Briefs for April 10-11, 2023

I've mentioned a couple of times that TCM is spending the entire month of April on the 100th anniversary of the Warner Bros. studio. Most of this means movies produced or distributed by Warner Bros., but as I've said, there are also some documentaries which may or may not have been produced at Warner Bros. but deal with the studio and its stars. One in the latter category is Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor, which I mentioned a few years back after I saw an airing of it on TCM. This one deals with the child custody case Astor was fighting at the same time she was filming the movie Dodsworth. It'll be on tomorrow (April 11) at 4:30 PM, and is definitely worth watching. It immediately precedes The Great Lie at 6:00 PM, for which Astor won her Oscar. I said when I reviewed this one that is might be more interesting for the way the screenwriters had to jump through hoops to get it past the Production Code.

I think I mentioned the last time I did one of these briefs posts that I hadn't seen anything being newly put into the FXM rotation. I may have been wrong about that one. I see that Cry of the City will be on tomorrow (April 11) at 10:05 AM, after an airing today. It may or may not have been in the rotation since the start of the year, and I just didn't pay close enough attention. But a search of the blog suggests that I haven't mentioned it in quite a few years, and I think it's one that I would have searched on if I had seen it on the FXM schedule back in January.

Another Fox movie shows up over on StarzEncore Westerns: the 1966 version of Stagecoach, which airs this evening at 7:45 PM, and then tomorrow at 11:00 AM. A search of the online guides suggests that it will have another airing on April 23 on the reguarl StarzEncore channel.

If you want to feel old, I was looking at the list of birthdays for today and how old the birthday people are. Haley Joel Osment, who memorably saw dead people in The Sixth Sense and whose birthday remindes me of Secondhand Lions, a movie I'd really like to rewatch and do a post on, has a birthday today. He turns 35. Twice his age is Steven Segal, celebrating his 71st birthday.

Briefs for June 29-30, 2019

Tonight's TCM Essential is Daughters of the Dust, at 8:00 PM. I recorded this one last September during the "Black Experience on Film" spotlight and when I blogged about it said that it's certainly worth a look. The Blu-ray and DVD aren't Criterion-level prices, but you may want to watch first before deciding whether to spring for it in your collection.

Overnight at 2:00 AM, TCM is running It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The schedule lists it as 159 minutes in a 165-minute slot, which implies it's not going to be the roadshow version with the overture and exit music, and will be missing the extended scene with Phil Silvers (if memory serves -- I haven't watched the movie in a while) floating down the river in his car. That version got a Criterion release.

Over on FXM, they're running multiple Shirley Temple movies tomorrow. I already mentioned Stand Up and Cheer! last week; that one is on 7:55 AM. I recorded Curly Top some weeks ago but haven't gotten around to watching it; that one will be on immediately following at 9:05 AM. Third up is Poor Little Rich Girl which I mentioned a few months back, at 10:25 AM. Finally at 11:45 AM is The Blue Bird.

I perhaps should have mentioned earlier the passing of Édith Scob, who died on Wednesday at the age of 81. It's a name that I wouldn't have recognized, but thankfully Wikipedia's obituaries page usually mentions a key work or two, which in this case was Eyes Without a Face: