cmovieviewer

I'm looking at WatchTCM with the film in the 16:9 frame that TCM creates on their web page, no monitor setting used on my computer, with a stretched picture that agrees with what NewYorkGuy saw watching it live earlier today. The Toast of New York (1937) running at the same time in the East coast feed on WatchTCM right now looks fine. I've seen TCM make these stretching errors before for individual movies, so that's why I have the impression it is a setting of some kind on their end.

I had watched When in Rome (1952) on TCM when it was shown back in December, and it looked fine. Now I see it is stretched wide on WatchTCM for the West coast. Perhaps this is what would be referred to as an "OE", Operator Error with some setting they have. Very frustrating when things are not consistent.

There are 2 other tricks I can think of that are used these days to show old material. Figure 1 below is similar to the last row in MovieCollectorOH’s diagram. A 4:3 classic film is fit within the 16:9 HD TV frame, with black bars on the left and right. TCM does this for the vast majority of their classic films on their HD feed. Figure 2 shows the “zoom” effect which some channels use to try to remove the black bars on the sides. Information is lost on the top and bottom of the original image because of the zoom. Figure 3 shows the “stretch” approach where the image is stretched wide to remove the black bars. The image is distorted by the stretch. It looks to me like some channels are also using a combination of 2 and 3 to fill up the frame, with both a stretch and a zoom. With this approach not as much information is lost on the top and bottom, and the stretch isn’t as bad. But it’s still a distorted picture. After years of watching TCM I don’t mind the black bars, and I greatly prefer to see the film shown with the original aspect ratio.

The Boy and The Pirates (1960) was a replacement for Time Bandits (1981). The change was made about 2 weeks after the schedule was originally announced. (thank you MCOH)

Someone at TCM needs to start consulting MovieCollectorOH's database. Per that reference, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949) has been on TCM 1 time prior to this week. It's also scheduled for Oct. 4 and Nov. 24 in case anyone missed it (and it can also be seen for another week on WatchTCM as well).

Framed (1947) was featured on Noir Alley on Sunday, September 3, 2017 (first season). How time flies... Tight Spot (1955) was part of TCM's Summer Under the Stars salute to Ginger Rogers on August 11, 2017.

As pointed out by MovieCollectorOH in another thread, the premiere of Buena Vista Social Club (1998) at 12:15 pm ET on Monday, September 7 has been replaced by the premiere showing of Big Time (1988) (Tom Waits music documentary). TCM info for Big Time (1988) IMDB listing for Big Time (1988) The list of September premieres above has been updated with this change.

The TCM At-A-Glance schedule for October 2020 is now available at: http://www.escapepress.com/tcmsched/tcm_overview.html - On this page, click on the At-A-Glance link for October to view the latest pdf file. - You can then use the Save command in your browser to make a local copy. - Information for September is also available (updated with latest schedule changes).

It's currently missing in the on-line schedule, but Merrily We Go To Hell (1932) has its TCM premiere on Tuesday evening at 9:15 pm ET. TCM info for Merrily We Go to Hell Message Board thread discussing Merrily We Go to Hell

Not sure why it isn't visible for different browsers. I realize this is a poor solution, but here is the URL for the search function: https://forums.tcm.com/search/

The search question: (I posted this earlier but it seems to have been ignored in the flood of posts) Here's a picture from a previous post. The faint magnifying glass on the dark background in the upper right is the search button, click on that to search. Please note that on my computer if the window is too wide, the magnifying glass disappears! Try making the window narrower and see if the magnifying glass shows up.

In case others are looking for it, on my desktop computer the faint magnifying glass icon on the far right for the search function goes away if I make the window wider. It shows back up for a narrower window. Of course, this may change in the future as things get tweaked... (Thanks to hamradio for the example picture.)

Here are the TCM premieres for September, as determined by MovieCollectorOH’s report published on August 1. Notes: - On Tuesdays, TCM is featuring the 'Women Make Film' series which has several premieres, so these are listed separately. - From Sep 4 through Sep 7, TCM is showing the 'End of Summer Tour' music series which has several premieres, so these are listed separately. - On Saturdays, TCM is premiering episodes of the Terry and the Pirates serial and the Wild West Days serial along with selected cartoons, so these are listed separately. Sep 2 - All That Jazz (1979) Sep 6 - Night Editor (1946) Sep 9 - Mother Is a Freshman (1949) Sep 9 - Blondie Goes to College (1942) Sep 11 - Sex Madness (1938) Sep 12 - Sitka and Juneau: 'A Tale of Two Cities' (1940) (short) Sep 14 - Call a Cop! (1931) (short) Sep 14 - Girl Shock (1930) (short) Sep 14 - So You Want to Play the Piano (1956) (short) Sep 14 - Apples to You! (1934) (short) Sep 16 - Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) Sep 18 - Wild at Heart (1990) Sep 18 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Sep 20 - Where Now Are the Dreams of Youth? (1932) Sep 20 - Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in the Land of Demons (1973) Sep 20 - Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell (1974) Sep 21 - Postcards From the Edge (1990) Sep 25 - C.C. and Company (1970) Sep 25 - J.C. (1972) Sep 27 - Island in the Sun (1957) Sep 28 - Titicut Follies (1967) - Tuesdays: Women Make Film series Sep 1 - Women Make Film: Episode 1 (2020) (2 showings) Sep 1 - Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) Sep 1 - Olivia (1951) Sep 1 - Sleepwalking Land (2007) Sep 1 - Seven Beauties (1975) Sep 1 - Je tu il Elle (1975) Sep 8 - Women Make Film: Episode 2 (2020) (2 showings) Sep 8 - El Camino (1963) Sep 8 - Lovely & Amazing (2001) Sep 9 - In the Empty City/Hollow City (2004) Sep 9 - Entre Nous (1983) Sep 15 - Women Make Film: Episode 3 (2020) (2 showings) Sep 15 - Loving Couples (1964) Sep 15 - Zero Motivation (2014) Sep 15 - 10 to 11 (2009) Sep 16 - Strangers in Good Company (1990) Sep 22 - Women Make Film: Episode 4 (2020) (2 showings) Sep 22 - The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005) Sep 22 - Krane’s Confectionery (1951) Sep 23 - Mikey and Nicky (1976) Sep 23 - The Juniper Tree (1990) Sep 23 - The Women Who Loved Cinema (1 & 2) (2002) Sep 29 - Women Make Film: Episode 5 (2020) (2 showings) Sep 29 - Adoption (Orokbefogadas) (1975) Sep 29 - We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) Sep 30 - Wasp (2003) (6 am ET) Sep 30 - XXY (2007) Sep 30 - My American Cousin (1985) - Sep 4 through Sep 7: End of Summer Tour series (music) Sep 4 - The T.A.M.I. Show (1964) (8 pm ET) Sep 5 - Shine a Light (2008) Sep 6 - Jimi Plays Monterey (1986) Sep 6 - Shake!: Otis at Monterey (1987) Sep 6 - Fade to Black (2004) Sep 6 - Young Americans (1967) Sep 7 - A Poem Is a Naked Person (1977) Sep 7 - Louie Bluie (1985) Sep 7 - Cuba Feliz (2000) Sep 7 - Big Time (1988) Sep 7 - Neil Young: Heart of Gold (2006) - Saturdays: Serials Sep 5 - Terry and the Pirates Ch. 13: The Fatal Mistake (1940) Sep 12 - Terry and the Pirates Ch. 14: Pyre of Death (1940) Sep 19 - Terry and the Pirates Ch. 15: The Secret of the Temple (1940) Sep 26 - Wild West Days Ch. 1: Death Rides the Range (1937) - Saturdays: Cartoons Sep 5 - MGM Cartoons: The Chump Champ (1950) Sep 5 - Popeye: Fleets of Stren'th (1942) Sep 12 - MGM Cartoons: Droopy's Double Trouble (1951) Sep 12 - Popeye: Pip-Eye, Pup-Eye, Poop-Eye An' Peep-Eye (1942) Sep 19 - MGM Cartoons: The Flea Circus (1954) Sep 19 - Popeye: Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix (1933) Sep 26 - MGM Cartoons: The First Bad Man (1955) Sep 26 - Popeye: Many Tanks (1933) Thanks as always to MCOH!

Here's the Noir Alley schedule for September: 6 - Night Editor (1946) (a TCM premiere) 12, 13 - Danger Signal (1945) 19, 20 - Gilda (1946) 26, 27 - They Won't Believe Me (1947) Note that on the evening of Saturday the 5th TCM is showing an "End of Summer" music series, so Noir Alley is not scheduled. The only showing that weekend is on Sunday morning.

I wouldn't assume the 'TCM Presents' logo means that a film is a premiere. My take is that it indicates that the TCM film information database used for the schedule has not been updated yet to assign a genre to the film (war, drama, western, etc.). It may possibly be a premiere, but not necessarily. For example, Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935) had its TCM premiere on August 5, 2019 as part of last year's Summer Under the Stars day for Melvyn Douglas, so they apparently still haven't assigned a film type in their database yet. I've seen that happen for other relatively recent premieres as well. On the flip side, I've seen premiere films that immediately have a specific genre designated from the very first time the film is added to the schedule. The only way to really tell it is a premiere is to look it up in MovieCollectorOH's database, a source which has proven to be very reliable for many months/years now.

Last night on The Essentials TCM was showing Ball of Fire (1941). About 6 minutes into the show, the scene refers to Miss Totten’s father the “late Daniel S. Totten,” who was paying for the work to create the encyclopedia, and shows Mr. Totten’s portrait in the background: Where have I seen that face before? That would be another classic Barbara Stanwyck film, Remember the Night (1940). In Remember the Night there’s a scene where the lawyer, played by Fred MacMurray, says he’s taking Lee Leander, played by Barbara Stanwyck, home with him for the Christmas holiday, where she’ll see “a painting of the cross-eyedest old guy you ever saw in your life.” Cut to this portrait: Now I wonder if this portrait has been used in any other films?! 🙂

The TCM At-A-Glance schedule for September 2020 is now available at: http://www.escapepress.com/tcmsched/tcm_overview.html - On this page, click on the At-A-Glance link for September to view the latest pdf file. - You can then use the Save command in your browser to make a local copy. - Information for August is also available (updated with latest schedule changes).

I stand corrected on a comment I made earlier - This year TCM is continuing The Essentials series during the Summer Under the Stars programming in August. The schedule is: Aug 1 - Ball of Fire (1941) (Barbara Stanwyck) Aug 8 - City Lights (1931) (Charlie Chaplin) Aug 15 - An American in Paris (1951) (Nina Foch) Aug 22 - The Searchers (1956) (Natalie Wood) Aug 29 - North by Northwest (1959) (Eva Marie Saint)

Yes, that's it. Nice that you have one! I saw it on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040823/ If Eddie would feature it on Noir Alley, he could tell us the story of the production. 🙂

It's not just you, according to MovieCollectorOH's database it looks like Sorry, Wrong Number hasn't been on TCM since 2012, which is longer than I can remember... I see on the poster that it's a "Hal Wallis Productions" picture, so maybe it's difficult to get the rights to show it.

In looking into this title I discovered that Fury River was assembled from episodes of a TV series called Northwest Passage, which ran on NBC in the late 50's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage_(TV_series) You may notice that Fury River is preceded on the TCM Thursday schedule by a film called Mission of Danger, which is also taken from the same television series, so some of the same cast members appear in both (including Buddy Ebsen). Although the Northwest Passage TV series was before my time, I'm still a bit surprised that I had not heard of it before, as I'm familiar with many other similar shows of that period (Davy Crockett, etc.). Per MovieCollectorOH's database, I see that Mission of Danger has been on TCM back in 2011, but I missed it at that time so both will be new to me. It's also interesting to me that Jacques Tourneur directed some of the television episodes on which the movies are based, so that's how these films fit into the daytime theme which is dedicated to him.

Just curious, where did you see Mary Burns, Fugitive listed as a premiere? The digital Now Playing Guide is the only place I know of where TCM lists premieres, and I don't see it indicated as such in my July copy. I also checked summer.tcm.com, and I don't see any premieres listed there either. Sorry if I am missing something.

Now that the serious discussion has died down a bit, I would like to go back and look into this question… The closing credits of The Breaking Point look like this (on DVD as well as on TCM): You can see that it looks like something was covered over on the last line. Wikipedia has a list of Warner Brothers film releases by date, so I took a look at films released around the same time as The Breaking Point. Just prior to the release of The Breaking Point in 1950, there was Tea for Two: It is somewhat hard to read, but it says "WARNER BROS. PICTURES, INC." at the end. So I’m guessing The Breaking Point might have originally said "WARNER BROS. PICTURES, INC.", and now has had the ", INC." at the end obscured. (Placing “, INC.” at the end where it is blacked out would also fit a centered alignment for the text.) Films released after The Breaking Point in 1950 include The West Point Story: and they are using “WARNER BROS. PICTURES" in the credits. And later in 1951 we have Operation Pacific: which again uses “WARNER BROS. PICTURES”. So that seems to match up. Perhaps someone with historical knowledge of Warner Brothers could explain why they might start using the “INC.” and then quickly abandon it.

Same schedule issue that's been going on for over a year now - premieres tend to disappear leaving gaps in the schedule. I added the schedule times to the list for the 'missing' films. Other premieres may disappear / reappear between now and when they are scheduled to be shown. The rule of thumb is that if there's a gap, the premiere will still be shown. Of course, the trick is to figure out that there is a gap. (I wish I could 'pin' this answer to this message thread.)

Here are the TCM premieres for August, as determined by MovieCollectorOH’s report published on July 1. (August is Summer Under the Stars month, so the premiere title is listed together with the star of the day.) Aug 2 - The Golden Blade (1953) (Rock Hudson) Aug 7 - You And Me (1938) (Sylvia Sidney) Aug 7 - Thirty Day Princess (1934) (Sylvia Sidney) Aug 9 - The First Wives Club (1996) (Goldie Hawn) Aug 9 - Crisscross (1992) (Goldie Hawn) Aug 11 - Tap (1989) (Sammy Davis Jr.) Aug 13 - Night Club Scandal (1937) (John Barrymore) Aug 19 - Ramona (1928) (Dolores Del Rio) Aug 20 - The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947) (William Powell) Aug 21 - The Weak and the Wicked (1954) (Diana Dors) (10 pm ET) Aug 24 - Loan Shark (1952) (George Raft) Aug 24 - I'll Get You (1953) (George Raft) Aug 25 - Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) (Anne Shirley) (9:30 pm ET) Aug 28 - For Men Only (1951) (Paul Henreid) Thanks as always to MCOH!