Coming up on TCM...

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(times ET)

8:00
pm

Nichols and May -- Take Two (1996)
1h | Documentary | TV-PG
Documentary about the influential comedy team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Includes hig...
Director
Phillip Schopper
Cast
Stanley Donen, Steve Martin, Mike Nichols

9:15
pm

A New Leaf (1971)
1h 42m
A playboy squanders his wealth and must seek out a new source to maintain his idle rich li...
Director
Elaine May
Cast
Walter Matthau, Elaine May, Jack Weston

11:15
pm

Mikey and Nicky (1976)
1h 46m
Nicki is on the run from the mob, and he turns to old pal Mikey for help.
Director
Elaine May
Cast
Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Ned Beatty

Sat, January 27
1:15
am

Ishtar (1987)
1h 45m | Comedy | TV-MA
Two bad singers booked by a Moroccan hotel get mixed up in international politics.
Director
Elaine May
Cast
Dustin Hoffman, Paul Standig

[CinemaInternational]

A New Leaf is a gem of a film, Mikey and Nicky is a strong dark drama, and so help me, I liked Ishtar.

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A New Leaf is a gem of a film, Mikey and Nicky is a strong dark drama, and so help me, I liked Ishtar.

[cmovieviewer]

The clips TCM showed of Elaine May talking with Julian Schlossberg makes me wonder if those were intended to be part of a separate program that was scrapped for some reason. It would be nice to see the complete interview.

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"In 2004 Chris Dashiell on the website CineScene found the dialogue "run of the mill" but praises the film's director, writing that "Lewis had a remarkable ability to infuse poetry into the most banal material, and The Big Combo is one of his best efforts... it's not as startlingly inventive as Lewis's best film, Gun Crazy (1949), but it's a quality B-film, satisfying and dark."[15]

Film critic Ed Gonzalez lauded the film in his 2006 review, writing, "Shadows and lies are the stars of The Big Combo, a spellbinding black-and-white chiaroscuro with the segmented texture of a spider's web ... John Alton's lush camera work is so dominant here you wouldn't know Joseph H. Lewis was also behind the camera. The story doesn't have any of the he-she psychosexual politicking that juices the director's Gun Crazy, but that's no loss given this film's richer returns. The set-pieces are fierce, as is the Casablanca tweak of the last shot, and Wallace's performance—a sad spectacle of a hurting creature caught between light and dark, good and evil—is one of noir's great unheralded triumphs."[16]

A pair of late 20th century critics compared the quality of The Big Combo to Fritz Lang's The Big Heat as one of the great film noir detective classics in terms of style..........
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Combo
also: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047878/re ... ef_=tt_urv

also with:
Robert Middleton as Police Capt. Peterson
Lee Van Cleef as Fante
Earl Holliman as Mingo
Helen Walker as Alicia Brown
Jay Adler as Sam Hill
John Hoyt as Nils Dreyer
Ted de Corsia as Ralph Bettini

[cmovieviewer]

The Big Combo would be a good fit for Noir Alley - Eddie did a commentary for the Arrow Academy Blu-Ray released in Great Britain in 2018. (I hope there would not be a conflict if Eddie presented his insights on TCM.)

[nakanosunplaza]

by cmovieviewer » Yesterday, 10:19 pm

The Big Combo would be a good fit for Noir Alley - Eddie did a commentary for the Arrow Academy Blu-Ray released in Great Britain in 2018. (I hope there would not be a conflict if Eddie presented his insights on TCM.

i thought you were mistaken..but you are right-The Big Combo was never featured on Noir Alley ! Very surprising and incomprehensible there is several repeats in the next 2 months it deserves a feature slot,Good observation.

[jamesjazzguitar]

It was nice to see the 20th Century Fox film The Big Combo on TCM. MOVIES-TV shows the film a few times a year, but they aren't commercial free.

First rate, later in the cycle, noir.

[Hibi]

Yes. Luckily I checked the schedule last night and watched The Big Combo. I wasn't sure if I'd seen it before, but I hadn't! Really good noir. Richard Conte was so evil. Enjoyed him finally getting nailed. Great visuals by Alton. I liked the touch with how the hearing aid was used. Helen Walker really had aged by this point. (She wasn't that old) Must have been the drinking. Sad. I recorded the Naked Prey as I couldnt stay up to see the end. I'd seen it some years ago.

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-interesting dilemma ....days AFTER the war is over, as commander of the Canadian POW camp, should he give the German prisoners guns in order to execute prisoners they accuse of desertion??