Saturday 22 August
9:00 a.m. (TNT)--How the West Was Won (1963)--An 'epic' saga, with more weaknesses than strengths, about three generations of western pioneers. Henry Fonda, Carroll Baker, Gregory Peck, George Peppard and countless others star. Co-directed by John Ford, Henry Hathaway and George Marshall.
3:00 p.m. (TCM)--Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)--The last film made by famed musical extravaganza director Busby Berkeley. A relatively restrained work about a baseball team, with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly as its stars, taken over by Esther Williams.
8:00 p.m. (History)--Hell to Eternity (1960)--Remarkable account of US World War II hero Guy Gabaldon, who had been raised by Japanese foster parents. With Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen, Vic Damone. Directed by underrated Phil Karlson.
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--Mildred Pierce (1945)--Powerful melodrama, directed by Michael Curtiz, about a woman (Joan Crawford) who goes from rags to riches, and her ungrateful daughter.
9:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--Paul Schrader (screenwriter of Taxi Driver, among other films) wrote and directed this work about corruption in an auto union in Detroit. Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel costarred.
Sunday 23 August
12:00 a.m. (History)--Hell to Eternity (1960)--See Saturday at 8:00 p.m.
12:00 a.m. (TCM)--Humoresque (1946)--A remarkable performance by John Garfield, as a classical violinist from the slums, who falls for a wealthy society lady. With Joan Crawford, Oscar Levant. Directed by Jean Negulesco.
1:00 a.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--See Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
4:15 a.m. (TCM)--Flamingo Road (1949)--Michael Curtiz directed this political melodrama about a stranded carnival performer who runs up against a corrupt local politician when she marries into a distinguished family. With Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott and Sydney Greenstreet.
10:00 a.m. (TCM)--Act of Violence (1949)--Fred Zinnemann directed this well-meaning effort. Robert Ryan is a crippled, former soldier in pursuit of a former officer who betrayed his men while a prisoner. With Van Heflin, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor.
1:00 p.m. (TCM)--Anna Christie (1930)--Greta Garbo is charming, in her first speaking part, as the woman with a past who returns to her father and the sea, and falls in love. Based on the Eugene O'Neill play. Directed turgidly by Clarence Brown; with Charles Bickford.
1:35 p.m. (TBS)--Thelma & Louise (1991)--Ridley Scott directed this film about two women who inadvertently become fugitives from the law and take off across America in their convertible. The script tries too hard to combine the road-movie genre with its feminism and fails to convince, but Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are memorable as the pair.
2:45 p.m. (Bravo)--The Third Man (1949)--Carol Reed directed this sharp look at life in post-World War II Vienna, impoverished and corrupt, where the Cold War is beginning to take shape. Orson Welles plays the mysterious Harry Lime and, one suspects, contributed to the overall feel of the film. Score, played on the zither by Anton Karas, is justly famous.
4:00 p.m. (TCM)--Dinner at Eight (1933)--A collection of individuals from various social classes, all facing a crisis, prepare to dine at eight. George Cukor directed this MGM version of the George Kaufman-Edna Ferber play, with Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery and John Barrymore.
5:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--See Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m. (TCM)--I Walked With a Zombie (1943) - One of the Val Lewton-Jacques Tourneur collaborations, a stylish horror film about a nurse who turns to voodoo to cure a patient. Francis Dee and Tom Conway costarred.
Monday 24 August
10:00 a.m. (AMC)--Artists and Models (1955)--An extravagant Frank Tashlin cartoon, with Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Dorothy Malone and Shirley MacLaine.
11:00 a.m. (Bravo)--The Third Man (1949)--See Sunday at 2:45 p.m.
12:00 p.m. (AMC)--Take Me To Town (1953)--Ann Sheridan as a showgirl on the run and Sterling Hayden as a widowed small-town preacher who falls for her. The very talented Douglas Sirk, who had little choice in his scripts, directed.
4:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Isadora (1968)--Occasionally silly biography of the modern dancer Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), starring a young Vanessa Redgrave, who, unfortunately, couldn't dance very well. Directed by Karel Reisz.
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--The Maltese Falcon (1941)--John Huston classic, based on the Dashiell Hammett novel, with Humphrey Bogart as private detective Sam Spade. Sidney Greenstreet, Mary Astor and Peter Lorre brilliantly costar.
9:35 p.m. (AMC)--Battle Cry (1955)--Raoul Walsh World War II melodrama, about the lives and loves of a group of Marines getting ready for battle, with Van Heflin, Aldo Ray, Tab Hunter and Dorothy Malone.
10:00 p.m. (TCM)--Play Misty for Me (1971)--Clint Eastwood directed and starred as a jazz-playing disc jockey who jilts a woman (Jessica Walter) and is then stalked by her. With Donna Mills.
Tuesday 25 August
12:00 a.m. (TCM)--Citizen Kane (1941)--Orson Welles's classic work, the tragic story of a newspaper tycoon with delusions of grandeur. Based loosely on the life of millionaire William Randolph Hearst, the film was essentially suppressed when it came out.
7:45 a.m. (AMC)--You Can't Take It With You (1938)--Frank Capra's version of the George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart comedy about the antics of an eccentric during the Depression. Starring James Stewart and Jean Arthur.
11:00 a.m. (Bravo)--Isadora (1968)--See Monday at 4:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m. (TCM)--The Pirate (1948)--One of Vincente Minnelli's classic MGM musicals, with his wife, Judy Garland. Gene Kelly is a circus clown she mistakes for a pirate. Cole Porter wrote the songs.
8:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--See Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
11:00 p.m. (AMC)--The Star (1952)--Stuart Heisler directed this film about a movie star whose career is a thing of the past, with Bette Davis, Sterling Hayden and a young Natalie Wood.
Wednesday 26 August
12:00 a.m. (TNT)--2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)--Stanley Kubrick's science fiction epic. A space vehicle heads for Jupiter in search of aliens. One critic, somewhat unfairly, called it a project 'so devoid of life and feeling as to render a computer called Hal the most sympathetic character in a jumbled scenario.' Despite a silly ending, the film is worth seeing.
12:15 a.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--See Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
7:30 a.m. (TCM)--The Man With the Golden Arm (1955)--Otto Preminger directed this film about a heroin addict (Frank Sinatra), the woman who loves him (Kim Novak) and the lowlifes he consorts with. Based on the book by Nelson Algren.
9:45 a.m. (AMC)--Dark City (1950)--Charlton Heston in his film debut, as a cynical lowlife who, along with a few accomplices, takes Don DeFore in a card game, with unforeseen consequences. Future Dragnet costars, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, are two of Heston's pals. With Lizabeth Scott and Viveca Lindfors. Directed by William Dieterle.
5:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Blue Collar (1978)--See Saturday at 9:00 p.m.
8:00 p.m. (Bravo)--A Midnight Clear (1992)--Strong anti-war film about a squad of US soldiers in France near the end of World War II. Ethan Hawke, Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Gary Sinise starred. Directed by Keith Gordon, from William Wharton's novel.
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--The Left-Handed Gun (1958)--Based on a television play by Gore Vidal, Arthur Penn directed this off-beat version of the Billy the Kid legend. With Paul Newman as the famed gunslinger.
10:00 p.m. (TCM)--They Live by Night (1949)--Wonderful, tragic film directed by Nicholas Ray about doomed young lovers during the Depression. Based on Edward Anderson's Thieves Like Us, remade, under that title, in 1974 by Robert Altman. With Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell.
Thursday 27 August
2:00 a.m. (Bravo)--A Midnight Clear (1992)--See Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.
3:30 a.m. (AMC)--Arch of Triumph (1948)--Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman falling for each other in wartime France, from the novel by Erich Maria Remarque. Directed by the stolid Lewis Milestone.
3:30 a.m. (TCM)--Nothing Sacred (1937)--Fredric March is a cynical reporter who sets out to make headlines with the story of a Vermont girl (Carole Lombard) supposedly dying from radium poisoning. Ben Hecht wrote the script and William Wellman directed.
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--On the Town (1949)--Memorable MGM musical--three sailors with 24 hours' leave in New York City. Based on the show by Betty Comden-Adolph Green-Leonard Bernstein, with Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Vera-Ellen and Betty Garrett. Directed by Stanley Donen and Kelly.
11:30 p.m. (AMC)--Springfield Rifle (1952)--Andre de Toth's film about a Union officer (Gary Cooper) who goes undercover to expose a Confederate horse stealing ring. Dark and spare, with an exemplary performance by Paul Kelly as the chief villain.
Friday 28 August
2:15 a.m. (TNT)--The Naked Jungle (1954)--Above-average jungle adventure directed by Byron Haskin, with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker.
11:00 a.m. (Bravo)--Alexander Nevsky (1938)--Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein's famous film, about a thirteenth century Russian prince (Nikolai Cherkassov) who leads an army that repels Germanic invaders, obviously paralleling the contemporary situation. Some brilliant moments, but the Russian nationalism is hard to take.
12:15 p.m. (AMC)--A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)--Elia Kazan's version of the Tennessee Williams drama about the strong and the weak in a New Orleans tenement. Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden.
5:30 p.m. (Bravo)--Alexander Nevsky (1938)--See Friday at 11:00 a.m.
8:00 p.m. (AMC)--A Night to Remember (1958)--Well-made film about the sinking of the Titanic, directed by Roy Ward Baker. With Kenneth More, David McCallum, Jill Dixon, Laurence Naismith. Novelist Eric Ambler wrote the script, based on the book by Walter Lord.
8:00 p.m. (Bravo)--Gray's Anatomy (1996)--One of actor Spalding Gray's filmed monologues. This time he describes his efforts to find alternative treatments for an eye ailment. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.
11:45 p.m. (AMC)--Jane Eyre (1944)--Robert Stevenson directed this version of the Charlotte Brontë classic about a poor governess thrown into a mysterious household. Joan Fontaine is Jane and Orson Welles an unforgettable Rochester.