Robert Francis night

Near the beginning of the time I started blogging, I mentioned that Robert Francis was an actor who died young, in 1955, just like James Dean. And yet for some reason, Dean is lionized while Francis is more or less ignored.

Francis made four movies in his brief career, and TCM is showing all four of them tonight. The most famous would be The Caine Mutiny, which will be on at midnight. The rest of the lineup is:

The Long Gray Line at 8:00 PM, with Tyrone Power as a long-serving West Point instructor;
The Bamboo Prison at 10:30 PM, with Francis and others playing POWs during the Korean War;
the aforementioned The Caine Mutiny at midnight; and
They Rode West at 2:15 AM, with Francis as a cavalry doctor who treats wounded Indians against his commanding officer's desires.