cmovieviewer

If you would like some additional material from Eddie this week, he was the host for the primetime theme Wednesday evening, entitled “Scoundrels & Spitballers.” The topic is based on a book that Eddie’s company published this year, with full title Scoundrels & Spitballers: Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s, written by Philippe Garnier. Eddie did the introductions and wrap-ups for 4 films: Hard To Handle (1933) The Beast of the City (1932) They Live by Night (1948) (Eddie introduced this as part of Noir Alley in 2017) One Way Passage (1932) Based on the theme, Eddie concentrated on the writers of these films in his introductions. All 4 films are currently available together with Eddie’s material on WatchTCM. It appears they will be posted there through November 20 if you have access to the service. TCM’s article on the theme is at: TCM - Scoundrels and Spitballers: Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s As an aside, I'm not sure if Eddie shot the video at his home, but the introductions have a very elegant-looking background. Much more formal than what we are currently seeing on Noir Alley.

I noticed yesterday that TCM changed the schedule for this morning to remove The Third Miracle and add Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day for later in the day. These changes are reflected in the "new" feed but apparently TCM did not incorporate them in the "old" (stable) feed. So based on that I think I will be using the second link above as my schedule reference so I can see the latest updates. (Assuming this pattern holds in the future.) Thank you again MCOH for making these schedules available.

As the Great and Powerful Oz would say, "Pay no attention to that banner behind the curtain!" (A bit of a stretch, I know.)

With this new assignment, I wonder if Jacqueline Stewart will continue to work for TCM?

Item #1 appears to have been fixed, thank you. (I live in the Central time zone, and the schedule shows proper Eastern times now. Selecting Central time zone also produces correct times for my area.) Now hoping for item 2. Edit on 10-21-2020: Schedule is broken again, back to the way it was.

The jig is up: (I had never put 2 and 2 together before.) Hope you don't mind me posting this photo. You did a very nice job introducing the movie. And what an honor to discuss the film with the man himself! Also hope you still have that TCM mug 😉

If anyone is tracking the original list of premieres for the month, it looks like the premiere of The Third Miracle (1999) was removed from the Women Make Film series, and Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day (1941) (not a premiere) was added on Wednesday morning to pick up the slack. I hope everyone can figure out the movie times for their local provider, as it can all get very confusing. As a reminder, you can go to the Women Make Film web site to see the correct movie times for the Eastern time zone: http://womenmakefilm.tcm.com/schedule/

I can see how there are mixed feelings on this approach. I believe the previous system was based on the organization of the schedule into 2 'theme' periods - a daytime theme period and a primetime theme period. The primetime portion of the schedule starts each day at 8 pm Eastern time and can include several films which can run past midnight. By convention the daytime theme would typically start at 6 am Eastern time. The 6 am start time for the daytime theme has been flexible to allow for even more films to continue with the same theme from the night before. (The Women Make Film series is an example, with films for this theme continuing up until 9 am or even 10 am the next day.) But the new schedule currently does not list any themes at all, even though the programming is still organized that way out through the end of the year. It is yet to be determined if the new schedule format is a sign of things to come with respect to continuing to build the schedule around 2 themes per day or not. It is just my opinion that the previous method was better at quickly showing the films as they related to these themes, but with the new system that is now completely hidden. It may not matter if TCM abandons the idea of 2 themes per day altogether.

13. Restore access to viewer comments on the films. These had been collected over many years of showing the films on TCM.

Just to be clear, I was not trying to say that incorrect times is the only issue with the new schedule. In fact, I started a thread in order to list what people thought were the important issues to fix: Forums - Schedule Wish List Since I assume that getting the titles and times correct is the number 1 responsibility for a movie channel schedule, I was trying to understand how the current system could be acceptable to anyone. So that is why I mentioned the times are apparently correct for those who live in the Eastern time zone. At least the fundamental requirement of a schedule is met for them, so that may give some cover for those who don't know or don't care about the rest of us. By listing things to "fix" with the new schedule system, I was also trying to meet them half-way. Like many, I too would be thrilled if things just went back to the way they were. But to be realistic I can't see that happening. Short of that, I was hoping that someone would make a good-faith effort to fix the obvious problems and/or restore a bit of the basic functionality we were used to. Only time will tell if things will eventually change for the better. But since 2 weeks have passed and the times are still not correct for 75% of the country it's not looking good.

Based on other comments made here and a quick test, my impression is that the web schedule may look fine for those who are lucky enough to live in the Eastern time zone. So depending on where they are based (Atlanta? New York?) TPTB may be thinking "looks OK to me." However, if you took a quick look at the comments on the message board and other feedback... And the fact that we are now over 2 weeks in and no changes have been made for those of us who are geographically not so lucky is very disappointing.

For several years now I’ve been posting my own version of the monthly schedule which lists both the daytime and primetime themes for each day in pdf format. I typically post this one month in advance for planning purposes. You can find my schedules for October and November at http://escapepress.com/tcmsched/tcm_overview.html The thread I use on the TCM message boards to announce the new schedule availability is at TCM Forums - Early Now Playing Guide MovieCollectorOH provides the TCM premiere information that I show in the document, so this is sort of a joint project of ours.

I'm not sure if this has been posted before, but you can search for any title in the TCM database by using Google (even films that are not currently scheduled). For example, try Tension (1949) If you type "TCM Tension 1949" in your Google search box, it will return something like: "Tension (1949) - Turner Classic Movies (TCM)" which gives a link to the TCM database entry. You can click on the Google link to go there. If you don't know the year of the film, just try "TCM <film name>" and see if that gives you a similar link. Without the year it is less reliable, so you may need to go to IMDB or Wikipedia to find the year first. If you go to the monthly schedule and type in the name of the film in the search box, it will show you if the film is coming up on the schedule (includes months after the current month). Unfortunately, this method only shows films that are currently scheduled. The Google approach also works for films that are not currently scheduled. So Google can help you find the TCM film database entries, even if TCM no longer gives you a direct way to go there.

Same for my cable system. Also seems low on WatchTCM, so whatever the cause it is consistent.

Sidewalk Stories (1989) had its TCM premiere late on the evening of September 28, 2016, as part of a 'Salute to Slapstick' theme. This was just the 2nd time it has been shown on TCM.

Sounds like another option the schedule should offer is the ability to select which feed your provider is using - East or West - so it could show you the appropriate times. But asking for more options at this point when the basics are broken would be silly.

I had thought the schedule is behaving as if my computer is on some kind of super Daylight Savings Time. For example, if Bombshell starts at 6:15 pm EDT, my schedule shows it starting at 7:15 pm, so it thinks my time is actually ahead of EDT, out in the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. (If I was in the Central time zone with no Daylight Savings, the show would be coming on at 4:15 pm local time.) Another complicating factor is that TCM has 2 different feeds, East Coast and West Coast. I was surprised by speedracer5 comments on Pacific Time, because I thought the West Coast had its own feed that made their times match up with East Coast times. (The West Coast feed is delayed by 3 hours, so a show that starts at 8 pm on the East Coast will also start at 8 pm local time on the West Coast.)

Just for fun I changed the time zone on my PC to be the Eastern time zone (EDT), and the schedule in my browser now has the correct times for the East Coast. After that, when I use the drop-down menu on the schedule page to set the time zone to Central time, the times look correct for the Central time zone as well. So that seems to imply that the schedule software doesn't react properly for a computer time that is in a different time zone from East Coast time. For the Central time zone, it offsets all of the times by adding an hour instead of just displaying the Eastern times that are apparently part of the data source (thanks MCOH). Since the default time zone setting in the drop down is always Eastern time, it should always start out by showing Eastern times no matter what. Of course, the old schedule could remember what time zone you had previously selected, and would continue to use that for return visits. I would hope we could get back to that at some point. Are there any TCM web programmers paying attention?

When I look at the schedule now, the time to load the Daily Schedule page seems to have gotten better. I am not waiting nearly as long (with the spinning circle) before the page loads. Was something changed for the better? So item 11. may have been addressed.

If the times look OK for you in Safari while in PA, then I would conclude that those living in the Eastern time zone see the correct times regardless of device, while those in other time zones have the problem. I live in the Central time zone and it seems like the schedule is changing the time by one hour from what you are seeing when using the default Eastern time zone setting. I then have to change it to "Mountain" time to get the correct times for my area. But this is all academic since there isn't anything we can do about it.

That's interesting that the times are correct for you. Are the times the same for both Chrome and Edge? (I don't use either.) For me the times are off using Firefox on desktop and Safari on iPhone.

For me, as I look at the schedules both the daily and monthly views have the same time shift. For example, "The Squall" today is listed at 12:30 pm ET instead of 11:30 am. Not only that, but the "On Now" label they put on the film they think is currently showing is off as well. My guess is that the scheduling system does not realize we are all on Daylight Savings Time for another 3 1/2 weeks.

I could say that it is not available on WatchTCM, but then They Won’t Believe Me. (Ben used a variation on this joke in the wrap-up for the Saturday evening film that preceded Noir Alley.)

Once you know the title of a film that is currently on the schedule, - go to the Daily Schedule page - start typing the name of the film in the search box - this should list the title of the film you are looking for - click on the name of the film - if there is a "MORE INFO" field, click on that - from this entry, you can click on the director's name to get more information This approach can show you films that are on the schedule out through December Try "The Thin Man", for example. This doesn't work for all the films, but some of them do have director information. Note that once a film has been shown, it will drop off the Daily Schedule page the next day if there are no other showings. You can try to do the same search from the Monthly Schedule page to find similar listings. Searching from the Monthly Schedule page limits you to films that are on this month, but it will list any film shown during the month, even if that is now in the past. Not as good as what was there before, but that's about all we can do for now.

Imagine a world where TCM had a comprehensive database of films, actors, directors and other contributors that you could search on and quickly find a wealth of information... Oh wait, we used to have access to that. (In the stages of grief progression, I think I'm still in the depression phase.)