TCM Highlights: December 8-14 & Full December Calendar
What To Know
- TCM’s programming this week features a tribute to Art Deco films from the 1920s and ’30s, a spotlight on Hanna-Barbera’s full-length movies, and a celebration of Frank Sinatra and Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait.
- The channel continues its month-long retrospective of Golden Age actress Merle Oberon on Tuesday nights, showcasing several of her classic films.
- Special events include a lineup of 1955 films celebrating their 70th anniversary and a night honoring Dick Van Dyke’s 100th birthday with screenings of his most beloved movies.
This week, TCM launches a tribute to Art Deco filmmaking, with classic 20s and 30s films including Grand Hotel and Metropolis, while their month-long tribute to Golden Age actress Merle Oberon continues on Tuesday night. Later in the week, celebrate the year 1955 in film with the channel’s lineup of movies celebrating their 70th anniversary, including The Night of the Hunter and Oklahoma!, and celebrate the 100th anniversary of Dick Van Dyke’s birth with an evening full of his hits, like Bye Bye Birdie and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
All that, plus a cinematic tribute to Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait, and the second part of the channel’s spotlight on Hanna-Barbera’s full-length films, can be found on TCM this week
Just looking for the full December calendar for the month? Scroll to the bottom to download.
Monday, December 8
TCM Spotlight: Art Deco — Part 1
Beginning at 8pm
Everett Collection
With its refreshing change from Victorian clutter, the art deco style featured clean lines and expensive materials like ebony and ivory, ushering in a new standard for luxury and glamour during the 1920s and ’30s. Revel in some of filmdom’s most beautiful art deco backdrops in the high-society ensemble drama Grand Hotel (1932), the visually stunning and influential Metropolis (1927), and even the gangster classic Little Caesar (1931).
Tuesday, December 9
70th Anniversary Films
Beginning at 6am
The year 1955 saw the first McDonald’s franchise, the TV premieres of The Mickey Mouse Club and Captain Kangaroo, and the death of actor James Dean. The year also marked the release of these memorable (now 70 years young) movies: the Henry Fonda/Jack Lemmon Navy comedy Mister Roberts; the musicals Kismet, starring popular baritone Howard Keel, and Oklahoma!, featuring the screen debut of singer Shirley Jones; and the disturbing Robert Mitchum drama The Night of the Hunter (watch for a shot that’s strikingly reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings‘ Black Rider appearance).
TCM Star of the Month – Merle Oberon
Tuesday nights all month long
Everett Collection
Glamorous actor Merle Oberon is celebrated with a retrospective of her films Tuesday nights this month. Born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson on Feb. 19, 1911, Oberon took great pains to conceal her biracial heritage. She claimed to have been born and raised in Tasmania, Australia, but she was really born in Mumbai (then Bombay), India, to a teenage Eurasian girl and a British engineer. Oberon was raised by her grandmother, posing as her mother, and later as her maid, when the two traveled to England for the actor’s first film roles. Tonight’s lineup includes These Three (1936), Over the Moon (1940), Affectionately Yours (1941), and Lydia (1941).
Wednesday, December 10
TCM Spotlight: Hanna-Barbera — Part 2
Beginning at 8pm
Everett Collection
Hanna-Barbera Night Two starts out with two charming, kid-friendly animated movies, Jack and the Beanstalk (1967, directed by Gene Kelly) and 1973’s Charlotte’s Web. Popcorn required, tissues probably a good idea. After that, the evening surprises with the H-B-produced live-action films The Gathering (1977, a Christmas drama with Edward Asner), Baxter! (1973, starring Patricia Neal) and the AI-presaging C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979, with Valerie Bertinelli and Land of the Lost‘s Wesley Eure).
Thursday, December 11
Divine Intervention: Angels on Screen
Beginning at 8pm
Paramount Pictures/ Courtesy: Everett Collection.
This evening-long tribute to angels on screen features heavenly folks who are a little less wholesome than It’s a Wonderful Life‘s Clarence.
Things kick off with 1978’s Academy award-nominated Heaven Can Wait, which stars Warren Beatty as Joe Pendleton, a quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams, who is killed in a car accident, only to later learn in the afterlife that there was a bit of a mix-up. His inexperienced guardian angel (Buck Henry) accidentally took his body prematurely when he really had many more years on Earth left, so to make up for his blunder, Joe is returned to Earth as the greedy multimillionaire Leo Farnsworth. Desperate to reclaim his football position, in a body not even close to NFL status, Joe struggles in this emotional comedy/drama.
Next up is the 1970 drama The Angel Levine, which stars Zero Mostel as an elderly, impoverished New York City tailor and Harry Belafonte as the man who shows up at his front door, claiming to be an angel who must restore the tailor’s faith in order to earn his wings. Then, stay tuned for the wacky 1977 comedy Oh, God!, which starred John Denver as a put-upon everyman who is chosen by a mischievous God (George Burns) to spread his message to an oft-disbelieving public.
To it all off with a late-night screening of Wim Wenders’ 1987 art film Wings of Desire, which follows an angel (Bruno Ganz) who decides to become human in order to experience earthly pleasures and try to win the love of a lonely trapeze artist.
Friday, December 12
TCM Birthday Tribute: Frank Sinatra
TCM, beginning at 7:30am
Everett Collection
Today marks the 110th anniversary of Frank Sinatra‘s birth — and what a perfect excuse to raise a glass to the Chairman of the Board himself and celebrate the icon with a collection of some of his films. Few artists have had the charm and swagger of Ol’ Blue Eyes, who could easily pivot between being a nightclub crooner and Hollywood movie star. Today’s lineup of films begins with 1949’s On the Town, where he stars as a wide-eyed sailor on a 24-hour leave in New York City that turns out to be a whirlwind of song, dance and romance. Then it’s High Society (1956), as Sinatra trades wisecracks and melodies with Grace Kelly and also Bing Crosby. Following are other favorites including The Man With the Golden Arm (1955), Some Came Running (1958), Ocean’s 11 (1960) and Marriage on the Rocks (1965).
Saturday, December 13
Dick Van Dyke 100th Birthday
Beginning at 12pm
Everett Collection
It’s a jolly holiday for the legendary entertainer, who turns 100 today! Celebrate Dick Van Dyke‘s centennial milestone with some of his most memorable films, starting with 1963’s Bye Bye Birdie, where Van Dyke plays struggling songwriter Albert Peterson alongside Psycho‘s Janet Leigh. Then fly to England to join Van Dyke and Julie Andrews in fantastical musical adventures in the 1964 hit film Mary Poppins, as he portrays charming chimney sweep Bert. Follow it up with 1968’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang — here, Van Dyke is a widower father named Caractacus Potts who creates oddball inventions including a fancy vehicle, the film’s namesake, which becomes the source of the family’s marvelous adventures.
Sunday, December 14
A Double Dose of Chaplin
Beginning at 8pm
Everett Collection
Spend the final primetime hours of the weekend with one of the big screen’s greatest comedy legends, in two films Chaplin wrote, directed, produced and starred in. First up, in 1925’s The Gold Rush, Chaplin tried to find the lighter side of prospecting in the Klondike Gold Rush, in a film that include a bear attack, shoe-eating, and threats of cannibalism.
Then, check out what is perhaps Chaplin’s best-known film, the political satire The Great Dictator (1940). In this, the star’s first sound film, Chaplin plays the dual roles of a persecuted barber and his exact double, a fascist dictator named Adenoid Hynkel.