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What To Know
TCM’s January 12 lineup features a tribute to songwriter Sammy Cahn, highlighting Oscar-nominated songs performed by iconic female vocalists in classic films.
On January 13, TCM spotlights working-class comedies, including premieres of The Full Monty and Take This Job and Shove It, along with favorites like 9 to 5 and Modern Times.
January 14 is dedicated to Alan Arkin, showcasing his acclaimed roles in films such as The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Wait Until Dark, Glengarry Glen Ross, and more.
Christmas is over, yet the weather outside remains frightful. It’s not so great for anyone looking to spend the day grilling or going on a hike, but it is excellent weather for sitting down in front of the TV and catching some fantastic films on TCM.
This week, TCM continues its tribute to working stiffs with airings of 9 to 5, The Full Monty, and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. The channel will also mount a tribute to child star of Little Women Margaret O’Brien, and run an evening-long celebration of Alan Arkin, with films like The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Wait Until Dark, the rare movie where Arkin plays a villain. Plus, catch an evening of ’70s medical thrillers, Irish rock ‘n’ roll classic The Commitments, Barbara Streisand’s beloved ’90s romance The Prince of Tides, Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me, and much more.
Just looking for the full January calendar for the month? Scroll to the bottom to download.
Monday, January 12
Sammy Cahn — Part 2
Beginning at 8pm
Last week, TCM’s Sammy Cahn musical tribute focused on his most frequent vocal muse, Frank Sinatra. This week, in the second and final night of the network’s Cahn celebration, lady singers get their turn, and you can hear their lovely interpretations of his most memorable songs in five films tonight. Doris Day headlines the evening, singing “It’s Magic” in Romance on the High Seas (1948) and the title tune from It’s a Great Feeling (1949). Janet Blair sings “Anywhere” in 1945’s Tonight and Every Night, and accomplished actor/singer Kathryn Grayson lends her pipes for “Be My Love” in The Toast of New Orleans (1950). 1951’s Rich, Young and Pretty ends the night with several duets by Jane Powell and Vic Damone, including “Wonder Why.” All songs named here earned Oscar nominations for Cahn’s lyrics, so you’ll be tuning in to the best of his best!
Tuesday, January 13
TCM Special Theme: The Working Class: Comedies
Beginning at 8pm
While last Tuesday’s working-class tribute gave hardworking folks facing difficult issues their serious due, this week’s salute is all about serious fun. Tonight’s lineup includes two TCM premieres, the first being The Full Monty (1997). In this hilarious British comedy, six unemployed blue-collar blokes decide to raise some cash by performing a one-night-only striptease act, except that they have very ordinary, non-Chippendale-like bodies. Still, they go ahead with putting on the show, which includes the big reveal! The second premiere is 1981’s Take This Job and Shove It, starring Robert Hays (Airplane!), Barbara Hershey, Art Carney, and cameos by the title song singer Johnny Paycheck and George Lindsey (Goober of The Andy Griffith Show). Plus, don’t miss the evening’s opening film, 9 to 5 (1980), starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton as office workers who decide to get back at their jerk of a boss (the late Dabney Coleman). The revenge fantasy sequences are must-see! Also included tonight are The Commitments (1991), about a soul band culled from the Irish working class; the Charlie Chaplin classic Modern Times (1936), a comedic, yet thoughtful and still relevant, commentary on the dehumanization of workers in a mechanized age; and, from the same era, 1933’s The Working Man, with George Arliss and Bette Davis.
Wednesday, January 14
Starring Alan Arkin
Beginning at 8pm
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Most now know him for his well-deserved Oscar for his performance as Olive’s (Abigail Breslin) grandpa in Little Miss Sunshine, but Alan Arkin’s long film career is well worth the time TCM takes to explore further tonight. Notable among the evening’s offerings is The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), where Arkin plays a deaf man who moves into a family’s boarding house to be near his hospitalized and mentally challenged deaf companion. While there, he befriends the house owners’ teenage daughter (Sondra Locke in her film debut). All the tragedy you would expect to unfold in such a situation does, and, for their moving portrayals of their characters, both Arkin and Locke received Oscar nominations. Also shown in this tribute is 1967’s Wait Until Dark, with Arkin giving a memorably frightening performance as a thug who terrifies a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn) in her own apartment. More films featured tonight are the star-studded crime drama Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and two buddy comedies, The In-Laws (1979) with Peter Falk, and 1974’s Freebie and the Bean with James Caan.
Thursday, January 15
Margaret O’Brien Birthday Tribute
Beginning at 6am
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Playing Beth in Little Women (1949) and the “kid sister” of some of Hollywood’s most famous actresses, Margaret O’ Brien was one of America’s most beloved child actors and today TCM celebrates her 89th birthday with a daytime film retrospective. Daughter of a flamenco dancer, performing must have been in her blood, as O’Brien began her movie career at age 4 with MGM. At age 6, she famously recited the Gettysburg Address in 1943’s You, John Jones! In Music for Millions (1944), she played the little sister of June Allyson’s orchestra-member character and, in that same year, O’Brien won a Juvenile Oscar for her role as Esther’s (Judy Garland) kid sister Tootie in Meet Me in St. Louis (shown last month during TCM’s Classic Christmas Marathon). The eight films presented in today’s O’Brien tribute close with 1945’s Our Vines Have Tender Grapes. This touching story of small-town farm life in the early 20th century is told from the perspective of 7-year-old Selma (O’Brien) and recalls events that would be important to any child of that age: riding an elephant’s trunk at a circus, celebrating Christmas, caring for a pet calf, and witnessing a barn fire, which prompts several heroic and long-remembered acts of self-sacrifice.
Friday, January 16
TCM Spotlight: Flashback Fridays
Beginning at 8pm
Columbia Pictures. Courtesy: Everett Collection
This week’s edition of TCM movies where the stories are told in flashback form showcases several more recent, yet still classic, films such as 1986’s Stand by Me. The coming-of-age drama, directed by Rob Reiner and based on a Stephen King novella, tells the story of a life-changing Labor Day weekend in the lives of four 12-year-old friends during the late ’50s. In Cinema Paradiso (1988), a famous Italian film director flashes back to his early years of being mentored by the local film projectionist who changed his life. Also be sure to stay up for 1991’s multiple-Oscar-nominated The Prince of Tides, starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand (also director), which sensitively explores mental illness. Tom Wingo (Nolte), from South Carolina, travels to New York to meet with his suicidal twin sister’s therapist Susan Lowenstein (Streisand) and, while in therapy himself, comes to terms with his family’s dysfunction and begins a relationship with Susan. The night concludes with an older classic, I Remember Mama (1948), based on a Norwegian immigrant’s daughter’s recollections of the family matriarch, played by Irene Dunne.
Saturday, January 17
Bounty Hunters
Beginning at 8pm
Tonight’s spotlight rounds up two very different takes on bounty hunter stories, both reminding us why these characters have always held such a powerful place in American storytelling. The Naked Spur (1953) is one of the standout Westerns of the 1950s, directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in one of his grittiest, most psychologically layered performances. The film follows a bounty hunter whose simple plan to bring in a fugitive becomes a tense moral tangle once others become involved. Later, An Eye for an Eye (1966), starring Robert Lansing and Pat Wayne, brings a slightly more traditional frontier energy, with a tale steeped in the revenge, justice and survival that defined so many classic Westerns.
Sunday, January 18
’70s Medical Thrillers
Beginning at 8pm
The 1970s had a knack for combining bone-chilling thrillers with a sterile hospital setting. The Carey Treatment (1972), directed by Blake Edwards and starring James Coburn, follows a doctor who digs into a suspicious death that the hospital would rather forget. Then comes the unforgettable Coma (1978), Michael Crichton’s chilling adaptation of Robin Cook’s bestseller, in which Geneviève Bujold uncovers a conspiracy hidden beneath a prestigious Boston medical center. Both films capture that uniquely ’70s sense of unease, when institutions once trusted suddenly felt capable of hiding very dark secrets.