The downside of long-term blogging

Today is the 92nd birthday of Kirk Douglas. TCM have been honoring him with an all-day salute showing several of his movies. The only thing is, I've blogged about several of them already. The picture here is from Ace In the Hole. TCM also showed The Bad and the Beautiful, another movie on which I posted. As a result, it's not easy to select a good Kirk Douglas movie I haven't previously selected. I suppose I could have mentioned Douglas' singing with Esmerelda the seal in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but that just aired this past Sunday.

The same holds true for Star of the Month Joseph Cotten. Tonight, TCM are showing three of his movies with Jennifer Jones, of which I've blogged about two: Duel in the Sun at 11:00 PM ET, followed by Portrait of Jennie at 1:30 AM Wednesday. Kicking off the night at 8:00 PM is Since You Went Away, the great American movie about life on the homefront during World War II.

I suppose I can't complain too much, however. TCM are in a bit of a bind. If they don't honor famous people, the rabid movie fans will complain that TCM is overlooking the stars. After all, if you go to the TCM boards, you'll almost always see somebody complain when a famous person dies and TCM doesn't do a big enough tribute. By the same token, TCM programming like Summer Under the Stars has to honor the more well-known people. I may happen to be a fan of, say, Una O'Connor or Grant Mitchell, but how many people who don't know too much about classic movies know who either of those fine actors are? TCM do have to program at least in part with the intent of bringing to the channel people who might end up liking classic movies, but don't realize it yet. And how do you get them to realize it?

I suppose I could write a blog post today about the movies showing tomorrow morning. TCM are kicking off the day with a very fine movie at 6:00 AM ET with a movie worthy of a post: Cat People.