SATURDAY
NOVEMBER 24
2018

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

Tonight’s theme on TCM is “Blind Ambition” – and while it’s not showing the 1979 TV miniseries by that name, which starred Martin Sheen as central Watergate figure John Dean (with Rip Torn as Nixon!), it is showing a small collection of films featuring single-minded, ruthless, Iago-like antagonists. First up is one of the best: this 1950 backstage drama, in which Bette Davis plays a movie star whose adoring fan turns out to be scheming to steal the star’s career – and even her lover. George Sanders and Gary Merrill co-star, and Anne Baxter plays the scheming young woman.

 
  
 
 

TNT, 8:00 p.m. ET

Every year, poor Ralphie tries his best to convince everyone, especially his parents and Santa Claus, that there’s absolutely nothing wrong (and, in fact, everything right) with getting a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. Well, technically, Ralphie only tried it once, in this 1983 movie comedy – but TV has long made a holiday tradition out of showing this movie over and over, especially around Christmas day. But today, TNT is getting an early jump on Thanksgiving weekend, and showing it twice tonight in prime time, exactly one month before Christmas Eve, at both 8 and 10 p.m. ET. Jean Shepherd wrote the screenplay, based on one of his novels, and Peter Billingsley stars as Ralphie, with Shepherd providing his own narration, looking back as an adult on his own childhood memories, as ABC’s The Wonder Years would do a few years later. Co-stars include Melinda Dillon and Darren McGavin as Ralphie’s parents.
 
  
 
 

USA, 8:00 p.m. ET

Here’s another, even older movie that gets trotted out every Christmas season – and, like A Christmas Story, also shown right after Thanksgiving as a post-holiday “bonus.” This film, from 1946, stars James Stewart as a man who’s down on his luck, and experiencing severe financial difficulties because of some unsympathetic bank executives. This Frank Capra film always has been resonant, but after the Wall Street crash in the first decade of this century, it seems almost painfully relevant as well. Donna Reed co-stars.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.