March 22

Happy Birthday to Karl Malden, Chico Marx and William Shatner.

TCM celebrated Karl Malden‘s birthday. I watched Come Fly With Me. The opening theme of the song with the same name was sung by Frankie Avalon. It is a story of a flight crew. The story mainly focuses on 3 of the stewards and the co-pilot. The first leg of the trip is NY to Paris. On the long flight is Karl Malden. He plays a southern gentleman (complete with cowboy hat) and he asks an attendant out. In Paris he goes to the hotel room where the 3 flight attendants share a tiny room. The women convince him a place that she really likes to eat. When the two of them get there he tells her that her friends told him it was her favorite place. She had never been there before and was unhappy about wasting money. They spend the evening at an amusement park. The next day he goes to the airport to see her before she leaves, but he can’t get to the plane without a ticket and the flight was full. He goes to sit outside and watches a flight take off. While he is a tourist in Paris he hears on a portable radio a song that they heard at the park. He moves closer to the person with the radio to hear the music. In Vienna they are taken to a posh 3 bedroom suite that has a full meal laid out. Karl comes in with a large box of chocolate. He paid for the room. He wanted them to have a nicer room then they had in Paris. The steward thinks he is not serious about a relationship, and that she will not go along for a joyride. The flight attendants leave the room and get a new room. He looks stunned and angry at her accusations. Back in Paris one of flight attendants has diamonds in a cigarette box (a friend asked her to pick up the package and promptly leaves once they are discovered). The police take all the attendants away. Karl is on the other side of glass and he tries to get her attention and is almost dragged away. He tries to find out what is going on but no one will tell him. The women are released. The next day Karl charters the plane to get her to talk with him.

This is not one of his most famous roles of course. But it is a fun film with 3-4 different story lines.