Coming Up Soon:

TCM is doing a series in June on Asian Images in Film. It looks like a fair amount of work went into the programming (some rarely seen silents) and the licensing of films (they'll be including a couple of Charlie Chans and one Mr. Moto, all of which are Fox films, and even a couple of public domain Mr. Wong films with Boris Karloff). I'm excited about DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, a 1931 Fu Manchu film with Charlie Chan himself, Warner Oland, as Fu and Anna May Wong as his daughter. It airs tonight at 12:45 a.m EDT. I'm too late to suggest THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN and THE MASK OF FU MANCHU which ran earlier this week, but I do recommend FIRST YANK INTO TOKYO (Tom Neal, tough-guy B-movie star gets plastic surgery to become a spy) on June 12th, and the night of Asian detective films, June 10th. They'll be showing THE GOOD EARTH and DRAGON SEED on the 12th, but I don't know if I can stand to watch so many hours of Caucasians like Katharine Hepburn and Paul Muni in painfully dignified "yellowface," even if it was done with the best intentions. Do catch the Chans, Wongs, and Motos, with pre-film context established by Robert Osbourne and film scholar Peter Feng.

I don't see much else on TCM's schedule during the next week or so to point out except the very fun Hitchcock thriller THE 39 STEPS which is on this Friday at midnight. Over on Fox Movie Channel, the solid anthology film TALES OF MANHATTAN is on Sunday the 8th at 8 a.m.; on Fox Monday morning is the fun fantasy adventure CHANDU THE MAGICIAN at 6 a.m. followed by the Tyrone Power's creepy noir NIGHTMARE ALLEY at 7:30. Tuesday at 6 a.m is MAN HUNT, with Walter Pidgeon as a man who gets the chance to shoot Hitler. The Sundance Channel has the Beatles' HELP! Monday the 9th at 10 a.m and GIMMIE SHELTER, the documentary about the notorious Rolling Stones show at Altamont, that evening at 7.