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.)
11/1: Writer/Director/Actor
8 PM - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)
9:45 PM - Sleeper (1973)
11:30 PM - Modern Romance (1981)
1:15 AM - Modern Times (1936)
3 AM - Jour de Fete (1949)
4:30 AM - Three on a Couch (1966)
Sure, I've seen most of these before - I've even recommended them here before - but after a month of spooky movies, isn't everyone ready for a good laugh? Tonight's line-up features 6 of cinema's best comic triple threats from America and abroad. If you are a student of comedy, you should check these off your "need to see" list!
11/8: And then that happened...
11:15 AM - The Titanic Incident (1955)
6 PM - The Last Days of Pompeii (1935)
There are some days when I just know the TCM programmers love to have fun with their jobs - how else to explain the scheduling of two stories dealing with best laid plans going awfully awry due to notorious disasters? (It couldn't be a coincidence, right? I prefer to think it is yet another twisted joke from the TCM elves.) In an episode from Screen Director's Playhouse a husband and wife try to con a British lord out of his money...aboard the Titanic. In Pompeii, an ambitious man's position of wealth and power is complicated by his son Christian sympathies (this is 79 A.D., after all)...and the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Pompeii also features Basil Rathbone as a scene-stealing Pontius Pilate.
BONUS PICK: 11/17, 9:45 PM - Juggernaut (1974)
More tragedy at sea! From that fertile period of disaster films, the 1970s, Juggernaut puts Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, and a set of bombs aboard a transatlantic ocean liner.
11/10: Four Daughters & Claude Rains
8:30 AM - Four Daughters (1938)
10:15 AM - Daughters Courageous (1939)
12:15 PM - Four Wives (1939)
2:15 PM - Four Mothers (1941)
Most people think of Claude Rains as a worldly, continental type (think Capt. Louis Renault in Casablanca) and not as a small-town family man. However, he plays just that sort of character in this popular series of films. Real-life sisters Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola Lane, plus Gale Page, play Rains's daughters. Four Daughters, the first film to team this group, was so well-liked, it was nominated for Best Picture of the Year and co-star John Garfield was nominated as Best Supporting Actor. Four Wives and Four Mothers continue where the first film left off; you can probably guess the plot developments from the titles. Daughters Courageous is not exactly a sequel, though it stars most of the same actors in very similar roles to their Four Daughters characters.
11/25, 3:30 AM - UHF (1989)
Something I never thought I'd see on Turner Classic Movies: the "Weird Al" Yankovic movie! With all the weirdness on display, 3:30 AM seems like just the right time slot for this one.
11/27: Sergei Eisenstein
12 AM - Strike (1925)
2 AM - Ivan the Terrible Part 1 (1947)
3:45 AM - Ivan the Terrible Part 2 (1959)
And, finally, one for the film geeks...As one of the greats of Russian cinema, Sergei Eisenstein pushed the film medium forward with sophisticated storytelling techniques. He fought against the common opinion that films should be simple, plain, and realistic. Though he is best-known for Battleship Potemkin, he made many accomplished films, including tonight's selections. Despite his revolutionary tendencies, Eisenstein was commissioned by the Soviet government to create a three-part historical epic glorifying the first tsar of Russia. Ivan the Terrible Part 1, in which Ivan struggles to unite a divided empire, was well-received. However, Part 2 was banned because Ivan's vicious actions began to resemble Stalin's regime a little too closely; and Part 3 was destroyed.
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