Are you happy, west coasters?

TCM is showing Gone With the Wind tonight... at 10:30 PM ET. Now, I wasn't planning on watching it anyway. As you well know, it's nearly a four-hour movie, and one that I have on DVD somewhere, and I've already seen. A four-hour movie starting at 10:30 would, of course, not end until 2:30 AM, and I have no idea when the last time is I stayed up that late for something. I've gotten up in the middle of the night a few times to watch sporting events, but I think it's been quite a few years since I've stayed up even past 12:30 AM to watch a movie. Probably back in 2008 when TCM had what I think is its only showing so far of Atlantic City, which I believe started at 11:00 AM. That having been said, even if the movie had begun at 8:00 PM ET, kicking off TCM's prime time lineup, I wouldn't have been watching Gone With the Wind.

However, I think it's important to note that Gone With the Wind is starting at 10:30 PM. Not because I'm particularly irritated; to be honest the paragraph above is mock irritation if there's any irritation at all. The larger point is that in the past, it seems as though almost every time TCM has shown Gone With the Wind, it's been on at 8:00 PM ET. Most times when TCM schedules a movie they'll have various showings at various times of the day; Gone With the Wind is one of the big exceptions. It's not because of its being a four-hour film; other extremely long films such as the 1959 version of Ben-Hur have aired at various times of the day; it's coming up again on Monday at 2:15 PM ET. (And frankly, I get the heebie-jeebies thinking about Ben-Hur starting at 10:30 PM.

Instead, it's because Gone With the Wind is starting at 7:30 PM Pacific Time. I know there are posters who live out in Hollywoodland who have always kind of grumbled at the fact Gone With the Wind has been on the schedule at what for them is 5:00 PM, which isn't the greatest time for people just getting out of work. So for them, tonight's showing is actually at a reasonably good time for them, if they don't mind staying up until 11:30 PM.