

On 5/18/2025 at 2:29 PM, Milburn Stone said:

This may be old news to some, but I'm just reading now on Puck (a news site that covers media; I'd link to the story but it's behind a paywall) that Zazlav has made it all but official that WBD is going to spin off its cable brands (like TCM), and that the most likely buyer will be a small linear company or--worse--a hedge fund that will gut the assets for whatever value they can extract.

WBD is a mess, so I believe it. I never trusted them to do right by TCM; I just hope they find a buyer who does. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

Okay, this isn't on TCM but in the past we've discussed movies that are shot in New York City, and I just have to bring up The Hot Rock, starring Robert Redford and George Segal.  It's on this over-the-air channel called Movies!

I'm not really watching it--it's on in the background.  But I stopped and paid attention to a scene where they're in a helicopter in NYC.  It starts with them going under the bridges on the East River, and circling around the lower tip of Manhattan, and then over Lower Manhattan and around the World Trade Center as it's under construction, almost finished.  

It looks like they filmed the one helicopter from another helicopter, and at one point they were were catty-corner from each other at the level of an unfinished floor of the WTC--you can see the helicopter in the movie through the support beams or girders or whatever on the unfinished floor.

And there are other shots of the streets below, including what looks like the entrance/exit to the Holland Tunnel, and it isn't gridlocked. 

It's really something else, and would be a nice companion to the justifiably famous NYC car chase scene in Side Street.

I actually wondered if they were having some sort of theme, because the movie before The Hot Rock was An Unmarried Woman, a very NYC-y movie.  But before that was Palm Springs Weekend, and after Hot Rock is The Incredible Mr. Limpet, so probably just a coincidence.  😀

Edited Tuesday at 11:46 PM by StatisticalOutlier

[Rinaldo]

3 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I just have to bring up The Hot Rock, starring Robert Redford and George Segal.

This is a favorite of mine; I can't with a straight face call it a "great" movie, but it's an entertaining one, and an adaptation of the first book in the hilarious Dortmunder series by one of my favorite writers, the late Donald E. Westlake. Westlake wrote 14 novels about John Dortmunder and his band of fellow criminals (it's typical to characterize them as "bumbling," but that's not right -- they're very good at their work, they're just usually very unlucky). In movies made of various novels in the series, Dortmunder has been played by Robert Redford, George C. Scott, Paul Le Mat, Christopher Lambert, and Martin Lawrence... not much typecasting there! I've seen them all, and they vary greatly in quality, to put it nicely, but some of them have their memorable moments, and The Hot Rock has the best of all versions of Dortmunder's right-hand man Andy Kelp: George Segal. Whenever I reread any of the books (and I've done it plenty), even if I'm not picturing any of the many other actors in their parts, Segal's is the face I picture as Kelp.

[Fool to cry]

Yeah I remember the helicopter scene around World Trade Center when I saw it on TV in the 90s. Also remembered that I hoped they put the diamond in boiling water or something when they got it because of where it had been(!) Interesting George Segal worked with Ron Liebman's wife Jessica Walters later on two sitcoms Just Shoot Me and Retired at 35 and George and Jessica would die a day apart from each other in 2021.

[SomeTameGazelle]

18 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Okay, this isn't on TCM but in the past we've discussed movies that are shot in New York City, and I just have to bring up The Hot Rock, starring Robert Redford and George Segal.  It's on this over-the-air channel called Movies!

I'm not really watching it--it's on in the background.  But I stopped and paid attention to a scene where they're in a helicopter in NYC.  It starts with them going under the bridges on the East River, and circling around the lower tip of Manhattan, and then over Lower Manhattan and around the World Trade Center as it's under construction, almost finished.  

It looks like they filmed the one helicopter from another helicopter, and at one point they were were catty-corner from each other at the level of an unfinished floor of the WTC--you can see the helicopter in the movie through the support beams or girders or whatever on the unfinished floor.

And there are other shots of the streets below, including what looks like the entrance/exit to the Holland Tunnel, and it isn't gridlocked. 

It's really something else, and would be a nice companion to the justifiably famous NYC car chase scene in Side Street.

I actually wondered if they were having some sort of theme, because the movie before The Hot Rock was An Unmarried Woman, a very NYC-y movie.  But before that was Palm Springs Weekend, and after Hot Rock is The Incredible Mr. Limpet, so probably just a coincidence.  😀

TCM showed it quite recently (just checked -- May 19) as well during a block of Robert Redford movies. I caught only a bit of it but enjoyed seeing young George Segal.

[StatisticalOutlier]

11 hours ago, Fool to cry said:

Also remembered that I hoped they put the diamond in boiling water or something when they got it because of where it had been(!)

Well, now that you've pushed me to my baser instincts, I'll have to watch the whole movie.  Because I'm thinking, "Aren't diamonds kind of sharp?"

 

2 hours ago, SomeTameGazelle said:

TCM showed it quite recently (just checked -- May 19) as well during a block of Robert Redford movies.

Good to know!  People really should see that helicopter sequence, if nothing else.

Also, I went to the TCM page for the movie, and here's the photo they have:

I love it!  Redford's sticking his tongue out just like I do when I'm concentrating.

 

 

[Rinaldo]

It's frustrating for a Westlake fan, because none of those Dortmunder castings have been quite right. Wikipedia describes him as "tall, with stooped shoulders and "lifeless thinning hair-colored hair" and has a disreputable "hangdog" face; he rarely smiles." Fans like me try to come up with the right casting, but skinny hangdog weathered men don't become movie stars. Ideas? A younger Harry Dean Stanton? Ty Burrell playing it straight?

[EtheltoTillie]

Hot Rock still on Watch TCM until tomorrow!  I will watch now!  
 

I wanted to watch it a while back when it was mentioned by @Rinaldo, but it wasn’t available anywhere. 

Edited Thursday at 07:54 AM by EtheltoTillie

[StatisticalOutlier]

9 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Hot Rock still on Watch TCM until tomorrow!  I will watch now!  

I thought I looked for it on Watch TCM and didn't find it.  Fail.  

But this is great news because that Movies! channel is just awful--commercials, and cursing is muted (and turns into XXXX on the captions), and they blur nudity. 

 

21 hours ago, Rinaldo said:

"lifeless thinning hair-colored hair"

What do you suppose "hair-colored hair" is? 

[Rinaldo]

5 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

What do you suppose "hair-colored hair" is? 

That's a very Westlake sort of comedic line, and it makes me inwardly chuckle every time I encounter it. Hair that's so uninteresting, the world can't even bestir itself to pin down a color.

[Fool to cry]

When I saw the movie as a kid and saw the ambassador I thought "The atheist with lung cancer from Good Times!"

Edited 14 hours ago by Fool to cry

[EtheltoTillie]

Hot Rock turned out to be a lot of fun.  It was directed by Peter Yates, famous for the car chase scene in Bullit also.  His IMDB page says he had some youthful experience in car racing.  He also directed The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which is also a great film, and one of my top ten of all time, Breaking Away.  The man clearly knows how to stage an exciting racing scene. 

Ron Leibman's mother in Hot Rock was played by Charlotte Rae!  They were amused by playing recordings of car racetrack sounds.  And Zero Mostel was pretty funny too.,

Edited Thursday at 06:40 PM by EtheltoTillie

[EtheltoTillie]

Who played the hypnotist?  Listed as Lynne Gordon, whoever that is, but it looked like Paul Sand in drag.