Saturday, February 5, 2011

Schedule change

I usually download the TCM monthly schedule around a week before the new month begins. One of the benefits of waiting is that there aren't too many schedule changes, apart from when stars die and TCM has to pre-empt programming to do a tribute. However, about a week back, I saw somebody on the TCM message boards saying the monthly (and daily) schedule had One Hundred Men and a Girl on the schedule for February 5 at 3:00 PM ET, but that their box guide said TCM was actually showing One Hour With You. It turns out that, for whatever reason, TCM had to make a last-minute schedule change. They've aired One Hundred Men and a Girl before, but it's a Universal movie, and for whatever reason TCM doesn't seem to be able to get the 1930s movies that were actually made by Universal.

What's odd about this is that Universal bought out MCA, which had obtained the TV rights to the Paramount talkies (up to 1949) back in the 1950s, in the days when Hollywood studios needed money and didn't really think that TV rights would amount to much. And TCM has been relatively able to get the rights to those movies in recent months, even though they're owned by the same corporate entity that owns the movies which were made at the actual Universal Studios back in the day. Indeed, One Hour With You is one of those Paramount movies.

Unfortunately, One Hour With You is another Paramount musical with Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald. I slogged my way through The Love Parade the other night, and it wasn't my thing.

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