For Better or Werts

FLICK PICKS: Alfred Hitchcock and a Big Invisible Bunny

JAMES STEWART FILMS
Tuesday 6 a.m.-Wednesday 7 a.m. ET, Turner Classic Movies

James-Stewart-Posters bunny.jpgDon't panic. They're not together. The fearmongering director and the fantasy creature simply share James Stewart in common.

Tuesday would have been Stewart's 100th birthday -- if only I could celebrate by composing the kind of doggerel poems Stewart used to bring to The Tonight Show -- so TCM goes all out with an all-day all-night marathon.

Here's the lineup:
6 a.m. -- The Stratton Story (1949): Stewart plays the one-legged baseball pitcher, with June Allyson as his wife.
8 a.m. -- The Mortal Storm (1940): Stewart and Margaret Sullavan under Nazi terror.
9:45 a.m. -- The Shop Around the Corner (1940): Stewart and Sullavan again, as secret pen pals, under Ernst Lubitsch's sparkling direction.
11:30 a.m. -- The Philadelphia Story (1940): Jimmy was on a roll this year, costarring here with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in a breezy romance among the rich.
1:30 p.m. -- The Glenn Miller Story (1954): Another biopic, about the big band leader lost in a wartime airplane.
3:30 p.m. -- The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956): Stewart costars for Hitchcock with Doris Day.
5:45 p.m. -- Vertigo (1958): Jimmy's got it, and Kim Novak's got "it," in this spellbinding Hitchcock suspenser.
8 p.m. -- Rear Window (1954): Laid up with a broken leg, Stewart witnesses a murder across the way. Hitchcock masterpiece costars Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr.
10 p.m. -- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962): John Ford's elegiac western with John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and that great Gene Pitney theme song.
12:15 p.m. -- Anatomy of a Murder (1959): Otto Preminger's courtroom tale.
3 a.m. -- Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): Frank Capra-corn at its finest, with clever cookie Jean Arthur shepherding Stewart's new hayseed senator through Washington's political cesspool.
5:15 a.m. -- Harvey (1950): Jimmy's a rich loon (or is he?) hanging out with the title character, a six-foot invisible rabbit.

Read more about Stewart and his movies at TCM's tribute page.

Leave a comment


Diane Werts

Diane Werts has been glued to the tube since she can remember, growing up in a household where the TV came on first thing in the morning and stayed on till bedtime and beyond. She worked for the USA Film Festival, then for The Dallas Morning News writing about everything from Shakespeare to macrame art to rock music (and has the hearing loss to prove it). She moved to New York's Newsday to edit their glossy TV magazine, then returned to writing about television, specializing in its stranger permutations. She's a past president of the Television Critics Association.

TV Worth Watching

DAVID BIANCULLI
Founder / Editor

DIANE WERTS
Managing Editor

CONTRIBUTORS

ED BARK
  Uncle Barky's Bytes

P.J. BEDNARSKI
  I Like to Watch

MARK BIANCULLI
  The Son Also Criticizes

TOM BRINKMOELLER
  Raised on MTM

BILL BRIOUX
  TV Feeds My Family

THERESA CORIGLIANO
  Terri TV

ERIC GOULD
  The Cold Light Reader

DIANE HOLLOWAY
  Holloway's Couch

NOEL HOLSTON
  The Grassy Noel

GERALD JORDAN
  Crossing Jordan

ED MARTIN
  Ed Martin's TV Mix

ERIC MINK
  Tiny Tin Voice

ALAN PERGAMENT
  Still TalkinTV


Get TV Worth Watching Direct

Sign up for a
FREE subscription
for TVWW updates




More TV

FIND A TV FACT

LATEST TV NEWS

SMART CRITICS

BACKSTAGE BLOGS

STREAMING VIDEO

CHANNEL SITES

TV FUN/EPHEMERA

OTHER STUFF

RANDOM LINK AMAZEMENT!