ANN-MARGRET FILM SALUTE
TCM, 6:00 a.m. ET
For the first time, TCM is giving its all-day treatment to Ann-Margret, a salute that begins early in the day, and continues until tomorrow morning. The best quartet of movies begins in prime time, starting at 8 p.m. ET with 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie – if you were a fervent Mad Men fan, doubtlessly you remember the episode in which the opening of Birdie, with Ann-Margret’s effusive young sex appeal, sparked a particularly vibrant ad campaign. Other films shown tonight include 1965’s The Cincinnati Kid (in which Steve McQueen plays a gambler jockeying his way into a major card game) at 10 ET, and 1975’s Tommy, at midnight ET, in which Ann-Margret plays Tommy’s mother in a movie version of The Who’s rock opera. She has an over-the-top scene, even for director Ken Russell, in which the products on the TV ads she’s watching burst through her set, almost drowning her in soap suds and baked beans (pictured). And at 2 a.m. ET, TCM presents perhaps her most serious and impressive film role, co-starring opposite Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel in the 1971 Mike Nichols film about the sexual revolution of the Sixties, Carnal Knowledge.