UPDATED VERSION -
After this week's Episode 3 of Turner Classic Movies' superb docuseries Moguls & Movie Stars (Monday at 8 p.m.) takes us through Hollywood's glorious 1920s, TCM delivers four renowned silent features. The gorgeous 1927 Oscar winner Sunrise (Nov. 15 at 9 p.m. ET) is followed by John Ford's sprawling western The Iron Horse (midnight ET), steamy superstars Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil (2:30 a.m. ET), and immortal screen lover Rudolph Valentino's dashing Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (4:30 a.m. ET early Tuesday, Nov. 16, all on TCM).
Comedy's evolution unreels Wednesday (Nov. 17) with Chaplin's first feature, The Kid (8 p.m. ET), plus Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow and underrated clown Marion Davis (all overnight Nov. 17-18 on TCM).
Sound reverberates next week, Nov. 22 and Nov. 24, in 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals (Footlight Parade, Nov. 22, in photo), gangster brutality (The Public Enemy, Nov. 22), the Marx Brothers (Nov. 24), Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing (Nov. 24), kid queen Shirley Temple (Nov. 24), and more.
Stay tuned Mondays and Wednesdays later this month for Hollywood's progression through Casablanca and The Great Dictator, on through Dec. 15 with Citizen Kane, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin' in the Rain, North By Northwest, The Defiant Ones, Bonnie & Clyde, and Easy Rider. All uncut and uninterrupted.
I paid to go to film school. You don't have to.
Other treats on TCM this month:
--- Don Knotts in 5 films (Tuesday, Nov. 16) - Starting from 8 p.m. ET, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, No Time for Sergeants (with Andy Griffith), and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.
--- Ava Gardner on Thursday nights into Friday mornings - Including On the Beach (Nov. 18 at 10 p.m. ET), and The Night of the Iguana (Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. ET).
--- Boris Karloff birthday tribute (Nov. 23) - From 7 a.m. ET, 9 feature films span 30 years, from 1934's The Lost Patrol through film noir Val Lewton titles (Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, Bedlam), to 1963's Roger Corman flick The Terror.
--- Alfred Hitchcock suspensers the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 26) - From 11 a.m. ET, Foreign Correspondent, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, and a 1972 Dick Cavett Show interview with the rotund director.
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ORIGINAL POST (Nov. 8) -
The amazingly sharp Monday night docuseries Moguls & Movie Stars is November's highlight at Turner Classic Movies. But the month holds a lot of other treats, too. Ava Gardner as star of the month on November Thursday nights, a Don Knotts salute, a birthday tribute to Boris Karloff, a day of Hitchcock, and some of the best -- THE best! -- movies ever made.
It's not too late to jump on board with the seven-part docuseries Moguls & Movie Stars, subtitled "A History of Hollywood." Last week's Episode 1 again takes us through the late 19th century birth of moving pictures Monday at 7 p.m. ET on TCM, right before the debut of Episode 2 at 8 p.m. ET, covering the early 20th century emergence of Hollywood in its iconic dream-factory form. (Part 2 repeats Monday at 11 p.m. ET, Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET, Saturday at noon ET, and next Monday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. ET.)
Even better than Moguls -- which is pretty damn great (and it's not easy getting a snob film history major like me to say that) -- are the films with which TCM is surrounding this lively Cinema 101 program on both Mondays and Wednesdays. With the chronological saga still in silent movie mode, TCM takes us through such early must-sees as D.W. Griffith's historic Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation (late Monday at 12:15 a.m. ET), following it with a sort of answer to Griffith's demeaning racial portrayals -- Within Our Gates (late Monday/early Tuesday at 3:30 a.m. ET), about a crusading black schoolteacher, directed by pioneer black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux [photo at left]. There's also pioneer female director Lois Weber behind the social issues of 1921's The Blot (Tuesday morning at 5 a.m. ET).
Wednesday (Nov. 10) spans even more crucial Hollywood growth in the 1910s silent era -- from early Charlie Chaplin shorts (The Immigrant, 8 p.m. ET) to original cinema superstar Mary Pickford (Poor Little Rich Girl, 11:15 p.m. ET), from the first "Hollywood" feature film (Cecil B. DeMille's 1914 The Squaw Man, 2 a.m. ET) to the slick swashbuckling adventure of Douglas Fairbanks (Sr., not Jr., in The Mark of Zorro, 3:30 a.m. ET early Thursday morning; photo below).
After next Monday's (Nov. 15) Episode 3 of Moguls & Movie Stars takes us through Hollywood's glorious 1920s, TCM delivers four renowned silent features, including one of the most gorgeous movies ever made -- 1927 Oscar winner Sunrise (Nov. 15 at 9 p.m. ET). It's followed by John Ford's sprawling western The Iron Horse (midnight ET), steamy superstars Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil (2:30 a.m. ET), and immortal screen lover Rudolph Valentino's dashing Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (4:30 a.m. ET early Tuesday, Nov. 16, all on TCM).
Comedy's evolution unreels that Wednesday (Nov. 17) with Chaplin's first feature, The Kid (8 p.m. ET), plus Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Clara Bow and underrated clown Marion Davis (all overnight Nov. 17-18 on TCM).
Sound reverberates the following week, Nov. 22 and Nov. 24, in 1930s Busby Berkeley musicals (Footlight Parade, Nov. 22), gangster brutality (The Public Enemy, Nov. 22), the Marx Brothers (Nov. 24), Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing (Nov. 24), kid queen Shirley Temple (Nov. 24), and more.
Stay tuned Mondays and Wednesdays later this month for Hollywood's progression through Casablanca and The Great Dictator, on through Dec. 15 with Citizen Kane, A Streetcar Named Desire, Singin' in the Rain, North By Northwest, The Defiant Ones, Bonnie & Clyde, and Easy Rider [photo at left]. All uncut and uninterrupted.
I paid to go to film school. You don't have to.
Other treats on TCM this November:
--- Ava Gardner on Thursday nights into Friday mornings - Including Mogambo (Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. ET), On the Beach (Nov. 18 at 10 p.m. ET), and The Night of the Iguana (Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. ET).
--- Don Knotts in 5 films (Nov. 16) - Starting from 8 p.m. ET, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, No Time for Sergeants (with Andy Griffith), and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.
--- Boris Karloff birthday tribute (Nov. 23) - From 7 a.m. ET, 9 feature films span 30 years, from 1934's The Lost Patrol through film noir Val Lewton titles (Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, Bedlam), to 1963's Roger Corman flick The Terror.
--- Alfred Hitchcock suspensers the day after Thanksgiving (Nov. 26) - From 11 a.m. ET, Foreign Correspondent, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, To Catch a Thief, and a 1972 Dick Cavett Show interview with the rotund director.