A Flickchart Guide to TCM in December
This December we grieve the end of FilmStruck and look forward with cautious hope to the future Criterion and Warner Media streaming services. In the meantime we still have TCM, and they continue to deliver dependably. December of course is a holiday month, and TCM is showing great holiday classics, many of which are in the Top 1000 — see the bottom of the post for those movies you must see before you die. Others I’ve highlighted as Don’t Miss or Hidden Gems below. And there are tons of other wonderful films as well. Enjoy!
Ten Don’t Miss Films
These films fall outside of the Top 1000 but are all solid and highly-regarded, and they all have over 200 rankers.
The Thin Man series – Dec 31, 8:45am
The Thin Man (1934) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan – ranked #131 by 1879 users
After the Thin Man (1936) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart – ranked #1204 by 480 users
Another Thin Man (1939) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy – ranked #2211 by 377 users
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy – ranked #4084 by 196 users
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945) – directed by Richard Thorpe – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy – ranked #2859 by 275 users
Song of the Thin Man (1947) – directed by W.S. Van Dyke – starring William Powell, Myrna Loy – ranked #6348 by 143 users
It’s a New Year’s Eve tradition on TCM to play the entire Thin Man series, and it’s a good tradition indeed! Nick and Nora Charles are detectives in the best Agatha Christie vein, except they’re American and drink copious amounts of cocktails in between catching crooks, hence the suitability for New Year’s Eve. The first film of the series is in the Flickchart Top 1000, but the others are not. This is a great opportunity to catch up on the series if you haven’t binged them all before. As the series opens, Nick and Nora are fairly new to marriage, and he tries to prevent her getting involved in the investigations to protect her; in fact, he tries to retire, as she is from a moneyed family and they can easily live off her wealth, but he’s pulled back in when a friend’s father goes missing (the “thin man” of the title; it takes five films before they give up and just let “thin man” refer to Nick, even though William Powell isn’t particularly skinny). But solving mysteries is only a pretense for these films, to be honest. The real draw is Nick and Nora, one of the most sparkling couples of the silver screen, played with immense chemistry by Powell and Loy. (They made fourteen films together in total, but were never a romantic item off-screen). They are my go-to recommendation for great movie marriages, as they maintain a high level of commitment and fun together. Whatever issues are going on around them, their marriage is never, ever one of them. That’s a rare trait in movie marriages, and in addition to the fun of the mystery and the witty dialogue, it’s what makes these films stand apart.
Gold Diggers of 1933 – Dec 7, 1:15am
1933 – directed by Mervyn LeRoy – starring Joan Blondell, Warren William, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers – ranked #1572 by 325 users
The big name among the early 1930s Warner Bros/Busby Berkeley-choreographed series of backstage musicals is 42nd Street (which is also playing 12/6 at 9:30pm and 12/30 at 6:00am this month), but I’ll lay my money on this one as the most fun and also the most heartrending of them all. While the romance side story devolves a little bit into cattiness, the dialogue, supporting characters, and musical numbers here cannot be beat. Though this whole cycle of musicals takes its cue from the Depression Era in which they were made, this one perhaps holds the problems of the Depression most centrally. A show in rehearsals gets canceled due to creditors, and the girls who were dancing in it moan about the lack of money and work. Several of the songs even take on Depression woes directly: “We’re in the Money” fantasizes about a day when “we never see a headline about breadlines today, and when we see the landlord we can look that guy right in the eye”), while for my money the best number in the show eulogizes the “Forgotten Man” who served faithfully in WWI and by 1933 is destitute and forgotten. Joan Blondell was more of a comedienne than a singer, but she gives it her all. Ginger Rogers and Aline MacMahon are constantly quipping, and Dick Powell and Ruby Keller perform their ingenue roles with sweetness. I might grant 42nd Street a slightly better story, as creaky as the “chorus girl becomes a star” plot has become, but in terms of the musical numbers it feels like a trial run for this one, where Berkeley’s kaleidoscopic prowess is simply breathtaking. Note also, while we’re here, that Dick Powell is TCM’s Star of the Month in December, with several of his films playing every Thursday in prime time. Powell’s career started as a peppy crooner in films like this one, and you can see most of them this month, but he took a hard right turn in the mid-1940s with Murder My Sweet and began playing hard-boiled noir type characters. So check out Thursday nights if you want to see the striking evolution of his career.
Jeanne Dielman 23, quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles – Dec 3 at 2:30am
1977 – directed by Chantal Ackerman – starring Delphine Seyrig – ranked #1894 by 237 users
TCM doesn’t play a whole lot of foreign films as a rule, but they have a slot late on Sunday (or early Monday morning if you want to get technical about it) when they play TCM Imports. Usually it’s two films (look for Bergman’s Winter Light and The Silence overnight on 12/30), but this one is long enough it takes the whole slot. The TCM Imports slot is ALWAYS worth watching, as they curate some of the best of the best of foreign cinema for it. This particular movie is a bit of a challenge, I’ll admit right up front, but it is well worth the effort. The film focuses on the title character, who goes about the mundane business of her day in almost real-time — making dinner, taking care of the house and her son, your standard womanly activities (plus a little on the side, as she takes “gentlemen callers” to get a bit of extra cash). The film covers three afternoons/evenings, and the routine is relentless. The film is an act of resistance in its very form, daring to show the life-draining sameness and lack of respect given to “a woman’s work.” I don’t personally think “woman’s work” has to be this way, but the point is that it is for her; she works constantly for others, giving herself in every way imaginable, and gets absolutely no return or thanks or joy from it at all. She’s liable to snap. This seems like a quiet, even boring film to some degree, but it was and remains a very important feminist film. And besides that, if you let yourself fall into its rhythm, there are plenty of actual pleasures to be had from Delphine Seyrig’s quietly commanding performance.
Topper – Dec 26, 3:45pm
1937 – directed by Norman Z. McLeod – starring Cary Grant, Constance Bennett, Roland Young – ranked #1908 by 342 users
You’d expect Cary Grant to be the main title and lead character in any of his films, but he isn’t quite in this one. Cosmo Topper is actually Roland Young, a conservative, stick-in-the-mud businessman who always plays it safe, unlike his friends George and Marion Kerby (Grant and Bennett), who are fast-living, hard-partying socialites. So fast living, in fact, that they smash up their fancy sports car, coming out of the crash as ghosts. They decide to do something meaningful with their afterlife and help old Topper learn to have some fun. Grant honestly takes a back seat to Bennett and Young here, and his character doesn’t even appear in the films’ two sequels, but Grant is always a jovial presence to have around and he bumps this one up from “a lot of fun” to a very nearly great film. The antics the Kerbys get up to in order to force Topper out of his routines are pretty wild, and Young is the perfect foil for a role like this — very staid on the surface, but capable of being quite a goofball when the situation requires. He’d call on this talent as a supporting actor time and time again throughout the 1930s, and this is one of the most sustained examples of it. Note that this whole day is pretty much devoted to Cary Grant films; most of them are big hitters that show up in our Top 1000 list below, so if you’re a Grant fan (and if you aren’t you need to rethink your life), just keep the TV on all day.
The Petrified Forest – Dec 1 at 2pm
1936 – directed by Archie Mayo – starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart – ranked #1928 by 309 users
In 1936, Leslie Howard was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and Bette Davis was becoming one. Warner was just starting to figure out what to do with her, and this kind of tough but vulnerable role was exactly it. Howard is basically a milquetoast and I can rarely stomach him, but this time his role is basically supposed to be like that and is exacerbated by his being that most comical of things in a gangster film: a poet. He tries to sound philosophical and deep, but I mean, we’re all here for Humphrey Bogart. This wasn’t Bogart’s first film. He’d made a few in the early ‘30s that cast him as urbane gentlemen and didn’t really get what he was good at, and he went back to New York for a while. Then he returned for this film, which cast him as desperate gangster Duke Mantee, whose car has broken down as he flees police pursuit, so he holes up in a lonely roadside diner and takes all of the people in it hostage. Bogart is simply a force of nature in this film, wild-eyed and raw, with an unpredictability that makes him one of the most exciting villains of 1930s cinema. Bogart would undergo another change of career focus in the 1940s as he shifted from unrepentant gangster roles to more sympathetic characters, but he never lost the edge of unpredictability that he honed with the role of Duke Mantee.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ – Dec 10, 12:30am
1925 – directed by Fred Niblo – starring Ramon Navarro, Francis X. Bushman – ranked #2833 by 340 users
Everyone knows the 1959 version of Ben-Hur, with Charlton Heston and the slave ship and the chariot race. That’s playing this month, too (see below in our Top 1000 list), but the lesser-known silent version might actually be even better than William Wyler’s Oscar-winner. This one is still epic, and at the height of the silent era, films could be pretty epic. This was in many ways an even more fabulous Golden Age of Hollywood than the sound era that followed. Big films were very big, very expensive, and brought in huge box office receipts. The general beats of the story are pretty much the same as the one we all know, but even though it’s still definitely a spectacle, it also somehow feels more intimate. At any rate, given the outsize reputation of the 1959 film, this one deserves recognition for doing it all first.
Christmas in Connecticut – Dec 9, 8:15am; Dec 22, 10:00pm; Dec 24, 4:00pm
1945 – directed by Peter Godfrey – starring Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet – ranked #2846 by 236 users
This is December, and that means Christmas movies! TCM has them scattered throughout the month, and has a lot of them repeating multiple times — this one is playing three times, and it’s rare for TCM to play films more than once in a month. They just want to make sure everyone gets a chance to get their holiday on, and I personally welcome the saturation this one time per year. Several holiday favorites hit the Top 1000 list, so make sure you look through there for classics like The Shop Around the Corner and Meet Me in St. Louis, and I’ll highlight a couple more in the Hidden Gems section. If you’re really a holiday movie fiend, you’ll want to check out TCM’s whole schedule to make sure you don’t miss anything. You definitely want to make sure not to miss Christmas in Connecticut, which has become my go-to holiday film the past few years. Barbara Stanwyck writes a magazine column about her wonderful farm home in Connecticut, her wonderful husband and adorable baby — she’s basically the Pioneer Woman of the 1940s. Except she doesn’t actually have any of those things, but makes them up from her studio apartment in New York City, a fact not even her editor knows. When her editor gets the bright idea to get some publicity by sending a GI to her Connecticut farm for Christmas, she’s got to find a farm, a husband, and a baby in short order. Stanwyck is always delightful, and never more so than here. This is just a warm and funny holiday film that should be much more of a staple of the season than it is, so I’m doing my part to get it there. Two other favorites of mine that fall in the “not top 1000 but has more than 200 rankers” category are Holiday Inn (playing 12/8 at 8:00pm and 12/23 at 6:00pm), the actual origin film for the song “White Christmas,” and the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol (playing 12/23 at 10:00pm), with Alistair Sim as Mr. Scrooge.
That’s Entertainment! – Dec 31, 8:00pm
1974 – directed by Jack Haley, Jr. – starring more stars than there are in the heavens – ranked #4010 by 298 users
Now, this may be a niche film, but if you love classic Hollywood musicals like I do, this is basically like two hours of crack. In the 1970s as MGM was fading as a studio, they decided to make a film celebrating their own golden age (yeah, narcissistic, whatever), focusing on the musicals they made from the 1930s to the 1960s. They brought back many of their old stars, both musical and otherwise, to discuss various aspects. For example, Mickey Rooney talks about Judy Garland, Donald O’Connor talks about Esther Williams, James Stewart talks about the transition to sound and early musicals, Debbie Reynolds talks about her own career, etc. There are a few wildcards here, like Bing Crosby, who made approximately one movie at MGM (he was a Paramount star), but who’s counting. The movie is basically a glorified clip show, but with all these folks on hand to reminisce about what might be my favorite kind of movie ever, it’s pretty amazing. And it is well put-together, thematically. The film turned out to be so popular that they did That’s Entertainment 2 in 1976 with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly as hosts, and That’s Entertainment III in the ‘90s (this one is even more of a clip show, with very little thematic care). Plus there was an unrelated but similar film in the ‘80s called That’s Dancing! that focused on dancing in the movies, but was not tied specifically to MGM. All four of those films are playing, so if this is your thing, BINGE.
Disney Vault: Flubber and Sports – Dec 18, 8:00pm
Okay, this is basically just an excuse to talk about TCM’s recurring Disney Vault programming, which I always recommend, especially to people with kids. They don’t do it every month, but it’s one evening totally dedicated to Disney, and it’s usually a really interesting night of programming. They don’t usually show any of the well-known animated classics, but they’ll show a fairly popular live-action classic (The Absent-Minded Professor in this case, plus its sequel Son of Flubber), a lesser-known one or two (all sports-themed this month: The World’s Greatest Athlete, The Stongest Man in the World, and Gus), and always some number of short cartoons (this time they have a whole series of the Goofy sports cartoons planned, plus shorts in between the other features). They often include episodes from The Wonderful World of Disney or little-known Disney documentaries and educational programs, too, though not this month. The Disney Vault always has a good mix of stuff, and it’s a great thing to watch with your kids if they’re still awake or to DVR for later family viewing.
She Done Him Wrong – Dec 16, 11:30am
1933 – directed by Lowell Sherman – starring Mae West, Cary Grant – ranked #6014 by 275 users
Speaking of Cary Grant, here’s a bit of a different thing for him. It’s one of his earliest films, in which he plays a very distinct second fiddle to Mae West. But then, pretty much everybody in a Mae West film was at least second fiddle. She had a very unique style of comedy, making full use of her voluptuous figure and suggestive expressions to layer innuendo into even seemingly innocent dialogue. She could pretty much only function fully in the Pre-Code era, though she continued in films into the 1940s. This one almost couldn’t be made at all, as it’s a thinly veiled adaptation of West’s Broadway smash Diamond Lil which got an absolute ban from the Hays Office. It’s a throwback to Gilded Age New York, with West as Lady Lou, a showgirl/gold digger who gets mixed up in a counterfeiting ring. It has both comedy and crime, all hinging on West’s outsized persona, which initially comes across as purely cynical and jokey, but turns out to have a surprising soft side. I know, I know, hooker with a heart of gold trope (though she’s not really a hooker), but it wasn’t as tired in 1933 as it is now, and West makes it feel fresh anyway.
Ten Hidden Gems
If the “don’t miss” section isn’t quite obscure enough for you, here are some great watches with fewer than 200 rankers. Let’s try to get them a few more!
Christmas in July – Dec 20, 8:00pm
1940 – directed by Preston Sturges – starring Dick Powell, Ellen Drew – ranked #3391 by 127 users
This sounds like a Christmas movie, but it really isn’t — not that you can’t watch it in December anyway, of course! Dick Powell plays a young office worker who enters a slogan contest for Maxford Coffee. His coworkers decide to play a joke on him with a fake telegram saying that he won, and things escalate from there, both at his own company and at Maxford. This was Preston Sturges’ second film as writer/director, and in a way he’s still finding his stride; this one is not as caustic or laugh-out-loud hilarious as most of his later films would be, but it is very sweet and heartwarming, making it a great Christmastime watch even if it’s not technically about Christmas. It’s also not a musical. Though Powell is still largely playing a plucky ingenue role, he’s moving closer to the kind of dramatic roles that would soon dominate his career.
The Big Combo – Dec 5, 6:30pm
1955 – directed by Joseph H. Lewis – starring Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy – ranked #4085 by 141 users
The title refers to a crime syndicate that police lieutenant Diamond (Cornel Wilde) is trying to bust up, led by a sadistic criminal named Mr. Brown. Along the way there are floozies, dames, enforcers, a mysterious woman from the past, and a whole lot of noir stuff going on. This is low-budget, relatively late noir, so unlike earlier noirs, this one kind of knows what it is, and it plays up all the developing tropes to the fullest: high contrast lighting, femme fatales, conflicted heroes… they’re all here, and all ratcheted up to eleven. The cruelty here is pretty overt, as well as the sense of desperation. This is almost an ubernoir, maybe the self-conscious late noir companion to Detour, an early noir that had the desperation but whose style was less conspicuous. The final shot here is a mirror of Casablanca’s iconic airport closing, but signifies a nearly opposite outcome. With most noir hitting quite high on the globals, this one can only be so low due to underexposure. But it’s essential, so watch it.
Remember the Night – Dec 22, 8:00pm
1940 – directed by Mitchell Leisen – starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray – ranked #4555 by 90 users
Four years before lusting and killing their way through Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray made a very different film together, an unusual mix of would-be redemption drama, almost-romance, and comedy. Stanwyck’s character Lee is about to be acquitted in a trial, but prosecutor John (MacMurray) manages to extend the trial into January, hoping to get a conviction. It’s Christmastime, though, and John isn’t heartless, so he gets Lee out on bail so that she won’t be in prison for the holiday. But she’s homeless and her mother isn’t exactly welcoming, so John takes her to his country home for Christmas. You’d expect this to play out with the two falling in love, Lee being reformed/redeemed and acquitted, and them ending happily together in the country. Spoiler, but that’s not exactly what happens. When Stanwyck and MacMurray were offered Double Indemnity, they were both initially hesitant, because their personas on screen up to that point had been, if not quite WHOLESOME (in Stanwyck’s case), at least sympathetic and basically good at heart. This is a good example of those earlier, more sympathetic personas.
Bachelor Mother – Dec 19, 8:00pm; Dec 25, 12:00N
1939 – directed by Garson Kanin – starring Ginger Rogers, David Niven – ranked #5301 by 100 users
Sometimes tangentially Christmas-related films are my favorite kind. This one may actually be more of a New Year’s film. At Christmastime, a baby is left on the steps of an orphanage, but when Ginger Rogers passes by and picks up the baby to prevent his rolling off the step, the orphanage worker who opens the door assumes its her baby. Soon the young heir of the department store where Rogers works becomes involved, making sure she keeps her job after Christmas so she can keep the baby. Unable to convince anyone she’s not the mother, she gives in and takes the child. Rogers remains best known for her work with Fred Astaire, but she’s an extremely competent comedienne in her own right, and this is one of my favorites of her solo films. It plays to all her strengths of incredulity and sarcasm, while also letting her be a sympathetic character in a heartwarming story.
The Kennel Murder Case – Dec 3, 8pm
1933 – directed by Michael Curtiz – starring William Powell, Mary Astor – ranked #6303 by 94 users
We all know William Powell best from the Thin Man films as detective Nick Charles (see them all on Dec 31!), but just before he took on the role of everyone’s favorite sleuth sophisticate, he played a different private detective: Philo Vance. Vance was a popular character in pulp novels, and came to the screen with a lengthy series starting in 1929 with Powell in the lead role. This was Powell’s fourth and final outing as Vance, and probably the best. Likely thanks to the success of The Thin Man the following year, Powell left Vance to other actors for the rest of the series. Vance is not too different from Charles in terms of characterization, so it probably wouldn’t have done for Powell to play both of them at the same time. Mary Astor is along for the ride here as well. If you’ve finished The Thin Man and are looking for another mystery series to start, this is definitely one to check out. TCM is playing several of them today, this is just the one I recommend the highest.
Lady on a Train – Dec 17, 8:00pm
1945 – directed by Charles David – starring Deanna Durbin, Ralph Bellamy – ranked #7908 by 41 users
Another low-key Christmas film, this one just happens to be set at Christmastime, but its story is really a murder mystery/noir. Songstress Deanna Durbin stars in a rare non-quite-musical part (she does sing a bit) plays a mystery novel fan who sees a murder while on a train traveling to New York. Everyone thinks she imagined it because she likes reading mysteries, so she decides to seek help from her favorite author to help solve the crime. Durbin is an enchanting onscreen presence who’s almost been forgotten today except among a small cadre of classic film fans. She’s much more known for her musicals, both as a child star in the late 1930s and into adulthood in the 1940s. She’s really a hidden gem in the classic film world, and this is one of her most enjoyable and accessible films for new fans.
Love Me or Leave Me – Dec 4, 3pm; Dec 30, 12:00N
1955 – directed by Charles Vidor – starring Doris Day, James Cagney – ranked #8072 by 115 users
We usually think of Doris Day as a sunny, sweet personality in cheery musicals and bright romantic comedies. How about a biopic of Ruth Etting, a torch singer from the 1920s and 1930s whose first husband and manager was an abusive gangster (played here by James Cagney)? I’m sure it’s fictionalized to some degree, as almost all biopics from this era were, but it gives Day quite a chance to test her dramatic range. Though I’m not personally the biggest Day fan, I think she rises to the task here in what is probably my favorite film of hers. The title song is gritty and heart-wrenching and she does it justice, while Cagney’s presence in the film lends it a dramatic and dangerous edge. It’s okay, though, if you prefer the lighter Day fare — TCM is playing a bunch of her films today, so you can see all sides of her career.
Young Man with a Horn – Dec 9, 1:45pm
1952 – directed by Michael Curtiz – starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day – ranked #10422 by 50 users
Speaking of Day’s sunny, sweet personality, that’s basically her role in this film, which is otherwise a fairly dark drama. Douglas plays a young trumpet player, eager and in love with his instrument and with jazz in general. He’s optimistic about the future and confident in his abilities. So of course he’s headed for a fall, right? He struggles with being part of a dance band that won’t let him improvise, but his real downfall is Day’s friend Lauren Bacall, who is a right weird character for a film like this. She is philosophical and almost nihilistic at times, yet Douglas falls for her somehow, even though, come on, Day is much better for him. The relationship never QUITE rings true to me, but that aside, this is a solid film and Douglas turns in a virtuoso performance that ranges from irrepressible youth to the devastation of failure and alcoholism. Sorry for the spoilers, but it’s impressive work that deserves to be recognized, and it appears this film has been nearly forgotten despite its big-name cast.
Private Lives – Dec 10, 12:45pm; Dec 19, 6:00am
1931 – directed by Sidney Franklin – starring Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery – ranked #10579 by 17 users
An exemplary entry in the Pre-Code canon and a strong precursor to the screwball comedy, and this thing has only been ranked by 17 users?! Come on now. Norma Shearer’s flagship Pre-Code is The Divorcee, the film that shifted her from being a silent star into one of the unsung heroines of the Pre-Code era (thankfully her Pre-Code work is starting to come back to light, after she had been relegated to the dustbin of noble sufferers for her post-1936 films, which typically haven’t aged as well). This one, though, is my favorite. Shearer and Montgomery play divorcees who are on their honeymoons with their new respective mates and happen to be in adjoining honeymoon suites at the same hotel. They immediately start bickering with each other and ignoring their new spouses, and soon realize they can’t do without each other. It’s relationship as ongoing fight, which sounds negative and exhausting (and I’m sure some think it is), but the dialogue is really good, and they play off each other so well that it’s almost delightful watching them continually come nearly to blows, landing verbal zingers as they go.
Safe in Hell – Dec 14, 7:00am
1931 – directed by William A. Wellman – starring Dorothy Mackaill, Donald Cook – ranked #12647 by 22 users
One more Pre-Code for the road, this is a deliciously nasty piece of work featuring now-forgotten actress Dorothy Mackaill (who is delightful, let’s start remembering her). Gilda, played by Mackaill, is accused of murdering her pimp, and to keep her safe an old boyfriend smuggles her away to Tortuga, from which she can’t be extradited. But Tortuga is pretty frickin’ dangerous, filled with other criminal types (mostly men) who are also fleeing crimes in the States, so “safe” is relative. This movie is kind of whackadoodle, like most of my favorite Pre-Codes, and it pushes boundaries all over the place. It’s highly underseen even by Pre-Code standards.
Movies You Must See Before You Die
These are films within the Flickchart Top 1000. This month there are many holiday classics here, so be sure to check for the ones you and your family want to see this year!
Casablanca (1942; ranked #16 by 44693 users) Playing 12/30 at 10:00pm
North by Northwest (1959; ranked #31 by 27229 users) Playing 12/26 at 5:30pm
Double Indemnity (1944; ranked #32 by 6833 users) Playing 12/29 at 12:00M and 12/30 at 10:00am
The Third Man (1949; ranked #33 by 9057 users) Playing 12/16 at 6:00pm
Paths of Glory (1958; ranked #56 by 5935 users) Playing 12/10 at 10:15pm
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948; ranked #68 by 5226 users) Playing 12/29 at 4:00pm
It Happened One Night (1934; ranked #74 by 3973 users) Playing 12/16 at 4:00pm
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1927; ranked #84 by 1453 users) Playing 12/16 at 12:00M
The Maltese Falcon (1941; ranked #103 by 15187 users) Playing 12/30 at 8:00pm
The Thin Man (1934; ranked #131 by 1787 users) Playing 12/31 at 8:45am
Out of the Past (1947; ranked #133 by 1614 users) Playing 12/9 at 12:00M
Bringing Up Baby (1938; ranked #141 by 3967 users) Playing 12/26 at 12:00pm
The Graduate (1967; ranked #158 by 36153 users) Playing 12/7 at 8:00pm
Rififi (1955; ranked #165 by 866 users) Playing 12/17 at 7:45am
Charade (1963; ranked #172 by 2976 users) Playing 12/2 at 5:45pm
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946; ranked #179 by 1989 users) Playing 12/16 at 1:00pm
Fanny and Alexander (1982; ranked #187 by 1222 users) Playing 12/24 at 2:45am
Singin’ in the Rain (1952; ranked #201 by 19286 users) Playing 12/11 at 6:00pm
Some Like It Hot (1959; ranked #206 by 20560 users) Playing 12/25 at 8:00pm
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944; ranked #219 by 4412 users) Playing 12/26 at 7:45am
Stagecoach (1939; ranked #224 by 2156 users) Playing 12/11 at 8:00pm
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966; ranked #237 by 1863 users) Playing 12/11 at 10:00pm
The Shop Around the Corner (1940; ranked #245 by 1125 users) Playing 12/2 at 8:00pm, 12/16 at 6:00am and 12/24 at 12:30pm
White Heat (1949; ranked #261 by 1055 users) Playing 12/17 at 6:00pm
Children of Paradise (1945; ranked #309 by 510 users) Playing 12/17 at 2:00am
Winter Light (1962; ranked #371 by 542 users) Playing 12/31 at 2:00am
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961; ranked #396 by 9386 users) Playing 12/21 at 8:00pm
A Hard Day’s Night (1964; ranked #416 by 4234 users) Playing 12/28 at 8:00pm
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942; ranked #436 by 887 users) Playing 12/29 at 2:15pm
The Asphalt Jungle (1950; ranked $467 by 1221 users) Playing 12/17 at 10:00am
Mildred Pierce (1945; ranked #476 by 1054 users) Playing 12/12 at 2:30am
Lifeboat (1944; ranked #560 by 1224 users) Playing 12/30 at 2:00am
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936; ranked #572 by 1108 users) Playing 12/26 at 2:15am
Suspicion (1941; ranked #611 by 1280 users) Playing 12/26 at 10:00am
Deliverance (1972; ranked #634 by 10654 users) Playing 12/26 at 10:00pm
Meet Me in St Louis (1944; ranked #703 by 1487 users) Playing 12/1 at 12N and 12/16 at 8:00pm and 12/24 at 6:00pm
Doctor Zhivago (1965; ranked #704 by 3998 users) Playing 12/30 at 4:30pm
Easy Rider (1969; ranked #715 by 7337 users) Playing 12/12 at 12:30am
Swing Time (1936; ranked #748 by 674 users) Playing 12/18 at 10:15am
Ben-Hur (1959; ranked #762 by 16303 users) Playing 12/22 at 9:30am
Pandora’s Box (1928; ranked #653 by 443 users) Playing 12/2 at 12M
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937; ranked #816 by 299 users) Playing 12/9 at 2:00am
Adam’s Rib (1949; ranked #834 by 1030 users) Playing 12/2 at 11:45am
The Getaway (1972; ranked #837 by 1117 users) Playing 12/17 at 2:00pm
Murder My Sweet (1944; ranked #991 by 436 users) Playing 12/27 at 8:00pm
You’re a madwoman, Leslie Howard is great! Just like in real-life (he worked as a spy during WWII), his characters are proper young English gentlemen on the surface, but the grin at the corners of his mouth and the rakish, adventurous glint in his eyes hint at a vast intelligence and secret breadth of experience. If he’d lived in a different time, he could have made a great Bond. He’s one of my favorite actors of the 1930s.
Give me a list of recs. I’ve seen The Petrified Forest, Gone With the Wind, Intermezzo: A Love Story, Pygmalion, Romeo and Juliet, It’s Love I’m After, Smilin’ Through, and A Free Soul. I find him fairly insufferable. Maybe I’d prefer a movie about his real life as a spy (played by someone else)!
49th Parallel and The Scarlet Pimpernel are the two I’d recommend that showcase what I see in him.
British Agent by Michael Curtis probably does too, but I haven’t seen that one yet.