Christmas briefs

TCM has been running Christmas movies since this morning, with a lot of old favorites, at least for people who are movie buffs. Obviously nothing like It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street, since those big titles are snatched up by channels with more resources. However, there's also The Cheaters, overnight tonight at 12:15 AM. TCM was able to get the rights to this one several years ago (I think 2008 but I'm not certain) and showed it one Christmas Eve at that time, and then... nothing. It's finally back on after that long absence, and is worth a watch. Eugene Pallette and Billie Burke play a married couple who were wealthy but have suffered financial reverses, at least until the opportunity comes to get an uncle's inheritance -- except that to do so is going to require some underhanded treatment since another person is in line for the inheritance first. A "forgotten man" actor (Joseph Schildkraut) winds up teaching them the importance of the Christmas spirit, and doing the right thing.

FXM has for the past couple of years run a marathon of the 1951 Scrooge (or A Christmas Carol) on repeat, but they're not doing that this year. In fact, FXM is doing very little that looks Christmas-specific. The closest that they're getting is Come to the Stable, which will be on once tomorrow, at 9:00 AM. (Somehow I don't think of The Sand Pebbles, on at 6:00 AM, when I think of Christmas movies.)

A couple of deaths that came too late for the annual TCM Remembers piece should be noted. Composer Dominic Frontiere, who wrote several movie scores at Paramount in the 1970s such as Brannigan as well as a bunch of TCM stuff, died on Thursday at age 86. Perhaps more interestingly, he was married to Los Angeles Rams owner Georgia Frontiere in the 1980s which eventually got him in legal trouble due to his part in scalping Super Bowl tickets. There's also film editor Gerald Greenberg, who died on Friday aged 81. He won he Oscar for editing The French Connection.