Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Summer Under the Stars 2024: Some Thoughts

 

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn again?

One wonders why 2024's Turner Classic Movies Summer Under the Stars series decided to dive yet again into the filmographies of people who have been featured ten times already. I figure that Grant, Hepburn, Bette Davis (now on her eighth SUTS presentation) and John Wayne (on his ninth) have a wide variety of films in their long careers. However, there must be actors who have either never been featured or who have not been featured as often as figures like Grant or Hepburn.

Out of the 31 performers for this year's Summer Under the Stars, there are some who have a surprisingly small number of appearances in TCM's annual August extravaganza. I was surprised to find that William Powell, who kicks off the month, is only on his third appearance, as are Montgomery Clift, Jean Harlow, Fred MacMurray and Joseph Cotten. Ida Lupino, Anne Bancroft, Jane Russell, John Gilbert, Jeanne Crain, Donna Reed, Marlene Dietrich and Tony Curtis are making only their second appearances in SUTS. Apart from Gilbert, whose heyday was in the silent film era, I am surprised that the others are barely coming back for a second time. 

They could not have substituted one of Cary Grant or Katharine Hepburn's years for a day of Tony Curtis or Jane Russell?

We are getting an astonishing 13(!) debuts for this year's Summer Under the Stars. Julie Andrews and Meryl Streep, who are among those making their debuts, are the only living performers featured this year. The other newcomers are Gordon MacRae, Peter Ustinov, Anita Page, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jerry Lewis, Jose Ferrer, Robert Shaw, Ossie Davis and Leo Gorcey.

Gorcey's inclusion is a big surprise, as he was never a major star. He is mostly known as one of the Bowery Boys, which was a B-picture series. Like Gilbert, Anita Page will have mostly silent films for her day. Belmondo, I figure, will be this year's foreign film performer. Davis is the African American performer, and I think Ferrer will take up the Hispanic slot. I say "think" because Ferrer, despite being proudly Puerto Rican and the first Hispanic to win an acting Oscar, was rarely if ever featured as a Hispanic. 

You may have noticed that I said there would be thirteen debuts but mentioned only eleven actors. It is because two performers who are making their Summer Under the Stars debuts took me by surprise. 

I am not too surprised that Grace Kelly is on her very first journey through SUTS. Her filmography is smaller than most due to her marriage to Prince Rainer of Monaco, consisting of only eleven films overall not counting three documentaries where she appears as herself. Curiously, one of those films, The Wedding in Monaco, will be part of Princess Grace's SUTS day but not The Children of Theater Street where she appears on-camera and narrates. I would consider an Oscar-nominated documentary feature slightly more interesting to watch than a documentary short about Her Serene Highness' nuptials.

The big surprise is on the last debuting Summer Under the Stars player. I still cannot believe that this will be the first year Eleanor Powell will have a day dedicated to her. Not only is this Powell's first Summer Under the Stars, but it is the very first time Powell has been the focus of anything on TCM. In the thirty years of Turner Classic Movies, Eleanor Powell has not only not been a Summer Under the Stars player but not even been a Star of the Month!

I am absolutely astonished to read that. I am sure that we could have skipped one more romp through Bringing Up Baby for one of those Broadway Melody dance numbers. 

That leads to another longtime complaint on Summer Under the Stars. I do not get why we get many of the same films we have had before. Why not, for example, feature Kiss Them for Me for Cary Grant? Throw in Love Affair for Katharine Hepburn. I'd love to see TCM show the original Dune for Jose Ferrer, if only for the shift towards more contemporary or at least eccentric programming. Show Marlene, the 1984 documentary directed by Maximilian Schell for Dietrich's day. I think one year for Katharine Hepburn, TCM broadcast Katharine Hepburn: All About Me, and another time, the Vivien Leigh documentary Scarlett and Beyond was shown for either Summer Under the Stars or her Star of the Month programming, so what is to prevent TCM from featuring Marlene

As a side note, has Maximilian Schell ever been a Summer Under the Stars player? He could fit into programming. Alas, TCM waited until Jean-Paul Belmondo was dead before bothering to bring him in. He died in 2021, meaning that there were many years when he could have been saluted during his lifetime. I am sure that we could have skipped a Cary Grant year to show 24 hours of Belmondo. Diane Baker is still very much alive, but we won't be seeing her because we need to see Bette Davis in The Letter once again. Anthony Hopkins could have films from The Lion in Winter to The Father featured, but we'd be lucky to have the former shown for Katharine Hepburn's day. 

I get that there may be issues with broadcast rights and costs. However, I would like to see some of the lesser-known or later works from some of the featured players. Peter Ustinov's final film was 2003's Luther, yet 1982's Evil Under the Sun will be the one to show him in the latter part of his career. You could make a whole programming around his various turns as Hercule Poirot, but instead of featuring Death on the Nile, you opt for Evil Under the Sun

That at least makes some sense for Ustinov was the lead in that. How one can rationalize screening Around the World in 80 Days for Marlene Dietrich when she makes a cameo in it, I simply cannot guess at. If that is the case, TCM might as well show The Great Muppet Caper for Peter Ustinov since he made a cameo in there too. 

Turner Classic Movies could have taken the chance to honor Glynis Johns, Janet Paige and/or Donald Sutherland by letting them have a day of Summer Under the Stars programming. Anyone arguing that it would be impossible due to scheduling issues has forgotten how when Olivia de Havilland died on July 26, 2020, shortly after turning 104, she was fitted into that year's Summer Under the Stars scheduling. Curiously, she took the day reserved for Bette Davis, which if not for this last-minute substitution would have given Davis nine Summer Under the Stars presentations. That same year, John Wayne was replaced with Natalie Wood. I do not know what reason there was for the latter.

I do enjoy Summer Under the Stars; it is also true that there really is no such thing as an old film since a film is new the first time you see it no matter when it was made. However, we are getting into a hopeless rut: showing the same performers in the same films. I like how we are getting a large group of first timers, so that is a plus. However, if Turner Classic Movies is to advance, it must look to lesser-known players and/or feature lesser-known films from the big names. 

Otherwise, this might be my final Summer Under the Stars.

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