Last year I took the course on film noir, through TCM. This year they are offering a course in "slapstick;" see their website if you are interested. I tend not to use the term "slapstick" because it causes too many people to think of the most primitive comedy, from Mack Sennett to The Three Stooges. If one simply means physical comedy I have no problem with that, since I like the physical comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, Preston Sturges and Blake Edwards, all of whom use physical comedy as choreography, for its beauty. Tuesday and Wednesdays are "slapstick" days at TCM this month: proceed at your own risk.
On Sept.1 there are six Preston Sturges comedies, my own favorite is the elegant and witty The Lady Eve (1941), with Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck.
On September 2 is Robert Rossen's intense Lilith (1964), in which residents of an insane asylum debate Dostoevsky, and John Ford's Stagecoach,an important Western.
On the 4th is Jacques Tourneur's darkly beautiful film noir Out of the Past (1947)
On the 5th are three great films that were meant to be seen in theatres and lose something on the small screen: D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) and John Ford's The Searchers (1956).
On the 6th are the early comedies of Mack Sennett, Max Linder and Fatty Arbuckle, all worth a look.
Also included are three marvelous comedies from 1928, the end of the silent era: Chaplin's The Circus, Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Lloyd's Speedy.
On the 10th is Raoul Walsh's Colorado Territory (1949), his remake of High Sierra (1941) as a Western.
On the 16th is Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not (1944), from the Hemingway story and Arthur Penn's mysterious Night Moves (1975)
Two heirs of the silent comedians on the 20th and 21st --Jacques Tati's Mon Oncle (1958) and Blake Edwards's The Party (1968)
I've generally skipped over the movies that I have recommended in other posts, so please e-mail me if you have any questions about any of the films on Turner in Sept.
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