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I noticed that he seemed to be laboring a bit during the segments for the Jane Greer tribute night a few weeks ago. Hope he comes back okay.

TCM's having a Joanne Woodward day Tuesday August 16, with many rare/interesting films!

6AM Count Three and Pray Don't bother, it's a P+S 'Scope print
745AM Rally Round the Flag, Boys Tashlin-abandoned Newman/Woodward disaster. Contains not one laugh
945AM Paris Blues Great Poitier/Newman jazz musical. Available in R2, but worth watching now
1130AM Signpost to Murder Unseen by me, unavailable on DVD
1PM Big Hand For the Little Lady Terrific Mamet-esque western. R1 OOP
245PM A Fine Mess Indeed. R1 OOP
445PM Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams One of the better Bergman-aping films from the 70s. Woodward and Sylvia Sidney were nommed for Best Actress and Supporting Actress. Available on MOD from Sony
6PM the Drowning Pool Disappointing sequel to Harper
8PM A Kiss Before Dying Full-stop Masterpiece. Recently R1 OOP
10PM the Sound and the Fury Abandon all hope ye who enter. No DVD release, will likely stay so forever. Widescreen transfer of a 'Scope print, the Fox Movie Channel print wasn't full 'Scope (more like 2.00-ish), so this is an especially rare "treat"-- this is one of the worst films ever made and has to be seen to be believed.
1200AM Rachel Rachel One of the best films ever nominated for Best Picture, with Woodward's best performance and Newman's best direction. It's the best I tells ya. Recently R1 OOP
200AM the Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds Another one of the Woodward's best performances. The Academy loves her and I have no idea how she didn't net a nom here. Newman directs. Their daughter also stars. No DVD release

And wow, Thursday August 18, whole lotta hard to find French films going on with Jean Gabin day, including these non-R1 titles:

6AM Gueule d'amour (Jean Gremillion 1937)
8AM Remorques (Jean Gremillion 1941)
11AM l' air De Paris (Marcel Carne 1954)
1PM Leur derniere nuit (Georges Lacombe 1953)
245PM Desordre et la nuit, le (Gilles Grangier 1958)
430PM Maria Chapdelaine (Julien Duvivier 1934)
6PM La Bandera (Julien Duvivier 1934)
4AM Des gens sans importance (Henri Verneuli 1955)

I wonder whether their print of La Bandera will have the original dedication to General Francisco Franco. Apparently Pierre Mac Orlan, the author of the original novel, was an admirer of Mr. Franco.

They're also having a Chaney day on Monday with a few rare films like The Monster.

... and an Yves Montand day on October 13, featuring Etoiles sans lumiere (1946), Carne's underrated Les portes de la nuit (1946), and de Broca's The Devil by the Tail (1969).

TCM seems to be much more willing to program rare, non-Criterion foreign films (well, French films, anyway) than they used to. Makes me wish I actually still had it.

On the 23 they're doing a Conrad Veidt day with the highlight being the '30s version of Jew Suss. Here's the list (times in PST).
3:00 AM Above Suspicion (1943)-His last film
4:45 AM Contraband (1940)-rare Archers film
6:30 AM All Through The Night (1942)
8:30 AM Jew Suss (1934)
10:15 AM Spy In Black, The (1939)-This is one of the best Archers films
11:45 AM Whistling In The Dark (1941)
1:15 PM Escape (1940)
3:00 PM Woman's Face, A (1941)-American remake of a great Molander
5:00 PM Hands of Orlac, The (1925)

Also 8/23
11:45 PM The Nazi Agent (1942), Jules Dassin's first film

knives wrote: 8:30 AM Jew Suss (1934)

It's worth noting, for anyone who doesn't know and who is put off by horrific anti-Semitic propaganda, that this version is British and is actually a condemnation of attacks on the Jews (which reflects the original novel.)

It actually got into trouble with British censors for it's apparent anti-Nazi stance.

As did the Boulting Brothers film Pastor Hall.

Ugggghhh... the cropping on these Jean Gabin films are awful! It almost looks like they cropped the films to 16:9 for their HD broadcast, then took that master, and cropped it for 4:3. Does anyone have the HD channel and can confirm this?

Luckily, I've seen and have a copy of Gueule d'amour, but the unseen by me Remorques is more of the same (and I had screen caps to compare it to that show it); I'm not even bothering finishing it.

I don't know if this will continue all day; I think the rest of the rarities have DVD releases in France, so that may help. But so much for Grémillon's grand coming out on American TV.

Remorques is available on Criterion's Hulu channel with what might be a better print.

I have TCM HD and am DVRing as we speak-- what exactly am I looking for to confirm/deny the suspicion?

Whether it's broadcast in 16:9 by mistake, or if there's even a good amount of headroom; I tuned into Gueule just to watch the ending, and was immediately struck by the constantly cropped foreheads.... otherwise it's more than likely they received the film severely cropped.

And Maria Chapdelaine seems to have pretty good headroom so far, so perhaps it was a fluke for the Gremillons.

Yeah, I've been watching since 8 PST and I've encountered no problems. It's been a good day so far giving a really great idea of what Gabin's career is beyond the usual hits. I'm loving how Maria Chapdelaine is presumably set in America.

To give a clear example, having pulled up the recorded Remorques, and using a screencap I have off the internet. What is originally this:


On TCM, turned into this:


If anything, I'm a little more generous with my cropping than Turner is.

Now I'm not so sure it's just the Gremillions. From Leur derneire nuit:

DVD:


TCM:

I was watching TCM-HD last night when they were broadcasting THE MALTESE FALCON and noticed that the image appeared overly-cropped at the bottom of the frame - during the credit sequence the bottom credit was resting at the very bottom of the frame or was slightly cut-off while the top credit still had plenty of headroom. This seems to be a new issue for the channel and I wonder if all programming is going out with poor framing?

Well the cropping on Bandera is the worst so far. I'm suspecting a lot of these transfers are really old from the Turner library given various clues, but especially the subtitles.

Well, we'll just have to see if the prime-time titles are cropped as well.

Here's my TCM HD feed during the shot of Remorques that was screencapped above. Not quite as full as it should be, but nobody's head has yet been egregiously cropped through either Gueule d'amour or Remorques.

Yeah, comparing Touchez pas au grisbi to the DVD, it's clear that TCM seems to be involved with some major over-scanning. Worse of all, it's not just that there cropping off the sides, but it's doing so off-center, cutting off more of the left than right. None of my televisions seem to be the source of the problem. Could be the local provider. Did anyone else watch this in SD and noticed the problem?

Yes, saw this in SD, and it looked considerably over-scanned to me. Haven't seen the Criterion dvd, so can't compare it. Did notice the opening logo was for Studio-Canal, not Janus, so perhaps S-C is to blame for this.

Posted this in the Criterion Collection -- "The Leopard" thread, but thought it might be of interest here, as well.

Turner Classic Movies is screening "The Leopard" on Thursday, August 25, at 8 pm ET, as part of its Summer Under the Stars -- Burt Lancaster day. Though Fox Movie Channel occasionally runs the American cut of the film, this is the first time TCM (or any channel, that I know of) has run the full-length 187 min. version.

Curiously, a note in TCM's monthly program guide refers to "The Leopard" as 'French-made', rather than Italian, or even French-Italian (according to the credits, it was a French-Italian co-production), so I'm curious to learn if Burt will 'parler en francais' or 'parla italiano'. Either way, it's great to see TCM running a rare foreign-language film in prime time.