February Bonus!: Your TCM Watch Guide
the true crime that's worth your time
Hello again, premium subscribers! Thanks so much for sticking with Best Evidence as we found/settled into a new situation. Slowly but surely, we're getting back to the "programming" you remember, and we appreciate your patience.
Lots of us have a long weekend coming up, followed for some of you by school vacay, so what better time to deploy the February 2024 bonus: a round-up of all the genre content on Turner Classic Movies. …Well, all the genre content I found when I combed through the list on the TCM app a few days ago, which I'll break down by doc/scripted, in alpha order. Head to the TCM site and/or app if you want to sort everything by time "left" to watch before the programmers rotate things out.
I've also linked to each film's page on JustWatch.com (where possible; some of the older/more broadly titled stuff didn't come up there on search). Recs and comments not just welcome but encouraged! – SDB
DOCUMENTARIES
F For Fake (1973). The story of "infamous fakers" Clifford Irving and Elmyr de Hory, by Orson Welles. (Irving, notorious for writing a fake bio of Howard Hughes, also wrote a book on de Hory called Fake!.) I've had this one on my own list for aaaages.
The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971). I just sold Jeffrey Haas's book on Hampton's murder last week. TMoFH director Howard Alk also made a doc about Janis Joplin that I dimly recall seeing at a rep cinema back in the day.
Paragraph 175 (2000). Narrated by Rupert Everett, this tough sit focuses on the Nazi regime's persecution of queer people.
SCRIPTED FILMS
Convicts 4 (1962). I mentioned this one last October while wending my way through a Googlabyrinth on IRL "buried-alive escape" stories.
Fury (1936). Per TCM's Felicia Feaster, "the film was based on the real-life case of two kidnappers, Thomas Harold Thurmond and John Maurice Holmes, who were lynched by the populace of San Jose, California, for their abduction of a department store owner's son," but is more of a comment by director Fritz Lang on not just the epidemic of lynching in the U.S. at that time, but the restrictions the studios/the code placed on a realistic account of those heinous crimes. The NYT praised Fury highly, but the studio "buried" the film upon release; Feaster's write-up has more and is well worth a click.
Nora Prentiss (1947). More of a neighborhood play than some on the list, NP is probably primarily notable for the casting against type of Ann Sheridan as a noir femme fatale, but TCM's notes claim that Variety cited a real insurance case as the story's source – and legendary journo Herb Caen plays a columnist in the film.
Solomon Northrup's Odyssey (1984). "Wait, the 12 Years A Slave Northrup?" The same, dear reader – played in this iteration by Avery "Deep Space 9" Brooks.
The Tall Target (1951). You know that JFK Crackpottery 101 "revelation" about Kennedy having a secretary named Lincoln – and Abe Lincoln, also murdered while in office, having a secretary named John Kennedy omg??? Tall Target is about Lincoln's secretary, John Kennedy (42nd Street's Dick Powell), trying to prevent the assassination of Lincoln before he could even get inaugurated. Lincoln's journey to Washington, DC (and its secretive end, Lincoln sneaking into town under a shawl and flanked by armed guards) is fairly well documented; based on the unsettlingly weird poster art, I don't know that this is the version you want to go with.
Written on the Wind (1957). Loosely based on the death of tobacco heir Smith Reynolds, but the strongest true-crime tie might be the presence of Robert Stack? (I went to university with Reynoldses; I didn't know them well, but I do recall a fair bit of murmuring about a family "curse," which may have begun with Smith's "mysterious" death.)
The Wrong Man (1956). How many Hitchcock movies proceed at least in part from true stories is open to debate, but this one's the only one that's indisputably and entirely a true story – about the wrongful conviction of Manny Balustrero. Jason Isralowitz's book on the case and film is well paced and dense; let me know if I should look out for a copy for you.