- Turner Classic Movies’ “31 Days of Oscar” series continues on Feb. 4 with seven Academy Award contenders in the Writing categories and five Oscar-nominated/-winning titles revolving around “eccentric” characters and their humorously weird lives.
TCM’s ‘31 Days of Oscar’: Day 4 offers 7 contenders in the Writing categories and 5 features about ‘eccentric’ characters
Turner Classic Movies’ 2025 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Tuesday, Feb. 4, with the airing of seven Best Screenplay contenders/winners (in assorted Best Writing categories), in addition to five Oscar-nominated/-winning titles (on different rosters) centered on “eccentric” characters – hip aunts, TV-addicted gardeners, tuba players, friends of invisible giant rabbits. (See TCM’s Feb. 4 schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Below are brief comments on each TCM presentation.
In Which We Serve (1942)
Noël Coward and David Lean’s Best Picture Oscar nominee In Which We Serve is pure, unadulterated flag-waving propaganda. Some of the supporting cast is fine – future Best Actress nominee Celia Johnson (Brief Encounter, 1946), Kay Walsh – but Coward is ludicrous not only as a navy captain but also as a traditional family man.
Besides co-directing and starring in In Which We Serve, Coward wrote and produced the film, and co-composed its score. His script was shortlisted in the Oscars’ Best Original Screenplay category, but it lost to Norman Krasna’s work on the far lighter – and far more entertaining – Princess O’Rourke.
As compensation of sorts, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave Coward an Honorary Award for “his outstanding production achievement.”
Note: In Which We Serve marked David Lean’s directorial debut. In that particular category, he would go on to win two Academy Awards for more nuanced takes on flag and country (The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957; Lawrence of Arabia, 1962).
Another In Which We Serve newcomer was actor and future Oscar-winning filmmaker Richard Attenborough (Gandhi, 1982). Lastly, Coward and Lean’s war drama also features the children of movie stars John Mills (Juliet Mills as the teeny-weeny baby of the character played by her real-life father) and Raymond Massey (Daniel Massey).
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Who knew that placid Dutch windmills could be so menacing?
Joel McCrea stars as the intrepid title character in Alfred Hitchcock’s Best Picture Oscar nominee Foreign Correspondent. The final sequence – in which McCrea screams on the radio that the United States must keep on the lights of the world – remains effective. If dated.
The North Star (1943)
These days, Lewis Milestone’s The North Star – an uneven mix of family drama and political propaganda – is notable chiefly as one of the World War II-era movies that got some of its makers in trouble with the far-right House Un-American Activities Committee because of their sympathetic portrait of the Soviet Union and “its people” – who, in The North Star, happen to be … Ukrainians.
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
Not the greatest romantic comedy ever made but one of the biggest box office hits of the year, Irving Reis’ The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer does boast two personable leads – Cary Grant, Myrna Loy – and a groovy supporting performance by veteran Harry Davenport as Judge Thaddeus Turner, the great-uncle of the characters played by Loy and Shirley Temple.
In Sidney Sheldon’s Best Original Screenplay winner, Temple’s lustful – ahem, infatuated – teenager is, in today’s parlance, a predator. Helpless Cary Grant is her victim.
Designing Woman (1957)
A good-looking production featuring two big-name leads – Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall – Designing Woman should have been far more entertaining, even if the Peck-Bacall pairing isn’t exactly one made in heaven. Vincente Minnelli directed from George Wells’ Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner.
Also in the running that year: Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, and Ennio Flaiano for I Vitelloni, which will be shown on TCM on Feb. 11.
Adam’s Rib (1949)
Is it okay for a woman to shoot her cheating husband? How would Facebook, Twitter/X, TikTok, etc. users react to such an occurrence? Would their outrage be directed at trigger-happy females with murder in their minds or at untrustworthy males who had it coming to them?
And which form of outrage would get the most likes and shares, you think?
Directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by real-life couple Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, Adam’s Rib gets the vote for the wittiest Katharine Hepburn – Spencer Tracy pairing. In brief: A happy marriage goes off the rails once husband and wife serve as trial attorneys on opposite sides of the same notorious attempted murder case.
Gordon and Kanin’s work was shortlisted in the 1950* Oscars’ Best Story and Screenplay category.
* Sometimes movies opened in the Los Angeles area weeks or even months after their New York City premiere. That could mean an Oscar nomination/win (see Casablanca) more than a year after their official release date.
The Band Wagon (1953)
One of the most enjoyable “let’s put on a show” Hollywood musicals that seemed to pop up everywhere from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, Vincente Minnelli’s The Band Wagon features great songs, pleasant performances; an Ava Gardner cameo; and one of cinema’s most entrancing dance numbers. That’s “Dancing in the Dark,” featuring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, and staged by Michael Kidd.
Harvey (1950)
James Stewart delivers one of the best performances of his career as the lovable/creepy friend of the invisible giant title character in Henry Koster’s comedy fantasy Harvey. Best Supporting Actress winner Josephine Hull steals every scene she’s in.
Auntie Mame (1958)
Stage director Morton DaCosta proudly embraces the theatrical roots of Warner Bros.’ movie version of Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee’s 1956 Broadway hit Auntie Mame,* while Best Actress Oscar nominee Rosalind Russell is chiefly responsible for the success of this comedy-drama.
Although Auntie Mame was a Best Picture contender, DaCosta was bypassed. Sixteen years later, Lucille Ball starred in the flop musical Mame opposite Robert Preston. Gene Saks directed.
* From Patrick Dennis’ 1955 semi-autobiographical novel.
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
However personable, Best Actor Oscar nominee Gary Cooper is just a tad too calculated as a tuba-playing small-town hick who inherits $20 million during the Great Depression* in Best Director winner Frank Capra’s Best Picture-nominated romantic social-dramedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
But Jean Arthur delivers a pitch-perfect performance as the big-city slicker who falls for the hick, even though, absurdly (from a dramatic standpoint), she is gone from the movie for about 20 minutes.
Note: Frank Capra was a Republican. The compassionate (“woke”) New Deal messages found in several of his best-known movies – e.g., Lady for a Day, You Can’t Take It with You – came courtesy of screenwriter Robert Riskin (who, as an aside, would marry King Kong’s Fay Wray in 1942).
* $20 million in 1936 = approximately $451 million in 2025. But since $20 million during the Great Depression must have felt like $2 billion, then today’s psychological value of Cooper’s windfall would be something like $45.1 billion.
Being There (1979)
As the slow-witted gardener whose passions are caring for plants and watching television, Best Actor Oscar nominee Peter Sellers quite possibly reached the apex of his career – in terms of characterization – in director Hal Ashby and screenwriter Jerzy Kosinski’s* sociopolitical satire Being There, costarring Shirley MacLaine and Best Supporting Actor winner Melvyn Douglas, both in top form.
Now, how on earth can one believe that such a simple-minded, kindhearted character could be seen as a potential contender for the presidency of the United States?
Maybe if Chance the Gardener had been an adjudicated sexual assaulter. Or a corrupt businessman. Or a racist bigot. Or had displayed a fixation on owning Greenland and annexing Canada. Maybe then…
Or maybe not. The very final scene in Being There provides evidence that miracles do happen.
Note: If Being There gets a 2020s remake, they’ll need to change the lead character from a TV-watching dolt to a social media and/or gaming idiot.
* Reportedly in collaboration with an uncredited Robert C. Jones (Oscar winner for Coming Home, 1978).
Travels with My Aunt (1972)
In a role originally intended for Katharine Hepburn, who got booted out of the project, Best Actress Oscar nominee Maggie Smith is excellent as the titular aunt – a funkier version of Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame – in George Cukor’s amusing Travels with My Aunt. Alec McCowen is also memorable as the titular “My.”
Jay Presson Allen (who was nominated that year for Cabaret) and Hugh Wheeler were credited for the adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1969 novel.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule on Feb. 4.
‘31 Days of Oscar’: TCM schedule (EST) – Feb. 4
6:00 AM In Which We Serve (1942)
Director: Noël Coward & David Lean.
Cast: Noël Coward, John Mills, Celia Johnson, Bernard Miles, Kay Walsh, Michael Wilding, Joyce Carey, James Donald, Kathleen Harrison, Richard Attenborough.
113m8:00 AM Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Cast: Joel McCrea, Laraine Day, Herbert Marshall, George Sanders, Albert Bassermann, Edmund Gwenn, Robert Benchley, Eduardo Ciannelli, Harry Davenport, Martin Kosleck.
119m10:15 AM The North Star (1943)
Director: Lewis Milestone.
Cast: Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Ann Harding, Walter Brennan, Jane Withers, Farley Granger, Erich von Stroheim, Dean Jagger, Carl Benton Reid, Esther Dale, Ruth Nelson, Tonio Selwart.
105m12:15 PM The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
Director: Irving Reis.
Cast: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple, Harry Davenport, Ray Collins, Johnny Sands, Veda Ann Borg, William Bakewell.
95m2:00 PM Designing Woman (1957)
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Cast: Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Gray, Sam Levene, Tom Helmore, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jesse White, Chuck Connors.
118m4:00 PM Adam’s Rib (1949)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne, Jean Hagen, Hope Emerson, Eve March, Clarence Kolb, Emerson Treacy, Polly Moran, Will Wright, Marvin Kaplan.
101m6:00 PM The Band Wagon (1953)
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan, Oscar Levant, James Mitchell, Robert Gist.
Cameo: Ava Gardner.
112m8:00 PM Harvey (1950)
Director: Henry Koster.
Cast: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Cecil Kellaway, Victoria Horne, Charles Drake, Peggy Dow, Wallace Ford, Jesse White, Nana Bryant.
104m10:00 PM Auntie Mame (1958)
Director: Morton DaCosta.
Cast: Rosalind Russell, Forrest Tucker, Coral Browne, Fred Clark, Roger Smith, Patric Knowles, Peggy Cass, Jan Handzlik, Joanna Barnes, Lee Patrick, Pippa Scott, Connie Gilchrist.
143m12:30 AM Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Director: Frank Capra.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Douglass Dumbrille, Lionel Stander, H.B. Warner, Raymond Walburn, Ruth Donnelly, Warren Hymer, Franklin Pangborn.
115m2:45 AM Being There (1979)
Director: Hal Ashby.
Cast: Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard Dysart, Richard Basehart, Than Wyenn, David Clennon, Jerome Hellman.
130m5:00 AM Travels with My Aunt (1972)
Director: George Cukor.
Cast: Maggie Smith, Alec McCowen, Lou Gossett Jr., Robert Stephens, Cindy Williams, Robert Flemyng, José Luis López Vázquez, Corinne Marchand.
109m
“Oscar Movies: Best Writing & ‘Eccentric’ Characters” notes
“31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule via the TCM website.
Rosalind Russell Auntie Mame image: Warner Bros.
“Oscar Movies: Best Writing & ‘Eccentric’ Characters” last modified in August 2026.