Mad About Musicals--June on TCM

This month, Turner Classic Movies is featuring a host of movie musicals all day long on Tuesdays and Thursdays as part of what they're calling Mad About Musicals. In addition, TCM and Ball State University are hosting an online class on that same theme. Although the Mad About Musicals course officially began yesterday, you can still enroll here.

Here's how they're describing the Mad About Musicals "deep dive" experience:

Running from June 3-30, this FREE interactive experience will give you an entertaining deep-dive into the Hollywood musical, from the 1930s to the 1970s, with addictive multimedia course materials, digital games, ongoing interactions with your fellow film fans on the TCM message boards, and more!

You can also see the syllabus and answers to some frequently asked questions on that same page.

And if you're not into taking classes, you can still see a whole lot of musicals between June 5, when Going Hollywood, a little-known MGM musical from 1933 starring a very young Bing Crosby opposite the infamous Marion Davies, starts things off at 5 am Central time, and June 29, when Oliver!, the Oscar-winner from 1968, finishes the parade at 5:15 am.

By my count, there are 93 movie musicals running on TCM between those two, ranging from perennial favorites like Top Hat and American in Paris to lesser-known works that you absolutely have to see, like Hallelujah from 1929, the first all-black musical from a major studio; Strike Me Pink, a 1936 Eddie Cantor vehicle with Ethel Merman in the mix; Shirley Temple doing a Fred-and-Ginger number in Stowaway, also from 1936; and Chubby Checker in a 60s oddity called Don't Knock the Twist. There's also some Busby Berkeley, Ruby Keeler, Jimmy Cagney, operettas, the real Fred and Ginger, a touch of Lubitsch, Maurice Chevalier, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Kathryn Grayson, June Allyson, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Cyd Charisse, Esther Williams, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Sondheim, Kander & Ebb, and big-time Broadway musicals represented on screen.

That's a whole lot of singing and dancing and a fascinating way to see how Hollywood directors, choreographers, cinematographers, designers and screenwriters found a way to bend film effects to showcase music and performers. Yes, there are omissions, but so much good stuff, too. I doubt anyone can plant themselves in front of the TV to see every single one of the moving pictures TCM has chosen, but I suggest you fire up the DVR and catch as much as you can.

For all the details and a look at the schedule, you'll want to start here. 

Grable, Hutton, Kelly, Astaire and Powell: TCM Goes Musical All Night Long

On this, the last Thursday of December 2017, Turner Classic Movies offers one last selection of "Great American Songbook" films. Or, in other words, musicals! Musicals to brighten your evening and make you forget just how horribilis this annus has been. It's hard to be grumpy when people are singing and dancing all over your TV.  Got no mansion, got no yacht... Still I'm happy with what I got...

The marquee movie airing at 8 pm Eastern/7 pm Central is The Dolly Sisters, the 1945 pseudo-bio-pic from 20th Century Fox, starring Betty Grable and June Haver as a highly fictionalized version of Jenny and Rosie Dolly, Hungarian-American twin sisters who were major stars in the U.S. and Europe in the early 20th century. John Payne plays Harry Fox, Jenny Dolly's dancer husband, but it's S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall who steals the show every time he appears as the adorable but irresponsible Uncle Latsie. Standards that qualify for the Great American Songbook like "Carolina in the Morning" and "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" are performed in the movie.

After the Dolly Sisters take a bow, Miss Annie Oakley is up in Annie Get Your Gun, the big, boffo 1950 Hollywood version of Irving Berlin's stage musical. With "more bounce per ounce" Betty Hutton as Annie instead of Broadway's Ethel Merman, this technicolor extravaganza definitely has energy to burn. Howard Keel is handsome and tuneful as Annie's husband and shooting rival, Frank Butler, and Berlin's dandy score, stuffed with hits like "There's No Business Like Show Business," "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun" and "Anything You Can Do" can't be beat. Annie Get Your Gun airs at 9:15 pm Central time tonight on TCM.

The Bronx is up and the Battery's down when Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin dance all over Manhattan in On the Town, the 1949 film musical based on the Broadway show with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin play sailors looking for fun and romance during their 24 hours of leave, with Vera-Ellen, Betty Garrett and Ann Miller providing the romance part. "New York, New York" is the song you'll know from this one, which begins tonight at 11:15 pm Central time.

The Band Wagon, often listed as one of the best movies ever made about theater, follows at 1 am Central time. Fred Astaire plays Tony Hunter, a star with his best years behind him, cast in a new Broadway show with a much younger, more serious leading lady, played by Cyd Charisse, with Jack Buchanan as an artiste of a director who plagues them with strange ideas. Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant are Lily and Les Marton, stand-ins for Comden and Green, who got story credit for the film. The soundtrack is first-class, with gems from Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz like "That's Entertainment," "A Shine on Your Shoes" and "I Guess I'll Have to Change My Plan." This 1953 Band Wagon, directed by Vincente Minnelli, took its name from a 1931 Broadway revue with a Dietz/Schwartz score that starred Fred and Adele Astaire. Other than borrowing a few songs like "New Sun in the Sky," "I Love Louisa" and "Dancing in the Dark," the film Band Wagon is a new cinematic creation.

After a short called MGM Jubilee Overture, TCM's Great American Songbook ends in the wee hours of morning with Broadway Melody of 1936, scheduled to begin at 3:30 am Central time. The plot is convoluted, circling around Eleanor Powell as a dancer who wants to be in Robert Taylor's new show, but they were sweethearts in the past and he doesn't want her anywhere near Broadway, so she falls in with a crazy scheme concocted by meanie show biz columnist Jack Benny but hijacked by Taylor's snappy secretary Una Merkel, who likes Powell. To get her chance, Powell pretends to be a made-up French star visiting New York, complete with terrible accent. It's all pretty crazy, but it's backed up by music like "You Are My Lucky Star," "I've Got a Feelin' You're Foolin'" and "Broadway Rhythm," as performed by the likes of Buddy and Vilma Ebsen, Frances Langford, June Knight and, of course, Eleanor Powell.

When Broadway Melody of 1936 is over, TCM moves on to The Beast with Five Fingers and other decidedly non-musical fare. As we celebrate the death of net neutrality and skyrocketing cable bills, we'll have to content ourselves with these last moments of 2017. Got no diamonds, got no pearls...

BBC Top Film Comedies Tonight on TCM

Today is an interesting day on Turner Classic Movies. This morning, they've gone with something of an otherworldly lineup, what with Angel on My Shoulder (featuring the Devil), Angels in the Outfield (divine assistance helps a baseball team), The Heavenly Body (an astrologer gives Hedy Lamarr a reading), Topper and Topper Returns (with ghosts) and I Married a Witch, which has, as you might imagine, a witch. It's a fine batch of movies -- I especially like Fredric March and Veronica Lake as the bewitched couple -- but I don't really know why TCM chose today to spring it. Vernal Equinox?

But it's tonight when things really start to pick up. Or fall down. Or dress in drag, pack a crowd of crazies into one stateroom, turn the volume up to 11, take a ride around giant gears, or put Jack Benny in Hamlet's tights. No supernatural beings, just a lot of super comedy. In fact, TCM is showing five of the best-ever comedy films in existence, all of which appear on a recent BBC list of the "100 greatest comedies of all time."

The movies range from Some Like It Hot, starting at 8 pm Eastern/7 Central, to the original version of To Be or Not To Be at 3:30/2:30 am. In between, there's A Night at the Opera, This Is Spinal Tap and Modern Times. In order of viewing, that's a 1959 caper with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe in an all-girl band in the 1920s; the Marx Brothers debating the existence of a Sanity Clause as they mess with an opera company in 1935; a 1984 "mockumentary" about a very bad heavy metal band; a silent film from 1936 with Chaplin in his Little Tramp persona; and a dark comedy from 1942 with a troupe of Polish actors who end up impersonating Nazis (including Hitler) when they get invaded. If that doesn't sound funny, let's just say it has Lubitsch touches all over it.

In terms of the BBC list, these films represent Nos. 1 (Some Like It Hot), 9 (Spinal Tap), 12 (Modern Times), 13 (To Be or Not To Be) and 39 (Night at the Opera) on the list compiled from votes by 253 film critics – 118 women and 135 men – from 52 countries and six continents.

I might argue that A Night at the Opera should be higher than No. 39, but Duck Soup is there at No. 5, and I have a feeling that's getting the most Marx Brothers love, pushing Opera down a bit.

Quibbling about the numbers aside, that is a dandy lineup. As different as these films are from each other, they're each gems. Every single one is worth your time and attention. And repeat viewings.

Charlie Chaplin takes a ride in Modern Times

TCM's "Summer Under the Stars" Shows Off a Different Star Every Day in August

In August, Turner Classic Movies looks to the stars with their "Summer Under the Stars" event. Every day, TCM programming will highlight a different star, from Edward G. Robinson on August 1 to Dean Martin on August 31. We've already missed Robinson and a few others, but there are some wonderful actors coming up, with Esther Williams today and Hedy Lamarr, Spencer Tracy, Ralph Richardson and Cyd Charisse right around the corner.

Spencer Tracy Day on the 11th is especially strong, with Captains Courageous, Desk Set, Judgment at Nuremberg and Bad Day at Black Rock in the lineup, followed by the original A Star Is Born for Janey Gaynor; Time Bandits, The Wrong Box and The Fallen Idol to showcase Ralph Richardson; Singing in the Rain and The Band Wagon for Cyd Charisse; All About Eve for Anne Baxter, Footlight Parade and 42nd Street to show off Ruby Keeler's dancing feet; Casablanca, Key Largo, Sabrina and The Maltese Falcon for the many moods of Humphrey Bogart; Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Now, Voyageur for Bette Davis; Frankenstein and The Mummy for Boris Karloff; The Americanization of Emily and Support Your Local Sheriff to highlight James Garner; Easy Living and The More the Merrier to prove why Jean Arthur was the queen of screwball comedies; and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet for Jean Simmons, who played Ophelia. Plus, of course, a ton more movies that may catch your eye.

Here's the full list of stars, including the ones already showcased, in case you'd like to watch your favorites streaming at TCM:

August 1: Edward G. Robinson
August 2: Lucille Ball
August 3: Bing Crosby
August 4: Fay Wray
August 5: Karl Malden
August 6: Montgomery Clift
August 7: Jean Harlow
August 8: Esther Williams
August 9: Tim Holt
August 10: Hedy Lamarr
August 11: Spencer Tracy
August 12: Janet Gaynor  
August 13: Ralph Richardson
August 14: Cyd Charisse
August 15: Roddy McDowall
August 16: Anne Baxter
August 17: James Edwards
August 18: Angie Dickinson  
August 19: Ruby Keeler
August 20: Humphrey Bogart
August 21: Bette Davis
August 22: Robert Montgomery
August 23: Brigitte Bardot
August 24: Constance Cummings 
August 25: Van Johnson
August 26: Boris Karloff
August 27: James Garner
August 28: Jean Arthur
August 29: Charles Boyer
August 30: Jean Simmons
August 31: Dean Martin

FROM STAGE TO SCREEN: Adaptations All Month on Turner Classic Movies

Turner Classic Movies may just be having the best month they've ever programmed. I'm not kidding. Among the groups of movies they're offering this month, there are three different themes that rise to the top. All three are terrific choices.

Character actress Marie Dressler is the Star of the Month, with her movies on Monday nights, including Min and Bill on June 20 and Dinner at Eight on June 27, and director/screenwriter Billy Wilder, who is so revered he's achieved godlike status with up-and-coming moviemakers, is also spotlighted in June, with his fabulous movies screened on Friday nights. This week alone, you'll find Sunset Boulevard, Ace in the Hole and Stalag 17, all cynical and smart and more than worth your time.

But the really big bonanza is what they're calling Stage to Screen, featuring 69 different movies adapted for the big screen from stageplays. If you're a theater fan, you can see match up how many of these classics you've seen on stage. Tonight you can see Marlon Brando bring his Stanley Kowalski from Broadway to Warner Brothers, with A Streetcar Named Desire on TCM at 7 pm Central time. Director Elia Kazan and costars Kim Hunter and Karl Malden also came from the Broadway production, but Vivien Leigh was a brand-new Blanche Dubois. There was a clash of styles and larger-than-life personalities that somehow worked to the movie's advantage when you see all that tension on screen. You can also understand why Brando became such a star and why Leigh, Hunter and Malden all won Oscars. It's quite a movie.

Also tonight, Miss Julie, a Swedish screen version of Strindberg's famous play directed by Alf Sjöberg, and a filmed adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House from 1973, when there were two versions filmed, both with star casts. I'm not sure which A Doll's House TCM has on tap, since their page is short on details. They link to a listing with Jane Fonda as Nora, but I believe the picture they're showing is from the other one, with Claire Bloom and Anthony Hopkins. I guess we'll take our chances and see what we get. Miss Julie is scheduled for 9:15, with A Doll's House at 11 Central.

After that, it's Equus, the 1977 film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's play, starring Richard Burton as the psychiatrist and Peter Firth as the boy with the horse obsession, and then Picnic from 1955, which brought director Joshua Logan from the 1953 production to take on the film version, too. William Holden and Kim Novak play the bad-boy drifter and the beautiful woman stuck in a small town. In the early hours of Thursday morning, you can find Cyrano de Bergerac, which won a Best Actor Oscar for its Cyrano, Jose Ferrer, on top of the Best Actor Tony he'd already won, and The Green Pastures, another Pulitzer Prize winning play adapted for the screen. Marc Connelly's "broadly played black miracle play" offers Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Rex Ingram in its African-American cast.

Thursday night the focus turns to musicals, with a line-up of Broadway shows from the 50s, from The King and I to Carousel, Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls and Kiss Me Kate running from 7 pm to just about 6 am Central. The Student Prince starts up the musical parade again at 7 am, followed by Kismet and Pal Joey. And if you've hung around for all of that, you will find yourself at 1 pm on Friday, ready for a nap before you start the Billy Wilder films at 7 pm.

Keep in mind that that's just this week. The Stage to Screen festival continues with more musicals, Shakespeare, dramas, history plays and comedies all the way through June. Amazing stuff!

TCM Starts Its 31 DAYS OF OSCAR February 1

For more than ten years, Turner Classic Movies has created a special lineup around the Oscars as a way to ramp up to the awards ceremony. They call it TCM's "31 Days of Oscar," with some sort of connection among the films to play off the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game. Bacon himself has been the connection among all their "31 Days" films in the past, although others years didn't center on a person, but a instead some theme cooked up by the masterminds at TCM. This year, the schedule features a list of Oscar-winning and nominated movies, each of which connects to the one before and after it, like little links on a long and winding chain.

That means that February's first movie, Gigi, has something in common with the second, The Merry Widow (the 1952 version), and that Merry Widow also has some link to The Broadway Melody of 1936, which comes after it. And then Broadway Melody is linked to Calamity Jane, and Calamity Jane connects to Billy Rose's Jumbo... All the way to March 2, where Around the World in Eighty Days closes out the Oscar fest and connects to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which immediately precedes it, as well as back to Gigi at the top of the list to complete the circle.

Whew! It's 360 (complicated!) Degrees of Oscar.

I don't know the answers in this mighty trivia quiz (and if TCM has an answer key, I didn't see it), but I can think of a couple of links between Gigi and The Merry Widow off the top of my head. They're both set (at least partially, in Widow's case) in Paris and they both have scenes at Maxim's, the risque restaurant famous for flowing champagne and beautiful women. I'm guessing Maxim's is not what the quizzers at TCM had in mind, however, since the connections otherwise seems to be about the personnel. So, for example, the fourth piece in the puzzle is an easy one, since Doris Day starred in both Calamity Jane and Billy Rose's Jumbo.

It's quite a list, including Oscar powerhouses like Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Sting, An American in Paris, The Apartment and The Best Years of Our Lives. If you think Oscar nominees and winners past were better than Oscar nominees and winners current, this is your chance to reacquaint yourself with the back part of that equation, as well as more recent winners like 2001's A Beautiful Mind. Plus some of my personal favorites like Top Hat, Tootsie, The Awful Truth and Ninotchka. And the lesser-known Fred Astaire pic The Sky's the Limit, a musical from 1943 that cast Fred as a Flying Tiger who meets Joan Leslie on leave. It's not that great a film, but it was nominated for two Oscars, for Best Original Song (Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen's My Shining Hour) and Best Score.

If you can figure out the whole list of links from one film to the next, be sure to let me know. That's a gargantuan task, but so was figuring out a whole schedule of Oscar-iffic movies that tie together like that.

Sunday on TCM: Celebrating Scores with Fred Astaire, ON THE TOWN, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

Turner Classic Movies is pulling out an array of wonderful musical movies during the day tomorrow, then turning to some Academy Award winners as part of Day 29 of its 31 Days of Oscar celebration. The musicals that form TCM's schedule from 5:30 am to 7 pm Central time were also touched by Oscar, with multiple nominations for their music and scoring, and wins, too.

At the crack of dawn, it's Gold Diggers of 1933, one of the best backstage musicals from Warner Brothers. This dizzy, fizzy delight gives us Joan Blondell and Ruby Keeler as wannabe chorus girls, Dick Powell as a songwriter enamored of Ruby, and Ginger Rogers as the girl who sings "We're in the Money" in pig latin.  If you can get up at 5:30 am Central time (or set the VCR), Gold Diggers of 1933 is well worth your time. If you're keeping score, it earned a nomination for Best Sound Recording in 1934.

At 7:15 am, Ginger and Fred Astaire take center stage in Shall We Dance, the seventh musical Fred and Ginger made at RKO. The songs are by George and Ira Gershwin, including "They Can't Take That Away from Me" and "They All Laughed." Fred and Ginger even dance on roller skates to "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." It doesn't get better than that. "They Can't Take That Away from Me" was nominated as Oscar's Best Song in 1938.

If you prefer Fred with Rita Hayworth, you're in luck -- You Were Never Lovelier follows at 9:15 am. In that one, Fred is a hoofer who romances rich girl Rita in Argentina, with songs ranging from "Hungarian Rhapsody" to a series of tuneful Jerome Kern tunes with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. We've moved into the 1940s now, and you can see it in numbers like "The Shorty George." Rita truly is lovely throughout, making the title right on the money.

After that, TCM turns to On the Town, the 1949 movie version of a Broadway musical that happens to be playing right now in a well-regarded revival. On the Town won an Oscar in 1950 for its music. You know the drill -- three sailors on leave, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, Gene falls for Miss Turnstiles, lots of high-energy dancing and hijinks, "New, New York, what a wonderful town, the Bronx is up and the Battery's down... " Turner Classic Movies shows On the Town at 11:15 am.

The Music Man is up next at 1 pm, followed by Fiddler on the Roof at 3:45. Although both musicals take place around the turn of the 20th century, Meredith Wilson's score, all "Ya Got Trouble" and "76 Trombones," keeps us in small-town America, while Bock and Harnick's "If I Were a Rich Man" and "Tradition" move us across the ocean to the small village of Anatevka in Russia, where a Jewish milkman tries to figure out how to stick with what he knows in the face of change at every turn.  

Fiddler won three Oscars, while Music Man and On the Town each took home one, for Music Man's "Scoring of Music-adaptation or treatment" and On the Town's "Scoring of a Musical Picture." That's the same category where You Were Never Lovelier was nominated in 1942, although it didn't win.

In prime time, Life Is Beautiful, the Italian film that won three Oscars -- Best Actor for Roberto Benigni, Best Original Score and Best Foreign Language Film -- takes the 7 pm slot, with the murderous 1920s musical Chicago -- a big winner as Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Zeta Jones), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing and Best Sound -- at 9:15.

But I'm all about Shakespeare in Love, the magical movie that imagines what Will Shakespeare was doing when he was young and impetuous and trying to write Romeo and Juliet. Or Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. For me, Shakespeare in Love is just about the perfect movie. It's smart and sweet, enchanting and effervescent. Joseph Fiennes is ever so attractive as Shakespeare, Gwyneth Paltrow is better than she's ever been as his love interest Viola, and the depth of the ensemble, which includes Colin Firth, Judi Dench, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Wilkinson, Antony Sher, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter and Ben Affleck, is simply astounding. Yes, Shakespeare in Love is pretty much perfect.

The Academy agreed with me, handing over seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Dench), Best Screenplay (Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Score. TCM isn't broadcasting it till 11:30 pm, but it's worth staying up for.

All day and all night, TCM is showcasing movies that were nominated or won for their scores. But there's more than just music to recommend these movies. You gotta see these!

Holiday Movies on Turner Classic Movies All Through the Night

Turner Classic Movies has already started its Christmas Eve/Christmas Day movie marathon, but there's still time to catch a whole lot of classic holiday action. If you're a fan of Jimmy Stewart, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Katharine Hepburn or Mickey Rooney, there are movies for you in the line-up.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue, a sweet little movie from 1947 about GIs moving into what they think is an empty Manhattan mansion because of the post-World War II housing shortage, begins at 11:15 am Central time, starting the holiday parade. It stars Don DeFore, someone you may remember from the Ozzie and Harriet show, as the first veteran into the mansion, with Ann Harding as a rich girl pretending to be poor to help out her new friends, Charles Ruggles as her robber baron dad, and Victor Moore, a major star of stage and screen you don't hear a lot about anymore, as Aloysious T. McKeever, a gentleman bum who knows how to keep himself in very nice housing even when he doesn't have a nickel. And you'll find Gilligan's Island's Skipper, Alan Hale Jr., in the supporting cast.

After that, Ginger Rogers appears in I'll Be Seeing You, airing at 1:15 pm CST, a 1944 film which has the dubious distinction of turning the beautiful title song into a soggy mess of choral flourishes. Aside from the song and some other melodramatic elements, I'll Be Seeing You is worth a look to see Ginger as a prisoner on a holiday furlough who meets the wonderful Joseph Cotten, playing a shell-shocked soldier who is also on leave, as they both travel home for the holidays by train. Shirley Temple is in the mix as a teenager with a big mouth.

The Shop Around the Corner, a wonderful 1940 movie full of Continental charm, begins at 3 pm CST. Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan star as argumentative sales clerks in a shop in Budapest as the holiday shopping season heats up, offering lots of opportunities for snowflakes falling on romantic street scenes with a Mittel-European flair. They are pen pals as well as co-workers, although neither knows the other is the one behind the love letters. Ernst Lubitsch directed this confection with his lighter-than-air Continental touch, pulling perfect performances from the likes of Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz himself, as the owner of the shop and Felix Bressart as a member of the team at Matuschek & Co. The movie is based on a play called Parfumerie by Miklos Laszlo and it's been remade a number of times, in films like In the Good Old Summertime and You've Got Mail and the stage musical She Loves Me.

Meet Me in St. Louis is up next, taking us to the World's Fair in 1904, with the Smith family, including Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien as sisters, enjoying an idyllic life until Dad (Leon Ames) announces they're all moving. Uh oh. Judy sings "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" and there's not a dry eye in the house. It's a classic for a reason. Meet Me in St. Louis starts at 5 pm Central time.

Kaufman and Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner gets the marquee spot at 7 pm, showcasing Monty Woolley, who reprises his Broadway role as Sheridan Whiteside, an obnoxious radio star who visits a small-town family, suffers a slip and fall on the front steps, and proceeds to take over the household with a non-stop stream of visitors, including eccentric movie and stage stars and a parade of penguins. Bette Davis is on-board as Whiteside's put-upon secretary, with Ann Sheridan as a luscious movie star, Reginald Gardner as a crazy Englishman modeled after Noel Coward, and Jimmy Durane as Banjo, a Harpo Marx-like comedian.

One of my favorites, Christmas in Connecticut, takes over at 9 pm CST, with Barbara Stanwyck at her screwball comedy best as a magazine writer who purports to be a wife and mother and an expert on all things domestic, even though she's really single and doesn't know a stove from a refrigerator. A war hero played by the very handsome Dennis Morgan has one holiday desire -- to spend Christmas with a perfect family like hers -- and her editor, played by Sydney Greenstreet, isn't taking no for an answer. So Babs has to come up with a husband, a baby and a whole lot of picture-perfect food on short notice. S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall makes an appearance as Barbara's pancake-flipper and general helper-outer. It's delightful.

Cover Girl, a 1944 musical with Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth and Phil Silvers, begins at 11 pm CST, with 1958's Indiscreet, where Cary Grant tries to keep Ingrid Bergman on a string even though he doesn't want to marry her, at 1 am.

As we hit early Christmas morning, John Wayne, Pedro Roca Fuerte and Harry Carey Jr. saddle up for 3 Godfathers, a John Ford Western with a sentimental side. The Duke and his friends are bank robbers on the lam who find themselves unwilling caretakers of an orphaned newborn. They battle sandstorms, sweltering heat, thirst and all kinds of terrifying perils as they attempt to return the baby to her grandfather, who happens to be the sheriff trying to capture them.

Tenth Avenue Angel, a potboiler with Angela Lansbury in an early role, starts at 7 am, followed by Ginger Rogers as a Bachelor Mother at 8:30 am and Reginald Owen as one of the best Scrooges ever in the 1938 screen version of A Christmas Carol at 10:30.

Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum are unlikely lovers in Holiday Affair, airing at 11:15, where Leigh plays a widowed working mother and Mitchum yearns to build boats in California. Will he give up his dreams to take care of comparison-shopper Connie and little Timmy? Or will she give up her need for security and follow his dream with him?

In the Good Old Summertime, the 1949 musical remake of The Shop Around the Corner, puts Judy Garland together with Van Johnson as squabbling co-workers, this time in a music shop. Liza Minnelli makes her screen debut as the baby Judy carries in the final number. You can compare/contrast Summertime with Shop Around the Corner at 1 pm on Christmas Day.

Then it's the 1933 Little Women, the one with Katharine Hepburn as Jo March, at 3 pm, Love Finds Andy Hardy at 5, and a slew of Mel Brooks' movies, from High Anxiety to Silent Movie, Mel's 1983 remake of To Be or Not to Be, and The Twelve Chairs, all night long.

Ring in December with Cary Grant, Holiday Movies and Spectacularity

You don't have to wait till Christmas to open these gifts. Yes, it's true -- the good stuff in December starts tonight.

It's Cary Grant Month on Turner Classic Movies all during December, and because December 1 is a Monday and Mr. Grant has a monopoly on Monday nights, the celebration begins tonight. TCM begins its Carypalooza with a pile of the early ones -- his feature film debut in This Is the Night (1932), two Mae West vehicles with She Done Him Wrong (1933) and I'm No Angel (1933), a war film called The Eagle and the Hawk (1933) where Grant serves as a rival for flying ace Fredric March, Hot Saturday (1932), a piece about the danger of small-town gossip, Suzy (1936), with Jean Harlow, and by the time it turns into December 2, The Toast of New York (1937), a historical piece about a robber baron in the 19th century, and Night and Day (1946), where he plays a very unrealistic version of songwriter Cole Porter. Things get even better later in the month, when the Cary Grant persona we all expect is on full display, with highlights like The Awful Truth, Bringing Up Baby, Gunga Din, Holiday, The Philadelphia Story, and North By Northwest. Check out the complete listing here.

As if it wasn't enough for TCM to give us all that Cary Grant, they're matching it with Ingmar Bergman movies wall to wall on Wednesday December 3. Bergman movies are in a different universe from the Hollywood fare featuring Mr. Debonair, but serious film buffs need to see Smiles of a Summer Night, the charming film that inspired A Little Night Music, the beautiful and pensive Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal and its exploration of life, death and a medieval game of chess, and the intense psychological dramas Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence.

You can also get traditional holiday fare like The Nutcracker ballet, playing from December 4 to 7 in the Tryon Festival theatre at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana. This one is performed by the Champaign-Urbana Ballet with the Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra with conductor Stephen Alltop.

Also opening December 4 is an "operatic farce" by Charles Mee called Wintertime. This slightly crazy piece about pairs of lovers all descending on the same cabin features a cast of ten, with David Barkley, Wen Bu, Aaron Clark, Nancy Keener, Lincoln Machula, Jeff McGill, Diane Pritchard, Kate Prosise, Deb Richardson and Evan Smith under the direction of Timothy O'Neal at at Urbana's Station Theatre. Wintertime runs through December 20 at the Station.

And on December 5, you can see Live Window Vignettes from members of Playwrights Anonymous as part of First Friday celebrations in downtown Bloomington. These window plays will happen at 5:30 pm on Friday at the Herb Eaton Gallery. Click here to see Playwrights Anonymous's Facebook page.

That Friday is also the day the Holiday Spectacular returns to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. It really is spectacular, with a cast of thousands (okay, at least a hundred) including tappers, angels, wooden soldiers, father/daughter numbers and some fantastic voices, like Bob Mangialardi and Joe Penrod. The BCPA promises "all the blockbuster features that long-time attendees have come to love, such as the precision-dancing wooden soldiers, the mass choir nativity and an all-male a capella group" plus a whole bunch of surprises.

If you enjoyed seeing the Battling Gridleys as portrayed by Kathleen Kirk and Jeremy Stiller in October's Discovery Walk at Evergreen Cemetery, you can see Kirk and Stiller back in those roles when the newly restored Gridley Mansion is opened to the public for a holiday tour. You can read about the historic home renovation here. Owners Keith and Diane Thompson have partnered with Easter Seals to offer this mansion tour from 5 to 7 pm on December 11. The cost is $10 per person, with all proceeds going to Easter Seals. The tour of the premises at 301 East Grove Street will include work from local artists, info from Lincoln experts and light refreshments.

And that's just some of the entertainment available to keep you in the holiday spirit.

It's Cary Grant Day Tomorrow on TCM

Yesterday was my birthday, but tomorrow is the day Turner Classic Movies sends me the gift of a whole day of Cary Grant movies. I can't think of a better birthday present.

The Cary Grantapalooza starts at 6 am Eastern/5 am Central time with one of Mr. Grant's best. The Awful Truth, directed by Leo McCarey, is what has come to be called a screwball comedy. Specifically, it's a divorce comedy, with Grant and Irene Dunne as a husband and wife who split up and then flirt with getting back together. Dunne combines a certain daffy charm with intelligence and wit, making her an excellent match for the dashing Mr. Grant. Add Ralph Bellamy as the Wrong Man and Joyce Compton as the Wrong Woman, a performer named Dixie Belle Lee whose act includes fans blowing up her skirt, and the always adorable Asta, a very famous fox terrier, as Mr. Smith, their dog, and you end up with a winning romantic comedy that makes it clear why Cary Grant was already a hot item by 1937.

After The Awful Truth, it's time for Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, the 1938 Katharine Hepburn/Grant comedy which plays both actors against type. Hepburn is a loopy heiress with a missing leopard named Baby and a mischievous dog (once again played by Asta), while Grant is a bespectacled professor of paleontology whose entire life is turned upside-down by Hurricane Hepburn. It's a famous example of another niche in the romantic comedy genre, the one where a woman with wild ways hooks up with (and loosens up) a buttoned-up man. See: Ball of Fire, The Lady Eve, Something Wild... Bringing Up Baby was famously not a hit at the time, just about when Katharine Hepburn hit the Box Office Poison list. But it's been rediscovered by generations of film students and rom com fans, making it a perennial favorite. Bringing Up Baby starts at 6:45 am Central time.

Howard Hawks also directed His Girl Friday, the super-fast-talking 1940 comedy based on The Front Page, which airs at 8:30 am. Rosalyn Russell plays Hildy, the reporter (and ex-wife) trying to work around her controlling editor, played by Grant, while he does everything he can to keep her on his payroll and in his life.

My Favorite Wife, which pops up at 10:15 am Central time, will look familiar to fans of Move Over Darling, a Rock Hudson/Doris Day trifle from 1963. You'll recognize the old Enoch Arden plot, where a presumed dead spouse (Dunne) returns at the precise moment the left-at-home spouse (Grant) is moving on with someone else. And, yes, it's a comedy. It pairs Grant with Irene Dunne again, this time with Garson Kanin in the director's chair and Randolph Scott as the Wrong Man. It's also much, much better than Move Over Darling.

His Girl Friday, My Favorite Wife and The Philadelphia Story, playing on TCM at 11:45 am Central time, were all released in 1940, a banner year for Cary Grant. Jimmy Stewart won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a "man of the people" writer who vies against dapper ex-husband C. K. Dexter Haven, played by Grant, for the affections of Hepburn's Tracy Lord. Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, as was Ruth Hussey, who played the fourth member of the quartet. Why no nomination for Grant? I have no idea. He and Hepburn are perfect for each other and perfectly directed by George Cukor.

Arsenic and Old Lace brings Grant up to 1943, putting him into a classic comedy about two older ladies cheerfully dispatching lonely men into the Great Beyond by way of poisoned elderberry wine. He's the normal nephew, trying to juggle corpses, gangsters and cops while hoping to keep his aunties out of trouble. Arsenic airs at 1:45 pm Central time, followed by The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, with Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple, at 3:45 pm Central time.

Every Girl Should Be Married, a bit of a mess of a film from 1948, is notable only because Grant plays opposite Betsy Drake, one of his real-life wives. It plays at 5:30 pm Central, a good time to take a snack break and wait for Hot Saturday, in the marquee spot at 8 pm Eastern/7 pm Central. This little-known 1932 potboiler is all about small-town girl Ruth Brock, a good girl bank clerk, whose reputation is unfairly sullied. If you want to see what Cary Grant looked and acted like before he was CARY GRANT, check out Hot Saturday.

You'll see a very different, older, more settled Cary in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, a movie that's more about how tough it is for a city-dweller to move to the country. Note that his character's name is Blandings. If you'd like to see mature Cary put-upon by house-building nightmares, check out Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House at 8:30 pm Central time.

Gunga Din shows yet another side of Mr. Grant. Adventure Cary goes to India with pals Victor McLaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. to stop the Thuggees. And Sam Jaffe, a Jewish guy from New York City, plays Indian water carrier Gunga Din. You can judge Gunga Din's questionable politics for yourself at 10:15 pm Central time.

Destination Tokyo, the after-midnight movie, is a more standard war story from 1943, with Grant captaining a submarine that ventures into dangerous waters. That leads him into 1952 and Room for One More, a family film about parents "Poppy" and Anna Rose, who build their family by adopting orphans. It's sweet and a little sappy, not one of the movies people usually think of when they think of Cary Grant, but still... It has its charms, and it's another opportunity to see the wonderful Cary with Betsy Drake, wife no. 3.

I'm afraid that's the end of Cary Grant Day. TCM is on to Charlie Chaplin Day at 5 am on Thursday. But if you're like me, you'll pull out DVDs of Holiday, Notorious, North By Northwest, Charade, To Catch a Thief and maybe even Mr. Lucky to keep the party going.

It's a Month of Fred Astaire, Music, Dance and WONDERFUL LIFE at Every Turn

There is always a lot happening in Bloomington-Normal and environs in December, and yes, most of it is related to the holiday season. Most, but not all. You can expect to hear the words "wonderful life" fairly often, however. Here are some of the highlights of what's happening this month...

I already told you that December is Fred Astaire month at Turner Classic Movies, which means I will undoubtedly be glued to the telly every Wednesday. You'll find Flying Down to Rio, The Gay Divorcee, Roberta, Follow the Fleet and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, all Fred-and-Ginger pics, along with Second Chorus, where he was paired with Paulette Goddard, and The Sky's the Limit, where Fred plays a pilot opposite Joan Leslie, spilling from Wednesday the 4th into Thursday the 5th; You'll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier, the two Rita Hayworth choices, The Band Wagon and Silk Stockings, the two with Cyd Charisse, plus Three Little Words, The Belle of New York, Yolanda and the Thief and The Ziegfeld Follies on the 11th and 12th; the last Astaire/Rogers pairing in The Barkleys of Broadway, a reprise of The Band Wagon, and The Broadway Melody of 1940, Easter Parade, Royal Wedding, A Damsel in Distress and Finian's Rainbow, an example of Astaire in his elder years, on the 18th and the cusp of the 19th; with the cream of the Astaire/Rogers crop -- Top Hat, Swing Time and Shall We Dance -- saved for Christmas night. Filling out that night will be Carefree and those Barkleys of Broadway again to round out the Fred-and-Ginger oeuvre. That's the end of Wednesdays in December, although New Year's Eve, a Tuesday, will see all three That's Entertainment packages of MGM song-and-dance clips, which of course include Mr. Astaire.

The rarely seen musical Chess is the December offering at Urbana's Station Theatre. The male half of the musical group ABBA -- Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus -- wrote the music while Tim Rice provided the lyrics for this exploration of international chess intrigue, including the hit single "One Night in Bangkok." Mikel J. Matthews directs a cast that includes David Barkley, Warren Garver and Kevin Paul Wickart in performance from December 5 to 21. Click here to get the Station scoop.

Bing, Danny and White Christmas come to the Normal Theater's big screen from December 5 to 8. That's followed by Will Ferrell as a very large Elf on December 12 and 13, a small boy's singular devotion to a Red Ryder BB gun in A Christmas Story on December 14 and 15, and It's a Wonderful Life all the way from December 19 to Christmas Eve. The others seem to pop up every year at the Normal Theater, but it's good to see Elf, a particular favorite of mine, join the class.

Illinois State University's Fall Dance Concert under the direction of Darby Wilde will be in performance December 5, 6 and 7 at the Center for the Performing Arts on the ISU campus. The program will include "classical and contemporary dance pieces including guest artist Jennifer Harge's Before I Started Flying, an abstract work exploring spiritual pathways and undesired states of being; Lachrymae, a trio choreographed by Gregory Merriman to the music of Benjamin Britten, about being alone and together; and #connected?, a collaborative work by Darby Wilde with an original score by Aaron Paolucci, which journeys into the world of social media." Tickets are available through Ticketmaster or the CPA box office at 309-438-2535.

Bloomington-Normal high school actors are invited to audition for the 2014 Intercity High School Shakespeare productions of As You Like It and Romeo and Juliet. Auditions will take place in ISU's Centennial West 214 on Thursday, December 5, from 7 to 9 pm and Saturday, December 7, from 9 am to noon. Performances are scheduled for January 31 and February 1, 2014. For more information about auditions, contact Cristen Monson.

If music is more your style for the holidays, the Madrigala offered by ISU's Madrigal Singers on December 13 and 14 may be just the ticket to ring in the season "with drinks, desserts and delights!" They will sing traditional madrigals as well as other holiday music, with pieces like "Moro Lasso," "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" on the program.

Sally Parry directs the radio play version of It's a Wonderful Life, complete with a sound effects guy (or foley artist) on stage, scripts in hand, and all sorts of Golden Age of Radio escapades, at Community Players from December 12 to 15. Nine actors will portray the radio actors and crew, with Thom Rakestraw as George Bailey, the sweet everyman who doubts the value of his own existence, Hannah Kerns as his lovely wife Mary, Bob McLaughlin as evil Mr. Potter and other characters not so evil, Dave Lemmon as loopy Uncle Billy and other characters not so loopy, John Poling as angel Clarence and other characters not so angelic, Nancy Nickerson as Mrs. Bailey and other maternal types, Annie Weaver as Zuzu and other children, John Lieder as the announcer and Herb Reichelt as the foley artist providing key bells and whistles. Click here for all the details.

The annual event known as the Pantagraph's Holiday Spectacular offers three performances at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts from December 13 to 15. It's huge, it's spirited, it's... Spectacular! There are singers, dancers, actors, Wooden Soldiers, Alphabet Blocks, Jingle Bells and even local politicians making cameos. You can see the whole cast list here -- it's bound to include someone you know. Lori Adams is back as director, with a script once again by Nancy Steele Brokaw.

If you are looking for a totally different take on It's a Wonderful Life... I don't know exactly how this is going to work, but the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign is putting on something called It's a Heckleful Life! on Wednesday, December 18 at 10 pm. Billed as "in the tradition of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax," the Art will screen the real It's a Wonderful Life film accompanied by sarcasm, ribbing and heckling from four C-U area comedians. It sounds a bit like people throwing toast at Rocky Horror, but apparently these comedians will simply throw insults at Jimmy Stewart and company. The "Destroyers of Christmas Joy" are Jessica Coburn, Matt Fear, Charlie Hester and someone known as "Quizmaster Chris."

I admit I had a crush on Peter Noone of the musical group Herman's Hermits when I was about nine or ten. My older sisters and I had a stack of 45s like "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "I'm Henry VIII, I Am," "This Door Swings Both Ways" and 'The End of the World" that we listened to over and over and over. Presumably Noone and whatever incarnation of Herman's Hermits we're up to will be performing some of those as well as other Herman's Hemits hits when they come to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on December 19 with "An Olde English Christmas with Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone." The letters are tiny and difficult to read on the poster image, but I think it says: "On a frosty night 'neath a winter moon, come and sing a Christmas tune. With good cheer and joy, we all will croon with Herman's Hermits starring Peter Noone!"

And that's what's tempting me this holiday season. You'll definitely hear more about all of these as December progresses, with additions and updates along the way.

It's Preston Sturges Screwball Comedy Night on Turner Classic Movies

Turner Classic Movies has announced that my favorite, Fred Astaire, is their star of the month for December, meaning there will be Astaire movies every Wednesday in December. I will be telling you more about that as the first Fred Film arrives, but before we even get to December, TCM is offering one last Screwball Comedy Friday in November. And it's a goodie, with three classics from director/screenwriter Preston Sturges taking the spotlight tonight.

These three are at the top of my Best Ever Lists, whether you're talking screwball, "dialogue comedies," romantic comedies, films of the 40s, or any other classification that includes funny, irreverent, witty movies like The Lady Eve, Christmas in July and The Palm Beach Story.

The Lady Eve is up first, starting at 7 pm Central time, and it's a gem, with a fun, feisty Barbara Stanwyck matched up with a very different Henry Fonda than you're probably used to. Stanwyck is a charming con woman named Jean who travels across the Atlantic with her wily dad, played by the irascible Charles Coburn, with Jean romancing rich men and the two combining to fleece their marks at card games. Fonda is Charles Poncefort Pike, AKA Hopsie, the shy heir to an ale fortune who is more interested in snakes than the eligible misses who keep throwing themselves in his path. But Jean's tricks are more sophisticated than most, and she snares poor Hopsie easily. It's Girl Cons Boy, Girl Gets Boy, Girls Loses Boy When He Finds Out About the Con Thing, and then Girl Plots Revenge. Her revenge scheme involves concocting a second identity, Lady Eve, who just happens to look exactly like Jean. Poor Hopsie falls hook, line and sinker all over again. It's adorable. And that premise creates a whirlwind of crazy antics as Jean, her dad, his old friend (played by the wonderful Eric Blore), Hopsie, his dad (Eugene Pallette, a staple of screwball comedies), and Hopsie's handler Muggsy (William Demarest eons before My Three Sons) all plot and counterplot.

Christmas in July, whose title I borrowed for my second book, is up at 8:45 pm Central. It was Sturges' second directorial effort, after The Great McGinty, and the eighth film for which he wrote the screenplay. It does seem less sophisticated than The Lady Eve or The Palm Beach Story, but it's still fun and sprightly, with a hapless nice guy hero, played here by Dick Powell, who dreams of winning a contest and $25,000 by writing a slogan for a coffee company. His idea? "If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk." A prank by his coworkers makes Powell's Jimmy think he won, and, after a series of misunderstandings involving actually getting a check from the coffee company, he makes himself the most popular guy in the neighborhood by buying presents for everyone on his street, as well as an engagement ring for his girlfriend. Christmas in July has that same sweetly satirical edge that makes Preston Sturges's work rise above, and the supporting cast, with Demarest again as well as Georgia Caine, Jimmy Conlin, Franklin Pangborn, Ernest Truex and Robert Warwick, is first-rate.

TCM's little Sturges Fest will finish up with the goofiest of the three, The Palm Beach Story, at 10 pm. In Palm Beach, Sturges plays with two sets of twins (both played by Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea), a millionaire known as "The Wienie King," a train car full of the drunken members of the Ale and Quail Club, Rudy Vallee and Mary Astor as a rich but ridiculous brother and sister, and William Demarest, Jimmy Conlin, Franklin Pangborn, Ernest Truex and Robert Warwick from the Sturges stock company. There really isn't any good way to describe this fast, fizzy, flaky comedy, except to say that it's very funny and completely crazy. And you absolutely must stick around till the very end to see the beginning pay off.

I love romantic comedies, and these three are some of the best ever on film. For my money, rom coms haven't been the same since the 40s, when directors Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsch, Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, Frank Capra, George Cukor and Mitchell Leisen were at the top of their game. To revisit the Golden Age of romantic comedy, all you need to do is tune in Turner Classic Movies beginning at 7 tonight.

A Look Back at the Early Days of Cinema

The first part of a 15-episode documentary called The Story of Film: An Odyssey aired on Turner Classic Movies last night, along with some of the early movies referenced in this piece of the documentary, which covered the period from 1895 to 1912. If you're among those who think there were no films before 1912, last night's episode was a revelation. Along with the documentary, last night we got a trio of short films directed by French movie pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché and Georges Méliès' A Trip to the Moon, among other treats.

The footage of important bits of film history as well as memories that went along with them were very moving, and a highlight of the documentary, especially when you hear commentary about D.W. Griffith and the messages behind his Birth of a Nation and then get to see the film itself to compare and contrast. Narrator Mark Cousins, a film critic from Northern Ireland, notes that film art is "a lie to tell the truth," a theme that echoes throughout and is almost turned upside-down by Birth of a Nation. It's certainly thought-provoking if you are a student of film or theatre, where scholars have been arguing about truth and lies, reality and fantasy since Plato.

It's also an extraordinary undertaking for TCM to pull so many little-seen films out of the storage lockers of history to accompany the pieces of the documentary. As TCM's materials tell us, "By December, the entire festival will include 119 movies from 29 countries, many of them TCM premieres."

If the documentary has shortcomings, for me they lie in 1) Cousins' accent, which has such a distinct cadence and incessant rhythm that it becomes hard to listen to him the entire length of the program, and 2) Cousins' very specific opinions, which place European and Asian cinema far above films and filmmakers from the United States (and especially Hollywood). He talks about art versus commerce and what he sees as the failure of the form when American moneymen got their hands on it, which is certainly a valid opinion, but he returns to it a little too often. Still, it's illuminating to see early French, Swedish, Russian and Japanese films as well as American efforts, and you won't have any trouble figuring out Cousins' point of view as he traces the early influences in the world of cinema.

The remaining 14 pieces of The Story of Film will air on Monday nights at 9 pm Central all the way through December. The September 9 episode will cover 1918-28 in the US, with 1918-1932 and a more worldly focus on September 16, with the arrival of sound and the 1930s in Part IV on the 23rd, and the effects of World War II in Part V on September 30. Check out the TCM schedule for details.