CATCH A CLASSIC
Star of the Month: Sydney Greenstreet
TCM, Beginning at 7 p.m.
Turner Classic Movies’ monthlong Wednesday-night salute to the films of legendary actor Sydney Greenstreet concludes this evening, and it starts out with a bang with two of Greenstreet’s most famous movies.
First up is the iconic, Oscar-winning Casablanca (pictured), the 1942 drama about romance and intrigue in the titular North African city that ranks as one of Hollywood’s finest productions ever. Among the ways this film reaches perfection is with its flawless casting, evident not just in its
primary stars — Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid — but also its second-billed actors like Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre and, of course, Greenstreet. As crooked club owner Ferrari, Greenstreet is not in the film a lot, but the character plays a key role, and when he does show up, Greenstreet steals the scene, as usual. Up next is the beloved, holiday-set 1945 romantic comedy Christmas in Connecticut, led by Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan, with Greenstreet as the editor for Stanwyck’s journalist character. After that is the 1944 film noir The Mask of Dimitrios, led by Greenstreet and also starring Lorre and Zachary Scott; Between Two Worlds (1944), a wartime fantasy drama starring John Garfield and Henreid; The Velvet Touch (1948), a film noir headlined by Rosalind
Russell; and They Died With Their Boots On (1941), a fictionalized account of the life of George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) that was Greenstreet’s second film, featuring the actor in a smaller supporting role as Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott.