The TV Zone

Now that I have your attention . . .

Racy 1930s pre-code features are on tap again tonight on Turner Classic Movies. Before the censors took the reins for Hollywood's "golden age," filmmakers tried getting adult in ways they wouldn't again approach until the 1960s (when they exceeded those ways immeasurably).

It's all explained in tonight's new TCM documentary "Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood" (Monday, March 3 at 9:30 p.m. and 2:30 a.m.), promising to examine "how the [era's] social, financial and moral forces all helped shape one of the most intriguing periods in Hollywood history." Anybody who's seen Barbara Stanwyck sleep her way to the top of the corporate food chain in 1933's "Baby Face" knows what that means. (You can watch her do it again this Saturday night, March 8 at 12:30 a.m.)

Tonight's lineup:
8 p.m. - "The Divorcee" (1930), with Norma Shearer in a "double standard" expose.
10:45 p.m. - "Night Nurse" (1931), Stanwyck again, with Clark Gable.
12 midnight - "Three on a Match" (1932), with Joan Blondell, Bette Davis and gangsters.
1:15 a.m. - "Female" (1933), Ruth Chatterton as a female CEO "who's used to buying love."
3:45 a.m. - "A Free Soul" (1931), with Lionel Barrymore, Shearer and Gable.

You shouldn't be surprised to learn that TCM's corporate-allied video arm (Warner) is releasing another set of pre-code DVDs tomorrow (March 4). "Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2" contains all five of tonight's vintage features.

Whoopi Goldberg kicks off 30 days of guest co-hosts this Thursday on Turner Classic Movies, where November is Guest Programmer month. Each night at 8, a celebrity from showbiz, literature, public affairs and even “Sesame Street” joins TCM’s Robert Osborne to introduce films they’ve chosen as being personally memorable or influential.

Goldberg’s picks are fascinating, led by Jean Cocteau’s dazzling 1946 take on “Beauty and the Beast” [photo at right]. Says Whoopi, “When I couldn’t explain why I wanted to be a person in cinema, this would be the first movie I showed [people]. Because magic happens and that is what the movies are about.”

Nice way to kick things off. The “View” cohost’s Thursday picks also include Barbra Streisand’s “Funny Girl” (10 p.m.), Robert Young’s 1945 love story “The Enchanted Cottage” (12:45 a.m.), and Andy Griffith’s 1957 power-of-celebrity drama “A Face in the Crowd” (2:30 a.m.).

Other intriguing choices this week come from Alfred Molina (the 1953 British workplace comedy “Trouble in Store” Friday at 8 p.m., followed by “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” and “Divorce Italian Style”), Donald Trump (“The African Queen” Saturday at 8 p.m., plus standbys “Gone With the Wind” and “Citizen Kane”) and Gore Vidal (Bette Davis’ “The Letter” Sunday at 8 p.m.).

Check out TCM’s interactive calendar of Guest Programmers for picks from the likes of Alec Baldwin, Matt Groening, Tracey Ullman, Harvey Fierstein, Martha Stewart and Kermit the Frog.

We don’t get to see foreign films much anymore since the demise of the old Bravo -- the old, OLD Bravo -- which back in its 1980s-90s glory days actually used to run commercial-free Kurasawa films and other gems from global masters. (Yearning sigh here. “Project Runway” will never equal “The Seven Samurai.”)

Now this week, Turner Classic Movies takes a stab at the art-film market with two nights of Louis Malle titles this Tuesday-Wednesday (Oct. 23-24), in honor of what would have been the French director’s 75th birthday. While Malle did make films in the United States (where he lived after marrying Candice Bergen in 1980, until his death in 1995), including “Pretty Baby” and “Atlantic City,” his international reputation rests on the great French-language features TCM now celebrates.

Tuesday lineup:
8 p.m. - Elevator to the Gallows (1957), Malle’s first non-documentary film, with Jeanne Moreau.
9:45 p.m. - Zazie Dans Le Metro (1960), with Philippe Noiret.
11:30 p.m. - The Fire Within (1963)
1:30 a.m. - Murmur of the Heart (1971)
3:30 a.m. - Black Moon (1975), with Joe Dallesandro.

Wednesday lineup:
8:00 p.m. - Au Revoir, Les Enfants (1987)
10:00 p.m. - Lacombe, Lucien (1974)
12:30 a.m. - Calcutta (1969), a documentary Malle also narrates.
2:30 a.m. - Place de la Republique (1974), a Paris slice-of-life.
4:15 a.m. - God's Country (1985), a Malle-narrated look at small-town Minnesota farm life and politics.

The films are further explored at TCM’s website.

Can there be such a thing on TV as too many movies? Trying to sort through today’s dozens of digital channels can make a cinephile too tired to watch.

So we’re here to offer some occasional help, pinpointing as many noteworthy festivals, don’t-miss events and conveniently concurrent airings as time and space permit.

Today and tomorrow:

Henry Fonda (Thursdays in October, starting at 8 p.m., Turner Classic Movies) – Jane and Peter’s dad, only a legendary actor himself, runs the gamut in this Star of the Month salute. Its 26 titles spanning six decades include tonight’s dramas (“12 Angry Men” and “Fail-Safe” kick things off), next week’s westerns (from the Hollywood heroism of “The Ox-Bow Incident” to his deliciously villainous turn in Sergio Leone’s masterpiece “Once Upon a Time in the West”), Oct. 18’s war movies, and Oct. 25’s comedies (1968’s original “Yours, Mine and Ours”) and more.

3:10 to Yuma (Thursday, Oct. 4 at 8 p.m., Encore Westerns) – The 1957 original with Van Heflin and Glenn Ford hits the airwaves as the Russell Crowe-Christian Bale remake hits movie theaters. Digital cable homes where Encore VOD is available (check onscreen menus) can watch the action anytime on-demand.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (Thursday, Oct. 4 at 9 p.m., History International) – George Lucas’ 1990s ABC series of prequel history docu(ish)dramas begins a supplemented repeat run. The airings are followed by half-hour documentaries on subjects the globetrotting young Indy (hottie Sean Patrick Flanery) encounters, such as slavery or Sigmund Freud. For those without the digital channel History International, the original History Channel airs “Young Indy” Saturday at 7 a.m. (And all this Indy-ness comes out on DVD starting Oct. 23.)

Classic Horror Directors (Fridays in October, starting at 8 p.m., TCM) – Jacques Tourneur is the month’s first auteur, with screenings of 1958’s “Curse of the Demon,” 1942’s “Cat People,” and 1943’s “I Walked With a Zombie” and “The Leopard Man.”