No in-depth or out-of-my-depth movie reviews in this post, but rather this is a note to remind everyone that Turner Classic Movies remains The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind, even though many diehard fans get frustrated in February.
See, February is the channel's annual tribute to Oscar, and while the programmers seem to slip in at least a few surprises each time out, the schedule for the second month of each calendar year is rife with overplayed favorites and underplayed un-favorites that people really don't want to see on TCM.
The occasional "Pretty Woman" sighting, in my opinion, is a small price to pay for months like, well, January, which may have been one of the absolute best since I started getting the channel. There were some lesser-known noirs, the continuing saga of the Bowery Boys, and best of all a monthlong Hal Roach Studios festival. This tribute gave TCM an excuse to run short subjects featuring "The Boy Friends" and "The Taxi Boys," plus an outstanding run of 10 episodes of the ultra-rare 1950s television program "Screen Director's Playhouse," in which A-list directors teamed with movie stars to produce quality half-hour programs each week.
(How in the heck have we not heard more about this show before now, by the way, and where the heck are the rest of the episodes? They look to be in great shape and would make an awesome DVD collection...or would have made a great one 5 years ago when people still cared about that sort of thing.)
I loved January on TCM, and I still have enough of it on my DVR to get me through February. So I am not going to come down too hard on the folks there for slipping in something like "Pretty Woman"...though I do reserve the right to make a wise-ass comment about it every now and then.
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