This Week on TCM spotlights a highly subjective selection of the week's essential or undiscovered films on the Turner Classic Movies channel to help plan viewing or DVR scheduling. All times are EST.
Monday, November 21
6:00 a.m. Hollywood Without Makeup
I love behind-the-scenes stuff like this 1966 feature made up of home movies by actor Ken Murray.
10:00 a.m. Jeopardy
Not a game show…Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman trying to save her husband from certain death.
TCM's Battle of the Blondes continues tonight with Janet Leigh in My Sister Eileen (8:00 p.m.) and Houdini and Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman (12:00 a.m.) and A Very Private Affair (1:45 a.m. Tues.), plus two bonus blondes, Jean Arthur and Marlene Dietrich, in A Foreign Affair (3:45 a.m. Tues.).
Tuesday, November 22
7:15 a.m. The Window
An unusual and little-seen film noir about a kid who's always lying about everything…until he sees a murder being committed and can't get anyone to believe him.
4:45p.m. Joe Macbeth
What if Shakespeare's characters Macbeth, Duncan, Banquo and Macduff were 1930s gangsters?
8:00 p.m. Sullivan's Travels
***TCM Party***
A film director, Sullivan, (Joel McCrea) is unhappy making decidedly lightweight comedies. These movies are box-office gold but he wants to make a serious, socially relevant picture about the exploited underclass. So he hits the road and hilarity ensues. With Veronica Lake as The Girl, a disillusioned actress. In 2000, the Coen Brothers paid tribute to this film by naming a film after the (non-existent) book that Sullivan wants to base his movie on, O Brother, Where Art Thou? by (non-existent author) Sinclair Beckstein (this name is an amalgam of Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and John Steinbeck). Watch and tweet with #TCMParty.
Wednesday, November 23
6:00 p.m. Mogambo
Unofficial kickoff to Battle of the Blondes as Grace Kelly is one point of a love triangle with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner.
Battle of the Blondes
Betty Grable: 8:00 p.m. Sweet Rosie O'Grady; 9:30 p.m. Down Argentine Way
Doris Day: 11:15 p.m. Tea for Two and 1:00 a.m. (Thurs.) That Touch of Mink
3:00 a.m. My Favorite Wife
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a genius match in this showcase of chemistry and comic timing. She's been stranded on a desert island for seven years, he's just decided to remarry...just watch it.
4:30 a.m. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer
A bachelor (Cary Grant) and a bobby-soxer (Shirley Temple) make life complicated for her older sister, a no-nonsense judge (Myrna Loy).
Thursday, November 24
10:00 p.m. The Lady Eve
Geeky scientist Henry Fonda doesn't know what hit him when he falls for a con woman (Barbara Stanwyck) while on a cruise. Or does he? Directed by Preston Sturges, who also helmed Sullivan's Travels.
3:00 a.m. Shall We Dance?
My favorite Astaire-Rogers movie.
Friday, November 25
10:00 a.m. Penelope (1966)
I've never seen this movie starring Natalie Wood as a woman who robs her husband's bank to get his attention, but I love her and Peter Falk, who co-stars as a cop.
3:30 a.m. UHF (1989)
If this movie was a person, it'd be barely old enough to drink legally, but it's still pretty funny. "Weird Al" Yankovic plays himself as if he owned a TV station and manages to parody just about every genre going at the time.
Saturday, November 26
10:00 p.m. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) produced and directed, and Roger Livesey stars as the title character, a British army officer, in a satire so sharp that Winston Churchill, who thought it was about him, banned its export for years. The digital restoration of this film premiered at The Museum of Modern Art on November 7, but I'm not sure if that is what TCM is showing.
Sunday, November 27
6:15 a.m. Gold Diggers of 1937
Possibly one of the films we're meant to think that Sullivan of Sullivan's Travels directs, this one's got one my new favorite actresses, the sassy Joan Blondell.
There are two films scheduled for today that I consistently recommend in this space because I think they're indispensable: Some Like It Hot (12:15 p.m.) and The Maltese Falcon (6:00 p.m.).
Beginning at midnight, there are three interesting-looking films by Russian auteur Sergei Eisenstein: Strike (1925), Ivan the Terrible Part 1 (1947) and Ivan the Terrible Part 2 (1959).
So TCM fans…did I miss any of your picks? What will you be watching this week?
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