Summer Under the Stars begins!

Today being August 1, it's the start of TCM's annual Summer Under the Stars feature, in which the films of a different actor run for 24 hours on each of the 31 days. I know from reading the TCM message boards that there are a fair number of people who enjoy the more obscure older movies who don't particularly care for Summer Under the Stars, and also because it preempts other features like Silent Sunday Nights and TCM Imports. (That having been said, Marion Davies is one of this month's selections, with several of her silents airing; Harold Lloyd also gets a day.)

The month kicks off with 24 hours of Henry Fonda movies. We've already missed Yours, Mine, and Ours, but still to come is the film version of John Steinbeck's classic The Grapes of Wrath, at 8:00 PM ET.

Or, you can watch Fonda's one movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Wrong Man, at 6:00 PM. This is a docudrama in which Fonda plays a man who is mistaken for a robber, and how he suffers in prison for it, as well as the effect it has on his family. It's a bit atypical for Hitchcock, since it's a very matter-of-fact movie, but it's still quite good.

The final Fonda film, at 4:00 AM Sunday, is The Long Night. It's a remake of the French film Le jour se lève, which I really wanted to do a post on. Unfortunately, Le jour se lève only seems to have been released to DVD as part of a ridiculously expensive 50-film box set.