Briefs for July 31-August 1, 2020

Tomorrow is August 1, which means the start of TCM's annual Summer Under the Stars. As always, each day means 24 hours (well, minus the intros/outros and the space between the movies) of the movies of one star, with a different star each day. For the first day of the month, we get the films of Barbara Stanwyck. Looking through the schedule, I see that TCM is running The Moonlighter at 12:30 PM. I had recorded that as part of a different programming them, but haven't gotten around to watching it and didn't notice it was on the schedule until it was too late to watch it in time to do a post here.

Note as always that with Summer Under the Stars, the programming blocks like Silent Sunday Nights and TCM Underground, as well as the Saturday matinee, are on hiatus until September. The Essentials keeps chuggnig along, with this week's being Ball of Fire.

I didn't notice until a couple of days ago, but Ruthie Thompson, a Disney animator (well, inker and later supervisor) on a bunch of the classic-era Disney films, became a supercentenarian a little over a week ago as she turned 110. I like her comment of "I don't want to be revered for how old I am, I want to be known for who I am," since most people who get to be 110 are only known for having lived that long. (One other notable exception is Frederica Sagor Maas, a screenwriter who wrote in the silent era, and died in 2012 at the age of 111.)

As for deaths, I see that British director Sir Alan Parker has died at the age of 76. You might not recognize the name -- I have to admit that I didn't remember it until I saw the films. But among his movies are Midnight Express, Mississippi Burning, and Bugsy Malone.