turner this month - bravo!

Note: This is a regular monthly feature, highlighting, well, the highlights on Turner Classics' schedule. Why? Simple. Because Turner Classics remains a veritible college education in film.

Channel-surfing isn't what it used to be. That's because it isn't safe anymore. And that, in turn, is because about 99% of television is demoralizing.

Case in point: The other night, I surfed my way past Geraldo Rivera and Bill O'Reilly shouting and spitting at each other in the most disturbing way imaginable. I stopped long enough to get a migraine. Then, I came upon something on Bravo called "The Real Housewives of New York" and stayed long enough to hear a woman named Ramona offer the following testimonial on behalf of plastic surgery: "It makes you look better than your chronicle age." Honest. I couldn't make that up.

All of this is in preamble to promising that I'll never stray from TCM again, and one incentive making this easier is the addition of Rose McGowan to "The Essentials." I'm curious about the chemistry saucy McGowan will have with our reserved friend, Robert Osborne. First up for the twosome: Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" on Saturday, March 8 at 8 p.m. (est).

With that said, here's the TCM March selections that I plan to check out:

March 1: Two must-see Joseph L. Mankiewicz creations screened back-to-back - “The Barefoot Contessa,” with Ava Gardner in arguably her best role, and the incomparable “All About Eve” with Bette, Anne, Celeste, Marilyn and Thelma.

March 2: Savor the acting duet of Albert Finney as an aging star and Tom Courtenay in the title role of “The Dresser,” Peter Yates’s fine version of Ronald Harwood’s play, adapted by Harwood.

March 3: If I had to pick only one Hitchcock film that I could keep in my DVD collection it would be “Marnie” – hands-down. I know Grace Kelly was Hitch’s intended star here, but Tippi Hedren turns in a revelatory, intricate performance that has grown in restrospect as a damaged woman caught in a destructive cycle. This time around, listen to the sad, child-like voice Hedren affects whenever she regresses into her past. Sean Connery is the empathetic man who takes the time to understand her.

March 5: “Pressure Point” - a small, incisive film about racism with Sidney Poitier in fine form, as always, as a therapist trying to ferret out the deep-seated thoughts and feelings of a bigoted convict, an exceptional Bobby Darin.

March 6: Rex Harrison is being honored this month on TCM with “My Fair Lady,” “A Rake’s Progress” and “The Reluctant Debutante,” which he made with Sandra Dee and his then-wife Kay Kendall. In “The Long Dark Hall,” directed by Reginald Beck and Anthony Bushell, Sexy Rexy co-stars with another wife, Lili Palmer, in a tidy little tale of a family man accused of murdering a showgirl. Palmer was Harrison’s frequent co-star on screen (“The Fourposter”) and stage (“Bell, Book and Candle”). Also “The Merry Frinks,” an Alfred E. Green film with the great Aline MacMahon as a woman contending with a family that’s, well, singular.

March 7: “Take a Giant Step,” Phillip Leacock’s wonderfully clear-eyed look at one young black man’s personal integration into the white world, starring Johnny Nash, Ruby Dee and Estelle Hemsley. Plus, “A Rage to Live,” a sordid, entertaining soap opera - and one of Suzanne Pleshette’s rare starring roles in a film. It's the story of a nymphomaniac who always seems to be in heat, and Pleshette is especially convincing in the role. It's the one time in films that she was allowed to be outright sexual. Ben Gazarra co-stars as one of her more horny pursuers. Needless to say, they make a hot team.

March 8: Two curiosities - “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?” and “Rat Pfink a Boo Boo.” But the best comes later – back-to-back screenings of Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” Wilder’s “The Apartment” and David Swift’s film version of Frank Loesser’s stage musical, “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying.”

“How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying” is worth singling out for a brief discussion. Robert Morse and Rudy Vallee, of course, were recruited to recreate their Broadway roles, and Dale Moreda was assigned the task of restaging Bob Fosse's original stage choreography. An observation: Morse's annoying facial mugging throughout the film - in close up, no less - and Vallee's stale performance, from years of doing it on stage, provide good arguments for not casting a film with a play's original cast.

Loesser’s play may have won the Pulitzer Prize, but that doesn’t mean that United Artists had much faith in the material – or in the idea of making a musical in general. Swift, in fact, filmed “dramatic bridges” to replace the musical numbers for the film’s European release. This may explain the stilted, tentative nature of the film whenever someone is about to break out in song. Note the opening title number in particular.

Also, much has been written about the excision of the memorable “Coffee Break” number to accommodate a running-time dictum of Radio City Music Hall, where the film premiered, but nothing has been said about Cary Grant’s deleted bit. When Morse sings the reprise of “I Believe in You” to himself in the mirror in the men’s room before his character’s big meeting, trying to pump himself up, his image in the mirror slowly turns into Cary Grant smiling back. For some bizarre reason, this was never in the release print of the film, even though it’s documented in the movie’s pressbook.

Why did Grant participate? Well, he had great affection for the piece because when he first met Dyan Cannon, she was playing Rosemary in the touring production of the show. “How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying” played a crucial role in their courtship.

Oh, one last thing about "Coffee Break." Because of Radio City, the rest of the country was denied seeing that number. It apparently never occured to U.A. to cut it only for Radio City (and release it complete in the rest of the country) - and it also never occured to the studio to save the footage. It's seemingly lost forever.

Also on March 8 - the extended version of Sam Peckinpah's "Major Dundee."

March 9: George Cukor directes Anna Magnani, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Franciosa and Dolores Hart in the steamy “Wild Is the Wind” and Doris Day, Clark Gable and Gig Young get to watch Mamie Van Doren belt (and bump) out “The Girl Who Invented Rock n’ Roll” in George Seaton’s wonderful “Teacher’s Pet.”

March 10: Eclectic line-up here – Clive Donner’s “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”; “Billie,” the film version of Ronald Alexander’s play, “Time Out for Ginger,” starring patty Duke; Wilder’s songless version of “Irma La Douce”; Tony Richardson’s morbidly delightful “The Loved One,” with Robert Morse and Jonathan Winters, and George Axelrod’s antic “Lord Love a Duck,” with the perfect pairing of Tuesday Weld and Roddy McDowell. Ruth Gordon’s in it, too.

March 11: “Romeo and Juliet,” Franco Zefferelli’s “love-in” version of the Shakespeare tragedy; “Summer Holiday,” a musical version (“Take me Along” is another) of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!,” with Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan and Walter Huston; Anthony Mann’s “Man of the West,” starring Cary Cooper and a very sexy Julie London, and Vincente Minnelli’s wildly campy asylum drama, “The Cobweb,” starring Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall and Gloria Graham. What a cast!

March 12: “The Caretakers,” another asylum flick, from director Hall Bartlett and star Joan Crawford, and “Boeing Boeing,” John Rich’s film of the hit stage comedy (coming back to Broadway), with Tony Curtis as a playboy who shrewdly dates stewardesses because of their conflicting schedules. Jerry Lewis co-stars.

Also Robert Mulligan’s companionable film version of the Garson Kanin play, “The Rat Race,” starring Tony Curtis and Debbie Reynolds, both in fine form, and Jack Oakie, a surprisingly effective Don Rickles (as a sleaze) and, in a rare film appearance, the wonderful Kay Medford (the original Mrs. Peterson, Albert's mother, in the stage version of "Bye, Bye Birdie"). Aspects of Kanin’s story are reminiscent of Wilder’s “The Apartment” (two lost souls holed up in an apartment) and, in fact, both films were released at approximately the same time – but "The Rat Race" was invariably overshadowed by the Lemmon-MacLaine Oscar-winner. Nevertheless, "The Apartment" doesn't have that driven, pounding, one-of-a-kind Elmer Bernstein score.

Four years later, Curtis and Reynolds would reteam for Vincinte Minnelli's sly "Goodbye, Charlie." The original play, incidentally, directed by Daniel Mann, starred Betty Field, Barry Nelson and Ray Walston.

March 13: A remake of “Of Human Bondage,” with Kim Novak and Laurence Harvey, and “Girl with Green Eyes,” the Desmond Davis gem in which young Rita Tushingham becomes involved with the married Peter Finch. Lynn Redgrave, who also teamed with Tushingham for Davis' Carnaby Street spoof, “Smashing Time,” co-stars.

March 14: “Blow Up,” Antonioni’s seminal art film with David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave, and Otto Preminger’s crisp, riveting “Bunny Lake Is Missing,” featuring an indispensable Carol Lynley as the mother of a missing child who may not actually exist, Kier Dullea as her unsettling brother, Laurence Olivier as the official investigating the case, Martita Hunt as a school headmistress and Anna Massey as a teacher.

March 15: “Vertigo” gets a repeat showing. Also Lewis Milestone’s “The Red Pony,” replete with Aaron Copland’s great score (and a tiny Beau Bridges playing a kid named ... Beau); Mark Robson’s “The Bridges of Toko-Ri,” with William Holden and Grace Kelly, and the Laurel and Hardy featurette, “The Music Box,” about a piano and a long flight of cement steps.

March 16: “All About Eve” gets a replay. Plus Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” and Lang’s “The Blue Gardenia."

March 17: The underappreciated Rod Taylor had the best role of his career in “Young Cassidy,” the story of playwright Sean O’Casey which was started by John Ford and completed by Jack Cardiff. Julie Christie and Maggie Smith are Taylor’s estimable leading ladies. Followed by Nicholas Ray’s “They Live By Night,” with Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell. Plus more Fritz Lang: “Metropolis.”

March 18: Relive the Age of Aquarius with Milos Forman’s top-notch film version of the cult stage musical, “Hair,” and Michelangelo Antonioni’s edgy, radical “Zabriskie Point,” starring non-actors Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin, plus Rod Taylor. Also: Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces,” with Nicholson, and Hitchcock’s “Rope,” with Jimmy Stewart, Farley Granger and John Dall.

March 19: Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss team effectively as an odd couple in Frank Oz’s “What About Bob?,” about a shrink and an overly need patient; Janet Leigh joins Jerry Lewis in Lewis’ “Three on a Couch,” also about a therapy, and Charles Laughton’s immeasurably creepy “Night of the Hunter.”

March 20: “Love Affair,” ace director Leo McCarey’s first version of material he’d later film as “An Affair to Remember.” Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer starred in this first version.

March 21: More Rod Taylor: Peter Tewksbury’s “Sunday in New York,” co-starring Jane Fonda.

March 23: David Greene’s “Godspell,” the highly watchable musical with Victor Garber doing Christ as a vagabond entertainer. Savor the “All for the Best”number, breathtakingly staged atop the then-newly constructed World Trade Center builgings. The beginning of a Joan Crawford marathon, which includes “Torch Song” and “Mildred Pierce.”

March 24: Have fun with Crawford and Clark Gable in Robert Z. Leonard’s “Dancing Lady.” Plus the all-star “Grand Hotel” (including Crawford) and George Cukor’s “A Woman’s Face,” a nifty matinee film with Crawford (as a female criminal with a new face) and Melvyn Douglas. Check out “Harriet Craig,” too.

March 25: “Adam and Evelyn,” a little-known, lightweight British comedy with Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger about a gambler who adopts a friend’s orphaned child. Shades of "Little Miss Marker."

March 26: “So Young, So Bad,” starring Ritz Moreno and Anne Francis as reform-school girls.

March 27: “Blind Date,” a vintage Ann Sothern comedy. Say no more. Plus John Ford’s film about an old political boss, “The Last Hurrah,” starring Spencer Tracy, Pat O’Brien and Jeffrey Hunter; Lewis Allen’s “Valentino,” with Anthony Dexter in the title role, and Jack Arnold’s “High School Confidential,” with Russ Tamblyn as a young cop who returns to high school undercover. Jan Sterling and Mamie Van Doren co-star.

March 28: “Toys in the Attic,” George Roy Hill’s film version of the Lillian Helman play, gets a rare screening. Wendy Hiller and Geraldine Page star as two spinster sisters who have spent a lifetime supporting their younger, unreliable brother, played by Dean Martin. Yvette Mimieux plays his child bride. The stage version, directed by Arthur Penn, starred Jason Robards, Jr. Irene Worth and Maureen Stapleton as the siblings.

Hayley Mills turns in an unusually strong performance as a slow young woman in the badly-titled “Gypsy Girl,” which was something of a family affair – directed by Hayley’s father, John Mills, and written by her mom, Mary Hayley Bell. The film’s British title was the more enticing “Sky West and Crooked.” A very young Ian McShane co-stars. Plus an encore screening of “Bunny Lake Is Missing.”

March 30: Two with Steve McQueen – Mark Rydell’s “The Reivers” and Robert Mulligan’s
“Love with the Proper Stranger.” And two with Jack Lemmon – Billy Wilder’s “The Fortune Cookie” and Arthur Hiller’s “The Out-of-Towners”

March 31: Film of the Night - “Mafioso,” the 1962 Alberto Lattuada film (belatedly released here just last year) starring Alberto Sordi as a guy who returns home and falls in with the local mafia. Plus Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot,” George Sidney’s elephantine showcase of Cantinflas, “Pepe,” and Andrew L. Stone’s “The Secret of My Success,” with Shirley Jones and Stella Stevens (the co-stars from “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father”) as a couple of no-account females out to con James Booth.

Note in Passing: Although "Zabriskie Point" is listed in TCM's printed schedule as being shown at 2:15 am (est) on Monday, March 17th, it appears that time slot has now been given over to Arthur Penn's "Alice's Restaurant."

(Artwork: McGowan joins Osborne on TCM's "The Essentials"; Tippi & Sean in Hitch's "Marnie"; Suzanne & Ben heat things up in "A Rage to Live"; Morse in Frank Loesser's "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," directed by David Swift, and with Michelle Lee and Kay Reynolds in the "It's Been a Long Day" number; Tuesday & Roddy in Axelrod's "Lord Love a Duck"; Debbie & Tony in Garson Kanin/Robert Mulligan's "The Rat Race," and the Playbill for the Pre-Broadway run of "The Rat Race" in Boston; Saul Bass' opening title design for Preminger's "Bunny Lake Is Missing"; Rod & Julie in Cardiff/Ford's "Young Cassidy"; Mark Frechette & Daria Halprin on the cover of a 1969 LOOK magazine promoting Antonioni's "Zabriski Point," and Dino, Wendy & Gerry in George Roy Hill's "Toys in the Attic" and the Playbill for the Boston tryout of the play)

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Anyone interested in perusing some 2060 of my film reviews, dating back to 1994, can do so by simply going to RottenTomatoes.Com