But the tribute is still six days away!

TCM has any number of programming blocks that it wouldn't have been a good idea to ditch and replace with the eventual salute to the recently-deceased Elizabeth Taylor, which is why it's not coming until Sunday, April 10. Tonight, for example, sees the start of an eight-night series on the 150th anniversary of the US Civil War. (I hope I'm not spoiling anything by pointing out that the North wins.) Every Monday and Wednesday in April, TCM will be showing movies about the war, of which there are many. I think it's 34 movies that are being shown, and many others, such as The Raid don't make the cut, probably in part because TCM wouldn't have been able to get the rights to them.

With that in mind, I note that one of tonight's selections, Raintree County is an Elizabeth Taylor movie, in which she plays a southern belle with Montgomery Clift as her love interest; it's coming on at midnight. Interestingly, it's also part of the salute to Taylor that will be coming up on Sunday, which makes me wonder a bit why the people programming TCM selected it. Raintree County (which isn't all that good in my opinion, but that's another story) is a 173-minute movie which on Sunday will be put into a three-and-a-quarter hour time slot. You'd think that the programmers could easily find a movie to fit into a 90-minute time slot, and one to fit into a 105-mintue time slot. But, looking at Elizabeth Taylor's work, there's surprisingly little that fits well into the 105-minute slot that TCM would easliy have the rights to.