St. Patrick’s Day movies flood the TV
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Let the Hollywood Irish stereotypes loose for the day!
A leprechaun follows two Americans who stole his pot of gold all the way to the American South where, together, they take on local politics, Dixie stereotypes and challenge a racist senator (Keenan Wynn) in the 1968 musical “Finian’s Rainbow” (5:30 p.m., TCM, TV-G), directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Fred Astaire, Petula Clark and Tommy Steele.
“Finian” is based on a 1947 stage musical by Fred Saidy and E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, a left-leaning composer famous for the Depression-era ballad “Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?” and all of the songs for “The Wizard of Oz.”
No St. Patrick’s Day is complete without at least one airing of “The Quiet Man” (8 p.m., TCM, TV-PG), director John Ford’s ode to his home country. An Irish-American boxer (John Wayne) goes 15 rounds with a local tempestuous lass (Maureen O’Hara) when he returns to the old sod to inherit some family property.
Warwick Davis brings demonic energy to the 1993 shocker “Leprechaun” (8 p.m., Syfy, TV-14), a film also known for a pre“Friends” role for Jennifer Aniston.
Hollywood’s “Irish” casting has always been pretty flexible. In the 1965 biopic “Young Cassidy” (10:30 p.m., TCM, TV-14), Australian heartthrob Rod Taylor portrays Irish playwright Sean O’Casey, torn between work, rebellion and two Dublin lovelies (played by renowned English actresses Julie Christie and Maggie Smith).
Few films capture, or send up, the mingling of tragedy, humor and absurdity of the Irish American experience like the Coen Brothers 1990 gem “Miller’s Crossing” (streaming on the Starz app).
Albert Finney and Gabriel Byrne portray gangsters, or rather, approximations of Irish gangsters from books and movies. They discuss “the rumpus,” in unforgettable slanguage while slowly losing their grip on the city’s multi-ethnic underworld. No movie has ever put “Danny Boy” to better use.
› Syfy launches the latenight cartoon satire “The Pole” (11:15 p.m., TV-MA). Bobby Moynihan lends his voice to Saint Nick, a happy but hedonistic Santa Claus who presides over a bitterly divided tragic kingdom of elves.
Half of the residents of the North Pole are sniffing cocaine and enjoying orgiastic sex, and the others are deeply resentful and puritanical, obsessed with keeping toys from anybody on the “naughty” list.
Santa’s arrogant son and heir is right out of “American Psycho,” and Mrs. Claus is having an affair with a reindeer. Scandal comes to Christmas town when Nick’s exposed penis goes viral on the internet.
I am hard pressed to find the humor in, or the point of, “The Pole.” If this show has an audience, I don’t want to know them.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
› Manning reaches out to a mother in need on “Chicago Med” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-14).
› Common hosts “A Grammy Salute to the Sounds of Change” (9 p.m., CBS).
› A blow to the noggin on “Chicago Fire” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).