Oscar Levant tonight

TCM is putting the spotlight on Oscar Levant tonight. I think his best-remembered role might be as Gene Kelly's friend in An American in Paris, which is airing overnight at 2:15 AM. It's a movie that's worthy of being a TCM Essential, but this week's Essential is a different MGM musical: The Band Wagon, at 8:00 PM. It's not my favorite, but I've commented before on how I don't care for a lot of musicals, so take my lack of fandom for what it's worth.

Levant was not only an actor but a composer as well; apparently he wrote the music for Nothing Sacred. However, TCM is only spotlighting Levant's career as an actor. In addition to the two movies I've mentioned above, there's the last of the 10 movies Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made together, The Barkleys of Broadway, at 10:00 PM; Levant with Joan Crawford in Humoresque at midnight; and Doris Day's first movie, Romance on the High Seas, at 4:15 AM.

TCM isn't running my favorite movie with Levant in it tonight. That's probably because the movie in question -- The Cobweb -- is on the schedule for this coming Wednesday at 7:45 AM.