The Wonderful World of TCM: A trio

It's been a while since we've done one of these, so I wish this one were more exciting:

The Story of Mankind: How can a movie with the three main Marx Brothers (Sorry, Gummo) be so dull? I can understand bad--things happen--but dull? I had long wanted to see this Irwin Allen-directed tale of an argument over the future of the species between "the human spirit" (Ronald Coleman) and the devil (Vincent Price). Come to think, how can a movie with Vincent Price as the devil be so dull? I found myself fast-forwarding through some of the historical vignettes to get to the Marx segments, which were all too brief.

My thinking is, if you cast Chico Marx as Christopher Columbus, you might as well go more than 4 minutes or so with it. I mean, I'd sit and watch that for...well, maybe not for 95 minutes, but it was a hell of a lot more interesting than listening to Price and Coleman debate the worthiness of mankind. If you're a Marx Brothers fanatic, this is a must-see...but only for the 3 brief segments with Chico, Groucho as Peter Minuit, and Harpo as Isaac Newton (And the brothers don't appear together, either). Keep that remote handy.

Room for One More: This 1952 film co-starring Cary Grant and one of his real-life wives, Betsy Drake, premiered on TCM a few months back. Yeah, you read that right, and it begs the question: Why the hell did it take so long for a Warner Brothers Cary Grant movie to debut on the channel?

Unfortunately, pondering that question provided more stimulation than did the movie itself. It's a pleasant effort, with Grant and Drake a couple that frequently takes in foster children, but it gets pretty sappy and Cary Grant is not, you know, Cary Grant in it. So I didn't love it, but the wife and I didn't regret having spent the time on it. I still wonder what took so long to air it, not that I dare question The Greatest Cable Channel Known to mankind.

Cover-Up: Hey, a TCM movie I really DID like recently! Dennis O'Keefe is an insurance company rep investigating a strange death, and encountering a lot of resistance, in a small town in this 1949 mystery. I would have liked more noirish elements, or at least plain, old dark ones, but this is an entertaining little flick. O'Keefe apparently wrote this, too, and while I give him credit for wearing two hats, William Bendix walks away with the whole thing. His wise-ass sheriff, who is blatantly unwilling to assist O'Keefe's inquiries, gives "Cover-Up" most of its edge and its wit. Really, just those two guys bickering and bantering would have been enough for a pretty decent crime/noir film.

As "Cover-Up" progresses, it gets a little too smooth for its own good, and those darker aspects I alluded to fade pretty quickly. This isn't unusual for movies of the era, but it's a little disappointing nonetheless. But I still recommend it for the fine work of the cast (Barbara Britton also stands out as an attractive young woman O'Keefe befriends in the town), some fun dialogue, and enough mood and atmosphere to trick you every now and then into thinking it actually is noir.