Guest Programmer*s* for May 2015

TCM hs reached that point in the month where it has its monthly Guest Programmer come on and present four of their favorite films. Pedants might suggest that "their" is the wrong pronoun since it's plural, and either "he" or "she" should be used for a singular guest programmer. This month though, the pedants are wrong on the facts. TCM is having a duo of guest programmers tonight: singer Tony Bennett and his guitarist/accompanist Gray Sargent.

The sidebar suggests they're actually picking five movies, although the article itself only discusses three of the movies airing tonight. I suppose it's possible that the two guys sat down with Robert or Ben and did intros for only the first three movies due to time constraints, but that they also wanted the other two to air, or perhaps they had a different fourth selection and did an intro for that but the rights fell through at the last minute. The understanding that I gleaned from reading about the month of Guest Programmers in November 2007 implied that the Guest Programmers were given a long list of films TCM had easy access to, and that the guests were to pick a list of about 10 from that master list from which four films would be chosen. But the procedure is probably going to be different for a full month of guest programmers, since you don't want the same movie being repeated if you can avoid it. (In fact, I think I read there was one movie that three different people selected.) You also don't want to have to worry about getting the rights to a whole bunch of obscure movies. For a month with one Guest Progammer night, you can allow them to make a broader choice and then see if you can get the rights to the more obscure, or the foreign movies. Even then, there have been some Guest Programmers that had a movie pulled at the last minute. I distinctly recall one of Bob Newhart's films going by the wayside.

Anyhow, tonight's lineup is:

Humphrey Bogart looking for gold with Tim Holt and Walter Huston, and getting far more than he bargained for, in Treasure of the Sierra Madre at 8:00 PM;
Charlie Chaplin roller skating on a balcony without a railing in Modern Times at 10:30 PM;
Teresa Wright trying to break up Dana Andrews' marriage, possibly with an axe, in The Best Years of Our Lives at 12:15 AM;
Serviceman on leave Joseph Cotten meets prisoner on furlough Ginger Rogers in I'll Be Seeing You at 3:15 AM; and
Condemned prisoner William Powell meets terminaly ill socialite Kay Francis on a ship back to America in One Way Passage at 4:45 AM.