Mad About Musicals--June on TCM

This month, Turner Classic Movies is featuring a host of movie musicals all day long on Tuesdays and Thursdays as part of what they're calling Mad About Musicals. In addition, TCM and Ball State University are hosting an online class on that same theme. Although the Mad About Musicals course officially began yesterday, you can still enroll here.

Here's how they're describing the Mad About Musicals "deep dive" experience:

Running from June 3-30, this FREE interactive experience will give you an entertaining deep-dive into the Hollywood musical, from the 1930s to the 1970s, with addictive multimedia course materials, digital games, ongoing interactions with your fellow film fans on the TCM message boards, and more!

You can also see the syllabus and answers to some frequently asked questions on that same page.

And if you're not into taking classes, you can still see a whole lot of musicals between June 5, when Going Hollywood, a little-known MGM musical from 1933 starring a very young Bing Crosby opposite the infamous Marion Davies, starts things off at 5 am Central time, and June 29, when Oliver!, the Oscar-winner from 1968, finishes the parade at 5:15 am.

By my count, there are 93 movie musicals running on TCM between those two, ranging from perennial favorites like Top Hat and American in Paris to lesser-known works that you absolutely have to see, like Hallelujah from 1929, the first all-black musical from a major studio; Strike Me Pink, a 1936 Eddie Cantor vehicle with Ethel Merman in the mix; Shirley Temple doing a Fred-and-Ginger number in Stowaway, also from 1936; and Chubby Checker in a 60s oddity called Don't Knock the Twist. There's also some Busby Berkeley, Ruby Keeler, Jimmy Cagney, operettas, the real Fred and Ginger, a touch of Lubitsch, Maurice Chevalier, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Cyd Charisse, Esther Williams, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, and big-time Broadway musicals represented on screen.

That's a whole lot of singing and dancing and a fascinating way to see how Hollywood directors, choreographers, cinematographers, designers and screenwriters found a way to bend film effects to showcase music and performers. Yes, there are omissions, but so much good stuff, too. I doubt anyone can plant themselves in front of the TV to see every single one of the moving pictures TCM has chosen, but I suggest you fire up the DVR and catch as much as you can.

For all the details and a look at the schedule, you'll want to start here. 

Tonight on TCM: NINOTCHKA

Ah, the Lubitsch touch... Ernst Lubitsch was one of Hollywood's finest directors during its Golden Age, creating a continental world of wit and sophistication, where the elegant thieves of Trouble in Paradise can lift an increasingly intimate array of items -- a wallet, a watch, a garter -- off each other over dinner, where the two clerks in The Shop Around the Corner can wage a war of words even as they fall in love in a romantic version of Budapest that looks like it belongs inside a snow globe.

Lubitsch had the touch all right -- his movies are often about sex, but it's an amusing and knowing kind of sex, never crude, always as charming and sophisticated as his characters.

The two movies I mentioned above were written by Samson Raphaelson, the screenwriter whose dialogue Pauline Kael famously said "had the gleam of appliquéd butterfly wings on a Ziegfield girl's toque." In other words, he was the perfect match for Ernst Lubitsch. But in Ninotchka, the 1939 movie playing late tonight on TCM, the script came from Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, teaming Lubitsch with Wilder, the clearest heir to his witty, perfectly polished throne.

Ninotchka also gave Lubitsch a chance to work with Greta Garbo, known then as the queen of tragedies. In this movie, the poster makes sure we know that "Garbo laughs," playing off a famous campaign for Anna Christie, her first talkie, when it was all about "Garbo talks!" The fact that she was laughing -- or more specifically, that her character, a stern, all-business Russian woman named Nina Ivanovna Yakushova, begins to lighten up and laugh -- is pretty much the plot of Ninotchka.

In the film, Garbo's Comrade Yakushova comes to Paris to find out what's gone wrong with the mission of three previous emissaries (the wonderful character actors Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart and Alexander Granach) sent to sell some jewels confiscated in the Russian Revolution. But the Grand Duchess (Ina Claire) who once owned the jewels has sent her own emissary, suave Count Leon, played by Melvyn Douglas, to intercept the three Russians, and he's successfully sidetracked them with all the fine things Paris has to offer, like free-flowing champagne and cigarette girls. Once Nina Ivanovna gets there, she gets to work putting the mission back on track, until Count Leon starts to corrupt her, too.

The last time I talked about Ninotchka, I summed it this way:

Once chilly Comrade Ninotchka comes up against the debonair count and his pencil-thin mustache, she begins to thaw, going so far as to buy a frivolous hat, drink too much and spend the night in his arms. Will love prevail when the Grand Duchess steals back her jewelry? Will Ninotchka's sense of duty to the Soviet state force her to reject Leon's materialistic world? Will she ever find her way back to her Parisian count?

Is there even a doubt?

It's a lovely trifle, a perfect film for midnight (Eastern time -- 11 pm in the Central time zone) on a cold February night. Ninotchka is part of TCM's celebration of the Oscars. It was nominated for four of them, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Garbo, Best Writing for the original story by Melchior Lengyel, and Best Writing (Screenplay) for Brackett, Reisch and Wilder. If you are playing TCM's 360 Degrees of Oscar, look for Melvyn Douglas as the link between The Candidate (the movie before Ninotchka on the TCM schedule) and Ninotchka, and Felix Bressart as the link between Ninotchka and Bitter Sweet, the musical that comes after.

Absolutely Fabulous TO BE OR NOT TO BE

So we've already talked about Ernst Lubitsch's lovely Ninotchka, with Greta Garbo going from cold to hot, as the 7 pm (Central time) show in TCM's evening of Lubitsch. But after that, at 9 pm, it's To Be or Not to Be.

Ah, To Be or Not to Be... I love this movie. It's a wonderful comedy from 1942, based on Lubitsch's own story, but it also represents a bit of risky film business. The risks included the setting -- Poland during World War II -- the concept -- a troupe of Shakespearean actors in Poland during World War II, including comedian Jack Benny as the troupe's leading man -- and a bunch of oddball supporting characters, including a Nazi colonel whose nickname is "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt. Dark humor, to be sure. Lubitsch decided to fight the Nazis the way he knew best. With humor.

If the premise was risky, the film's timing was terrible. It premiered in February, 1942, two months after Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war, one short month after star Carole Lombard perished in a plane crash while returning from a trip to sell war bonds. And those terrible events made To Be or Not to Be seem "callous and macabre" to critics like Bosley Crowther in the New York Times.

Years later, with a bit more distance, To Be or Not to Be doesn't seem rude or mean at all. Instead, its dark comedy is terrific, as is Jack Benny as a very unlikely Shakespearean actor. It's hard to imagine Benny playing Shakespeare at all, and especially not Hamlet, but it turns out to be hilarious. (I wonder if he ever tried Malvolio.) At any rate, Benny's Joseph Tura gets slammed as an actor who is doing to Shakespeare what the Nazis were doing to Poland.

Carole Lombard is luminous as his wife, Maria, and every bit as funny as Benny, if in a totally different way. The running gag is that she cheats on him every time he has a soliloquy. That means her lover, who is sitting in the audience, gets up and walks out every time Joseph Tura hits "To be nor not to be."

The movie is full of that kind of sly, knowing humor, ably brought to life by some of the best character actors ever. Sig Ruman, who was one of the three comrades playing hooky in Ninotchka, is "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt, hunky Robert Stack is the aviator Mrs. Tura is sneaking around with, and Tom Dugan plays Bronski, who can do a dead-on impersonation of Hitler that comes in handy. But the best of the bunch is Felix Bressart, a Jewish actor who shows up in a lot of Lubitsch films, like The Shop Around the Corner and Ninotchka. Whether it was the bushy mustache, the kind eyes (often seen behind spectacles) or just his genial manner, Bressart projected a lot of warmth in his roles. Greenberg, the part he plays in To Be or Not to Be, is one of his best. Like Bressart, Greenberg is a Jew. An actor with Tura's troupe, he has one major desire in life -- to get to perform Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech from The Merchant of Venice. Bressart bites into Greenberg with gusto, making you love him and Greenberg and root for both of them to get to play their parts.

I love To Be or Not to Be. It's smart and funny and the perfect movie for people who think comedy is the best revenge.

Garbo Laughs in NINOTCHKA Tonight on TCM

As part of this month's tribute to director Ernst Lubitsch, Turner Classic Movies is filling the last Friday evening in 2012 with four Lubitsch films. And these are good ones, too. Their glamor, romance and sly humor make them perfect End O' Year fare.

First up, in the marquee slot at 7 pm Central time is Ninotchka, the 1939 romantic comedy advertised under a "Garbo laughs!" banner. With a screenplay by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch and the famous "Lubitsch touch" evident throughout, Ninotchka is lighter than air, witty and smart, taking on serious subjects (Capitalism vs. Communism, Russian expats, the grim rules and regulations of the Stalinist state) in the most charming possible way.

Greta Garbo stars as Ninotchka herself, an icy, uncompromising Communist envoy sent to Paris on Soviet business. She's specifically there to retrieve three comrades (played by Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach and Sig Ruman) who have been corrupted by the decadence and capitalist joy of Paris, as personified by Melvyn Douglas's Count Leon, who's been plying them with hot and cold running cigarette girls and room service in their luxurious hotel. He has ulterior motives, since he's involved with an exiled Russian Grand Duchess (Ina Clair) who wants to get back her confiscated jewelry, the very jewelry the three previous emissaries were supposed to be selling in Paris to pad the Soviet treasury.

Once chilly Comrade Ninotchka comes up against the debonair count and his pencil-thin mustache, she begins to thaw, going so far as to buy a frivolous hat, drink too much and spend the night in his arms. Will love prevail when the Grand Duchess steals back her jewelry? Will Ninotchka's sense of duty to the Soviet state force her to reject Leon's materialistic world? Will she ever find her way back to her Parisian count?

Is there even a doubt?

Ninotchka is one of those classic movies that fans of romantic comedy, fans of Lubitsch and fans of Garbo hold close to their hearts. Lubitsch went on to The Shop Around the Corner and To Be or Not To Be, the movie that will follow Ninotchka tonight on TCM, but Garbo did only one more film -- 1941's Two-Faced Woman -- before retiring from the screen completely. Ninotchka represents a world gone by, where even the hardest heart could be melted by silly jokes in a Paris sidewalk cafe. Lubitsch made Garbo laugh. And it was lovely.

Four Great Lubitsch Films Tonight on TCM

Turner Classic Movies is really hitting it out of the park, programming-wise, at least for my particular taste in film. We just got both The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire on Barbara Stanwyck Wednesday, and now we get Ernst Lubitsch Friday!

Lubitsch was one of the seven directors I listed in the piece on The Lady Eve earlier this week. I called them The Big 7 -- they really weren't called that in the 30s and 40s, although, at least from the vantage point of the 70s, they were considered masters of their comedic film craft in the 30s and 40s -- and Lubitsch may just have been the best of the bunch.

As you may guess from his name, Ernst Lubitsch was German. He was born in Berlin and began his career in Germany, working as an actor with Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater just about a hundred years ago. But he turned to film rather quickly, first as an actor and then as a director, moving to Hollywood in 1922 when he was hand-picked by Mary Pickford to direct one of her movies.

He successfully directed all kinds of European-flavored silent films, like The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg, a 1928 "Viennese Fairytale" from MGM that starred Ramon Novarro as a prince (who was also a student) who falls in love with a barmaid, played by Norma Shearer. You'll also find Hollywood legend Jean Hersholt as the prince's kindly tutor. Even though my favorite film professor in college was a major Lubitsch fan (and scholar), we did not see The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg in class. That means I will be looking for it tonight at 11:45 pm when TCM sends it my way. We can all raise a glass together to The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and his lovely barmaid!

Lubitsch moved to directing musicals when talkies hit, including 1932's One Hour with You, a tuneful trifle with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald as a charming Parisian couple, blissfully married until a flirt named Mitzi tries to come between them. Ooh la la! One Hour with You is a remake of Lubitsch's earlier film The Marriage Circle, and, yes, this one did make it to my film class. Actually, I believe both The Marriage Circle and One Hour with You were there. Words like sophisticated and saucy come to mind for One Hour with You and its fancy French tomfoolery. And if you're like me, you will be very surprised at how mischievous, appealing, and lighter-than-air Jeanette MacDonald comes off.

One Hour with You will air tonight on TCM at 10:15 pm (Central time), just before Old Heidelberg.

Also released in 1932 was Trouble in Paradise, the third Lubitsch film TCM has chosen for tonight. If possible, it's even more sophisticated and charming than the others. In this one, Lily pretends to be a Countress, but she's really a pickpocket, slipping expensive watches off her marks. She's met her match in Gaston, who says he's a Baron, but he's really an international jewel thief, expertly removing diamonds and rubies from the women he romances.

As played by Miriam Hopkins (she's the blonde staring daggers in the corner of the poster) and Herbert Marshall, Lily and Gaston are smooth, sardonic and slinky, in a Continental sort of way, making love and stealing from each other at the same time. But when Gaston tries to move in on wealthy Mariette, played by Kay Francis (the brunette looking clingy over there) to get at her jewels and money, Lily does not appreciate it.

Trouble in Paradise is unabashedly sinful, what with Lily and Gaston and their perfectly lovely life of crime, plus suggestive dialogue and a lot of winks and nods to its characters' sex lives, so it's pretty amazing the censors didn't squelch all the joy out of it. Ah well. It is left to us to enjoy this delicious pastry of a film, with Hopkins and Marshall giving silky, seductive performances as the naughty duo of thieves.

If you've ever heard of the "Lubitsch touch," this film is full of them. Look for sly touches of elegance that glide right past what might seem snarky or raunchy elsewhere. Lubitsch keeps his innuendo stylish and sophisticated, delicate and delightful. As a result, Trouble in Paradise is pretty much perfect. Or parfait. You'll find it at 7 pm Central tonight on TCM.

And, yes, there is one more. Noël Coward's Design for Living and its ménage à trois was so scandalous it couldn't open in London in 1932, when Coward wrote it. So it came to Broadway instead. What? Americans less puritannical than Brits? Apparently. Not only was it a hit on Broadway, with Coward himself and Lunt and Fontanne forming the triangle, but it quickly got picked up by Hollywood for a film version, with what must've seemed like the perfect director -- Lubitsch, of course -- attached.

But the 1933 film Design for Living isn't much like the play.  For one thing, pretty girl Gilda, played by Miriam Hopkins, and the two men she's in love with, Tom and George, played by Fredric March and Gary Cooper, are decidedly American. Gone is the European sophistication. Gone is any sense of Tom and George being attracted to each other as well as Gilda. Gone is the daring ménage Coward wrote.

Oh well. If you can forget about the original play, Design for Living still has three great leads romping around, a snazzy Ben Hecht script, and the inevitable Lubitsch touches.

Design for Living airs tonight at 8:30 pm on TCM.