Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas! With today being Christmas Eve, it's not surprising that TV channels really ramp up their Christmas themed programming. Of course, there are only so mnay Christmas movies out there, so I find that some of what I wrote at Christmas 2013 can easily be recycled.

First off is the short Compliments of the Season. That one is going to be airing twice: first at 11:46 PM tonight after Christmas in Connecticut (10:00 PM, 102 min plus an intro/outro from Bob Osborne), and again tomorrow morning at approximately 9:15 AM, following Tenth Avenue Angel (8:00 AM, 74 min), which unsurpisingly I didn't particularly care for since the star of the proceedings is Margaret O'Brien. In fact, most of the shorts that TCM has this Christmas will be getting multiple airings. Jackie Cooper is going to wish us a merry Christmas in The Christmas Party at noon today and 7:48 AM tomorrow; the whole Hardy family opens up some Christmas gifts at 3:41 PM today and 10:57 AM tomorrow; and Lewis Stone flies solo to wish us a happy holiday on behalf of MGM at 9:57 PM tonight and 7:36 PM tomorrow. The only short htat doesn't seem to be getting an airing this Christmas is Star in the Night.

I also mentioned last Christmas that FXM was going to be putting the 1951 Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol on a loop. They're doing that again, starting tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 PM, so not in the still commercial-free FXM Retro block. I think they're giving it six consecutive airings this year, up until the FXM Retro block resumes at 3:00 AM Friday. The movie runs 85 minutes, but each time it's in a 108-minute block followed by some FXM promo or another. So you can figure out just how many commercials they're going to shoehorn in. That, and I distinctly recall the movie having been colorized in last year's showings.

TCM will be running the John Wayne version of 3 Godfathers tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM. I think I haven't actually seen that version in its entirety, although I have seen the original version from the mid-1930s, and you can get a good synopsis of the movie from the link above.