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Robert Osborne on Guest Programmer Month
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If you ever wondered where we get our TCM programming ideas, this month the answer is simple: from Whoopi, The Donald, Martha, Alec, Cybill and 25 other interesting people who run the gamut from comedienne, opera star, film editor and real estate mogul to director, chef, actor, and green amphibian. (Yes, Kermit the Frog is among those pickin' the pics this month.)
For the first time in TCM's lifespan, instead of one guest programmer in a month we're going to bring you 30 of them, one for each evening in November – all of whom not only choose the films we'll be showing but also join me to explain why. Vanity Fair's elegant editor Graydon Carter will be telling us why he chose Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and Alfred Molina will clue us in as to why he selected a little known 1955 British comedy called Trouble in Store. Did Donald Trump pick Citizen Kane (1941) because he identifies with the saga of a mogul who thought big? You can find out on Nov. 3.
Our guide rules for these 30 Guest Programmers were simple: look through the titles in the TCM library and select four which are (a) either favorite movies and/or (b) little known, underated treats you'd like to introduce to others. As it turned out, there were amazingly few overlaps in their choices, the one big exception being 1951's A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. Several of our 30 celebs chose it among their golden quartet, including Charles Grodin who said, "It's my favorite movie…it changed my life." Unfortunately, by the time we heard from Charles, A Place had already been locked in by two others and since we're not too keen at TCM about repeating any film within a given month we thought three showings would really be overdoing it. (Sorry, Charles). But being a good sport, he agreed to go instead with another Clift film, From Here to Eternity (1953). And so it went. (We do have one other prime-time repeat: A Face in the Crowd (1957), a choice of both Whoopi Goldberg and Mark Mothersbaugh.)
Some selections seem absolutely logical – for instance, James Ellroy, the author of L.A. Confidential and other tough-skinned crime stories, picking such movies as Stakeout on Dope Street (1958) and Murder by Contract (1958); also the great opera diva Renee Fleming choosing movies steeped in classical music, including The Great Waltz (1938) and Maytime (1937). But others did surprise me, such as Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, selecting I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and Martha Stewart having a soft spot for Anna Karenina (1935) and Madame Bovary (1949). Two of our celebs picked movies in which they appear (Jack Klugman with 12 Angry Men (1957) and Grodin with Movers and Shakers (1985) for reasons they'll explain; and Harvey Fierstein selected The Catered Affair (1956) a movie close to his heart because he'd just written a stage adaption of it which opens on Broadway next April.
Our guests and their selections couldn't be more varied, worthwhile or welcome, including several TCM premieres, among them That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Vivian Leigh and Laurence Olivier (thanks to Gore Vidal) and also Kes (1969) and Withnail & I (1987) (courtesy of Tracey Ullman). All this plus on Thanksgiving night, we'll be joined by Paul Aguirre, the TCM viewer who was the winner of our "Guest Programmer" contest. He's selected some goodies as well. It's going to be quite a month. Simply put: it's a case of "All this, and Kermit, too."
by Robert Osborne
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for Feb. 20
Nominated for 9 Academy Awards®, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), starring Richard Dreyfuss, is spotlighted along with The Goodbye Girl (1977), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Julius Caesar (1953) and 7 more.
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