Peter Bogdanovich, Oscar-nominated director of “The Last Picture Show,” is taking over as the third host of TCM’s best-of-the-best series “The Essentials,” which airs at 8 p.m. Saturdays.
Stories of time spent with stars such as James Stewart and Cary Grant and directors including Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Orson Welles will be part of his introduction and closing comment on the 27 classic movies he’s chosen for the series.
His selections, which include “Vertigo” and “Arsenic and Old Lace,” also feature a silent and a foreign film, genres not chosen on previous “Essentials.”
The silent movie is the 1928 comedy “Steamboat Bill, Jr.,” starring Buster Keaton. He recalls seeing it years ago and hearing “800 people screaming because there is no comedy as funny as silent comedy.”
The foreign film is the “greatest pacifist film ever made,” the 1937 World War I drama “Grand Illusion” by Jean Renoir, his favorite director.
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