We’re well into 31 Days of Oscar by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and it’s simply fabulous, one of the few things (besides The King’s Speech) in movies to be excited about amid impending doom for America, rising jihadism and nuclear Iran. I caught an interesting film based on a Carson McCullers novel the other night, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, with Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine) as a deaf man, Stacy Keach as a drunkard, Cicely Tyson (The Marva Collins Story) as an angry young woman and Sondra Locke in her motion picture debut as a girl who falls in love with Mozart’s music and dreams of a better life. It’s a little character film, not as depressing a portrait of being different in the South as the Tennessee Williams material, and it leads to a shocking yet logical conclusion.
TCM’s 31 Days calendar, which runs through March 3, is filled with such interesting, rarely seen pictures. Among those scheduled (please confirm by checking current TV listings) and recommended (all times Eastern):
Glory (1989), Civil War epic starring Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, and Denzel Washington (midnight on Feb. 8 (am Feb. 9)
Romance on the High Seas (1948) with Doris Day early in her career, a silly, mistaken identity madcapper on a cruise ship in the role that made her a movie star (12:45 pm on Feb 10)
Executive Suite (1954) starring William Holden, June Allyson and Barbara Stanwyck in a rare drama depicting capitalism and business admirably, not to be missed if you love good stories, business and great performances (4 pm on Feb. 11)
Hit the trifecta on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) with three classics: Neil Simon’s underrated The Goodbye Girl (1977) at 6 pm, an aching intellectual romance with a wrenching climax, Casablanca (1942) at 10 pm, and the delightful gay romp Victor/Victoria (1982) at 2:15 am.
On Feb 24, at 4:30 pm, TCM airs David Lean’s stunning Doctor Zhivago, an underrated classic based on (and, in my estimate, better than) the Boris Pasternak novel, about life in Russia after the Communists take over. With Julie Christie and Omar Sharif as lovers across time and history in this three-hour epic that dramatizes how the red state seizes and ruins the livelihood of the young doctor and everyone else, with Rod Steiger’s slobbering, lecherous pragmatist rising to the top of the Soviet state, molesting the young Lara (Christie) amid the hopelessness and despair of a government controlled life, with Dr. Zhivago’s communist half-brother Yevgraf (Alec Guinness) coming to the rescue, to the extent possible in a dictatorship, is a bold, rewarding cinematic experience that benefits from a knowledge of communism, dictatorship and history. See We the Living for a superior dramatization of totalitarianism. But see Doctor Zhivago (1965) for a searing, heartbreaking sneak peek at what lies ahead for America. A sketch more than a full landscape, and not without flaws, but in its own way an unforgettable indictment on tyranny. My favorite scene: a lone man, a prisoner of the Soviet state played by Klaus Kinski, is chained to a boxcar packed with people who stare blankly at him. He yammers away trying to stay sane in a world gone mad, finally spitting at the masses: “I am the only free man on this train!”
The 1950 version of Edmond Rostand’s ingenious Cyrano de Bergerac airs on March 1 at 3:30 pm, followed by the amazing theatrical interplay All About Eve (1950) with Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and Marilyn Monroe at 10 pm, and Bob Fosse’s remarkable contrast of hedonism and the rise of the Nazis in Cabaret (1972) at 12:30 am.
The last day, March 3, too, features movies worth watching: the unfortunately pro-communist The Way We Were (1973) at 10 am, Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) at 12:30 pm, Fred Astaire coasting across the dance floor in Shall We Dance (1937) at 6 pm and the luminous Grand Hotel (1932) at 8 pm.
The 2011 edition of the month-long event will feature more than 340 Academy Award®-nominated and winning movies, scheduled in trivia-inspired marathons. In addition, each night will feature a Best Picture Oscar winner at 10 p.m. (ET). The Oscars for 2010 will be presented on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and televised live on Disney-owned ABC. Turner Classic Movies, part of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner company, presents movies uncut and commercial-free.