Saturday, July 10, 2010

Another example of the Fox Movie Channel's odd scheduling

FMC is showing Tampico in a few hours' time, at 12:30 PM ET. It's an interesting movie starring Edward G. Robinson as a tanker captain in the Gulf of Mexico who gets involved in a Nazi sabotage plot in World War II -- interesting, because that little bit of the war is one that doesn't get much mention in the movies or the history books. (There's also an obscure Mexican film from a year earlier called Espionaje en el golfo that deals with Nazis in Mexico and the Golf region that showed up on one of the Spanish-language channels back when it was airing movies at lunchtime, which was also quite fun.) As for Tampico, the FMC's schedule page currently only lists this afternoon's showing; there apparently aren't any further showings in July or August at least. This is slightly odd, considering that the FMC's usual course of action is to keep movies locked away in the vault for a few years (indeed, I can't remember the last time Tampico aired, but I think it was before I started blogging), and then to air the movie over and over for a few months.

Consider, for example, the movie that follows, at 2:00 PM: Niagara. I've already blogged about it, so no need to go into the plot. What's interesting here is that it seems to be back in the FMC rotation after several years -- after today, it's got two more showings in July, and another three in August.

I think the first time I saw Niagara was on FMC either immediately before or immediately after Inferno, so perhaps maybe Inferno will be back on the schedule soon. Sadly, right now, only the TV movie remake Ordeal shows up at the FMC website.

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