Friday the 13th briefs

Today is Friday the 13th, and somebody has a sense of humor in programming a bunch of movies with 13 in the title. They're not all horror movies, either; the list includes The Woman on Pier 13, also known as I Married a Communist, at 2:00 PM. I've blogged before that this is a relatively lousy movie, and not because of its strongly anti-Communist point of view. Still, it's worth a watch if you haven't seen it before.

Much more interesting might be Thirteen Frightened Girls at 6:15 PM. William Castle directed it, and it's a mix of comedy, horror, and the spy genre that's never quite certain what it wants to be, but is interesting -- if nowhere near great -- because of it.

Greg Proops was thoroughly inoffensive last Friday in presenting the pirate movies, at least in the two intros I watched. I'm not too interested in tonight's films, which include a Judy Garland musical in The Pirate at 10:00 PM, followed by the Bob Hope comedy The Princess and the Pirate at midnight. I think I've mentioned before that I'm not the biggest fan of Bob Hope; his attempts to remain relevant in the 1960s and beyond are often painfully unfunny, while even the earlier stuff turns out to be not quite as good as advertised.

I was remiss in not mentioniing yesterday the death of actress Ruby Dee at the age of 91. I've mentioned a couple of her films, notably No Way Out, or The Incident, which as far as I know is still not out on DVD.