Hope you're having a Safe and Sane Fourth of July. There are three movies that seem to always turn up on TV this weekend and they're all on…
In a couple of hours, Turner Classic Movies is running — as someone always does on July 4 — Yankee Doodle Dandy starring James Cagney. The story has very little to do with the actual life of George M. Cohan and the flag-waving can get to you…but Cagney is so good in the role, it's impossible to resist.
Then TCM is running 1776 this evening — at 7:15 on my satellite dish, perhaps another time on your set. They have it in a three-hour slot, which suggests they're running the full version (which runs that long) as opposed to the 142 minute cut that was originally released to theaters and on videotape. A wonderful movie that closely mirrors the wonderful Broadway musical.
Then early tomorrow morning (i.e., not on the Fourth of July), TV Land is running Born on the Fourth of July. I don't know why this is on TV Land. Maybe they ran out of Cosby Show reruns. But this weekend, they're featuring marathons of Leave It To Beaver, Roseanne and The Andy Griffith Show…and smack dab in the middle of them, there's this serious dramatic movie about a war that tore apart this country and so many lives. And then it goes back to Barney Fife trying to remember which pocket he keeps his bullet in. I don't recommend you watch this powerful film like that, especially since it'll probably be interrupted constantly for Prilosec commercials.