Sunday, Dec. 30 - Love Crazy

Love Crazy (1941)

A series of misunderstandings on their fourth wedding anniversary lead an architect and his wife to break up, but he pretends to be insane and even poses as his own sister in order to win her back.

Saturday, Dec. 29 - Double Feature! Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Episodes 1 & 2

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979– ) TV Mini-Series

George Smiley has been retired for about a year when he finds a friend from the circus, his old outfit in British Intelligence sitting in his living room. He is taken to the home of an advisor to the Prime Minister on intelligence matters where he finds evidence that one of the men in the senior ranks of his old agency is a Russian spy. Smiley is asked to find him, without official access to any of the files in the Circus or letting on that anyone is under suspicion. With only a few old friends, his own powers of deduction, and secrecy as weapons, Smiley must unearth the spy who turned him out of the Circus.

Season 1, Episode 1 Return to the Circus (10 Sep. 1979)

Control, the ageing head of British Intelligence (the "Circus"), sets up Operation "Testify": he sends secret agent Jim Prideaux to Czechoslovakia where he is to get the name of a Soviet spy (or "mole") inside the Circus. But Prideaux falls into a trap.

Season 1, Episode 2 Tarr Tells His Story (17 Sep. 1979)

At the home of Sir Oliver Lacon, George Smiley listens to Ricky Tarr's story. He was dispatched to Lisbon a year ago when the local resident, Thufty Thessinger, requested assistance. A Russian trade delegation is in town and one member, Boris, is stepping out on his own at night to bars and restaurants. Ricky soon realizes Boris is a trained agent and as per standing orders, doesn't approach him. He decides to check his hotel room and there meets Boris' wife Irina. They are soon having an affair and she eventually tells him a great secret: there is a Russian agent, a mole, buried deep in the British secret service. George had similar concerns before his forced retirement and now Lacon asks him to investigate.

Saturday, Dec. 29 - The Woman in White

The Woman in White (1997)

Based upon Wilkie Collins Victorian mystery, the gothic tale tells of a pair of half sisters whose lives end up caught in a grand conspiracy revolving around a mentally ill woman dressed in white. As the story unfolds, murder, love, marriage, and greed stand between the two women and happy lives. Their only hope is the secret the woman in white waits to tell them.

Friday, Dec. 28 - Lovejoy: Angel Trousers

Lovejoy: Season 3, Episode 4 Angel Trousers (2 Feb. 1992)

Lovejoy and Lady Jane drive her former housekeeper Vera to Portsmouth for the burial at sea of Vera's late brother, Captain Bucknall. Vera is anxious to sell the captain's medals to the local submarine museum but they cannot match the price offered by arrogant collector, fashion photographer Jeremy Prince so Vera reluctantly agrees to sell them to him. However they are stolen from Lovejoy's safe. Prince accuses him of trickery but then Angelo Pantalini or Angel Trousers appears with a gun, claiming revenge for an outrage the late captain committed to a statue of Mussolini in the Second World War

Thursday, Dec. 27 - Hustle: Cops and Robbers

Hustle: Season 1, Episode 4 Cops and Robbers (16 Mar. 2004)

Mickey Stone find himself being blackmailed by Victor Maher into helping him catch a bank robber. Maher has an old videotape of Danny Blue involved in a robbery and unless Mickey agrees to help, he will turn it over to the police. Maher spent his career in the fraud squad and is now head of security for Moores Bank. He knows that Sam Richards will soon try to rob the their main London Branch and want Mickey to get a member of his team in on the robbery. Albert Stroller, who has had dealings with Maher in the past, warns Mickey that the ex-cop is very good at what he does and that Mickey himself is as much the prize as Richards. Left on the sidelines, Danny and Stacie spend a good deal of time together with Danny starting to fall for her.

Wednesday, Dec. 26 - Oppenheimer: Episode 2

Season 1, Episode 2 Episode #1.2 (5 Nov. 1980)

1942: America is at war. Oppenheimer is engaged in the race to produce an atomic bomb.

Monday, Dec. 24 & Tuesday, Dec. 25 - Lovejoy: The Prague Sun

Season 3, Episode 14 The Prague Sun (27 Dec. 1992)

Dottie Mayhew, a dealer friend of Lovejoy's, is shaken when her former fiancé Marek returns to Britain after disappearing in action during the war fifty years earlier. Marek fought with the British as an aviator and has been presumed dead. The fall of Communism has allowed him to become reunited with her and to reclaim a cache of diamonds buried five decades earlier in a deserted church. When Lovejoy discovers his critically injured body and a single rose-cut Sebenteenth Century diamond, he is knocked unconscious by an anonymous assailant. The diamonds are among 6000 stolen from a priceless religious object stolen during the war in Prague, so he and Eric journey to the Czech capitol. When Lovejoy tries to question Marek's old friend Axel, he is murdered by the dark forces working to obtain the gems. (Actually, I don't Lovejoy is murdered in this episode, as the show ran for 3 more seasons.)

Sunday, Dec. 23 - The Heart of the Matter

The Heart of the Matter (1953)

Trevor Howard plays Scobie, a policeman in Sierra Leone. He is unhappily married to Louise, played by Elizabeth Allan. While she is away, he begins a love affair with Helen, a European played by Maria Schell. However, Scobie's Catholic faith leaves him tormented with guilt.

Friday, Dec. 21 - Oppenheimer: Episode 1

Oppenheimer (1980– ) TV Mini-Series

Biography of the American physicist who led the U.S. effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II, only to find himself suspected as a security risk in the 1950s because of his increasing ambivalence about the effect of his life's work.

Thursday, Dec. 20 - The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (2008) TV Movie

Richard Hannay, a mining engineer on holiday from the African colonies, finds London socialite life terribly dull. Yet it's more then he bargained for when secret agent, Scudder, bursts into his room and entrusts him a coded notebook with map, concerning the impending start of World War I. In no time both German agents and the British law are chasing him, ruthlessly coveting the Roman numerals code, which Hannay believes he must crack himself. Masquerading as a liberal party pundit, Richard also gets stuck with parliamentary candidate Sir George Sinclair's sister Victoria. They must survive with the secrets and decide who they can trust and how to keep it from others.

Wednesday, Dec. 19 - Lovejoy: Scotch on the Rocks

Season 3, Episode 7 Scotch on the Rocks (23 Feb. 1992)

Vicky finds a Scots claymore in the attic of her new flat which Lovejoy buys from her. He is approached by a man named Kinloch who offers him a more than generous price for it,claiming a family connection, and, when a suspicious Lovejoy refuses,the sword becomes the subject of a bungled burglary. Lovejoy is intrigued and finds out that the sword provides the key to a cache of French gold buried in the ground. Ironically Tartan Transactions,a controversial firm in which Kinloch has an interest,has just built a supermarket over it and retrieval seems unlikely.

Tuesday, Dec. 18 - Mr. Ace

Mr. Ace (1946)

Margaret Wyndham Chase wants to run for governor and approaches Eddie Ace, local political kingmaker/fringe gangster, to get his support. Ace's belief is that "beautiful women and politics do not mix" and he declines to help. She decides to play the game rough-and-tough without him, but he shows he is even rougher-and-tougher, and she gives up and withdraws from the race. But Ace has fallen in love with her at about the 45-minute mark and, with his new-found ardor for clean politics, he makes some (unclean) manipulations behind the scenes, and she is picked to run on an independent good-government ticket.