Set Yer DVR's: Monday is Audrey Totter Day on TCM

As part of their Summer Under the Stars month-long programming event, TCM has blocked Monday, August 6th for a slate of films starring another patron saint of The Signal Watch, actress Audrey Totter.

There are several listed that I haven't seen yet and many I have. We think you should set your DVRs and watch an Audrey movie or three.

The schedule:

6:00 AM Sailor Takes a Wife, The (1945)
8:00 AM Postman Always Rings Twice, The (1946)
10:00 AM Cockeyed Miracle, The (1946)
11:30 AM Beginning or the End, The (1947)
1:30 PM Any Number Can Play (1949)
3:30 PM Man in the Dark (1953)
5:00 PM Sellout, The (1951)
6:30 PM Set-Up, The (1949)
8:00 PM Tension (1950)
10:00 PM High Wall (1947)
12:00 AM Lady in the Lake (1947)
2:00 AM Unsuspected, The (1947)
4:00 AM Chubasco (1968)


Totter is impossible to pigeon-hole, and that's probably part of why I enjoy watching her from film to film, but also part of why she isn't remembered like some of her contemporaries.  It's not that she's bland and pretty on screen, it's that her role in High Wall is utterly different from Tension from Lady in the Lake, etc...  and every movie is highly rewatchable.

I'll go ahead and vouch for the following as rock solid movies you should just watch, anyway.

Postman Always Rings Twice
The Set-Up
The Unsuspected

If you're feeling like watching something a bit experimental, Lady in the Lake, and if you want something kind of off-kilter, High Wall.  For a simply brilliant femme fatale role:  Tension.

Anyway - we hope you'll give these movies a shot.  I'm recording all the ones I hadn't seen, so it's going to be a blitz of Totter for me.  I wish they could have landed Alias Nick Beal and The Woman They Almost Lynched, but it's an imperfect world.