New York in the 70s

Donald Sutherland and Jane Fonda in Klute (1971), airing tonight at midnight

Now that we're into a new month, it's time for new programming features on TCM. The first one up is going to be a look at New York City in the 1970s, which was originally scheduled to air every Thursay night in prime time, although because of the cancellation of the live TCM Film Festival the original schedule for the 16th has been moved to Tuesday, April 28. It doesn't say on TCM's webpage for the spotlight whether anybody is going to be co-hosting, but then now that the channel doesn't have an elderly and ailing Robert Osborne and more regular hosts than they used to they probably don't need to find new hosts for the spotlights.

This first Thursday sees a couple of really good movies, starting at 8:00 PM with The Panic in Needle Park, with Al Pacino playing a small-time heroin dealer and big-time user who, like all the other users, has to deal with the cops' attempt to shut down distribution, making the drug less available.

Then, at 10:00 PM is The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three, starring Walter Matthau as a transit cop who has to deal with one of the subway trains being hijacked by Robert Shaw.

I especially want to mention Klute (midnight) again, since this one has received a DVD release from the Criterion Collection since the last time I mentioned it the movie was still not in print on DVD; Criterion release only came out last summer.

The night concludes with a pair of new-to-me movies, Fingers at 2:15 AM and Report to the Commissioner at 4:00 AM.