Regarding THE DEVIL'S BRIDE, let it be noted that Lee actually plays a good guy in the movie, not one of the Satanists. One of his more heroic roles, actually, and a bit of a departure in that respect.
Just in time, here's July. Very little SF/fantasy/horror this month; TCM's dominant theme for the month is Westerns. A few novelties at the end of the month, though. SUN 7/3 11:15 PM: 2001: A Space Odyssey ('68) MON 7/4 2:00 AM: A Clockwork Orange ('71) SUN 7/10 9:45 PM: Dead of Night ('45): Supernatural anthology from the UK's Ealing Studios; one segment is based on an H.G. Wells story. THU 7/14 10:00 PM: The Stepford Wives ('75) SAT 7/16 9:30 AM: A Midsummer Night's Dream ('35) Then a George Pal mini-marathon: Noon: 7 Faces of Dr. Lao ('64) 2:00 PM: Tom Thumb ('58) 4:00 PM: The Time Machine ('60) SUN 7/17 Midnight: Fail-Safe ('64) 10:00 AM: Brigadoon ('54) SAT 7/23 Noon: The World, The Flesh, and The Devil ('59) 1:45 PM: Dr. Strangelove ('64): So a post-apocalyptic movie followed by a pre-apocalyptic one? Might work better the other way around... FRI 7/29 8:00 AM: The Next Voice You Hear... ('50): This is that "voice of God on the radio" one again, with the future Nancy Reagan. 3:30 PM: Donovan's Brain ('53): Another Nancy Davis (Reagan) movie, and one of the archetypal brain-in-jar horror flicks. 10:00 PM: The Swarm ('78): Irwin Allen killer-bee horror. No future first ladies this time, but Michael Caine stars. SAT 7/30 9:30 AM - Noon: Ace Drummond Ch. 9-13: Finally, the concluding five chapters of the serial that they showed weekly in June. I wonder why they put it off until the end of the month. 5:45 PM: Logan's Run ('75) 8:00 PM: The Blood of Jesus ('41): A rare, long-lost work of African-American cinema in which a dying woman's soul must choose between heaven and hell. 10:30 PM: Heaven-Bound Traveler: Fragmentary short film along similar lines to the above. 11: 30 PM: Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled (1918): Another restored, incomplete short by African-American filmmakers, this one riffing on mummy and mad-scientist movies.
^^^ Boooo! Where's Earth VS. The Flying Saucers? (One of my favorite guilty pleasure films from George Pal.)
^Umm, I think you're confusing George Pal with Ray Harryhausen. Pal's only alien-invasion film was War of the Worlds.
I usually go peruse the schedule for interesting gems to look out for through the month and have a couple things to add to Christopher's usual exemplary heavy lifting. Here's a few oddball tangential entries that might be of interest to genre fans that don't quite fit the list. WED JUL 13 @ 8PM Hour of the Gun about the OK Corral. I noticed the screenshot for the movie reminded me of something. WED JUL 13/14 @ 1:45AM The Law and Jake Wade likewise features DeForrest Kelley among the cast. TUE JUL 19 @ 6PM Red Sun is a western with a Samurai teaming up with an outlaw in the old west to find a stolen sword. While no time travel is involved it plays much as if it was and has a similar appeal. Not unlike say Samurai Jack, Afro Samurai or Samurai Champloo. With Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune and Ursula Andress you could do worse. FRI JUL 22 @ 12:15PM The Unholy Three; according to TCM: "A ventriloquist, a strong man and a midget form a criminal alliance." If that's not a comic book plot, what is? Lon Chaney Sr.'s last movie. SUN JUL 24/25 @ 5AM No More Excuses is a comedy about "A wounded Confederate soldier travels through time to explore modern life." WED JUL 27 @ 9:30PM Little Big Man basically plays as a fantasy as a 121-year-old man who recounts the tall tales of his lifetime in the old west. At least that's how I remember it but I haven't seen it in like 30 years (oh my!).
^Thanks, I never would've caught those. It looks like No More Excuses is more of a darkly satirical sketch-comedy sort of film, with the Confederate soldier being just one of its intermingled threads. Here's the NYT review. One other bit of interest: It was made by (and starred) Robert Downey, Senior.
The Unholy Three is worth checking out. Interesting thing: The 1930 talkie version is actually a remake of a silent version, made five years earlier, with largely the same cast and the same director. Basically, Tod Browning and Lon Chaney went and refilmed their earlier hit, this time as a talkie. And not only is this Chaney's last movie, it's also his only talkie. (He was slated to star in DRACULA next, but his death forced Universal to go instead with Bela Lugosi, who had played the role on Broadway to great acclaim.)
August: WED 8/3 2:30 PM: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court ('49): Bing Crosby musical of Twain's time-travel tale. THU 8/4: Hey, it's Fay Wray Day! A marathon including several genre entries: 10:15 AM: Doctor X ('32): Michael Curtiz horror film starring Lionel Atwill. 1:15 PM: Black Moon ('34): Wray vs. a voodoo cult. 3:45 PM: The Clairvoyant ('35): AKA The Evil Mind. Claude Raines as a fake psychic who develops real clairvoyance. 5:15 PM: The Mystery of the Wax Museum ('33): Curtiz and Atwill again. Later remade as House of Wax. 10:00 PM: King Kong ('33): I was wondering when we'd get to this one. FRI 8/5 3:15 AM: The Most Dangerous Game ('32): Tail end of the Wray marathon. 6:00 AM: Phantom of the Rue Morgue ('54): Remake of Murders in etc. with Karl Malden in the Bela Lugosi role. Yyyyeah. THU 8/11 7:30 AM: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ('41) for the umpteenth time. SAT 8/13 8:00 AM: Things to Come ('36): H.G. Wells-scripted adaptation of his own novel. 4:00 PM: Time Bandits ('81): The Terry Gilliam classic. SUN 8/14 4:00 PM: Brigadoon ('54): The fantasy musical. TUE 8/16 7:30 AM: Angel on My Shoulder ('46): Dead gangster Paul Muni makes a deal with the Devil, Claude Rains. WED 8/17 6:00 AM: Tarzan's Fight for Life ('58): With Gordon Scott. No idea if it has fantasy elements, but I've gotten into the habit of including Tarzan movies. TUE 8/23 8:00 AM: Helen of Troy ('56): The Robert Wise epic yet again. 12:15 PM: Spirits of the Dead ('68): Rebroadcast of the Edgar Allan Poe anthology film with segments directed by Vadim, Malle, and Fellini. FRI 8/26-SAT 8/27: Boris Karloff marathon, including: 9:00 AM: Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome ('47) 10:15 AM: The Mask of Fu Manchu ('32): Karloff as the title villain, Myrna Loy as his daughter. 2:15 PM: The Walking Dead ('36): Not a zombie movie. Innocent man executed, resurrected, seeks revenge. 3:30 PM: The Man They Could Not Hang ('39): Much the same plot, but without the "innocent" part. 4:45 PM: The Terror ('63): Roger Corman ghost story quickie, with Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller. 6:15 PM: Black Sabbath ('63): Italian horror anthology hosted by Karloff. 8:00 PM: Frankenstein ('31): Of course. 9:30 PM: Bride of Frankenstein ('35): Oh, I didn't realize they were that far apart. 11:00 PM: The Mummy ('32) 12:30 AM: The Black Cat ('34): First Karloff/Lugosi team-up. 1:45 AM: The Body Snatcher ('45): Last Karloff/Lugosi team-up, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise. 3:15 AM: Isle of the Dead ('45): Lewton-produced vampire thriller. Question for discussion: Olivier's Hamlet is showing on August 31 at 1:30 AM, and I'm unsure whether to count it as fantasy. It's got a ghost in it, but Shakespeare probably considered things like ghosts and portents to be real, so he wouldn't have intended it as fantasy. So do we define fantasy by authorial intent or audience interpretation?
Hmm, nobody ever replied to last month's schedule post, despite the question for discussion. Well, here's September, if anyone's interested: SAT 9/3 4:00 AM: Marooned ('69): The all-star space-disaster film again. SUN 9/4 2:00 AM: Zardoz ('74): The infamously weird dystopian-future film most famous for Sean Connery's bizarrely revealing costume. 3:51 AM: A Look Into the 23rd Century ('76): Production featurette about the following: 4:00 AM: Logan's Run ('75) 12:30 PM: Dracula ('31) MON 9/5 7:45 AM: Angels in the Outfield ('51): The original version of the fantasy about angels helping a baseball team win, because apparently they have nothing better to do. With Janet Leigh and Keenan Wynn. (Part of a day-long marathon of alternating "Angel" and "Devil" titles, but the only one with a fantasy element.) THU 9/8 8:00 PM: A "Disney Vault" evening starts with two Mickey Mouse shorts, Tugboat Mickey ('40) and Boat Builders ('38). SAT 9/10 Midnight: Young Frankenstein ('74): Part of a Gene Hackman evening, but it's a well-timed tribute to Gene Wilder, who we lost this week. Probably Wilder's greatest film, and Mel Brooks's as well. 2:00 AM: Oh, God! ('77): George Burns is God. John Denver is his prophet. And Teri Garr is basically in the same role she'd play later that same year in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Carl Reiner directs from a Larry Gelbart script. 6:00 AM: Helen of Troy ('56): Robert Wise's mythical epic again. 8:15 AM: Attack of the 50 Foot Woman ('58) WED 9/14 9:30 PM: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein ('48): Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney, Jr. reprise Dracula and the Wolf Man, yet somehow don't rate mention in the title? Glenn Strange makes his third and final appearance as Frankenstein's Monster. THU 9/15 8:00 PM: I Married a Witch ('42): The proto-Bewitched comedy again. 9:30 PM: Seven Days in May ('64): The (at the time) near-future political thriller. SAT 9/17 6:00 PM: Jungle Book ('42): The first film adaptation. SUN 9/18 2:00 AM: Dracula's Dog ('78): Aka Zoltan, Hound of Dracula. Okay... Apparently there's actually a movie about a vampire dog sired by Dracula. I wonder if even Greg Cox has heard of this one. In addition to Jose Ferrer, it features a surprising number of Star Trek guest actors -- Michael Pataki (as Dracula's descendant), Reggie Nalder, Arlene Martel, and Jan Shutan. 3:30 AM: The Pack ('77): Joe Don Baker vs. a pack of feral dogs. Also, sometime during the 5:00 AM hour, they're rerunning the bizarre Duck and Cover cartoon short from '51 in which the horror of nuclear destruction is reduced to a playful monkey playing pranks on a turtle. MON 9/19 9:30 AM: The Neanderthal Man ('53): Robert Shayne (Adventures of Superman's Inspector Henderson) is a scientist who turns himself into a savage caveman. Feature debut of Beverly Garland. WED 9/21 1:45 AM: Have Rocket, Will Travel ('59): The aging Three Stooges (Curly Joe era) fly to Venus. SUN 9/25 2:00 AM: Night Train to Terror ('85): Horror anthology they've shown before. 3:45 AM: Horror Express ('72): This is weird... It's a Spanish film loosely based on John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", the basis for The Thing from Another World and its remake John Carpenter's The Thing, but changing the setting from a remote Antarctic outpost to... a train in Siberia. Stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas. TUE 9/27 9:30 PM: Young Frankenstein again. (Also, at 5:30 AM the next morning, there's another Gene Wilder film, the comedy Western The Frisco Kid with Harrison Ford.) THU 9/29 9:15 PM: Young Frankenstein again, as part of a proper Gene Wilder tribute night (also including a documentary about Wilder, the French Revolution satire Start the Revolution Without Me, and The Frisco Kid again).
I don't know The Pack but Hound of Dracula used to make the rounds on late night TV back in the day (yeah, I'm old...). Seemed to me its eyes glowed as part of its evil, lol. They could probably lump it with The Car for movies with weird horror elements. They play A Look into the 23rd Century a lot, it's fun just to see young David Hasselhoff modeling as a Sandman. Looking forward to seeing Young Frankenstein. I've been wanting to see it again for a while, even before Gene Wilder's passing, so looking forward to that. As to your question, I don't know enough about Hamlet to answer it objectively but instinctively I'd say probably "no". However, genre stuff is loose, I wouldn't complain if one erred on the side on inclusiveness. We usually throw horror stuff under the SF&F umbrella, after all.
Marooned once unfairly got the MST3K treatment. It's not so bad. Based on a book by Martin Caidin, it was Apollo 13 before Apollo 13. This the one I'm looking forward to.
Yeah, I've taken to broadening my definition of "horror" to include some things that don't have supernatural elements, like The Pack. Though with the borderline cases, it sort of comes down to how I feel at the moment.
Do you have any idea if any of those will be on the app? I've heard a lot about Zardoz and I would love to see it, but I'm not watching it at 2 in the morning, and I don't have a DVR. There's a few others there I'm interested in too, but that's the biggest one. I might have to try to catch one of those showings of Young Frankenstein. If anyone is interested here's the sci-fi/horror/fantasy stuff and a few other things that might be of interest currently on the app. Some of these don't really sound like Sci-fi or horror, but I don't know them so I'll include anyways. These are expiring on 9-03 unless noted otherwise. Bedlam The Black Cat The Body Snatcher Break of Hearts - 9/6 The Bride of Frankenstein Frankenstein (1931) The Mask of Fu Machu - 9/2 The Mummy (1932) The Walking Dead (1936 movie) 9/2 Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome 9/2 The Bride Goes Wild - 9/1
Thanks for the posting the September schedule. Believe it or not, I've never seen Dracula's Dog, but I have read the novelization! And even reviewed it long ago and far away. Needless to say, I'll have to finally check out the movie when it airs this month. On other fronts, The Pack was based on an actual novel which I remember reading way back when. Not sure I ever saw the movie. Finally, I'm don't think Horror Express is officially an adaption of "Who Goes There?" although it sometimes gets listed as such. There are some plot similarities, but mostly it's its own weird thing. An interesting movie, with some strange ideas, which is worth checking out. To use a weird comparison, the idea that Horror Express is based on "Who Goes There?" may be kind of like the idea that Gary Seven was "obviously" inspired by Doctor Who if you know what I mean . . .. EDIT: Some quick research indicates that, yeah, Wikipedia states that the movie is based on the Campbell story, but the movie's writing credits don't cite the Campbell story and I don't recall the onscreen credits mentioning Campbell either (although it's been a few years since I last saw the movie). It may be that the Wikipedia entry is overstating things a bit. Granted, the movie may well have "borrowed" an idea or two from Campbell, but there's no way to know that for sure . .. and I sincerely doubt that Campbell's estate saw any money!
Somehow I can totally believe that from you. Also, isn't it great we live in a world where there's a novelization of Dracula's Dog?
You know, I may still have a copy. And, if I recall correctly, it was published as both Dracula's Dog and Hound of Dracula, which means it went through at least two printings!
If they're the things with a "Watch TCM on Demand" icon next to them in the schedule, then none of the genre films this month are included. Okay. I just went by what Wikipedia said, since I've never heard of the movie before. My process for these lists is to have this thread and the TCM schedule open in side-by-side windows while having Wikipedia in my regular browser window so I can look up films to determine how genre-y there are or if there are details worth noting in the list. I've gotten very methodical about this.