Updated for Week 5 after the jump. Time once again for Turner Classic Movies’ yearly tribute to one star per day for the month of August. Below I’m listing at least one pick for every day. These might include my favorites for each day if any, the new-to-me titles and/or any available rarities that I’m most likely to watch or DVR. I say “most likely” because there are just too many great titles — or at least ones I enjoy. Tell me what I missed in the comments.

But first, here is a handy table of the first-time honorees and this month’s TCM premières. All times are Eastern.

First-Time Stars		TCM Premières
Sat, Aug 2	Christopher Plummer	Sat. Aug 2	Aces High (1976)
Thurs, Aug 7	Ruby Dee		The Sound of Music (1965)
Tues, Aug 12	Pedro Armendariz		The Last Station (2009)
Sat, Aug 16	Charles Bronson	Thurs, Aug 7	Uptight (1968)
Mon, Aug 18	James Gleason		The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (1990)
Sat, Aug 23	Gina Lollobrigida	Tues, Aug 12	Soledad’s Shawl (1952)
Tues, Aug 26	Tom Courtenay	Sat, Aug 16	Chato’s Land (1971)
Thurs, Aug 28	Donald O’Connor		Death Wish (1974)
		Sat, Aug 23	Strange Bedfellows (1965)
			The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956)
		Thurs, Aug 28	The Millkman (1950)
			Double Crossbones (1950)

And now the day-by-day rundown….

Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four

Week Five – August 29-31

8/29 – Alexis Smith

Previous SUTS: 2014

Canadian-born Alexis Smith attended Hollywood High School and was discovered in a production at LA City College by a Warner Brothers scout. Though she started with a string of uncredited bit parts, she got her first top billing in Steel Against The Sky (1941 | 6:00 a.m.) the same year as her first credit, in Dive Bomber, opposite Errol Flynn. She eventually appeared with many of Warners’ best and brightest, including Flynn, with whom I think she had some of her best roles, and certainly two of her biggest box-office hits: San Antonio (1945 | 2:00 a.m.) and Gentleman Jim (1942 | 4:00 a.m.).

I’ve always been partial to The Woman in White (1948 | 2:00 p.m.), although I’m not sure I completely understand the plot.

Beyond SUTS: Here Comes the Groom (1951), her favorite role

---

8/30 – Kirk Douglas

2003, 2005, 2007, 2013, 2019

I always recommend Paths of Glory (1957 | 2:00 p.m.), although the people who really need to see it won’t, but I’ve never seen Detective Story (1951 | 8:00 p.m.).

---

8/31 – Irene Dunne

2005, 2012, 2019

^{Dunne in Love Affair}

Earlier in her career, Dunne was regularly cast in “women’s pictures” aka “weepies,” but her true gift is comedy. This is easy: The Awful Truth (1937 | noon), Theodora Goes Wild (1936| 2:00 p.m.), My Favorite Wife (1940 | 8:00 p.m.). Born in Louisville in 1898, she wanted to be an opera singer, and most of her pictures utilize her gorgeous voice, such as one of the funniest scenes in Awful Truth. Several of her films are the originals of better-known remakes:

• A Guy Named Joe (1943 | 3:45 p.m.) — Remade as Always (1989) by Steven Spielberg)
• Show Boat (1936 | 6:00 p.m.) — Itself a remake of a 1929 film starring Laura LaPlante, it was remade in 1951 starring Ava Gardner
• I Remember Mama (1948 | 9:45 p.m.) — Became a popular TV show that ran from 1949-1957, although I’m not sure how well-known it is today
• Magnificent Obsession (1935 | 12:15 a.m.) – Remade in 1954 with Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson
• Love Affair (1939 | 2:15 a.m.) – Remade as An Affair to Remember (1957) and again in 1994 starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening
• Roberta (1935 | 4:00 a.m.) — The third film to star Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire was remade in glorious Technicolor as Lovely to Look At (1952)

The latter is my pick of the day. Watch for platinum blonde Lucille Ball in the fashion show.

PS: Word to the wise: Penny Serenade (1941 | 9:45 a.m.), Dunne’s third of three pictures with Cary Grant, is NOT a comedy.

---

Week Four – August 22-28

8/22 – Frank Sinatra

Previous SUTS: 2003, 2009, 2018

The powerful impact The Man with the Golden Arm (1955 | 10:45 p.m.) belies its messy production. It’s directed by Otto Preminger, there’s an Elmer Bernstein score, and it was so potentially controversial that Preminger and United Artists decided to release it before submitting to the PCA. That’s all interesting but what truly matters is that Sinatra will break your freakin’ heart.

Don’t just take my word for it, here’s the late beloved Robert Osborne introducing said film.

---

8/23 – Gina Lollobrigida

SUTS début

^{Gina Lollobrigida in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956 | 2:15 a.m.)}

Let’s go with new-to-me Beat the Devil (1953 | 11:45 a.m.), Gina Lollobrigida’s first American film, though ironically enough, a lot of it was filmed in Ravello and Atrani, Italy. Director John Huston wanted to make a parody of his Maltese Falcon (1941), and the script was written as they filmed by Truman Capote. It’s got Lollobrigida, Bogie (who lost his teeth in a car accident during filming and had to be dubbed by Peter Sellers), Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, and Robert Morley, and it inspired Len Deighton to write The Ipcress File.

---

8/24 – Henry Fonda

2004, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2019

^{I get the feeling this relationship might not last. Henry Fonda and Bette Davis in Jezebel.}

Henry Jaynes Fonda was in a LOT of serious films (how’s that for a frivolous take). He was a serious guy, as readers of Hank and Jim are aware. So, naturally, my favorites are a Southern-fried period melodrama and a screwball rom-com. That would be Jezebel (1938 | 9:15 a.m.) and The Lady Eve (1941 | 10:45 a.m.). Fonda’s characters in these two films are different only in degree, not kind, and never was I more shocked than when Preston Dillard arrived home with a Yankee bride!

Beyond SUTS: Fonda’s other films with Barbara Stanwyck, The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and You Belong to Me (1941)

---

8/25 – Shirley Jones

2013

Over her 7+ decade career, Shirley Jones thrived on stage, screen, and TV. I’ve never seen The Cheyenne Social Club (1970 | 9:30 a.m.), a Western about two friends (James Stewart and Henry Fonda), one of whom inherits a brothel. Jones plays the lady of the house. It’s directed by Gene Kelly. Yes, that Gene Kelly.

---

8/26 – Tom Courtenay

SUTS début

The only films in today’s lineup that I’ve seen are the kitchen-sink classics Billy Liar (1963 | 8:00 p.m.) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1955 | 10:00 p.m.). I’m particularly looking forward to King and Country (1964 | 2:15 a.m.) because it’s directed by Joseph Losey, one of my favorite “discoveries” of the past couple of years. A WWI soldier (Courtenay) is accused of desertion, but his lawyer (Dirk Bogarde) discovers there’s more to the story. Check out The Guardian’s spoiler-y 5-star review here.

I’ll likely also check out the extreme rarity A Dandy in Aspic (1968 | 8:00 a.m.), a spy picture starring Lawrence Harvey as a double agent with a fake name ordered to terminate his other identity.

---

8/27 – Joan Crawford

2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2022

Clear out your DVR! Today runs the gamut of Ms. Crawford’s career, from the campy (Torch Song, Harriet Craig) to the noir (A Woman’s Face, The Damned Don’t Cry) to the melodramatic (Humoresque, Goodbye My Fancy). The one I’m looking forward to the most is the poignant Sadie McKee (1934 | 8:00 a.m.), a fairy tale in which Crawford’s Depression-era rags-to-riches series reaches its apotheosis. Co-starring Gene Raymond (above), Franchot Tone, Edward Arnold, Esther Ralston, Leo G. Carroll, and Akim Tamiroff, the film is based on the Liberty magazine short story “Pretty Sadie McKee” by Viña Delmar. Despite, or maybe because of, Crawford and Tone’s off-screen relationship, her chemistry with Raymond is fiery, and you really feel for her on this roller coaster ride. At least I do.

Fun Fact 01: The song “All I Do Is Dream Of You,” while probably best known for Singin’ in the Rain (airing 8/28 at 8:00 p.m.), was written for this film.

Fun Fact 02: Sadie McKee is the film Blanche Hudson (Crawford) watches on TV in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It’s the perfect choice to showcase her extraordinary beauty — she never looked better.

---

8/28 – Donald O’Connor

SUTS début

My pick for today is William Wellman’s Beau Geste (1939 | noon). The 13-year-old O’Connor played Gary Cooper’s character Michael “Beau” Geste as a child. Three adopted English brothers join the French Foreign Legion in North Africa after one of them steals their adoptive family’s famous heirloom sapphire. Two of the three are under command of a sadistic officer and their fellow Legionnaires are planning a mutiny as their enemies attack them.

---

Week Three – August 15-21

8/15 – Janet Leigh

Previous SUTS: 2008

The biggies are here of course — Psycho (1960 | 8:00 p.m.) and Touch of Evil (10:00 p.m.), but I’m here for a couple of lesser-known titles from the Leigh œuvre. I really like Angels in the Outfield (1951 | 10:00 a.m.) if for no other reason than the woman and the man who are in it don’t immediately fall madly in love. Paul Douglas plays Guffy McGovern, the foul-mouthed manager of the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates. Leigh is excellent as Jennifer Paige, the reporter who writes about his abusiveness for her newspaper. Unbeknownst to both, a little orphan girl, played by the adorable (no, really) Donna Corcoran, has been praying for the Pirates, and when an angel comes to the team’s aid, she can see him. The film is oddly affecting, applying its sentiment lightly, and pretty clever: Swearing was still forbidden by the Production Code, so Douglas’ voice is scrambled, and the angels are never shown. Three different actors were intended to star before Douglas (two are in this year’s SUTS). MGM originally bought the story as a vehicle for Spencer Tracy. Clark Gable (August 10) was cast next, but he made Lone Star (1952) instead. The studio’s next idea was to borrow James Cagney (August 20) from Warner Brothers, but no deal. Perhaps remembering It Happens Every Spring (1949), they finally settled on Douglas, and I think it worked out fine. Edit: re-watching Angels this morning, I’d forgotten the delight of Spring Byington and Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton) as nuns who work at the orphanage.

I also want to highlight Act of Violence (1949 | midnight). Leigh portrays Edith, a post-WWII housewife with an unexpected iron will. Without getting into possible spoilers, her husband Frank (Van Heflin) has made the mistake of making an enemy of a fellow soldier who is played by Robert Ryan, so you know Frank is in a lot of trouble, and it only gets worse. Edith breaks the stereotype of the cowering wife, with Leigh ably confronting Ryan and holding her own in their scenes in a manner most actors couldn’t. A very worthwhile film noir showcasing the genre’s emphasis on fate.

---

8/16 – Charles Bronson

SUTS début

I won’t lie, I’ve never seen Death Wish (1974 | midnight) and I might not ever. I can see killing and more on the news. Even The Magnificent Seven (1960 | 12:45 p.m.), The Great Escape (1963 | 3:00 p.m.), and The Dirty Dozen (1967 | 1:45 a.m.) hit different these days. During the early 1970s, Charles Dennis Buchinsky was the top box-office draw in the world with pictures like Chato’s Land (1972 | 10:00 p.m.). After Death Wish, which had several sequels, he mostly portrayed vigilantes in film and other types on TV. Red Sun (1971 | 6:00 p.m.) a kind of international all-star show, features Bronson with Alain Delon, Toshirō Mifune, Ursula Andress, and Capucine. It’s plenty violent, and last time I saw it, it seemed to get bogged down with an unnecessarily complicated plot, but I might give it a another try.

---

8/17 – Jennifer Jones

2009

Jones stars as the titular character in Ernst Lubitsch’s final film, Cluny Brown (1946 | 8:00 p.m.). Cluny is a young lady with an unladylike interest in plumbing. She is sent by her disapproving uncle/guardian to an upper-crust household to work as a parlor maid. There she gets to know Belinski (Charles Boyer), an anti-Nazi author and professor. Neither belongs in this milieu, and Cluny is semi-engaged to someone else, so they become platonic friends. As you might guess, the platonic part doesn’t last, but all sorts of complications ensue while high society is thoroughly lampooned. Recommended, and you know Boyer isn’t anywhere near a favorite of mine 😉

---

8/18 – James Gleason

SUTS début

It is so refreshing to see a true character actor like James Gleason be honored with a SUTS day. Cantankerous cops were his stock in trade. Whether sidekick to Hildegarde Withers in The Penguin Pool Murder (1932 | 6:00 a.m.), trying to keep A Date with the Falcon (1942 | 12:30 p.m.) on track, or deciphering (or not) a complicated situation in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944 | 11:45 p.m.), Gleason’s bark is worse than his bite. But there was more to him than the police roles he typically played. Born in 1882, he was a Broadway playwright and performer who started out in pictures by writing dialogue, and was a co-writer of films like The Broadway Melody (1929) and Change of Heart (1934). Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he featured in as many as 14 but never less than 5 films per year. Gleason earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for his performance in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941 | 8:00 p.m.) and had a prolific career in television.

You truly cannot go wrong this day. Those named above are some of my favorites. I also love The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936 | 11:00 a.m.) with William Powell and Jean Arthur; the other Hildegarde Withers films starring Edna May Oliver, Murder on the Blackboard (1932 | 7:15 a.m.) and Murder on a Honeymoon (1935 | 2 :00 a.m.); and with Zasu Pitts as Hildegarde in The Plot Thickens (1936 | 8:30 a.m.). The fact that these are all decidedly B-movies only increases my affinity for them.

Beyond SUTS: Sylvester the cab driver in The Bishop’s Wife; Stanwyck’s editor in Meet John Doe. Gleason truly is “that guy in that one movie.”

---

8/19 – Hedy Lamarr

2006, 2016

Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler’s life would make a great movie, if only they could find someone with the beauty, presence, and above all, brains, to play her. If you’re reading this on your phone, thank Hedy, who had studied engineering before switching to theatre in her native Austria. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, definitely check out the documentary Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story.

Hollywood and MGM, which signed her to a contract, didn’t always serve Lamarr well, and sometimes she chose poorly, turning down both Casablanca and Gaslight. Her first big film Algiers (1938 | 10:00 p.m.) was influential, but is mostly remembered for Charles Boyer’s character Pepe le moko (inspiration for Pepe le Pew). It’s a better film than that, but Lamarr is underutilized. A better bet is Comrade X (1940 | 10:00 a.m.), MGM’s attempt to recreate the success of Ninotchka with Clark Gable and Lamarr, who is actually funny as a devoutly Communist streetcar driver who enters into a green card marriage with an American journalist. She has lovely chemistry with William Powell in The Heavenly Body (1944 | 2:00 p.m.), their second film together after Crossroads (1944) and Lamarr’s final work for MGM. Samson and Delilah (1949 | 8:00 p.m.) and H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941 | 3:15 a.m.) are considered her best work, but I confess, I don’t enjoy them as much as The Strange Woman (1946 | 6:00 p.m.), in which Lamarr plays a power-mad woman involving every man she meets in nefarious schemes.

Beyond SUTS: Ziegfeld Girl (1941); Experiment Perilous (1944)

---

8/20 – James Cagney

2003, 2005, 2012, 2017, 2021

I like James Cagney and there’s no doubt he was a super-talented triple threat but he had a mean streak a mile wide, at least onscreen. Sometimes I watch one of his movies and I think he is a much too good at being brutal and heartless. Examples include Blonde Crazy (1931 | 3:30 a.m.), Love Me or Leave Me (1955 | 8:00 p.m.), not to mention the grapefruit scene in The Public Enemy (1931)… the list goes on. The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) | 12:15 p.m.) is a rom-com in the style of It Happened One Night (1934) and I actually find it pretty entertaining. The two leads — Cagney and Ms. Bette Davis — were tired of gangster pictures and serious dramas respectively. Davis in particular needed Hal Wallis’ advocacy to get the part. They do succeed in changing their screen types, at least a little, and it’s interesting to see their work together. With a script by Julius and Phil Epstein and a reliably excellent cast — in addition to the stars, Eugene Pallette, Jack Carson, Henry Davenport, and Edward Brophy appear — it was a commercial success, though it was far from either’s favorite film.

New-to-me this day is He Was Her Man (1934 | 9:00 a.m.), Cagney’s seventh and final feature with Joan Blondell. I always enjoy their chemistry and I’m sure this will be no exception. Fair warning though, this film is a post-Code and I suspect the “Don’ts and Be Carefuls” are why this scintillating partnership was retired after 14 years.

---

8/21 – Patricia Neal

2015

Certainly Patricia Neal has been in some great films, and if you haven’t seen Hud (1963 | 10:00 p.m.) or A Face in the Crowd (1957 | midnight), you really should. But the standout this day to me is relatively rare: The Night Digger (1971 | 6:00 p.m.). Maura (Neal) is living in a shabby old mansion in the English countryside with her mother, Edith (Pamela Brown). Maura works part-time as a speech therapist for stroke survivors, having herself recovered from the same condition some time before, but mostly she is trapped in the damp-looking house, subject to her autocratic mother’s every whim, with no say in her own life. Maura’s boss wants her to work full-time, but Edith throws a hissy fit when it’s mentioned. One day, handsome young Billy Jarvis (Nicholas Clay) shows up, looking for work as a handyman and gardener. Edith takes an immediate shine to him — even giving him Maura’s room to sleep in! Maura is initially resentful and wary but predictably becomes attracted to him. She’s lonely, he’s hot. There’s just one problem: Billy is the serial killer everyone in the village has been talking about, the one who preys on beautiful young women.

It’s all very much in the vein of Night Must Fall (1937) but of course Night Digger can be much more gritty and real (and no fugitive accents). It was based on a novel, Nest in a Fallen Tree by Joy Cowley, and adapted by Roald Dahl, Neal’s husband at the time, specifically for her. It’s got that sort of rundown, desaturated 1970s look and that era’s interest in character over plot. Though it is eerie and fascinating, I wouldn’t call it a thriller exactly. Or is it? The score by Bernard Herrmann couldn’t fail to remind me of Alfred Hitchcock’s work (composer and director had split up by now) and I wonder if the director saw this before starting on the similarly-themed Frenzy, released the next year.

Neal hadn’t worked in films since her Oscar-nominated performance in The Subject Was Roses (1968 | 2:15 a.m.), and her appearance in any film after 1965 was something of a miracle. That year, she suffered a series of aneurysms that led to a stroke, which put her in a coma for a month. She had to completely relearn how to walk and talk and underwent extensive therapy. I’ve read several times that people on the Night Digger set (never named) made nasty comments about Neal when she forgot her lines or had other health-related difficulties, which, if true, is horrid, regardless of the quality of Neal’s performance. But she is pretty great. She manages to suggest the neglected woman’s inner life while simultaneously hiding it, anchoring Night Digger‘s craziness in a solid emotional foundation.

---

Week Two – August 8-14

8/8 – James Garner

Previous SUTS: 2005, 2008, 2016

It’s a tough world out there. There are a lot of bad things happening. Sometimes you just want a laugh. Well, a smile is all I can manage most days, but it’s a lead pipe cinch that Support Your Local Sheriff (1969 | 8:00 p.m.) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971 | 10:00 p.m.) will make that happen. These are Western parodies with a heart of gold. Good natured. Almost cozy. They crawled so that Blazing Saddles (1974) could run.

---

8/9 – Elizabeth Taylor

2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2017, 2022

“I’m not ‘like’ anyone. I’m me” — Gloria Wandrous in BUtterfield 8

I once introduced a screening of The Driver’s Seat (1974) by asking the audience (ages 20s-70s) what the first thing they thought of was when I said “Elizabeth Taylor.” Her private life has been very public since the 1950s, and I suspected the answers would include: Glamour. Marriages. Divorces. Jewelry. Perfume. And I was correct. Literally no one mentioned her acting — or her pioneering AIDS advocacy in the 1980s and early 1990s, when no one dared to even talk about the disease.

It gets lost that she was a great actress who had artistic ambitions, and that when she had the chance, she took risks with offbeat material. Her two acting Oscars are for BUtterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), both a far cry from her earlier work. True, she was required by her contract to make BUtterfield — but she didn’t have to be so good in it.

She appeared in her first film at the age of 7. She was a star by the time she was 12, when she played the lead in National Velvet (1944 | 6:00 a.m.). Taylor said later her childhood ended when she became a star; still, she spent her childhood and adolescence under the watchful eye of her parents and tutors. This circumstance allowed her to survive child stardom without (as far as we know) the particular physical and mental abuse that so many of the youngest performers suffered, and to continue her career like almost no one else* — transitioning very successfully, almost seamlessly, as a teenager and then for decades as an adult. No one gave the future Dame Elizabeth uppers and downers like they did with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney — no one could get close enough.

However, I believe this vigilance also delayed her self-actualization, which had implications later for her personal life and her health**. Professionally, she was under MGM ‘s control until 1960. The studio dictated her roles of course, but also her daily schedule, and who she was allowed to date publicly. Her first wedding served as publicity for one of her first adult roles, Kay Banks, the bride in Father of the Bride (1950). (The sequel Father’s Little Dividend (1951) airs today at 11:30 a.m.)

I think her marriages, and later her weight gain, for which she was so harshly criticized, were ways she rebelled against the authority that had controlled her for so long. She’d also begun to take more challenging roles, such as Woolf, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Boom!, Night Watch, Ash Wednesday, and Driver’s Seat. These pictures show her willingness to create and grow by trying different things. Of course they weren’t all hits or great or maybe even good. But I admire the boldness of her choices and willingness to risk her image. And no matter what, you can’t take your eyes off her.

Today’s films are mostly pre-1960. My favorites are A Date With Judy (1948 | 8:15 a.m.), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958 | 3:00 p.m.), and The V.I.P.s (1963 | 10:15 p.m.), which is soapy and ridiculous and has an absolutely brilliant cast. I’ll be watching or recording The Taming of the Shrew (8:00 p.m.) and The Comedians (2:45 a.m.), both from 1967, both new to me.

• * Natalie Wood is the only other child star I can think of with a similar trajectory, but I’m not sure Wood was as notorious in the press.
• **Taylor’s scoliosis, and the back injury she suffered while making National Velvet — among her many other medical issues — made it difficult for her to stay healthy. These were chronic conditions, recurring throughout her life.

---

8/10 – Clark Gable

2003, 2008, 2013

One of my absolute all-time favorite films is on at 2:00 p.m. this day: Wife vs Secretary (1936). I tend to favor Red Dust, Night Nurse, and anything else with Gable and Jean Harlow or Joan Crawford. Their chemistry is so fun to watch. So check out Forsaking All Others (1934 | 6:00 a.m.) and stop back by for Possessed (1947) airing at 3:45 a.m. on Joan Crawford’s day, August 27.

---

8/11 – Glenda Farrell

2013

It’s been a minute since Glenda Farrell had her own SUTS day and I say it’s about damn time. Reliably sassy as the best friend, secretary, or con artist, and as the lead in the Torchy Blane series, her name in the credits is always a good sign. Sit in front of your TV all day.

---

8/12 – Pedro Armendáriz

SUTS début

It’s good to see this actor get his due as well. Here’s what I’ll be checking out:

• The Big Boodle (1957 | 6:00 a.m.)
• The Conqueror (1956 | 10:30 a.m.)
• La rebelión de los colgados a.k.a. The Rebellion of the Hanged (1954 | 6:15 p.m.)

---

8/13 – Shirley MacLaine

2019

My all-time favorite Club TCM guest shines in everything but today’s favorites are Being There (1979 | 11:30 a.m.), Gambit (1966 | 4:15 p.m.), and The Trouble with Harry (1955 | 6:15 p.m.). Some Came Running (3:30 a.m.) is too difficult a watch for me, as is Sweet Charity (10:30 p.m.), but MacLaine is excellent in both. And I wish they would find some other Delon movies besides The Yellow Rolls Royce (and Le samouraï).
Fun fact: Both Shirley MacLaine and Shirley Jones (honored this year on 8/25) were named after Shirley Temple.

---

8/14 – Sterling Hayden

2009

^{Actor Sterling Hayden on a Sailboat (Photo by John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)}

It’s tough to beat the heist noir double feature of The Asphalt Jungle (1950 | 6:00 p.m.) and The Killing (1956 | 8:00 p.m.), followed by Crime Wave (1953 | 9:45 p.m.) and Five Steps to Danger (1957 | 11:15 p.m.) It’s also tough to beat Airplane! antecedent Zero Hour! (1957 | 4:00 p.m.) for unintentional laughs.

---

Week One – August 1-7

8/1 – Lana Turner

Previous SUTS: 2003, 2006, 2013, 2020

I always wish that SUTS days were in chronological order, and Lana Turner is Exhibit A, Your Honor. In the first film where she was given top billing, new-to-me Honky Tonk (1941), Turner was 20 years old and reportedly flustered by leading man Clark Gable, who was twice her age, causing her to make mistakes, though it didn’t show in the finished film. There are wild shifts in tone though, as Honky Tonk bends genres at will, sometimes in the same scene. It’s a historical western comedy drama romance directed by Jack Conway (Lady of the Tropics, Boom Town, Love Crazy) and it co-stars Frank Morgan, Claire Trevor, Marjorie Main, and Chill Wills. Despite all that’s going on as Gable’s con man takes over an Old West town, falls in love with the judge’s daughter (Turner), and tries to keep the townsfolk happy — it… d r a g g e d. Even Marjorie Main couldn’t save it. Honky Tonk was the first of four Turner-Gable vehicles. MGM immediately re-teamed them for Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942). They also made Homecoming (1948) and Betrayed (1954), which screens on Clark Gable Day, Sunday, August 10, at 2:15 a.m.

I love behind-the-scenes/backstage dramas, so I never miss The Bad and The Beautiful (1952). It’s widely believed to be based on real people, but don’t get too hung up on that. It’s its own tapestry of humanity. Turner is excellent portraying the maturation of nepo baby Georgia Lorrison, who falls in and then spectacularly out of love with charming but ultimately cold producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas, this year’s August 30 honoree).

---

8/2 – Christopher Plummer

SUTS début

Born in Toronto in 1929, Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer was only a Grammy short of the EGOT with two Emmys, an Oscar, and two Tony awards. He was an intermittent but vital presence at a place that is very dear to me, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario (now known as just the Stratford Festival, although they still have plenty of Shakespeare). One night at Stratford in 1956, he got sick and couldn’t go on. His understudy, a guy named William Shatner, took over. Though the two differed in acting style and personality, they were close friends. That’s wild to me. Plummer’s IMDB credits span 8 decades and he often played morally ambiguous or even straight-up bad dudes (Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and All the Money in the World (2017) come to mind for the latter category). He always looked good though, and I’ve never seen him phone it in. I recorded most of his day. The Return of the Pink Panther (1975 | 6:00 p.m.) and The Sound of Music (1965 | 8:00 p.m.) were my picks going in. In Panther, Plummer is ruthless and super-suave as the notorious Phantom, Sir Charles Litton, the role originated by David Niven. It isn’t the best Pink Panther film, and it’s a bit disjointed, but it is hilarious more often than not.

The Sound of Music had been on my TCM wish list for, well, decades. I hadn’t seen it in probably 5 10 years or more, and the film and the #TCMParty did not disappoint. There was trivia, some astute observations, and let’s be real, a few thirsty comments. The anti-fascism thread running through the film hits different, as the von Trapps’ situation seems far more real than it ever has before. I won’t lie, Plummer’s rendition of “Edelweiss” at the folk festival brought me to tears. If you didn’t know, I hate to be the one to tell you, but his singing was dubbed by Bill Lee for this film. Listen to one of his original vocals below, and you tell me if it’s really all that bad. Admittedly I am biased toward this dishy man, but I think it would have been fine.

Beyond SUTS

---

8/3 – Audrey Hepburn

2006, 2009, 2019, 2022

You can’t really go wrong this day, but I opted for the effortlessly incandescent chemistry of Hepburn and Cary Grant in my perennial favorite, Charade (1963).

---

8/4 – Howard Keel

2011

^{US lobbycard for Rose Marie with Ann Blyth and Howard Keel. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)}

Since I am not a natural musical fan — by that I mean I like many of them but I don’t necessarily seek them out — I’m gonna record Rose Marie (1954 | 2:00 a.m.) since I’ve never seen it before and call it a day. Remember, to each their own.

---

8/5 – Claude Rains

2008, 2012

I’ll be saying this a lot this month, but you really cannot go wrong today. Even Caesar and Cleopatra (1945 | 9:15 a.m.), though talky and overlong, is a good Rains effort. My top pick is The Unsuspected (1947), a twisty noir. Rains is a shady radio host who specializes in creepy murder mysteries on and off the air. There’s actually no mystery for the audience, just a lot of suspense, loads of noir atmosphere, and Audrey Totter.

---

8/6 – Judy Garland

2003, 2005, 2009, 2014, 2018, 2021

What can I say about Judy Garland? Nothing that won’t sound trite.

There is one rarity on this day: I Could Go On Singing (1963 | 11:15 p.m.). Garland is Jenny Bowman, a very successful singer, who had a son with an English doctor, David Donne (Dirk Bogarde). She wanted to concentrate on her career so she left the baby with Donne and the boy has no idea she is his mother. Complications ensue when she goes back to England to get to know her son and disrupts all their lives. It’s not the greatest film. Garland and Bogarde have no chemistry. However, she is outstanding as she sings, dances, and acts the hell out of the role, and it’s difficult not to see some of the character’s regret and need for attention as Garland’s own. Also starring a very young Jack Klugman as Jenny’s manager and the great underrated Aline McMahon as her assistant. Where is Aline McMahon’s SUTS Day?

I never miss Summer Stock (above, 1950 | 6:00 p.m.) or The Harvey Girls (1946 | 3:00 a.m.).

---

8/7 – Ruby Dee

SUTS début

^{Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee in Cannes for Do the Right Thing}

Ruby Dee is best known to me from the film version of A Raisin in the Sun (1961 | 8:00 p.m.) and Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989) and Jungle Fever (1991). The actress, producer and activist was born in Cleveland, grew up in Harlem, and got her start as part of the groundbreaking American Negro Theatre. Beginning in the 1960s, she worked on behalf of numerous civil rights organizations including the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She was an emcee at the March on Washington in 1961.

Together with her husband, Dee produced TV specials like Martin Luther King: The Dream & The Drum. The couple had their own series, With Ossie & Ruby. In 1980, they launched their production company, Emmalyn II Productions.

Beyond acting, Dee was a gifted writer. She penned children’s books (Tower to Heaven and Two Ways to Count to Ten), a collection of poetry and stories (My One Good Nerve — which she later turned into a solo show), and a heartfelt joint autobiography with Ossie, In This Life Together (the audiobook won a Grammy in 2007). She also wrote and adapted plays, including Zora is My Name, which aired on PBS.

The accolades she received throughout her 70+ year career are a testament to her talent and impact: Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, NAACP Image Award Hall of Famer, Kennedy Center Honoree, and recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the SAG Lifetime Achievement Award, among many others. Dee passed away in 2014, at the age of 91, but her legacy as an artist and trailblazer lives on.

Beyond SUTS

Dee’s indelible portrayal of Mama Lucas in Ridley Scott’s epic American Gangster (2007) scored her an Oscar nomination and a SAG Award.

Check back in a few days for Week 2 of SUTS 2025.