Robert Osborne: R.I.P.

Sad News. Robert Osborne, Film Historian and primetime host of Turner Movie Classics, passed away today at the age of 84.

From Variety:

TCM’s general manager Jennifer Dorian released a statement saying, “All of us at Turner Classic Movies are deeply saddened by the death of Robert Osborne. Robert was a beloved member of the Turner family for more than 23 years. He joined us as an expert on classic film and grew to be our cherished colleague and esteemed ambassador for TCM. Robert was embraced by devoted fans who saw him as a trusted expert and friend. His calming presence, gentlemanly style, encyclopedic knowledge of film history, fervent support for film preservation and highly personal interviewing style all combined to make him a truly world-class host. Robert’s contributions were fundamental in shaping TCM into what it is today and we owe him a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this time.”

Osborne was an irrepressible advocate for the films of Hollywood’s golden era who wrote the Motion Picture Academy-sanctioned “50 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards” in 1978 and a number of updates ending in 2008 with “80 Years of the Oscar.”

Osborne lived in New York but shot his TCM appearances at the cable network’s headquarters in Atlanta. As TCM’s primary on-air personality, Osborne occupied something of an unique position in the history of television: Where once it was common for channels to provide hosts for the movies they programmed, TCM is now the last U.S. movie network to regularly feature hosts who offer information about a film before it begins.

Read More Here.

TCM March Spotlight: TCM Villains 3/20-3/25

TCM SPOTLIGHT: Villains: March Malice - 3/20-3/25

This month on TCM villains will have their due by pairing some of the most nefarious characters in 32 different categories and letting viewers decide who reigns as the worst of them all. Villains run the gamut and come in all shapes, sizes and forms.

The couplings begin with Psycho Killers Norman Bates, played with chilling perfection by Anthony Perkins in Psycho (1960); and Mark Lewis, portrayed by Carl Boehm, in Peeping Tom (1960) with a creepiness that made his movie a cult favorite. Technology Kills! covers such high-tech threats as the android gunslinger played by Yul Brynner in Westworld (1973) and HAL 9000, the spaceship computer that takes on a life of its own in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Movies featuring Western Outlaws include The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), with Lee Marvin as the ruthless desperado of the title, and Hombre (1967), with Richard Boone as the marauding bandit Grimes.

True Crime gives us Martha Beck and Ray Fernandez (Shirley Stoler and Tony LoBianco), the killers of The Honeymoon Killers (1970) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the legendary bank robbers played by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty.

Femmes Fatales don't come any deadlier than Phyllis Dietrichson played with icy brilliance by Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944); or Vera, the sultry hitchhiker brought to scary life by Ann Savage in Detour (1945).

Two Killer Kids who wreck the lives of the grownups around them are Patty McCormack's Rhoda Penmark, the little psycho of The Bad Seed (1956); and Ann Blyth's Veda Pierce, the scheming daughter of Mildred Pierce (1945).

Many Dark Forces loom large over their opponents such as Margaret Hamilton as the green-faced Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939); and Sala Baker as Sauron, the ominous Dark Lord of Mordor in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

Among the classic movie Aliens Among Us are those seed pods that transform into human replicants in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956); and that, well, thing played by James Arness in The Thing from Another World (1951).

You Animal! is a category that showcases such savage beasts as Larry Talbot, the werewolf played by Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man (1941); and Irena Dubrovna Reed, the pantheresque beauty acted by Simone Simon in Cat People (1942).

TCM Guest Programmer: Michael Connelly

TCM really has an exciting month of Mystery! I posted recently that Eddie Muller will be hosting 4 Noir-themed films this month. Now here's more news. Michael Connelly will be TCM Guest Programmer for March. Connelly, is, of course, the author of numerous mysteries and crime fiction (notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch), most recently The Wrong Side of Goodbye. Connelly is currently producing an Amazon series, Bosch, based on the novels.

Connelly has chosen four films from the 1970s that he saw as a teenager and considered to be "all part of the process I went through" to become a writer in the "hard-boiled" tradition:

Klute (1971), starring Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda in a screenplay by Andy and David E. Lewis

Shaft (1971), starring Richard Roundtree and adapted from the book by Ernest Tidyman

and two Gene Hackman vehicles:

The French Connection (1971), from the book by Robin Moore

Night Moves (1975), written by Alan Sharp

Hat Tip: Ken Van Durand

TCM to Launch New Noir-Themed Programming Franchise Noir Alley

Set your DVRs. TCM (Turner Classic Movies) will launch Noir-Themed Programming: Noir Alley. This new franchise will be hosted by Film Noir Foundation Founder & President Eddie Muller. Every Sunday at 10 a.m.

Eddie Muller, known to classic film fans as “The Czar of Noir,” will explore the genre from every angle as he introduces a different noir classic each week. Noir Alley will air Sundays at 10 a.m. (ET) starting March 5 with a screening of the movie widely credited as the first film noir, The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Film noir, with its gritty and dark style, was a favorite among 1940s and 1950s moviegoers and continues to be one of the most popular genres of classic film today. Noir Alley will showcase film noir's heavy hitters each week including the below March lineup:

March 5: The Maltese Falcon (1941), the unforgettable classic about "the stuff that dreams are made of," directed by first-time director John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet

March 12: Detour (1945), a remarkable and highly influential film directed on a shoestring budget by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Tom Neal and Ann Savage

March 19: Act of Violence (1948), a revenge tale about WWII veterans directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Van Heflin and Robert Ryan

March 26: Tension (1949), an engrossing thriller about a would-be wife killer directed by John Berry and starring Richard Basehart and Audrey Totter Noir Alley is designed to be an immersive, multiplatform experience for both seasoned noir fans and newcomers to the genre.

TCM Classic Film Festival - April 28-May 1: Host: Eddie Muller

Film Noir Festival president Eddie Muller will be presenting films again at this year's TCM Classic Film Festival, April 28 – May 1.

Eddie will be introducing two FNF restorations, Los tallos amargos and Repeat Performance (1947). He will also be introducing Carl Reiner's comic valentine to film noir, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). The film features a series of clips from famous film noirs, intercut with new footage of a hardboiled detective (Steve Martin) and a possible femme fatale (Rachel Ward) to form a new and suitably convoluted noir plot. The film was the last project of both costume designer Edith Head and composer Miklós Rózsa. Eddie will also be introducing a series of critically acclaimed sports films, including John Huston's Fat City (1972), based on Leonard Gardner's 1969 gut wrenching novel about small hall boxing.

This year's overarching theme is Moving Pictures, focusing on the films that, "bring us to tears, rouse us to action, inspire us, even project us to a higher plane." These films range from Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) accompanied by a live orchestra and vocalists performing Richard Einhorn's oratorio Voices of Light, a piece specifically written for this purpose in 1994, to John Singleton's heartbreaking Boyz in the Hood (1991), a semi-autobiographical depiction of African-American youths struggling with gang violence in South Central L.A., with a soundtrack of rap songs by Run-D.M.C., 2 Live Crew and Ice Cube reflective of the characters' lives.

New Year's Eve Thin Man Marathon

Don't miss TCM's New Year's Eve Thin Man Marathon. What a great way to celebrate. After the Thin Man takes place at New Year's Eve, so it's a double celebration. Grab a glass of bubbly and settle in for a great evening of top notch entertainment.

Check your local listings. The schedule below if for information only. No links to buying anything. LOL!

September Pre-Code Festival on TCM

TCM will be highlighting Pre-Code Hollywood films this month. Pre-Code Hollywood is the era in the American film industry between the intorduction of sound in the late 1920s and the strict enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code beginning in the mid-1930s. Now's the chance to see several of these films. According to the TCM website,

Films of this period included unflinching portrayals of such subject matter as sexuality, prostitution, illegal drug use, abortion and extreme violence. Without the interference of censors, law-breakers in the movies were often allowed to profit from their schemes, and fallen women became the heroines of many films. Gangster films were popular, and their protagonists were viewed with some sympathy despite their law-breaking ways.

For the complete listing and schedule, Go Here.

This is a contination of TCM's Friday Night Spotlight (July featured Noir films, introduced by Eddie Muller). Each Friday in September, Alec Baldwin and TCM host Robert Osborne will introduce the films airing in primetime. There will be a total of 67 movies, covering a wide range of genres and represents the output of all the major Hollywood stuidoes of the era.

Films include Illicit (1931), Ladies They Talk About (1933) and Baby Face (1933).  Some of the leading ladies include Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, Norma Shearer, and Bette Davis, as well as Loretta Young.  Leading men include Warren William (Kine of Pre-Code), Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney and Paul Muni.

It's going to be a great month for the movies!

Read more HERE.

Eddie Muller hosts Summer of Darkness on TCM

Film Noir Foundation Eddie Muller will host TCM's Summer of Darkness this June and July, during which TCM will dedicate 24 hours each Friday to a lineup comprised exclusively of film noir. 

Muller will present four movies each night during prime-time, 36 films in all, as host of TCM's "Friday Night Spotlight." In addition to serving as on-air host, the "Czar of Noir" also chose the films he'll be presenting. Muller will be presenting the TCM broadcast premieres of two FNF restorations, Norman Foster's Woman on the Run (1950) on June 5, the opening day of Summer, and Bryon Haskin's Too Late for Tears (1949) on July 17.

Muller's other selections include thematic groupings that focus on San Francisco, wartime noir, John Alton, the King Brothers, and much more. Visit the official Summer of Darkness website for the full schedule.

Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, returns to TCM

Eddie Muller returns to Turner Classic Movies this June with a series of Noir Films. "The Czar of Noir" will be hosting TCM's "Friday Night Spotlight," presenting 16 movies over four nights, all highlighting the work of seminal or significant noir writers.

Muller, who was TCM host Robert Osborne's guest this past January for "A Night in Noir City," was asked by the network to solo-host a monthly installment of its new "Spotlight" feature, in which a guest host both programs and presents thematically linked films. The segments were recorded in March at TCM headquarters in Atlanta—and it should be no surprise that Muller tilled his usual noir terrain, aiming his spotlight at writers Dashiell Hammett, David Goodis, James M. Cain, Jonathan Latimer, Raymond Chandler and Cornell Woolrich.

The shows air June 7th (Hammett), 14th (Goodis), 21st (Latimer and Cain) and 28th (Woolrich and Chandler).  For TCM schedule, go HERE.

TCM: A NIGHT IN NOIR CITY Co-Hosted by Eddie Muller

Tune in to TCM on Thursday, January 17, 2013 for A Night In Noir City co-hosted by the Czar of Noir Eddie Muller.

Eddie writes on the TCM website:

I was thrilled, of course, to be asked by the good folks at TCM to program and co-host a night of noir with the redoubtable Robert Osborne. My elation was tempered somewhat by the realization that I could only choose four films! Out of the literally hundreds of bold and brooding crime dramas I've screened and written about during the past fourteen years--only FOUR! A challenge, to say the least. In the end, I opted to make "A Night in Noir City" an extension of the "rescue, restoration and revival" work I do as head of the Film Noir Foundation, a grassroots non-profit that raises funds to protect and preserve at-risk exemplars of film noir--which I consider to be Hollywood's only truly organic artistic movement.

So rather than present familiar classics of the genre, like Double Indemnity (1944) or Out of the Past (1947), I went with more obscure, but in my opinion no less deserving, choices. It's my hope that prime-time exposure on TCM will shine a fresh light on these terrific, often overlooked, gems.

CRY DANGER (1951)
The Film Noir Foundation, along with our colleagues at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, recently restored this Dick Powell thriller. Powell had a special way with a wisecrack, and was also one of the most astute independent producers in the business. Cry Danger was his film all the way, and he showed off his savvy by hiring wondrous wiseacre Bill Bowers to pen the original screenplay, and giving Oscar®-winning editor Robert Parrish his first directing gig. Sure, noir is supposed to be dark and nihilistic, but a great cast spewing Bowers' dynamite dialogue proves it can be incredibly fun as well. I dedicate this showing to the late, great Nancy Mysel, who supervised the restoration of this film, a project we both savored.

99 RIVER STREET (1953)
I'm a huge fan of rugged and razor-sharp 1950's paperback crime fiction--and this is about as close as anyone ever came to hurling it onto the screen, unabashed and undiluted. John Payne is terrific as a bitter ex-boxer turned cabbie Ernie Driscoll, whose wayward wife leads him into all sorts of nefariousness in nocturnal New York. Director Phil Karlson perfected his slam-bang style right here; to me, this is his signature film. The highlight: Evelyn Keyes, typically cast as the good girl, turning up the heat in a pair of jaw-dropping set pieces.

TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951)
When I first encountered this exceptional film more than a decade ago, I declared it "Gun Crazy [1950] scripted by John Steinbeck." A minor masterpiece in the filmography of the virtually forgotten Felix Feist, this is one of the best "love on the lam" tales in all noir. Steve Cochran--the Elvis of Noir--is perfect as a vulnerable ex-con who falls hard for bruised "taxi dancer" Ruth Roman (as a blonde! And never better!). Thwarted passions, a dank hotel room, a dirty cop--a gunshot! And suddenly our luckless lovers are fugitives fleeing cross-country. It's high time for this fantastic film to finally come out of hiding and get the recognition it deserves.

THE BREAKING POINT (1950)
Many cineastes point to 1950 as perhaps the finest year ever for American movies (Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, In a Lonely Place, The Asphalt Jungle, and many more)--but this breathtaking adaptation of Hemingway's To Have and Have Not stands equally with all those classics. John Garfield gives the most personal and self-revelatory performance of his career as a fishing boat captain who gets in too deep when he bends the law to keep his business afloat. The film was shunned--by its own studio--because of Garfield's troubles with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and in the following years copyright entanglements with the Hemingway estate kept it from earning the reputation is deserves. Insightful script (by Ranald MacDougall), brilliant performances from the entire cast (no one can be singled out, they're all superb), and Michael Curtiz's most compelling direction--and yes, I'm not forgetting Casablanca (1942) and Robin Hood (1938) and Mildred Pierce (1945) and many others. The Breaking Point truly is that good. 

Eddie Muller produces and hosts NOIR CITY: The San Francisco Film Noir Festival, the world's largest noir retrospective.

Hat Tip: Sue Trowbridge