Today is the first day of Turner Classic Movies' traditional monthlong Oscar season salute, "31 Days of Oscar."
I don't know how long TCM has been doing this, but there are a few things I do know — and you can draw certain conclusions based on these facts, I guess.
- TCM has been on the air since the mid–1990s.
- When I first became aware of the "31 Days of Oscar," it was done exclusively in March because that was the month when the Oscars were given out. Since there are 31 days in March, that was how the name originated.
- With the exception of 2006 (when the Oscars were given out in March to avoid a conflict with the Winter Olympics), the Oscars have been given out in February since 2004. Presumably (although I haven't heard or read anything to confirm this), the 2010 Winter Olympics, which will begin in less than two weeks, were behind the decision to move this year's Oscar ceremony to March 7.
- Even though the "31 Days of Oscar" is now held mostly in February, which has 28 days except for Leap Years when it has 29, the name has been retained. But to be true to its name, it is not confined to a single month. The last three days of the salute have been held on the first three days of March.
Well, February 1 is the day all this begins, and TCM could hardly have done much better for its opening day. As usual, there are some films that aren't especially well known by casual film watchers. Those tend to be films that were nominated for something but didn't win — like, for example, "Saratoga Trunk," a 1945 film co–starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman that was aired this afternoon.
"Saratoga Trunk" is an overlong tale of 1875 New Orleans that did quite well at the box office when it was released, largely because it reunited the stars of 1943's "For Whom the Bell Tolls." If you missed it, you missed a film that is amiable and entertaining enough but essentially vacuous. Flora Robson was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, but she lost to Anne Baxter.
I'm not going to quibble with TCM's choice to air 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia" on opening night, though. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards (winning seven). It was the film that transformed Peter O'Toole into a genuine star. It boasts a great cast aside from O'Toole — Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Claude Rains. Maurice Jarre, who died nearly a year ago, composed an Oscar–winning score that seems to capture the vast, sprawling nature of the desert.
The imagery, which was rewarded in the form of Oscars for cinematographer Freddie Young, editor Anne Coates and director David Lean, burns itself into the memory with the intensity of a desert sun.
It is an epic in just about every sense of the word, and the historical tale it tells is astonishingly accurate. Someone who believes himself or herself to be an admirer of movies must see "Lawrence of Arabia" at least once — if not more than once.
Certainly, the American Film Institute believes that. Twice it has released its "100 Years … 100 Movies" list — originally in 1998 and a revised list 10 years later — and "Lawrence of Arabia" was in the Top 10 both times.
And there is no better place to see it than Turner Classic Movies. TCM shows films uncut, uninterrupted and in the letterbox format so if you tune in, you'll be seeing precisely what the moviegoers in 1962 saw.
The problem is that, because the movie runs about 3½ hours, you may need to record it and watch it later. It starts at 10 p.m. (Central).
But that time slot is merely a nuisance. Don't let it keep you from seeing one of the great movies of all time.
