Memorial Day at FXM

I mentioned briefly yesterday that FXM was getting involved with the Memorial Day spirit. The part of the channel that runs from 3:00 PM to 3:00 AM has been airing more recent films, such as Zero Dark Thirty, only with commercial interruptions, and probably edited for content. But FXM Retro is going to be getting into the swing of things with a series of military themed movies tomorrow.

Actually, it starts early this afternoon at 1:20 PM with Circle of Deception, which has Bradford Dillman playing a man who gets sent on a dangerous intelligence mission in Nazi-occupied France with the expectation of his superiors that he will fail. In fact, they want him to fail, since they've given him false information that he doesn't know is false, and they want him to break under Nazi torture and spill that false information to the Nazis. It'll be getting a second airing at 7:45 AM Monday.

Starting off the FXM Retro lineup on Monday at 3:00 AM is King of the Khyber Rifles. It's military, but not really Memorial Day themed, as star Tyrone Power plays a mixed-race man who serves in the British army in colonial India and has to deal with gun smuggling along the border.

That's followed at 4:45 AM by 13 Fighting Men. This one is set in the day or two immediately after the South surrendered in the Civil War, and has a group of Union soldiers trying to get home, although they have to defend a shipment of gold. Confederates hear about the gold want it, in part so they can shaft the Union, and in part because it would allow them to start new lives.

At 6:00 AM is All Hands on Deck, a service comedy starring Pat Boone and Buddy Hackett as navy men who get into all sorts of trouble. It's probably a bit more appropriate for Veterans' Day than Memorial Day, but not noticeably out of playce here.

After the repeat of Circle of Deception, at 9:30 AM you can watch In Love and War, starring Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter as Marines who serve in the Pacific in World War II, and how this affects their lives.

Finally, at 11:30 AM, we get the return of Tyrone Power in a more appropriate movie for Memorial Day: A Yank in the RAF. Power plays a transport pilot who decides to volunteer for the RAF (since the US wasn't in the war yet) because an old flame of his (Betty Grable) is also in the UK, entertaining the troops. It's a bit unrealistic, but entertaining enough.