TCM's 2017 Classic Film Festival

TCM's 8th annual Classic Film Festival is set for April 6 - 9 in Hollywood, and this year's central theme is Make 'Em Laugh: Comedy in the Movies...if there was ever a year we needed some laughs...

Joel McCrea, Claudette Colbert and Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story

Among the comedy classics to be screened are two of my favorites from writer/director Preston Sturges, The Palm Beach Story (1942) and Unfaithfully Yours (1948), with Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell. Also on the program: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Born Yesterday (1950), The Front Page (1931), Red-Headed Woman (1932), Harold Lloyd's Speedy (1928) and Twentieth Century (1934). A special presentation, Beyond the Mouse: The 1930s Cartoons of Ub Iwerks (2017), will feature several rarely seen short animation films by Iwerks, an early collaborator and partner of Walt Disney.