TCM's 'Summer Under the Stars'

It has become an annual event for Turner Classic Movies, a monthlong celebration of Hollywood stars in August.

TCM calls it the "Summer Under the Stars." Each day is dedicated to a different star, and TCM will show nothing but that star's movies on that day.

The event kicked off on Friday with Michael Caine's films. Yesterday, the featured star was Charlie Chaplin. Today, the star is Gregory Peck.

Other stars who are scheduled for daylong tributes this month are Claude Rains, Katharine Hepburn, Anne Bancroft, Spencer Tracy.

And there are so many more.

Frankly, you can't go wrong with TCM, especially when it has a monthlong celebration in progress — like this month's "Summer Under the Stars" or TCM's tribute to the Academy Awards every spring, the "31 Days of Oscar."

Great movies are scheduled all month, and the best advice I can give you is to check your local TV listings — or Turner Classic Movies' web site.

But a quick check of the schedule revealed a few titles I urge everyone to check out.

For example:

• "The Boys From Brazil" — 12:45 a.m. (Central), tonight.


• "The Graduate" — 9 p.m. (Central), Wednesday, Aug. 6.


• "The Apartment" — 7 p.m. (Central), Saturday, Aug. 9.


• "Vertigo" — 10:15 p.m. (Central), Tuesday, Aug. 12.


• "The Maltese Falcon" — 9:30 p.m. (Central), Wednesday, Aug. 13.


• "On the Beach" — 9 p.m. (Central), Thursday, Aug. 21.


• "12 Angry Men" — 5:15 p.m. (Central), Sunday, Aug. 24.


• "Psycho" — 9 p.m. (Central), Tuesday, Aug. 26.


• "Some Like It Hot" — 7 p.m. (Central), Wednesday, Aug. 27.


• "Ben-Hur" — 3 p.m. (Central), Thursday, Aug. 28.


• "The African Queen" — 9 p.m. (Central), Saturday, Aug. 30.

As I say, you can't go wrong with Turner Classic Movies.

And there are lots of movies scheduled this month that you've probably never heard of. But they're all worth seeing.