Diane - Thanks for the real TV news, as it concerns the best channel on TV, a channel that plays movies the right way. Maybe I finally get to see Mickey One, after listening to the soundtrack for over 40 years (a pretty far out score by Eddie Sauter with improvisational solos by Stan Getz). And, since you always feature Amazon bargains, I'd like to tell fans that a deluxe two disc DVD of Bonnie & Clyde has been showing up at Big Lots for $5.

As for the Curtis tribute, TCM seems to play Some Like It Hot every month. It must not be in the current cycle of movies available (I can never keep track of who owns that United Artists/MGM stuff). Got the two disc SLIH at a super bargain place around here for $5. That release was playing up the Marilyn Monroe angle (sex sells,right), but SLIH is really like a Marx Bros. classic. Jack Lemmon gets the best Groucho bits, Monroe does Harpo, and Curtis, Chico, phony accent and all. And don't forget Joe E. Brown filling in for Margaret Dumont, but, nobody's perfect.

[Diane here: Thanks for the thanks, Mac! TCM is definitely one of my faves, especially the Sunday midnight silent films. Some Like It Hot doesn't show up on the TCM schedule for the next few months; not sure about the rights holder. But I love your Marx Brothers analogy -- hadn't thought about it that way. So who's Zeppo?]

Diane - Sorry not getting back sooner. Lots of OT on at work, getting Christmas set up in time by Halloween. BTW, as freaky as I always thought the music to Mickey One sounded, it's pretty tame to the whole picture, but Stan Getz' horn really plays a supporting role. Mickey One is artsy for arts' sake, but I'd rather look at this than any modern day Hollywood blow 'em up. In glorious black & white. Robert Osborne pointed out that Penn only made 13 pictures over almost 60 years.

Now who is Zeppo? I would want it to be George Raft, since he gets shot and one suspects there was more than one time when the brothers Marx wanted to take one another out. Pat O'Brien? Nah, too Irish. Even the gender switch of Harpo and Marilyn is more plausible than Zeppo playing an old Irish cop, though, back in the day, an Irish stereotype was the same as Chico's Italian.

Actually, I think there is a template of comedy, like A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum, that shows the genius of Marxism, SLIH and modern classics like Tootsie (gender switching), the Goon show (British radio, with Peter Sellers and yes, gender switching) and Monty Python & the Holy Grail (again, some gender switching). One thing important is to have lots of balls in the air and proper pacing, including the musical interlude to cleanse the palate.

Too bad my thesis writing days are past. Time to load up another pallet of Christmas crap from the warehouse. I love this site. Lots of interesting writing on interesting topics by lots of interesting people. Thanks for including me in on the discussion.

[Diane here: Thanks for wanting to jump in on the discussion! We love it when readers contribute ideas we'd never have thought of ourselves. Your Arthur Penn point is interesting -- I'd actually encountered it myself when I looked him up on IMDb, and was surprised to see so few big-screen credits. Penn did more work on TV, including, which I had forgotten, a late-in-life year as a producer of Law & Order!]