Notes on the TCM March 2024 schedule

I pointed out a month ago how TCM decided to start its annual 31 Days of Oscar in the middle of the month in order to have the final day of the programming coincide with the actual awarding of this year's Academy Awards. Well, that final day has arrived, which means we get back to regular programming on TCM. Well, more or less regular.

Since the "regular" programming is only going to be three weeks, that means that a traditional Star of the Month wouldn't get a proper treatment, if you go by having one night a week for the rest of the month. Then again, you could argue that a month like this is when they should pick one of those "stars" who didn't have a whole lot of movies for whatever reason. But if you did that, this would also mean that the other regular features, especially the monthly spotlight, would also only get three nights.

So TCM decided to have two week-long spotlights. The Star of the Month is coming up later in the month, so when that comes I'll write up a post them. No; this first week of What's Left of March is the week for the non-star spotlight, and the theme is "Working Women". The movies are going to be more or less in chronological order, with each night being a later decade than the previous night. I will point out that 40s night on Tuesday brings another airing of the wonderful British World War II movie Millions Like Us (March 13, 4:00 AM), about British women who go to work at the start of the war to do their part for the war effort.

There are also a lot of morning and afternoon themes not only spotlighting individuals -- director Raoul Walsh gets a birthday salute tomorrow (March 11) -- but themes as always. I bring this up because the "Under Ground" theme on March 12 has a movie I was hoping to do a full-length post on. That on is The Day They Robbed the Bank of England (March 12, 9:00 AM). I recorded the previous airing and sat down to watch it to do a post on it, but unfortunately the recording somehow had picture and sound so out of sync that I couldn't stand to watch it. It's a lot like that scene in Singin' in the Rain where it looks like the man is saying no and the woman yes.

As it turns out, there's another movie airing March 12 that I decided to do a full-length post on, so I watched that instead. That's also why this post is getting posted today (March 10) instead of tomorrow, and along with a second post on a short. Actually, I've got several posts coming up later in the month on movies that are getting re-airs.