13 Nights of Shocktober: Shadow of a Doubt

 by A.J. 

Night 5: Hitchcock Night/Suburban Horror Night II

“Do you know if you ripped the front off houses you’d find swine? The world is a hell.”

Shadow of a Doubt

Master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock directed so many truly great movies that even several of his less famous movies are among his greatest and the greatest of any era. Shadow of a Doubt is not as famous as Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, or North by Northwest, but it is secretly one of his greatest movies. At first it may seem like a slight or minor movie given its small scale and quaint setting, however these aspects belie its dark and unsettling plot. It is also the epitome of Hitchcock’s ultimate career long theme: danger is always lurking and will come at the most unexpected time in the most unexpected form to someone who feels completely safe.

The stars, Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright, are two of my favorite classic era performers. This movie is where I first saw them. The setting is Santa Rosa, California, a town so average it could be Anytown, USA. It is so idyllic and cozy that things like crime and murder and even war don’t seem possible there, even though the year is 1943. There is no trace of darkness in the home of Young Charlie, that is until Uncle Charlie arrives. 

Teenage Young Charlie (Teresa Wright) is discontent with the mundanity of suburban comfort and longs for something to rejuvenate her family. The change comes with the arrival of lively and charming Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton), who does indeed recharge the household dynamic. He also brings darkness that Young Charlie could not have imagined. Though mother Emma (Patricia Collinge)–Hitchcock’s last sympathetic portrayal of a mother–delights in having her brother with her, the real connection is between the two Charlies. The very morning she planned on sending him a telegram to come visit, the family receives a telegram that Uncle Charlie is on his way. No one has any suspicions that he is possibly The Merry Widow Murderer.

There are a lot of things I like about Shadow of a Doubt, but what makes it special are the performances of Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotton. They are excellent choices to play average Americans while still being distinct. Joseph Cotton rarely played a villain but he does a fantastic job playing a complex character that is as sinister as he is charming. He never does anything forthrightly villainous, at least not for most of the movie, but he behaves just suspicious enough for Young Charlie to have doubts about him. In Cotton’s best scene Uncle Charlie’s jovial mask begins to slip and delivers a speech brimming with contempt and disgust about rich windows: “[Husbands] die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives, .... these useless women...drinking the money, losing the money… faded, fat, greedy women.”

As Young Charlie, Teresa Wright is fresh-faced and lively, at first. She is perhaps naïve but she is not dull or dim. Once her suspicions are raised, she does detective work of her own and puts the pieces and clues together. The scene where she finds the newspaper story about the Merry Widow Murderer that Uncle Charlie hid from the family is an effective one. Hitchcock wanted the camera instead of Wright to gasp so it pulls back from a close-up to a wide overhead shot. My favorite moment comes when Young Charlie finally makes her appearance at a dinner party as Uncle Charlie is about to give a toast. She descends the stairs wearing the ring he gave her, a ring she now realizes is evidence. The camera pushes in from a wide shot of Charlie to a close up of the ring. Neither she nor Uncle Charlie say anything about the ring, but the tone of the entire scene changes for her and him and the audience though it remains the same for the other characters. 

That things are not what they seem and pleasant appearances and behavior belie a hidden menace were frequent themes of Hitchcock’s movies. Just about every Hitchcock movie dealt with the dark side of human nature and society to some degree. This is especially pronounced in Shadow of a Doubt. Perhaps the darkest sequence is when Uncle Charlie takes his niece to a seedy bar to confront her about her suspicions. Smoke fills the bar and their waitress is a former classmate of Young Charlie’s who wears a bitter, dour expression, looks at her and says, “I never thought I’d see you here.” When he realizes that he cannot charm her any longer, Uncle Charlie tells her how little she knows about the world. His words are harsh and cynical but they sting because there is truth in them. This scene is similar to the sequence in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet where young and naïve Jeffery (Kyle MacLachlan) goes to Lincoln Avenue, the bad and dangerous part of his small, quaint town, and sees and learns harsh realities. I do not know for sure how much Shadow of a Doubt influenced Blue Velvet but the two films share similar themes and would make a great double feature. (Shadow of a Doubt certainly had a more direct influence on the film Stoker, a previous Shocktober recommendation, which is also about a newly arrived sinister Uncle Charlie who casts a spell over his niece). The ending might feel anticlimactic but it turns out to be a subversive conclusion fitting for this surprisingly dark and challenging classic.

Shadow of a Doubt airs on TCM on Sunday, October 26th at 9PM CT and might be at your local library.

Classic Movie Picks: April 2021

by Lani

I used to scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule each month for upcoming films that I couldn’t miss and post the highlights here for your reading and viewing pleasure! It’s been a few...years, but who’s counting? (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

After a delayed start, it is finally award season in Hollywood, which means it's time for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Each day in April features films which were Academy Award winners or nominees and the films are being shown from A to Z, ending with Best Foreign Language Film winner Z on May 1. Coincidentally this was the gimmick in 2017, which was the last time I blogged about 31 Days of Oscar. By the way, if you don't have cable, you can stream films on the TCM app, but they don't stay available for very long after the air date, or usually find the films to stream or rent through other platforms. Here are my top picks for the month:

4/3, 9:45 PM - Carol (2015) 

I was happy to see that TCM has included several movies from the 2000s in this year’s 31 Days line-up. The canon of classic films is not a fixed list; it should always be re-evaluated and refreshed as new art is made. Carol was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but notably not Best Picture. Director Todd Haynes combines the lush elegance of a Douglas Sirk melodrama with contemporary storytelling in this romantic drama about a shopgirl and a housewife drawn to each other, but restricted by 1950s conventions. 

4/7, 10:15AM - Gaslight (1944)

“Gaslighting” has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the last few years. But how many people have actually seen the film that gave us that term? Technically, “gaslighting” means when someone lies to you so that you begin to doubt your own sanity and then you can be committed to an asylum and your tormentor can steal your aunt’s jewels. Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for her performance as a woman driven mad. The film received seven nominations in total, including Best Picture, which it lost to Going My Way. Keep an eye out for a young Angela Lansbury in her first film role as Bergman’s maid, she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

4/10, 3PM - Hope and Glory (1987)

The title may sound generic, but this charming and warm story of British civilian life during WWII will stick with you. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the film is based on writer-director John Boorman’s own experiences during the London blitz. The film received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but did not win any awards; in fact it lost in almost every category to that year’s big winner, The Last Emperor. 

4/18, 8PM - Nebraska (2013)

Omaha-born Alexander Payne is one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. His films - including Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways - depict familiar, everyday people with biting dark humor. Nebraska is no exception as the story of a cantankerous elderly man and his adult son on a road trip to collect sweepstakes winnings. While several of Payne’s films have earned Oscar nominations, 2013’s Nebraska received the most with six. Surprisingly, it did not win in any category, though lead actor Bruce Dern and Phedon Papamichael’s black and white cinematography were certainly top contenders that year. 

4/23, 10:30PM - The Red Shoes (1948)

This film about a dancer torn between a devotion to her art and a desire for a conventional life was the 10th collaboration of the celebrated filmmaking team of director Michael Powell and producer Emeric Pressburger. It was nominated in Best picture and four additional categories, winning much-deserved awards for the art direction and the score. It is visually dazzling, particularly the ballet sequences starring real-life ballerina Moira Shearer. Anton Walbrook, a favorite character actor for Powell & Pressburger is also particularly good as Lermontov, the impresario who gives Shearer’s character her big break. 

4/28, 1:15AM - The Third Man (1949)

If you’ve never seen this one, set the DVR, get the app, whatever you need to do - just watch it. This atmospheric post-WWII noir follows an American investigating a friend’s suspicious death in Vienna. Though Orson Welles gets all the memorable lines, this is really a Joseph Cotten film. Cotten came to Hollywood with Welles as a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company and after a large supporting role in 1941’s Citizen Kane, Cotten transitioned into a successful, decades-long movie career (including a role 1944’s Gaslight). The film received nominations for direction and editing, but the striking cinematography garnered the film’s only win. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 11: Vincent Price Night
"A brass unicorn has been catapulted across a London street and impaled an eminent surgeon...words fail me, gentlemen."

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

I couldn’t let Shocktober go by without at least one Vincent Price movie on the list, and The Abominable Dr. Phibes is one of his absolute best. Price plays the titular Dr. Phibes, who is exacting revenge on the doctors he holds responsible for the death of his wife. He goes about this by murdering them in ways inspired by the 10 plagues of Egypt, making him quite abominable indeed. Each murder is a more and more elaborate and macabre tableau as the methods of murder become more and more outlandish. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is an undeniably campy film, but it is also excellent entertainment for anyone, even someone skittish of horror movies, looking for spooky fun viewing on Halloween night.

Vincent Price’s performance as Dr. Phibes is silent, mostly. Phibes was presumed dead in a car accident but actually survived and was horribly disfigured. He speaks by connecting cable from a gramophone to his neck. We never see his mouth move and he speaks through this device in only a few scenes so Price uses body language and facial expressions to bring this villainous antihero to life. He speaks through the gramophone to a photo of his deceased beloved wife, Virginia, professing his love and reasserting his vow of revenge. A large reason this movie works is because of Vincent Price’s serious performance. He is believable as Phibes because he has fun playing the character but never winks at the audience. This can also be said of the tone of the movie. Though it has a dark, off beat, British sense of humor, it is still more horror than horror comedy. The death scenes are needlessly over the top but the movie makes sure they are still gruesome. The horror in this movie is appropriately horrific which makes the scenes of humor really pop. While Phibes goes about filling a doctor’s bedchamber with bats, Price is dead serious and sincere about what he is doing. His performance makes Phibes’s revenge a loving tribute to his lost love.

There is of course no denying the odd and comical nature of a man being impaled by the head of a brass unicorn statue while under police protection. But the police take it seriously and Phibes takes it seriously which lets the audience have all the fun. Scenes of outright comedy and jokes are left to Scotland Yard as they work on solving the mysterious murders. This is where the British sense of humor really shines through. In one scene a detective regains consciousness after being knocked out and takes a drink before calling for help. The reaction of the detectives to the murders always seems to be understated. “A damn strange business,” one says after discovering the first murder. Their reactions always seem subdued compared to the deaths, or, in other words, they are appropriately British.

Joseph Cotton, one of my favorite actors of the classic movie era, plays Dr. Vesalius, the chief surgeon of the team that failed to save Virginia Phibes. He is the ultimate target for Phibes’s final act of macabre revenge. Cotton gives the movie another serious, unwinking performance. His character gives the movie urgency and is a good counterbalance to Phibes.

Phibes has a mysterious and beautiful assistant named Vulnavia, played by Virginia North, who never speaks. She wears lovely flowing dresses and in one scene she plays the violin while Phibes drains the blood of one of his victims. In another scene at Phibes’s secret lair she sweeps while Phibes’s band of automatons, The Clockwork Wizards, play a slow mellow song like it is closing time at a night club. Yes, Phibes has a band of musical automatons in his lair.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes was directed by Robert Fuest, who began his career as a production designer. This would explain the artistry of the murder scenes and the quality and attention paid to the stylish sets and costumes. This movie is a period piece thought the year is never explicitly stated. From the cars I would guess the time period is the 1910’s or 20’s, so the look of this film is a mixture of the swinging London of the 1970’s and Edwardian England.

Is there a more elaborate way to kill someone than by decapitating a brass unicorn statue and catapulting it across a London street impaling the man? Yes, there is, and Dr. Phibes has thought of it and planned it out carefully. From describing this movie, you might think that The Abominable Dr. Phibes falls into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category, but this film is intentionally and genuinely entertaining. It seems to know it is an offbeat horror movie but never aims to be an outright comedy. The Abominable Dr. Phibes is self-aware enough to have fun with its content, characters, sets, and death scenes without drawing attention to itself. Directly or indirectly Dr. Phibes influenced the nascent slasher genre and Phibes himself and his ever increasingly elaborate murders are reminiscent of Jigsaw from the Saw film series. The special effects are practical as you might expect and with the exception of a fake bat or two hold up very well. The first time I saw this movie was on Halloween night one year ago and I can’t recommend it enough. This movie was one of Vincent Price’s favorites and it’s not hard to understand why.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes airs on TCM Sunday, October 30th at 5PM CT

Classic Movie Picks: December 2015

by Lani

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

Sinatra Sings!
12/2, 8 PM - Frank Sinatra -- A Man and His Music (1965)
12/9, 8 PM - Sinatra Sings (2011)
12/16, 8 PM - Frank Sinatra: Ol' Blue Eyes is Back (1973)
12/23, 8 PM - Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank (1957)
12/30, 8 PM - Sinatra (1969)
Frank Sinatra is TCM's Star of the Month for December and they'll be showing his films each Wednesday - from the effervescent MGM Musicals like Anchors Aweigh and On the Town, to gritty dramas including The Man with the Golden Arm and The Detective, to his capers with the Rat Pack in Ocean's Eleven and Robin and the Seven Hoods, even his Oscar-winning turn as Maggio in From Here to Eternity. But the real treat, in my opinion, will be hearing Frank sing in the five TV specials they've included in the line-up. 

Whether you agree that he's the greatest singer of the 20th Century, or just in the top five, it's hard to deny the quality of his voice and his ability to interpret a song. That heavenly croon and charismatic presence, plus those twinkly blue eyes, made Sinatra the most popular singer in the country during WWII...with young women especially. (At the same time he was hated by American men, who saw him as a draft dodger hanging around the homefront stealing their women.) However, these specials show Frank after his teen idol phase, in full "Chairman of the Board" mode singing songs that have become standards. As a holiday treat, there's even Frank with his idol Bing Crosby singing Christmas songs! 

If you're interested in learning more about Sinatra's career, I highly recommend two episodes of the "You Must Remember This" podcast: episode 41 about Sinatra's rise to fame in the 1940s and episode 2 about his epic and weird triple album "Trilogy: Past, Present, and Future." 


12/17: Once More into the Disney Vault
Film critic Leonard Maltin hosts this evening of 5 movies and 4 shorts, many with a "winter" theme, dating from 1934 to 1983. I've really been enjoying these periodic peeks into the vault because the programming highlights the variety and depth of the Disney Studios output, particularly during the 50s and beyond when they were producing animated features and shorts, live-action films, documentaries, and television specials.

8 PM - So Dear to My Heart (1948)
Burl Ives, Beulah Bondi, and Bobby Driscoll star in this film about a farming family who adopts a black lamb. I haven't seen it, but I predict that Burl will break into song at some point.

9:30 PM - Rescue Dog (1947)
The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934)
Corn Chips (1951)
Three wintry animated shorts starring Pluto and a playful seal, some insects preparing (or not) for winter, and Donald Duck with Chip and Dale.

10 PM - Babes in Toyland (1961)
I enjoyed this film when I was a kid, and I think that it's really meant for an audience of children - adults may find it too cutesy. However, the costumes and score were nominated for Academy Awards, reflecting the high level of quality which was brought to all Disney productions. Former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello stars with Tommy Sands (who I always thought was Annette's Beach Party costar Frankie Avalon) as residents of Toyland and the plot revolves around whether they'll be able to marry as the evil Ray Bolger throws obstacles in their path to the altar.

12 AM - Never Cry Wolf (1983)
Far, far from Toyland, Charles Martin Smith stars as a biologist sent alone up to the Yukon to study wolves and their impact on the caribou population. Filmed in Alaska, this movie is praised for its beautiful visuals including scenes of the native wildlife. 

2 AM - White Wilderness (1958)
One of Disney's famous "true-life adventures," this film spotlights Arctic wildlife. It won the 1958  Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

3:30 AM - Polar Trappers (1938)
Back to cartoons with Donald and Goofy in their first short together without Mickey.

3:45 AM - The Island at the Top of the World (1974)
End the evening with this adventure tale about a Victorian Englishman who discovers a lost civilization of Vikings in the Arctic.


12/18 - Christmas with Criminals
8 PM - I'll Be Seeing You (1944) [also showing 12/25, 12:30 PM]
11:30 PM - Remember the Night (1940)
If you're looking for new movies to add to your usual Christmas line-up, consider the mini-genre of holiday love stories between a strait-laced guy and a wayward gal. Two films in this category (actually, the only two I'm aware of) are showing tonight! 

In I'll Be Seeing You, Joseph Cotten is a shell-shocked soldier on leave from WWII who meets Ginger Rogers on a train. She's also on leave, but from prison where she's serving a sentence for manslaughter (it was an accident though!). A few days spent celebrating the holiday with Ginger's family brings the two lost souls closer together.

Remember the Night casts Fred MacMurray as a District Attorney who feels sorry for accused shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck. Rather then letting her spend Christmas in jail, he bails her out and brings her home with him and the two are brought closer together...you know how it goes.


BONUS PICK: 12/5, 3:45 AM - Haxan (1922)
If you aren't into the warm and fuzzies going around during the holiday season, here is an antidote -- a bizarre silent film about witchcraft through the ages.

As my blogging partner put it in his recommendation of Haxan last Halloween:
"It’s one of those movies that you’ll want to watch with someone so there’s another witness to the crazy, bizarre, spooky, and oddly funny scenes that make up this silent movie. Haxan is a truly unique film: part documentary, part history lesson, part folklore study, part 'reenactment' of witchcraft confessions, and part social commentary."

This film has everything: medieval depictions of witches and demons, trial and torture of those accused of witchcraft, a Witches' Sabbath ritual, and, of course, Satan himself churning butter (what else?). The weird juxtaposition of the disturbing and ridiculous makes this an oddly funny film, despite the filmmaker's intentions to horrify. And it may horrify you, too; there's a lot of weird stuff here! Whether humorous or horrible, Haxan is the total opposite of the typical holiday film.

Classic Movie Picks: November 2012

by Lani

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies Now Playing guide for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

Star of the Month: Constance Bennett
11/6, 8 PM - Lady With a Past (1932)
11/6, 9:30 PM - Sin Takes a Holiday (1930)
11/20, 8 PM - After Office Hours (1935)
11/20, 9:30 PM - Merrily We Live (1938)
I know Constance Bennett primarily for her delightful performance as a society ghost in Topper (showing 11/20, 11:15 PM), so I'm looking forward to seeing more of her films in the light comedy vein. I love the ease she brings to comedy, but the real highlight of any Connie Bennett film is watching her wear stylish clothes while swanning through gorgeous art deco interiors.

11/9: Man With No Name Trilogy
8 PM - A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
9:45 PM - For a Few Dollars More (1965)
12 AM - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)
For something on the opposite end of the spectrum from Connie Bennett, try Clint Eastwood in a trio of Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone. Before he was Dirty Harry, before he achieved directorial acclaim, before he chastised an empty chair - Clint was The Man With No Name, a lone gunman based on the ronin of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo. While they may not feature art deco high rises, Leone's films do have an abundance of style; notably, the famous score by Ennio Morricone which complements the stark desert landscape to create an iconic representation of the Old West.

11/14: Sister, Sister
6 AM - Little Women (1933)
8 AM - Fog Over Frisco (1934)
9:15 AM - Double Wedding (1937)
10:45 AM - The Sisters (1938)
12:30 PM - My Sister Eileen (1942)
2:15 PM - Two Sisters From Boston (1946)
4:15 PM - A Stolen Life (1946)
6:15 PM - Born to Kill (1947)
Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters... - so goes the song from White Christmas. That lyric could describe some of the siblings in today's line-up of films with a sisterly theme - the March girls from Little Women, Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair in My Sister Eileen. This line-up also teaches us that if Bette Davis is your sister, you'd be better off as an only child. This is a perfect day of films for November, the beginning of the holiday season and a time to be with your family, or, on the other hand, to think about why you don't want to be with your family.

11/26, 6:30 PM - The Steel Trap (1952)
I already picked this film when it made its TCM premiere last January because it sounded interesting and co-starred Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright. If you missed it then, don't miss it this time - what a gem of a thriller! Cotten plays a middle manager at a bank who devises a plan to rob the bank over the weekend and escape to Brazil with his wife. However, Murphy's Law is in full effect every step of the way. If he decides to turn back, can he replace the money by Monday morning? I was squirming in my seat the whole time, hoping that Cotten could come away clean one way or another.

11/30, 11:15 PM - Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954)
Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, a.k.a. Don't Touch the Loot, was directed by Jacques Becker, a former assistant to the great French director Jean Renoir. With this film, Becker set off a new era of French crime films featuring experienced pros whose codes of honor are threatened by changing times - see Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, Le Samourai, Le Cercle Rouge. In Grisbi, the wonderful Jean Gabin plays a gangster who comes out of retirement when his best friend is kidnapped and their loot is demanded as ransom.

Classic Movie Picks: January

by Lani

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies Now Playing guide for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

My New Year's resolution is to "discover" a new film each month by watching something I've never seen before. January has many interesting prospects; in fact, of the 21 films I've listed here, I've only seen 7! Happy New Year, and here's to another year of classic movies!

Star of the Month: Angela Lansbury
I first came to know Lansbury on TV, as novelist & amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote. At that time, I had no idea that television was just the latest arena of entertainment in which Lansbury had made her mark. As Robert Osborne details in his Star of the Month article, Lansbury's long career includes great successes in film, on Broadway, and on television - a feat that arguably no other entertainer can claim. TCM is airing her films each Wednesday in January and I've singled out some of my favorites below; however, the entire month's line-up looks strong. I am especially looking forward to the TCM premiere of a production of Sweeney Todd which was filmed for television in 1982, and stars the Broadway cast. I also highly recommend TCM's Private Screenings interview with Lansbury, airing on January 25. True to form, her interview is one of the best of the series!
1/4, 12:15 AM - The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
1/11, 10:15 PM - The Three Musketeers (1948)
1/18, 10 PM - The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
1/18, 2:15 AM - The Court Jester (1956)
1/25, 8 PM - Private Screenings: Angela Lansbury
1/25, 9 PM - Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982)
1/25, 11:30 PM - Death on the Nile (1978)

Starring Joseph Cotten
He may not be the Star of the Month, but Joseph Cotten is an actor who I always enjoy watching. Cotten gets the spotlight in prime time on January 2nd. That evening I'm especially interested in the premiere of The Steel Trap (1952), a race-against-the-clock thriller co-starring Teresa Wright (another of my faves) as Cotten's wife. He also stars in the period drama Under Capricorn (1949) on January 19, part of the month-long tribute to cinematographer Jack Cardiff, and in Love Letters (1945), a romance co-starring Jennifer Jones. In one of those "only in Hollywood" situations, Cotten had previously starred opposite both Wright and Jones - in Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Since You Went Away (1944), respectively - but both times he played the actress's older uncle, not a love interest!

1/2, 11:15 PM - The Steel Trap

1/19, 8 PM - Under Capricorn

1/21, 10 PM - Love Letters

1/3: Happy Birthday, Marion Davies!

6 AM - 6:30 PM, 9 films

These days Marion Davies is probably better known for her real-life role as William Randolph Hearst's girlfriend, rather than for her many films. Hearst's championing of Davies' film career, for better and worse, is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Teen-aged Marion was already a Broadway veteran when Hearst vowed to make her a star in pictures. He used his newspapers to give Davies publicity and even created a production company devoted to making her films; however, Hearst's insistence that Davies star in serious dramas, rather than the comedies at which she excelled, also hampered her career. Despite the behind-the-scenes machinations on her behalf, the truth remains that Davies was a charming performer whose talent speaks for itself.

1/31: Governor's Award Winner - James Earl Jones

12 AM - Claudine (1974)

2 AM - Gardens of Stone (1987)

As a prelude to February's "30 Days of Oscar" programming, tonight's films honor the Governor's Awards recipients for 2011, including two TCM premieres starring James Earl Jones. I'm especially interested in Claudine, a working-class romance that was made as a conscious alternative to the blaxsplotation films of the 70s. It was the first, and unfortunately last, project of the Third World Cinema Corporation, a partnership of famous black artists that set out to train minorities in film production and make films which presented a dignified portrayal of African-American life. Gardens of Stone is a story of soldiers stationed at Arlington Cemetery during the Vietnam War; it boasts a rich cast of character actors, including Elias Koteas, Dean Stockwell, and Laurence Fishburne, and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

BONUS: TCM is honoring more pioneering African American filmmakers - Charles Burnet, Gordon Parks, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, Melvin Van Peebles - on January 16.