This month on TCM we guarantee you more first-class classic films than we've ever had before in our annual "31 Days of Oscar®" festival (this year, for the record, is our 22nd such celebration). I should also point out they're not just classic films I'm talking about but each one a highly entertaining film as well, and we'll be showing all of them in alphabetical order. Nowhere else can you find a network this month in which, during a single nine-hour period, you can see All About Eve, immediately followed by An American in Paris, then Annie Hall and Around the World in 80 Days, all of them Oscar® winners in the Best Picture category (that all happens on TCM Feb. 1).

During the month among the treasures playing, there are also: four infectious musicals with Fred and Ginger; seven examples of the unique artistry of John Huston as a director; Roz Russell showing why no one could match her as Auntie Mame; and seven perfect reasons why Alfred Hitchcock's name as a director remains so potent today, 40 years after he made his last film (1976's Family Plot).

We have only one strict rule about the films we book each February, when we annually honor Hollywood's legendary and much sought-after Academy Awards®: every film we show, including the cartoons, shorts and documentaries, whatever their length or size, is an Academy Award® winner or nominee. No exceptions. That means the one thing you won't find on TCM this month is any Saturday morning B-budget quickie made in the 1940s or '50s (the kind of movie many of us love to occasionally watch). Thus, none of the Bowery Boys will be with us this February, nor will Johnny Weissmuller be huffing and puffing by the TCM camera lens as Jungle Jim,nor any of the numerous Saturday morning gents who played such B-budget sleuths as The Falcon, the Saint and Philo Vance. (The exception is Nick Charles; we'll be showing two Thin Man movies this month, but Nick was always first-class, never second-rate.)

If it's any comfort to you Bowery Boys fans, one of their films did, indeed, receive an Academy Award® nomination. I kid you not. The Bowery Boys comedy High Society was initially a 1955 nominee in the Best Motion Picture Story category, which came as a giant jolt to everyone when that year's nominations were announced. A Bowery Boys movie nominated for an Oscar® Unbelievable! It soon became clear Oscar® voters that year had not taken more than a glance at their nomination ballots, thus confusing the bargain-basement High Society--written for the Bowery Boys by Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman--with an expensive MGM film also titled High Society starring Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly which came out at basically the same time. Embarrassed, Bernds and Ullman quickly and graciously withdrew their names from Oscar® contention and eventually all was forgiven and forgotten. But--because of a gaff by some Academy voters who were not paying attention--we might be showing a Bowery Boys movie this month after all. By the way, our Now Playing cover shot of the 2006 Dreamgirls, with Beyoncé front and center, is there to remind you we'll be having the TCM premiere of that Academy Award®-winning movie on Feb. 7.

Happy viewing everyone. I'll be right there watching with you.

by Robert Osborne