turner classic movies. december. 2010.

Too much going on this month, what with the holiday, so I'm keeping the December Turner entry short and sweet.

On 5 December at 8 p.m., Turner screens a difficult-to-see Jennifer Jones-Henry King collaboration. King oversaw Jones in her first major film role in "The Song of Bernadette" and directed her in one of phenomenally popular films, "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing," with William Holden. The movie that was to be his last - the 1962 adapation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is the Night" - is the one showcased here.

Filmed with much fidelity to the book, King presents Jones, with her penchant for conveying uncontrolled, tempestuous passion, in a role that she was born to play - Nicole Diver, who meets her better half, Dick (Jason Robards, Jr., in one of his first screen roles), in a sanitarium.

This role and this story, which spans decades, cannot be played small, and Jones doesn't even try, using her actorly mannerisms to perfection. The supporting cast - and what a cast - includes Tom Ewell, Joan Fontaine and Jill St. John, and Bernard Hermann contributed another one of his great scores. The film, btw, runs a leisurely 146 minutes.
The lovely Delores Michaels appeared in only 11 films but made a lasting impression on me. A Hitchcock blonde who got away before Hitch could discover her, I remember Michaels fondly for Henry Levin's "April Love" (1957), James Clavell's "Five Gates to Hell" (1959), James B. Clark's "One Foot in Hell" (1961) and Edward Dmytryk's "Warlock" (1959), which Turner screens at 8 p.m. on 7 December. The moody Western co-stars Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Anthony Quinn and Dorothy Malone.

A truly stellar cast.

And on 14 December, starting at 11:15 p.m., be sure to catch a couple worthwhile Liza Minnelli titles - "A Matter of Time" (1976), directed by her father, Vinncent Minnelli (his final film), and co-starring Ingrid Bergman, and Lewis Gilbert's entertaining dancical, "Stepping Out" (1991), featuring a very young Jane Krakowski, Bill Irwin and Julie Waters.

I'll be back later in the month with more Turner insights.