Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Another set of movies I've blogged about before, February 22-23, 2017

Normally, I like to mention the movies that are coming up on FXM Retro after being off the channel for a while, what with their habit of running a movie into the ground, locking it away for a longer period, and then taking it back out of their vaults to run it into the ground again. I have no idea how effective this programming strategy is, but then I'm not in the TV business. But considering the number of movies I've blogged about, it shouldn't surprise me that there are a lot on the TCM schedule that I've already blogged about.

I thought I had blogged about The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond before, but a search of the blog claims I've only mentioned it once, back in 2010. I think I wouldn't have seen the movie since that airing either, so I don't really want to do a full-length post on it at this point. Too long since I've seen it. Anyhow, it's coming up on TCM at 12:30 PM today

Roman Holiday comes up at 8:00 PM, and is a great selection for the "start of prime time" slot, I think. It's been almost eight years since I blogged about it, although I think I may have watched since, in whatever year, Essentials Jr. had the child actress co-hosting. How long has that been? The franchise was even discontinued last summer. But it's a great movie and certainly suitable for older kids. (Younger kids may find it has a relative lack of action.)

Roman Holiday is followed by the Pete Smith short Seeing Hands, which I think is one of the best of the series. It's about a blind man who wound up being able to do his part in the war effort thanks to his seeing-eye dog.

I'm also looking forward to another airing of Sadie Thompson, although it's one I haven't blogged about. It'll be on early tomorrow morning at 5:00 AM. It is, I think, the first screen version of the Somerset Maugham story which would eventually get titled Rain; under that title there was a prominent early 1930s movie with Joan Crawford. Here, Gloria Swanson plays the title role, a woman of ill repute fleeing the US who winds up stuck on a South Pacific island and raising passion in all the men in her life, including the man of the cloth who's trying to reform her. I've also mentioned the story in the form of the race movie Dirty Gertie from Harlem, USA.

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