The Wonderful World of TCM: Lightning Round!

As part of my recent "Clean Up the DVR" drive, I watched a lot of Turner Classic Movies offerings from the past 6 months or so. Here are my brief impressions:

The Monster That Challenged the World (1957): Just once I'd like to see a monster CHALLENGE everyone to a game of Scrabble or maybe 20 Questions. It might add some variety to the genre. In this one, the icky sea monsters play it straight by surfacing and wreaking havoc, Hans Conried plays it straight (unfortunately) as a scientist, and Tim Holt--well, nobody plays it straighter than Tim Holt, here a military guy who finds time for a bland romance. I didn't get into this, but I can see how someone who grew up with it, or someone in more of a mood for it, would. Plus the letterboxed print TCM has is fantastic.

The Twonky (1953): In this Arch Oboler film, Conried is a professor who is beleaguered by a new television set. That's right, the television set itself does all sorts of wacky things inside the house, taking over the prof's life and wreaking even more havoc than your typical icky sea monster. Oh, but it's not as if the TV just springs to life, you see. No, that would just be ridiculous. Instead, as Conreid's gym teacher/coach colleague determines, a sentient alien being from the future has possessed and animated the appliance. At least, I think that's what he says. Coach dabbles in astrometaphysics, apparently.

You have to see this one just for the crazy premise, but I am sorry to report that it never becomes as entertaining as you want it to be. The print of THIS one looked like a television set stomped all over it, chewed it up, spit it out, stomped over it again, and then leased it to run on hundreds of local stations.

Blind Alley (1939): Ralph Bellamy is a shrink who is held hostage by a criminal gang led by Chester Morris in this compelling little psychological thriller. I'm not used to seeing Bellamy use his wits in these old movies, so this is a nice change of pace, as he explores the dark past that makes Morris so darned criminal. Speaking of "The Dark Past," "Blind Alley" was remade with Bill Holden and Lee J. Cobb, with inferior results. I think the original is sharper and faster-paced, with some effective work in the supporting cast by Ann Dvorak and frequent movie tough guy Marc Lawrence, and it's a fun movie that plays as far less pretentious than some of its psychological mumbo jumbo might indicate. There's some cool dream-sequence stuff that looks pretty wild for a 1939 movie. This isn't one of the pics you hear celebrated as part of that "magical movie year," but it's a worthwhile complement to some of the bigger pictures of '39.