Gregory Peck's 100th birthday on TCM

Tomorrow happens to be the 100th anniversary of the birth of Oscar-winning actor Gregory Peck. TCM is going to be spending all morning and evening with Peck's films. Well, technically not quite the entire 24 hours. At 12:15 AM Wednesday, or still late on Tuesday evening in the more westerly time zones, TCM will be running the 1999 documentary A Conversation With Gregory Peck, which looks at Peck in part through personal time with his family and in part with Q&A sessions he did with fans at various movie events. It's a reasonably well-done look at the actor

One of Peck's movies I thought I had blogged about before is Man With a Million, but it turns out that I've only mentioned it briefly, back when its director, Bryan Forbes, passed away in 2013. Peck plays an American stranded in turn of the 20th century London who is approached by two wealthy Brits having a wager with each other. They give him a £1,000,000 note, with the caveat that he's not allowed to break it for smaller denominations. Since none of the people Peck's character will be dealing with would be able to make change anyway, Peck basically has to live on the credit that the note can bring. The men's wager deals with how people will deal with a man who may or may not have real wealth. It's an interesting idea with a bunch of good performances.

I could also point out another airing of On the Beach (5:45 PM), although it's not Peck's performance that I'd recommend this one for. Instead, if you're going to watch it, it's Fred Astaire in a dramatic non-dancing role who is really the revelation in this one.

Peck's Oscar-winning performance in To Kill a Mockingbird is also on the schedule, at 10:00 PM, following his other success from the same year, Cape Fear at 8:00 PM.