Briefs: June 23, 2014

Somebody at TCM needs has been cribbing their own ideas: the short Gym College is back on the air, overnight at 3:35 AM, just between Gypsy and She's Working Her Way Through College. I mentioned this short back in January, when it was on... just after She's Working Her Way Through College. One thing I didn't mention back in January is that Gym College has made it to Youtube:



After tonight's burlesque movies on TCM, we're going to get a number of "summer" movies, or at least movies that have the word "summer" in the title. I don't know if it was by design or just a coincidence, but the first two happen to be musical remakes of non-musical MGM movies: Summer Holiday, at 7:00 AM, is a remake of Ah, Wilderness!. Mickey Rooney played the younger son in the 1935 movie; now, a dozen years on, he's all grown up (or at least as grown up as he was going to get) and at 26 plays the young man about to graduate from high school.

The other remake is In the Good Old Summertime, at 9:00 AM. This is a remake of The Shop Around the Corner, with Van Johnson and Judy Garland taking the roles that James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan did in the original. There's a piece Liza Minnelli did on her mother that used to air quite a bit on TCM, in which Liza mentions that she shows up very briefly in this movie, being carried in her mother's arms.

Over on FXM Retro, they've brought back Pickup on South Street. Most of you reading this are probably going to miss this morning's airing at 10:00 AM, but it's on agani in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, or overnight tonight depending on your time zone, at 4:30 AM. If you've got FXM, this one is highly worth watching.