Fathers' Day 2013

Today is Fathers' Day, so I'll only be putting up a brief post. TCM's prime-time lineup is dedicated to the holiday, but more on that in a bit. Three are a few movies during the daytime schedule that are good choices for the holiday, as well. By the time you read this post, you'll proabaly have missed most of The Courtship of Eddie's Father, which starts (or started) at 8:00 AM. That's followed at 10:00 AM by Father of the Bride, which you might not want to watch if you've got a female relative in your live who is getting married soon. It's much like saying that as enjoyable as Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is, I'm not certain if it's a good idea to show it to people about to build or renovate their dream house.

TCM is also showing a couple of movies that aren't quite Fathers' Day films. Orson Welles' character was taken from his parents in Citizen Kane at 11:45, while the afternoon concludes with some of the great representations of screen fatherhood in... Somkey and the Bandit at 6:15 PM. Hmmm.

The nighttime lineup starts off with this week's Essentials Jr. selection, To Kill a Mockingbird at 8:00 PM. This is certainly a suitable movie for older children, despite the fact that it deals with a capital rape case and some pretty ingrained racism. I was assigned to read the book back in my eighth grade English class, and I'm sure a lot of other children around that age would also have read the book for school.

To Kill a Mockingbird will be followed at 10:15 PM by Life With Father, a late 1940s film which is set about 60 years earlier and deals with several boys in an upper-middle class New York household who deal with their stern but loving father (William Powell). It's one of those films that's told in a nostalgic style, and one which would also be a good selection for Essentials Jr.