- TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” series continues on Feb. 12 with six Best Score Academy Award contenders (in assorted subcategories) and four titles featuring Oscar-nominated/-winning boxers. Include are Summer of ’42, Anchors Aweigh, The Champ (1931), and the premiere of The Fighter.
‘31 Days of Oscar’ on TCM: Day 12 offers 6 Best Score contenders and 4 titles centered on movie boxers
Turner Classic Movies’ 2025 edition of “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Wednesday, Feb. 12, with the airing of six Best Score contenders/winners (in different subcategories), in addition to four features revolving around boxers throwing punches, getting punched, and honorably sacrificing it all to make their greedy bettors and sadistic audiences happy – and, as the case may be, to feed their oversized egos. (See TCM’s Feb. 12 schedule further below. Most titles will remain available for a while on the Watch TCM app.)
Those who have been following TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” series will notice that the number of evening films scheduled in accordance with a specific theme has been reduced to four instead of the usual five presentations.
The reason for that is unclear. After all, it’s hardly as if TCM programmers couldn’t have found more titles centered on Oscar-nominated/-winning boxers (e.g., Body and Soul, starring nominee John Garfield; Million Dollar Baby, starring winner Hilary Swank)
Below are brief comments about each TCM presentation.
Summer of ’42 (1971)
Directed by Oscar nominee Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962) from an Oscar-nominated semi-autobiographical screenplay by Herman Raucher, Summer of ’42 is that rare coming-of-age drama that feels heartbreakingly true to life.
Gary Grimes is flawless as the Nantucket, Massachusetts, teenager who discovers love, sex, and loss – all in the person of Jennifer O’Neill, at her loveliest – while World War II is raging both far away and just around the corner.
The magnificent Oscar-winning score is by Michel Legrand.
Easter Parade (1948)
Johnny Green and Roger Edens won the Best Original Score Academy Award for their work on Charles Walters’ charming period musical romantic comedy Easter Parade. Fred Astaire and Judy Garland may not be a match made in heaven, but their final number together – as Garland sings the Irving Berlin-composed title song – is pure movie magic. Ably supporting the two leads: Ann Miller and Peter Lawford.
TCM’s Technicolor print is fantastic.
Camelot (1967)
Based on Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s 1960 stage musical, Joshua Logan’s Camelot earned Alfred Newman and Ken Darby the Academy Award in the – kinda odd – Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score category.
This retelling of the Arthurian legend stars Richard Harris as King Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere, Franco Nero as Lancelot, and David Hemmings as Mordred. Now you’re asking yourself: Could any of these people sing?
Well, watching and hearing Vanessa Redgrave may make you wonder why Julie Andrews didn’t return for the role she originated on Broadway, alongside Richard Burton and Robert Goulet. Franco Nero, for his part, had his singing voice dubbed by Gene Merlino (not related to the Arthurian wizard).
TCM’s previously aired print of Camelot doesn’t do justice to this lavish production. There are better ones out there.
Anchors Aweigh (1945)
A Best Picture Oscar nominee and one of the biggest box office hits of the 1940s, producer Joe Pasternak and director George Sidney’s Anchors Aweigh is capably made fluff: While on leave in the Los Angeles area, sailors Gene Kelly (a Best Actor nominee [!!!!]) and Frank Sinatra meet and fall in love with, respectively, an aspiring singer (Kathryn Grayson) and a “Girl from Brooklyn” (Pamela Britton in the sort of role made to order for future MGM contract player Betty Garrett).
That On the Town magic, however, is missing.
Dean Stockwell is Grayson’s little nephew in Anchors Aweigh. And to think that boy would grow up to lip-sync for his life Roy Orbinson’s rendition of “In Dreams.”
Lastly, Georgie Stoll topped the Best Scoring of a Musical Picture category.
On the Town (1949)
One of cinema’s greatest musicals, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly’s On the Town follows three sailors as they sing their way to romantic bliss while on a 24-hour leave in New York City.
In the pitch-perfect female cast: Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, and Vera-Ellen, plus Alice Pearce.
In the male cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin – all three of them at their most unusually agreeable.
On the Town earned Roger Edens and Lennie Hayton the Best Scoring of a Musical Picture Academy Award. Although MGM’s big-screen release was based on the 1944 Broadway musical by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Adolph Green and Betty Comden (book and lyrics), some of its songs and musical score were new.
Oklahoma! (1955)
Although it has the feel of a big-budget studio production, Fred Zinnemann’s Oklahoma! was a big-budget independently made (Magna Theatre Corporation) production based on Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s epoch-making Broadway hit.
In the mostly big-name cast: Gordon MacRae, future Oscar winner Shirley Jones (Elmer Gantry, 1960) in her film debut, past Oscar winner Gloria Grahame (The Bad and the Beautiful, 1952), Rod Steiger (another future Oscar winner, for In the Heat of the Night, 1967), Gene Nelson, Eddie Albert, Charlotte Greenwood, and James Whitmore.
Producer Arthur Hornblow Jr. must have been disappointed that his blockbuster failed to receive Oscar nods in the Best Picture, Best Director, and acting categories. But Oklahoma! did at least win two statuettes: Best Scoring of a Musical Picture (Robert Russell Bennett, Jay Blackton, and Adolph Deutsch) and Best Sound Recording (Fred Hynes).
Note: However heretically, Oklahoma! was shot in Arizona. Interior scenes were filmed at MGM’s Culver City studios. Anyhow, considering its look and feel, the movie should have been called Iowa!.
The Champ (1931)
Movies can’t get any more syrupy than King Vidor’s The Champ, in which Best Actor Academy Award co-winner* Wallace Beery (for the period 1931–1932) gives his all – literally – for love of his son, played with sugar-coated spunkiness by Jackie Cooper, who, that same year, became (and remains) the Oscars’ youngest Best Actor nominee (Skippy, for the period 1930–1931).
The Champ’s most memorable cast member, however, is silent era veteran Irene Rich (Rosita, Lady Windermere’s Fan) as the boy’s mother who, like Meryl Streep in Kramer Vs. Kramer, decides to come back into her son’s life.
* Wallace Beery received one less vote than Fredric March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. According to Academy Award rules of the period, that meant Beery, however undeservingly, was March’s co-winner.
The Fighter (2010)
A TCM premiere, David O. Russell’s real-life-based boxing drama The Fighter became, however unexpectedly, one of the most well-received releases of 2010, ultimately receiving six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director.
In the cast: Mark Wahlberg as professional boxer Micky Ward, supporting Oscar winners Christian Bale (as Ward’s half-brother and former boxer Dicky Eklund) and Melissa Leo, and nominee Amy Adams – who happens to be one of contemporary American cinema’s few personable stars.
Raging Bull (1980)
The boxing movie classic of all boxing movie classics, Martin Scorsese’s Best Picture nominee Raging Bull forces you to spend 129 minutes in the company of brutish, egomaniacal middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta, played by eventual Best Actor Oscar winner Robert De Niro. (That particular statuette should have gone instead to John Hurt for The Elephant Man or Jack Lemmon for Tribute.)
Something else: Although not nearly as well known or as enthusiastically acclaimed as Raging Bull, Robert Wise’s 1949 boxing drama The Set-Up, starring Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, is far more compelling. A plus: It tells its story in a taut 72 minutes.
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
You wouldn’t believe that Somebody Up There Likes Me was directed by the same guy – Robert Wise – who had previously handled The Set-Up. But it’s true.
An absurdly cast Paul Newman stars as middleweight boxer Rocky Graziano, who goes from street hoodlum to arena champion while finding romance in the form of pretty, Italian-accented Pier Angeli, whose name does full justice to her looks and manner.
Somebody somewhere up there may have liked Graziano well enough to show him the way – “Lo! Use thou fists to punch thine path in life” – but somebodies down here may find this cornfed Metro-Golwyn-Mayer release hard to digest.
But again, Pier Angeli is lovely and, like her Oscar-nominated twin sister Marisa Pavan (The Rose Tattoo, 1955), deserved far more success in her Hollywood ventures.
Immediately below is TCM’s “31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule on Feb. 12.
‘31 Days of Oscar’: TCM schedule (EST) – Feb. 12
6:45 AM Summer of ’42 (1971)
Director: Robert Mulligan.
Cast: Jennifer O’Neill, Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser, Oliver Conant, Katherine Allentuck, Christopher Norris.
102 min.8:30 AM Easter Parade (1948)
Director: Charles Walters.
Cast: Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Ann Miller. Peter Lawford, Jules Munshin, Clinton Sundberg, Richard Beavers.
103 min.10:15 AM Camelot (1967)
Director: Joshua Logan.
Cast: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, David Hemmings, Lionel Jeffries, Laurence Naismith, Pierre Olaf, Estelle Winwood.
179 min.1:15 PM Anchors Aweigh (1945)
Director: George Sidney.
Cast: Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, José Iturbi, Dean Stockwell, Pamela Britton, Rags Ragland, Henry O’Neill, Carlos Ramirez, Leon Ames.
143 min.3:45 PM On the Town (1949)
Director: Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly.
Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Vera-Ellen, Jules Munshin, Florence Bates, Alice Pearce, Hans Conried.
98 min.5:30 PM Oklahoma! (1955)
Director: Fred Zinnemann.
Cast: Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, Rod Steiger, Eddie Albert, Charlotte Greenwood, James Whitmore, Barbara Lawrence.
148 min.8:00 PM The Champ (1931)
Director: King Vidor.
Cast: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Irene Rich, Roscoe Ates, Edward Brophy, Hale Hamilton, Marcia Mae Jones.
86 min.9:45 PM The Fighter (2010)
Director: David O. Russell.
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo, Jack McGee, Frank Renzulli, Bianca Hunter.
116 min.12:00 AM Raging Bull (1980)
Director: Martin Scorsese.
Cast: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Theresa Saldana, Frank Vincent, Nicholas Colasanto, Mario Gallo.
129 min.2:15 AM Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Director: Robert Wise.
Cast: Paul Newman, Pier Angeli, Everett Sloane, Eileen Heckart, Sal Mineo, Sammy White, Arch Johnson, Theodore Newton.
113 min.
“TCM Oscar Movies: Best Score, Boxers” notes/references
“31 Days of Oscar” movie schedule via the TCM website.
Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones Oklahoma! image: 20th Century Fox | The Walt Disney Company.
“TCM Oscar Movies: Best Score, Boxers” last modified in February 2025.