If you love all things Oscar than you’re going to love what Turner Classic Movies has in store for you this month.
TCM, currently seen in more than 70 million homes, is a 24-hour cable network that specializes in playing the classic oldies. Since its launch in 1994, TCM has presented high quality films from the largest film library in the world–the combined Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting Systems film libraries–commercial-free and without interruption. As they’ve done for the last few years, the cable network pays tribute to those movies nominated for Academy Awards with a month-long marathon, better known as the 31 Days of Oscar festival.
But this year, they’re doing something a little different. TCM’s annual salute to the movies nominated for or awarded Hollywood’s most prestigious prize borrows its theme from the film buff party game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Called 360 Degrees of Oscar, the cast of each movie aired during the festival is linked to the movie immediately broadcast after it through a common movie star.
Hosted by Robert Osbourne, the festival kicked off Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 6 a.m. with Mogambo, the jungle drama directed by John Ford and featuring Ava Gardner, who was nominated for Best Actress for her performance. The next movie was Gardner’s musical extravaganza Show Boat, which was nominated for two Academy Awards and also starred Kathryn Grason, who then starred in the next Oscar-nominated film Thousands Cheer. You get the picture.
The massive festival ends Friday, March 3, two days before the 78th Annual Academy Awards. The final movie in the festival, Lust for Life, features actor Eric Pohlmann, who also starred in the Mogambo, thus bringing the whole thing full circle.
The stars connected to 360 Degrees of Oscar range from ultra-popular (Robert Redford in The Sting and Out of Africa on Feb. 12) to relatively obscure (Grandon Rhodes in Born Yesterday and White Heat on Feb. 15).
You even have some modern updates, such as Christopher Lloyd in the 1985 Oscar winner Back to the Future and then the 1988 four-time Oscar winner Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Feb. 18), a TCM premiere. Other premieres include 1991 nominee Fried Green Tomatoes (Feb. 21), Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford’s early classic The Conversation (Feb. 28) and the 1973 nominee Nashville (Feb. 21). They’ll join standard favorites such as Citizen Kane (Feb. 2) and the eight-time Oscar winner Gone with the Wind (Feb. 26), all connected by one degree of separation.
See how many you can guess.
