TCM Star of the Month December 2023: Cary Grant

Cary Grant and Loretta young ice skating in The Bishop's Wife (Dec. 22, 8:00 PM)

Once again, we're in a new month, which means that it's time for a new Star of the Month. This time, it's Cary Grant, and his movies will be airing every Friday night in prime time. Now, Grant has been Star of the Month multiple times before, in part because the old Turner Library has a bunch of his films because they're apparently easier for TCM to get the rights to show. The last time was nine years ago, and I had a bunch of photos of him. Unfortunately, most of them are from the days when I was still using Photobucket to host the images, so I still had to find them on one or another hard drive.

Suspicion (Dec. 16, 2:00 AM)

There's a double feature of Grant's work with Alfred Hitcochcok on the third night of the salute, those two movies being Suspicion overnight at 2:00 AM on December 16, so still December 15 on the west coast. That's followed at 4:00 AM by North By Northwest. Grant of course made four movies with Alfred Hitchcock, but the other two don't seem to be in the schedule. To Catch a Thief was made at Paramount, and apparently they still hold the rights to it (unlike the other movies Hitchcock made at Paramount, to which Universal now holds the rights). Rather more surprising is the omission of Notorious, which was made at RKO and otherwise shows up regularly enough on TCM. I think there's one TBD slot on the schedule during the Grant salute, so who knows what will show up there.

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer (Dec. 1, 6:15 PM)

The salute actually kicks off a bit early, with a couple of Fridays having Grant movies in the afternoon; this I think is because Saturday more or less has the matinee block beginning at 8:00 AM. In any case, today's movies are Arsenic and Old Lace at 2:30 PM, Sylvia Scarlett at 4:30 PM, and The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer at 6:15 PM.

This being December, it's also Christmas, which is part of why I opened the post with a still from The Bishop's Wife. TCM is doing another week-long marathon of Christmas movies in the run-up to Christmas, but this doesn't mean the salute to Cary Grant gets pre-empted. In fact, Grant was in enough movies with Christmas scenes that they're all lumped together on December 22. As for The Bishop's Wife, it's getting another airing outside of the Christmas marathon, at 6:00 PM on December 3.