While the rest of the world is asleep, I’m usually awake. I’ve been an insomniac since I was a child and it’s a habit I haven’t been able to shake. I’ve tried forcing myself to an early bedtime, but I wind up waking up halfway through the night and gravitate towards the television or computer (or sometimes I use the computer while leaving the tv on for background noise). And while I pay for it the next day, I find that massive amounts of coffee and a good healthy dose of Touche Eclat smeared under the eyes helps me become a somewhat fully functioning member of society.
During my insomniac hours, I usually surf through Amazon in search of classic dvds. Currently, they’re having a huge 50% off sale on Westerns, so I wound up grabbing the following titles:
• Yellow Sky (1948) – directed by William Wellman, starring Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter and Richard Widmark
• Lust For Gold (1949) – with Ida Lupino, Glenn Ford and Gig Young (one of my faves)
• Broken Arrow (1950) – with James Stewart and Jeff Chandler
• Duck, You Sucker (Special Edition-1971) – with James Coburn and Rod Steiger. I mainly got this one because I loved Once Upon a Time in the West and the title is pretty awesome. The only other spaghetti western with such an awesome title is God Forgives, I Don’t.
I can’t resist a good bargain. In addition to that, I also grabbed two of the Fox Film Noir titles, Fallen Angel (1945) and The House on Telegraph Hill (1951). I’m a bit wary of Fallen Angel because it’s directed by Otto Preminger and besides Laura, I’m not a huge fan of the man’s work. He just doesn’t do anything for me. I get to the end of one of his movies and go, “That’s it?” It’s like a big build up for nothing. However, Laura is a pretty awesome movie thanks to the performances by Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price, so I’m willing to give another Preminger-directed Noir a chance. However, Skidoo (1968) will not be re-playing in my house–unless TCM would show a letterboxed version of it. I’m a glutton for punishment, but not for Carol Channing in a see-through bra.
I swear, nothing makes my day like checking my email and seeing the subject line “Your Order Has Shipped” sitting in my inbox. I should be getting them any day now and nothing makes me happier than building my dvd collection. Please don’t mention Netflix–it’s a long story which will either frighten you or bore you.
In other news, the Fox Movie Channel is showing 1937’s This is My Affair which features the pairing of Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck before they were hitched. If you don’t happen to catch it, the FMC website says it’s going to be repeated on March 8th and 18th at 6:00 am.
If you’re into Jimmy Stewart movies (and expect to see plenty of his movies in May, since it’s going to be his hundreth birthday), FMC is also showing three of the five collaborations between James Stewart and director Henry Koster: Take Her, She’s Mine (1963), Dear Brigitte (1965) and No Highway in the Sky (1951), which features a reteaming with Marlene Dietrich. He plays a character that is really socially inept, yet brilliant–it’s almost as though he has Asperger’s Syndrome (but really, no one even knew about that yet). It’s a bit strange–the plot doesn’t work out to what I thought it would be (a disaster movie), but it’s decent. I have yet to see Dear Brigitte, but I expect it to be something like the lukewarm Take Her, She’s Mine. Midly funny in spots, but really forgettable once you’ve seen some of his other, better films.
The Roadshow Version 