TCM June Spotlight: Stage to Screen

TCM is running a big spotlight this month: close to 70 movies that are adaptations of theater plays and musicals. Indeed, it's so big that it's taking up two nights each week. Acting couple Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole will be presenting the movies in prime time, I'm guessing by themselves and not with Ben or Robert.

Wednesday nights see stage plays, grouped more or less by genre: dramas on two nights; comedies another night; history on a fourth; Shakespeare on a fifth. Thursday nights will bring musicals that originated on the stage (as opposed to musicals written directly for Hollywood, of which there are also a lot). These musicals will be presented in rough chronological order, I think of when they showed up on the big screen and not when they were first done on the stage. (I'm not certain of that.)

Supposedly Robert Osborne is coming back to TCM this month, but I have no idea which night Ben Mankiewicz will be doing, since even before Osborne's most recent hiatus Ben was doing one night (I think Thursdays) each week. Certainly by The Essentials on Saturday night we'll find out.