Tape these political films tonight while you're watching Sarah Palin

American Politics in the Movies on TCM, promo video:
http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=210059&titleId=23008

You can always tape Sarah Palin's speech later on C-SPAN, which'll repeat it a few times overnight.

One things about The Candidate always struck me as curious.
Even as a kid when I first saw it at the theater in North Miami Beach, and still later while in Bloomington at IU, I always wondered why people thought Redford's enigmatic character of Bill Mackay was appealing, since he often seems like the sort of person who, in a real-life city, would always be THE last neighborhood activist holdout in getting an agreement done, because he'd always insist that others make compromises before he'd consider it, and then would raise the posssibility of just walking away from a deal, on principle.

In other words, he has a very high opinion of himself and thinks you should as well.

The Last Hurrah was said to be based on the popular persona of former Boston mayor
James Michael Curley, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Michael_Curley
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8:00pm
The Last Hurrah (1958) A political boss faces changing times as he runs for re-election.Cast: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Pat O'Brien. Dir: John Ford. BW-121 mins, TV-PG

10:15 pm
The Candidate (1972) A senate candidate's ideals weaken as his position in the polls gets stronger.Cast: Robert Redford, Peter Boyle, Melvyn Douglas. Dir: Michael Ritchie. C-110 mins, TV-14
(Original Trailer) http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?cid=210004&eref=newsletter

12:15 am
The Best Man (1964) Two presidential hopefuls get caught up in the dirty side of politics.
Cast: Henry Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Lee Tracy. Dir: Franklin J. Schaffner. BW-102 mins, TV-PG
(Original Trailer) http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?cid=207801&eref=newsletter

2:00 am
Nashville (1975) Country music stars get caught up in tangled affairs and an independent's political campaign.
Cast: Henry Gibson, Lily Tomlin, Ronee Blakley. Dir: Robert Altman. C-158 mins, TV-MA
Film clips at http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=138591&titleId=84580 and
http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=138592&titleId=84580

4:45 am
The Dark Horse (1932) A political machine backs a dimwitted candidate for governor.
Cast: Guy Kibbee, Bette Davis, Warren William. Dir: Alfred E. Green. BW-75 mins, TV-G
(Original Trailer) http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?cid=132404&eref=newsletter

VCR Alert for Wednesday's college football films on TCM

Today, I wanted to give you a head's up in time for Wednesday Sept. 3rd, since there to celebrate the beginning of a new college football season, Turner Classic Movies will be showing a series of interesting college football-centered films that are not usually run on TCM.

In many ways, it reminds me of the good old days of American Movie Classics, AMC, when they had Nick Clooney -George's father and brother of Rosemary- the very popular longtime Cincinnati newscaster, play the role of friendly and genial host who introduced films with some good anecdotes and would wrap-up afterwards with some pithy remarks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFclvtnseg&feature=related

During the first weekend of the baseball season in April, they'd run a whole marathon of baseball-related films that were interesting for me, especially when they were filmed at the real MLB parks of the era. I was always a sucker for old film of those stadiums. In some cases, they were minor comedy classics, but in every case they were all pre-1964 and thus, films which in the pre-VCR era I grew-up in, I'd heard of but never seen.

Films like Rhubarb, The Pride of St. Louis, It Happens Every Spring, The Kid from Left Field, Pride of the Yankees, The Kid from Cleveland, the original Angels in the Outfield -Original trailer at http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=64328&titleId=16 - It Happened in Flatbush, The Stratton Story, Damn Yankees and one of my personal favorites, The Winning Team, starring Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, with the future president playing Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers/detail.jsp?playerId=110127

Alexander's personal comeback and performance leads to his becoming a baseball legend, coming off the bench and leading the Cardinals to victory over the heavily-favored Yankees in the 1926 World Series, one of the greatest 'clutch' moments in American sports history.
While I've read the comments of some modern baseball "analysts" who've discounted the film, in my opinion, the melodrama is much more believable than lots of films being made today, sports or otherwise, and it's my favorite of President Reagan's many films, since I always loved biopic films as a kid. That explains a lot I suppose.

I first saw it on the original SuperStation WTBS one summer night in 1972, while my family and I were staying at the Davis Brothers Motor Inn in Valdosta, on the way to a family vacation in the mountains near the Asheville, NC area, back when Asheville was an Oriole affilate.
I mader sure before we left for the trip that our station wagon had an 'animated' Oriole bird bumper decal on it.
To help me keep my sanity, with my two younger sisters in the back seat, I read about a half-dozen pro and college football guides in the back seat on the way up and back, most of which had Cowboys QB Roger Staubach on the cover, just months after they'd beat the Dolphins in the Super Bowl. I was enraged to see how many of the NY publications predicted the Dolphins falling back to the pack, the exact opposite of what was to occur that coming Perfect Season.

(For details of the baseball films above, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Baseball_films )

Even a truly awful, almost painful to watch film had a reason for me seeing it, as Safe at Home was filmed in Ft. Lauderdale at Little Yankee Stadium, i.e. Ft. Lauderdale Stadium. with Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.
To get a sense of the cheesiness, watch the original trailer at http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=183384&spid=121475

If what I'm saying seems hard to fathom, this was back when AMC showed much higher quality, older films, sometimes actual "Classics," more consistently and didn't have commercials during the film. Ah, the Nineties, I remember it well!

Speaking of George Clooney... see Sarah Larson cheated on The Clooney?! Impossible! at
http://thesuperficial.com/2008/08/sarah_larson_cheated_on_the_cl.php

Tell me whether or not you, too, notice what's ironicabout the storyline below for College Coach at 11:30 a.m.? Original trailer at http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=138573&titleId=2541
Pat O' Brien in a film about chemistry and football? (Co-starring Dick Powell and dozens of All-American football playersof the era.)
Well, seven years later, he plays Knute Rockne in Knute Rockne: All American, whose simplistic storyline could very well be as follows: Norwegian-born football-playing chemistry major becomes Asst. Chemistry prof and then head football coach at small Catholic college in Indiana, becoming a living legend in an era full of them.
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from my South Beach Hoosier blog:
The Original Notre Dame Legend Knute Rockne, November 7, 1927;
Sixteen months after his cover appearance, Rockne perished in an airline crash over Kansas on a business trip to California.
"Knute Rockne, All American," the wonderful 1940 film about Rockne's life, starring Pat O'Brien, with Ronald Reagan as ill-fated Irish football legend George Gipp, is a film I've seen at least two-dozen times.
Like the best of films, every new viewing makes me appreciate some aspect of it I'd never noticed before, even though I know it by heart.
Just like 1942's "The Prideof the Yankees" starring Gary Cooper as Yankee legend Lou Gehrig. -----------------------------
My favorite part of Knute Rockne: All American was always the end, when there's a VO over film showing all of "Rock's boys" who become college head football coaches, finally ending with Elmer Layden, dapper in his hat and suit on the sidelines in South Bend, as the latest Notre Dame head coach, as the ND fight song plays in the background. Original trailer of Knute Rockne: All American at: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=27603&titleId=80476

Every time I've ever heard some sports writer -or sports fan call up as ports radio talk show- bloviate about the "Bill Walsh tree of coaches"over the past 25 years, I always think back to that film which I first saw as kid in 1973 one night when I was twelve at the Bob Griese-Karl Noonan summer sports camp in Boca Raton, which I attended three years ina row.

As noted previously in a South Beach Hoosier post, that's where Roy Firestone was one of my counselors and first became a friend of sorts, while he was still a student at the U-M.
Years later, because I always kept in touch, when Roy was doing the Noon and Weekend sports here at Channel 10, before he left for Los Angeles, he urged me to go to Syracuse instead of IU because of the Newhouse School.

Perhaps if I'd done that, I'd personally know all the very annoying Syracuse grads we all see at ESPN and the TV networks, the ones who always want to tell you about how they used to make audition tapes when they were kids. Yeah, we know, we know!

Listening to those tapes must surely qualify for one of the 'Rings of Hell' at Syracuse. Guys on campus constantly walking around talking to themselves, trying to come up with signature taglines!
Myself, back then I was taping former Hoosier grad school Dick Enberg's play-by-play on Eddie Einhorn's syndicated TVS of Notre Dame's upset of UCLA to end their 62-game winning streak on my Radio Shack tape recorder.

To me, as impressive as Bill Walsh's disciples/branches became,they were never as influential on the sport as Rockne's.
But then I've seen the Rockne film about three dozen times and can still picture the scene when Rockne pal and ND QB Gus Dorais is throwing a pass to Rockne while they're summer lifeguards, which gives Rockne the idea of instituting more specialized passing plays in that era of the 'passing box,' which leads to their famous upset win over Army in 1913, which only, well, changed their lives forever.
And Notre Dame's.

Realistically, my only real disappointment with the list of football films being televised are that it doesn't include: a.) Number One, from 1969, starring Charlton Heston as the Saints QB, back when future Redskin Billy Kilmer was there, whose poster I recall as a kid at the theater.
See http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=18960&atid=23995&category=overview and http://www.imdb.com/media/rm560635136/tt0064743
b.) the 1987 remake of Heaven Can Wait with Warren Beatty.

Last might I watched the Big Ten Network for the first time since June and saw the replay of IU's home opener against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers.
Since we don't play Ohio State or the Maize and Blue of Michigan this year, there's really no reason for IU to be anything less than 7-4, but then I'm an optimist.
Now IF they could only recruit in the state of Florida -for a change- to continue their upward trajectory!

See the College Football Hall of Fame at http://www.collegefootball.org/ and http://www.collegefootball.org/psa.php , plus The National Football Foundation at http://www.footballfoundation.com/

I get the Football Foundation's great email newsletter, which really gives you a wealth of facts and information that you simply can't find on your own, no matter how much you love college football
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6:00 am Freshman Love (1936) A college coach uses a beautiful blonde to woo athletes into joining his team. Cast: Frank McHugh, Patricia Ellis, Warren Hull. Dir: William McGann. BW-67 mins, TV-G

7:15 am Hold 'Em Jail (1932) Two salesmen sent to jail on trumped-up charges build a prison football team. Cast: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Edna May Oliver. Dir: Norman Taurog. BW-66 mins, TV-G

8:30 am Huddle (1932) A steelworker's son becomes a college football hero. Cast: Ramon Novarro, Madge Evans, Una Merkel. Dir: Sam Wood. BW-103 mins, TV-G

10:15 am Sport Parade, The (1932) College team mates follow different paths after they graduate. Cast: Joel McCrea, William Gargan, Marian Marsh. Dir: Dudley Murphy. BW-65 mins, TV-G

11:30 am College Coach (1933) A timid chemistry major becomes a college football star. Cast: Dick Powell, Pat O'Brien, Ann Dvorak. Dir: William A. Wellman. BW-76 mins, TV-G

12:47 pm Short Film: One Reel Wonders: Pro Football (1934) BW-9 mins

1:00 pm Gridiron Flash (1935) A college football team recruits a tough convict.
Cast: Eddie Quillan, Betty Furness, Grant Mitchell. Dir: Glenn Tryon. BW-64 mins, TV-G

2:15 pm We Went To College (1936) Three middle-aged men try to recapture the joys of their college days. Cast: Charles Butterworth, WalterAbel, Hugh Herbert. Dir: Joseph Santley. BW-68 mins, TV-G

3:30 pm Big Game, The (1936) A quarterback stands against gangsters out to control the college sports scene. Cast: Philip Huston, James Gleason, June Travis. Dir: George Nichols, Jr. BW-74 mins, TV-PG

4:45 pm Over The Goal (1937) A college football star risks his health to play in the big game.
Cast: June Travis, William Hopper, Johnnie Davis. Dir: Noel Smith. BW-63 mins, TV-G

6:00 pm Saturday's Heroes (1938) A college football star rebels against the exploitation of the game and its players. Cast: Van Heflin, Marian Marsh, Richard Lane. Dir: Edward Killy. BW-60 mins, TV-G

7:00 pm Cowboy Quarterback, The (1939) A football scout tries to get a legendary runner back into the game. Cast: Marie Wilson, Bert Wheeler, William Demarest. Dir: Noel Smith. BW-56 mins, TV-G

Treasure Trove on TCM today: Casablanca; Suspicion; Goodbye Mr. Chips; Mrs. Miniver

Just wanted to share some TV-watching suggestions with you on this 4th of July weekend of damp fireworks. And ask you to ponder Six Degrees of great film making.

As some of you have no doubt read from time to time, many prominent film historians regard 1939 as the greatest single year in the history of motion pictures, and today, courtesy of Turner Classic Movies, you'll see great evidence that suggests there's more than mere hyperbole at work in that assessment. http://www.filmsite.org/aa39.html

I mention for your viewing consideration 5 films, 4 of which are among my personal Top 20 favorites, all of which will be on Turner Classic Movies over the next 24 or so hours, including 1939's Goodbye Mr. Chips.

Back when I lived in the D.C, area, and had both the time and inclination to do so, I used to host
friends of mine -and their significant others- over at my townhouse to watch classic films, based on either then-current events or suggestions.
Sometimes, owing to larger than expected crowds, we were accommodated at a friend's huge
house, which had more room for eager cinéastes to stretch out and be comfortable.

While I'd hardly call my little enterprise an avant-garde film salon, it beats the crummy AFI theatre in Washington where I saw Taxi Driver, and that townhouse in Arlington did have the geographical advantage of having a consistently good Papa John's Pizza but two blocks away.

And it was just a mile from the greatest German bakery and deli in the entire Washington area, Heidelberg Bakery. 2150 N Culpepper St, Arlington, VA 22207 http://www.heidelbergbakery.com/
Whenever my mother would fly up from Miami for a visit to the Nation's Capitol, eager to see yours truly and grab some culture at all the museums and art galleries, the Heidelberg was considered an absolute must-visit on the first morning. No exceptions!
While there were clearly restaurants in Arlington with more extensive breakfast menus or even
cheaper breakfasts, none smelled quite so yummy as that one, esp. on very cold days.

What I wouldn't give to have something even three-quarters as good as Heidelberg now in the SE Broward or NE Miami-Dade area. (And sorry, but Whole Foods is not even close.)

(The Heidelberg is where nearly twenty years ago, I called and made a special order for a huge rectangular German chocolate cake, with the colors of the German flag inside of a heart.
Once it was ready, I took it over to the beautiful German Embassy on Reservoir Road in NW
Washington, 4645 Reservoir Road NW, Washington, DC, 20007-1998
http://www.germany.info/relaunch/info/missions/embassy/embassy.html

There, with some friends who were German diplomats and economic counselors, I celebrated the formal re-integration of East Germany into a combined Federal Republic.
There were lots and lots of tears and laughter that day! (So many lives needlessly ruined and taken!) But the main mood among them as I recall was genuine optimism, not regret.

My small token of thanks of a cake was due to the fact that owing to my personal and professional interests, and how often they overlapped, I'd been very fortunate over the years to be a guest over at the Embassy on many occasions, visits I never took for granted.
My favorite were lunches in their above-ground outdoor patio, where, on beautiful late spring afternoons before the DC heat and humidity made your head (and hair) explode, with a cold, cold bottle of German beer and a delicious meal, it was more than sehr guht, it was heaven.

Those sunny afternoons sitting there, absorbing that unique atmosphere, and interacting with smart and well-informed friends who'd share their insight on current political or economic news, or their amazing stories about being posted around the world, was one of the highlights of my 15 years in Washington.
Often, those stories were quite heartbreaking, as was the case for my economic counselor friend and colleague, Wolfgang E.A. Gaerte, who recounted what life under Nicolae Ceaucescu was like, and the German govt.'s efforts to help or save people, however they could.
This was back when the only American politician speaking on the issues of personal and political persecution in Romania and Hungary was the late Rep. Tom Lantos.
I hardly need say here that nothing in South Florida quite compares to those particular days.)

One of my frequent film two-fers consisted of running the original Goodbye Mr. Chips -not the later Peter O'Toole version- and conclude the evening with Mrs. Miniver and the inimitable Greer Garson, the object of affection of the first film.
Another popular combination for me and my friends was Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent and Saboteur, the latter of which he did after Suspicion.

The 1933 Chips novel seemingly came out of nowhere from the head of author James Hilton, who had just gained a measure of fame as the author of Lost Horizon, a novel that could hardly be more different in time, place and scope than the one he paints so vividly in Chips.
Hilton's film adaption of his own work is so faithful that, for me at least, it's one of the rare books that was equalled on the big screen.

But then he had a lot riding on it, not least of all, in those pre-Harry Potter days, Hilton had the personal knowledge that people all over the world had taken his characters firmly into their hearts and head, as it reminded so many of an earlier and less dangerous time to be young and hopeful. He didn't want to disappoint them.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/mrchips/ei_hilton.html

Robert Donat's performance as Brookfield's Latin master Mr. Chipping is, in a word, masterful.
Over the course of sixty years, we see thru his eyes, a rapidly changing world that loses a bit of tradition every year -except at Brookfield- as the first year "Stinkers" get their first dose of Mr. Chips.
His calm demeanor brings forth poignant insight into everyday ways of living and suddenly coping with deep personal grief, as his boarding school "boys" grow-up and become men of means and power, from the England of Victoria 'till the the England of Churchill.
That insight is learned the hard way, first-hand, and shared with his students and former students as he morphs from awkward social outsider to becoming the living embodiment of the school itself, as one era falls upon itself.

In the greatest year of American film, Robert Donat wins the Best Actor Oscar -his second- against a veritable Murder's Row of Clark Gable (Gone With The Wind), James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights) and Mickey Rooney (Babes in Arms).
A competition so tough that John Wayne doesn't even get a nomination for his great performance in Stagecoach, one of his best, still as watchable today as ever.

This amazing and heartwarming film led by Donat, packed with a great cast, is one that I have personally seen now more than just about all but 4 or 5 of of my favorite films.
By now it's got to be well over thirty times, including the times I've watched it up in Maryland with my adorable nieces as they grew-up, two of whom, as it happens, are now whizzes in Latin at high school.

I particularly call your attention to the subtle-but-sure performance of Paul Henreid as Chips'
fellow teacher and friend, Max Staefel, the German (Saxon)-born teacher who makes it his job to bring Chips out of his shell on a bike/hiking holiday in Europe, a journey that will forever change Chips life, bringing a sense of balance and confidence that had previously been lacking.

Even knowing that he is the very same actor who so famously played anti-Nazi resistance hero Victor Laszlo in Casbalanca, is to see the very definition of a versatile actor.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002134/

For your consideration, besides all the usual links I include, I have the original trailer for the films, including the one for Chips, which begins with critic Alexander Woollcott, The Town Crier positively gushing, declaring it the best motion picture he's ever seen .

As you look below, consider the following killer line-up: Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Greer Garson, and my longtime favorite, Audrey Hepburn.
I defy you to name four current actresses who could best them on the big screen in terms of impact and versatility -and you can't just name Meryl Streep four times.
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Sunday July 6th
12 noon Casablanca (1942)
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid.
Dir: Michael Curtiz. B/W-103 mins.
Overview: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=610
Original trailer: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=16009&titleId=610


615 pm Suspicion (1941)
Cast: Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Nigel Bruce. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock. B/W-100 mins.
Overview: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=1177
Trailer: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=12006&titleId=1177


8pm Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939)
Cast: Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Paul Henreid. Dir: Sam Wood. B/W-114 mins.
Overview: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=76737
Original trailer: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=29684&titleId=76737
Will also air Thursday August 14th at 6 pm


Monday July 7th
1 am Paris When It Sizzles (1964)
Cast: William Holden, Audrey Hepburn. Dir. Richard Quine, 110 mins.
Overview: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=86269
Original trailer: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=158839&titleId=86269
Not for everyone, but one of best films ever made about screenwriting, small number though that is, with lots of film allusions and references tossed about by Holden and Hepburn ten years after they made Sabrina, which I watched yesterday. And who played Holden's brother in that film, which earned Audrey Hepburn an Oscar? Humphrey Bogart, who stars in Casablanca.

and finally, a great film that stands the test of time
6 am Mrs. Miniver
Cast: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Richard Ney, Dame May Whitty and Henry Travers. Dir. William Wyler. B/W-133 mins.
Overview: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=329
Original trailer: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=9877&titleId=329

Garson, famously won for Best Actress and Wright won her second consecutive Best Supporting Actress Oscar after having won the year before for Little Foxes, also directed by Wyler.
Wright's next film, also made in 1942, earns her another Oscar nom, this time for Best Actress as Eleanor Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees, opposite Gary Cooper, in a film directed by Chips director Sam Wood. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939992/
(Her next film? Shadow of a Doubt -for Hitchcock!)

Obviously, Wright loses to Garson in the lead category but still picks up some hardware for the second year in a row and has the honor of being nominated twice in one year, a rare feat!

I never had any real security in my life until I found the false security of stardom.
-Robert Donat

Charlton Heston films on TCM April 11th

Posted this a few minutes ago on parent blog South Beach Hoosier, www.SouthBeachHoosier.blogspot.com , and thought I'd post it here as well on the chance that someone in the area might want to catch some good films over the next week on TV.
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Friday, April 11, 2008

Meant to post this on Wednesday night shortly after South Beach Hoosier received an email from Turner Classic Movies, letting me know about these schedule changes due to the recent passing of Charlton Heston http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000032/ and Jules Dassin, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0202088/ .

In fact, I just watched The Greatest Show on Earth from 1952 a few weeks ago, so when the news came the other morning that Heston had died, his great authentic performance was still very fresh in my mind. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044672/

In the TCM Private Screenings that he filmed with TCM's Robert Osborne about ten years ago, Heston makes reference to the fact that one of the best reviews he ever got was when someone -De Mille?- showed him a letter written by someone who'd really loved the film, particularly Jimmy Stewart as the clown with a secret and Betty Hutton as the strong-willed high-wire aerialist.

But the letter writer said the performance he liked most was the real circus manager working with the actors -Heston's role.

He joked that when they think you're not an actor, that's when you know you've turned in a good performance. Agreed!

I especially commend two of the Heston films to you.

Khartoum, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060588/#comment , a 1966 film that many people thought Charlton Heston deserved to win an Academy Award for and for which Ralph Richardson won a BAFTA, and Sam Peckinpah's Moby Dick-like Major Dundee from the year before. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059418/

I remind you, too, that TCM has also re-scheduled two films by Jules Dassin, including Naked City, the terrific crime film entirely set in 1948 New York City. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040636/

It's often seems to media maven South Beach Hoosier that it's almost impossible to go a month without some TV program doing their homage to noir -often for the flimsiest of reasons- even if we'd prefer they wouldn't.

While sometimes amusing if done with the appropriate level of both and humor and purposefulness, as was usually the case with some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092455/ , when Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) assumes his 1930's San Francisco detective persona in the Enterprise's Holodeck, more often than not, it's resulted in some perfectly awful faux noir in other TV programs or historic flashbacks.

That list is too long to mention here!

Like so many great films I've enjoyed, the first film of Dassin's that I ever saw was on TCM, Reunion in France, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035250/ starring John Wayne and Joan Crawford.

Naked City is so fantastic and compelling, that the first time I saw it, the documentary style made me recall the afternoon I first saw Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta) at the National Gallery of Art's film auditorium, when they had an Italian-themed film series one summer.

To see this film again is to be powerfully reminded of what noir really tastes and smells like, and I heartily recommend you get your VCR/TiVo/DVR ready to go.

South Beach Hoosier was a very devout film go-er to the NGA's film series, where I saw so many dozens of great and influential films over the years I lived in Washington, often bringing friends along to help build their film education. http://www.nga.gov/programs/film/

I'd even schedule my Oriole games every year up at Camden Yards around the better films, so that I wouldn't miss them, since so many of the French and Italian films I saw at the NGA -on great prints!- especially the New Wave films, weren't available on videotape or DVD.

That it was all FREE only made it harder to resist!
_____________________________________
"We're making the following changes on Friday, April 11th to honor Charlton Heston:

Add: (All times ET)

2:30 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston

3:30 PM The Buccaneer (1958)

5:30 PM The Hawaiians

8:00 PM Private Screenings: Charlton Heston

9:00 PM Ben-Hur

1:00 AM Khartoum

3:30 AM Major Dundee

The schedule on April 20th is also changing to honor the great director Jules Dassin:

Add:
8:00 PM Naked City (1948)

9:45 PM Topkapi (already scheduled)