Walter Matthau films on TCM – and other titles that include Carol Reed’s classic noir thriller The Third Man
Saturday, June 14, highlights on Turner Classic Movies include The Third Man and several Walter Matthau films:
Many consider The Third Man Carol Reed’s best film. It might be. Some even claim it’s so good that Reed couldn’t have directed it, detecting Orson Welles’ touch of genius throughout the mystery thriller. That said, those who worked with Reed on the film insist(ed) that it’s Reed’s all the way.
Whether or not you agree with the many who The Third Man one of the greatest movies ever, you’ll should at the very least appreciate the masterful final scene featuring Alida Valli and Joseph Cotten outside a cemetery. Martin Scorsese must have liked it, too, as he imitated it – to less effect – in The Departed.
Along with The Adventures of Robin Hood, King Solomon’s Mines is surely one of the best adventure films ever made. This 1950 MGM spectacle directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton hits all the right notes to invoke mystery, romance, and excitement. Amidst wild animals and tall Masai, the ladylike Deborah Kerr lusts after sweaty Stewart Granger. Richard Carlson costars in what was the first Hollywood production filmed in Africa since MGM’s own Trader Horn two decades earlier.
Plaza Suite (1971)
Set in New York City’s Plaza Hotel, Arthur Hiller’s comedy Plaza Suite consists of three separate segments, with Walter Matthau as the male lead in each of them.
His female costars are Maureen Stapleton (married couple attempt a second honeymoon), Barbara Harris (Hollywood producer and former flame meet again), and Lee Grant (married couple attempt to get their marrying daughter out of the bathroom).
A Face in the Crowd (1957), Kotch (1971)
Some find the political drama A Face in the Crowd, starring Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith, to be Elia Kazan’s best film – it’s not – while Kotch earned star Walter Matthau a Best Actor Academy Award nomination.
Matthau, the star of the evening, won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his crooked lawyer in The Fortune Cookie, one of Billy Wilder’s lesser comedies.
Schedule (Pacific Time) below via the TCM website.
3:00 AM Fire Down Below (1957)
Director: Robert Parrish.
Cast: Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon, Herbert Lom, Bonar Colleano, Bernard Lee, Edric Connor, Peter Illing, Anthony Newley, Eric Pohlmann.
115m5:00 AM The Third Man (1949)
Director: Carol Reed.
Cast: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard.
104m7:00 AM Block-Heads (1938)
Director: John G. Blystone.
Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Minna Gombell.
57m8:00 AM Swiss Miss (1938)
Director: John G. Blystone.
Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy Walter Woolf King.
65m9:15 AM Vengeance Valley (1951)
Director: Richard Thorpe.
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Robert Walker, Joanne Dru.
83m10:45 AM King Solomon’s Mines (1950)
Directors: Compton Bennet & Andrew Marton.
Cast: Deborah Kerr, Stewart Granger, Richard Carlson.
103m12:30 PM The Wind and the Lion (1975)
Director: John Milius.
Cast: Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith.
119m2:45 PM Topkapi (1964)
Director: Jules Dassin.
Cast: Melina Mercouri, Maximilian Schell, Peter Ustinov, Akim Tamiroff.
119m5:00 PM A Face in the Crowd (1957)
Director: Elia Kazan.
Cast: Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau, Lee Remick, Percy Waram, Paul McGrath, Marshall Neilan, Alexander Kirkland, Rip Torn.
Cameos: Faye Emerson, Betty Furness, Burl Ives, Mike Wallace, Walter Winchell.
126m7:15 PM The Fortune Cookie (1966)
Director: Billy Wilder.
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ron Rich, Judi West, Cliff Osmond, Lurene Tuttle, Harry Holcombe, Les Tremayne, Ann Shoemaker.
126m9:30 PM Kotch (1971)
Director: Jack Lemmon.
Cast: Walter Matthau, Deborah Winters, Felicia Farr.
118m11:45 PM Plaza Suite (1971)
Director: Arthur Hiller.
Cast: Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Harris, Lee Grant, Louise Sorel, Jenny Sullivan, Alan North.
114m1:45 AM Gangster Story (1959)
Director: Walter Matthau.
Cast: Walter Matthau, Bruce McFarlane, Carol Grace.
68m