Thursday, July 3, 2014

The limited number of Revolutionary War-themed movies

I suppose I could have titled today's post something to the effect that I could just recycle last year's Independence Day post. I knew I had posted several times about various American-history themed Technicolor two-reelers that Warner Bros. did in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but I had forgotten that I had done a post on all of the Independence Day-themed shorts all airing on one July 4.

TCM is running all of the same shorts again tomorrow, since it's Independence Day again. One big difference is that this time, the shorts actually have their own 30-minute slots on the schedule and show up at least on my box guide. Those three shorts are:

Give Me Liberty at 6:00 AM;
Sons of Liberty at 8:45 AM; and
The Declaration of Independence at 1:00 PM.

The rest of the schedule has many of the same features that you'll see every July 4, mostly because there's a fairly limited number of studio era movies on the Revolutionary War. Perhaps TCM could have found a way to include Northwest Passage, which is colonial themed but not quite Revolutionary War themed. They've also run Drums Along the Mohawk in the past, although it's not on this year's schedule, probably because Fox movies aren't quite as easy to get as some of the other studio's films. I also think that TCM doesn't have the rights to the Disney live-action stuff at all, and hasn't for a couple of years now, which is why the well-suited Johnny Tremain isn't going to show up for Independence Day.

Happy Independence Day!

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