Schedule tidbits

I mentioned back on Friday in conjunction with Cary Grant being Star of the Month on TCM that The Bishop's Wife would be airing both on Dec. 22 as part of a night of Cary Grant movies with Christmas being an important plot point, and today. What I didn't mention then is that Sunday afternoons up until the week-long Christmas marathon will also be having Christmas movies, starting toay at 4:00 PM with The Man Who Came to Dinner. It looks as though there are going to be Jesus-themed movies, if you will, not to be derogatory -- it's more that I can't think of a better and concise way to describe them. This includes the 1959 Ben-Hur today at noon, and a pair on Dec. 17: King of Kings and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

I blogged about Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander some time back. The movie is long, although originally it was conceived as a TV miniseries. TCM is going to be running that cut of the movie in TCM Imports the next two weeks, as the miniseries cut was done into (I believe) four parts running about six hours total. I have to admit the theatrical version wasn't my favorite version, so I don't know if I'm going to watch the miniseries version. Maybe it's the sort of material that works better as a miniseries.

Donald Bogle has another book coming out, this time on Lena Horne. That gives TCM the chance to invite him to be a guest for the umpteenth time, to promote that book and do a night of Lena Horne movies, tomorrow (Dec. 4) in prime time. Most worth watching is The Duke Is Tops, overnight at 1:15 AM (so Dec. 5 in the east and still Dec. 4 in the west). It's a "race movie" conceived not for traditional Hollywood but for black audiences. Sure, the plot is as trite as any Hollywood B movie, but Horne shines.

Finally, this morning on FXM kicked off with a pair of movies relatively new to being back in the FXM rotation: The Iron Curtain and That Wonderful Urge. The latter is a remake of a Loretta Young vehicle called Love Is News which is also currently back in the rotation. Anyhow, I mention these three movies because they'll all be airing again relatively soon. The Iron Curtain in on again on Dec. 7; That Wonderful Urge on Dec. 10; and Love Is News not until Dec. 15.