A pair of shorts for January 20, 2016

Looking at tomorrow's schedule on TCM, they're running a bunch of Myrna Loy movies, even though it's not her birthday. To be fair, her birthday comes in August, during Summer Under the Stars, so TCM can't honor her every year. At any rate, the lineup contains movies I've either blogged about before, or have yet to see and so can't blog about them. (Yes, there are a lot of studio era movies I have yet to get around to seeing.) So I looked at what shorts are airing on TCM, and there are a couple of interesting ones.

First up is another airing of From the Four Corners, tomorrow at 5:43 AM, after The Devil Makes Three (4:00 AM, 90 min), or before the Myrna Loy salute begins. I've blogged about this one before; Leslie Howard talks to soldiers from various parts of the British Empire who have made it to London in the early stages of World War II and are there on leave. Howard shows them (these were real soldiers, not actors) London and discusses just what it is they're fighting for. Sure, it's propaganda, but it's well made.

The other one is Magic on a Stick, tomorrow at 1:03 PM, following So Goes My Love (11:30 AM, 88 min). So Goes My Love is about an inventor, so it makes sense to show this particular short. Part of the Passing Parade series, this one looks at one of the men who helped to invent what is the modern safety match, back at a time when it was much more dangerous to handle fire. (Thankfully it's not a Pete Smith short looking at the invention of the match.)