A day of anthology movies

I've always found anthology movies interesting, in part because there's a natural tendency to be uneven because of the nature of having several discrete stories. At any rate, TCM is running a morning and afternoon of them tomorrow.

The day kicks off at 6:00 AM with Invitation to the Dance, which deserves mention for being Gene Kelly's vanity project that wound up being a misfire. It tells three stories, but tells them in dance and pantomime, with no dialog. Kelly is the one name actor, with a bunch of dancers, and because of all that it's easy to see why this one was a commercial failure.

The afternoon is taken up with all (I think) three of the Somerset Maugham anthology movies. It kicks off at noon with Quartet, which features Maugham himself introducing the four (you could probably guess that from the title) stories that he wrote. The movie was enough of a critical and commercial success that a second one, Trio (2:15 PM) was produced, followed by a third, Encore (4:00 PM).

Elsewhere during the day is It's a Big Country at 7:45 AM; and O. Henry's Full House with John Steinbeck introducing the stories, at 5:45 PM.

One anthology that I'd like to see again that hasn't been on the TCM schedule for ages -- I think a dozen years or more -- is the British Easy Money. Unfortunately, the last time it showed up I left after the first story, and it hasn't shown up since.