We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

Today is the final day of TCM's 31 Days of Oscar, a fact that I know will make some people happy. First off, a quick reminder that the Bowery Boys movies in the Saturday just before noon time slot on TCM have finished, which means that we're getting a new series, the Maisie movies. Before that, however, are a couple of movies that don't show up so often, all of which deserve a mention:

First, at midnight tonight, is The Young Girls of Rochefort. Jacques Demy made this one after making The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, thinking that another movie where all the dialog is sung would be a brilliant idea. At least the movie is gorgeous to look at. And it has sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac, the latter of whom was to die tragically a few months later in a car crash.

Then at 2:15 AM, you can catch The Young in Heart. Janet Gaynor stars in her final movie as the adult daughter in a family of con artists who get helped by a kindly old lady who writes them into her will, at which point they realize they'll have to be honest if they want to get that money. Much fun ensues.

Finally, at 4:00 AM, TCM is running Z. Yves Montand plays an opposition leader in an authoritarian country who is run down "accidentally". Prosecutor Jean-Louis Trintignant is given the task of doing the investigation into the incident that's supposed to prove it was an accident, although of course as he investigates he begins to learn that it likely wasn't an accident. Sure, the filmmakers are on one side of the story -- and since it was an allegory to what had gone on leading up to the Greek military coup of 1967 it was taking sides in a real conflict -- but they still make a damn good movie. Propagandists of today should take note.