Tuesday, Oct. 23 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Cheney Vase

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): The Cheney Vase (Season 1 | Episode 13 - aired 25 December 1955)

Lyle Endicott is a smooth manipulator, but he's not smooth enough to save his job at a Manhattan art museum. And his talent doesn't seem to have gotten him anywhere in life. "Why not just once can something go right for me?" he wonders. Luck finally seems to shine on him when he overhears his boss, Mr. Koether, talking to one of the museum's patrons, Martha Cheney, an invalid who uses a wheelchair. She and Koether call each other by their first names, but their friendship isn't enough to persuade Miss Cheney to sell him the famous Cheney vase. Lyle realizes the heirloom is worth a lot of money -- money that can be his if he manages to insinuate himself into the old woman's life.

Sunday, Oct. 21 - Eyes Without a Face

Eyes Without a Face (1960) Les yeux sans visage (original title)

After causing an accident that left his daughter Christiane severely disfigured, the brilliant surgeon Dr. Génessier works tirelessly to give the girl a new face. He does so however by kidnapping young women and attempting face transplants. He has been woefully unsuccessful to date. The doctor's world begins to collapse around him when his daughter realizes just what he has been doing.

Saturday, Oct. 20 - Supernatural: Ghost of Venice

Supernatural (1977): Ghost of Venice (Season 1 | Episode 1 - aired 11 June 1977)

An exclusive society, the Club of the Damned, demands an unusual qualification for membership. Prospective members must tell a tale of the supernatural. If the story succeeds in chilling the nerves of the existing membership then the would-be member is admitted. If the story fails to satisfy even one member then not only is membership refused - the prospective member forfeits his life..

The first episode, Ghosts of Venice, has an old theatre actor who believes something has been stolen from him but he doesn't know quite what. The story has elements of a timeslip and when the actor meets the ghost of a former lover, things begin to come together.

Friday, Oct. 19 - Reducing

Reducing (1931)

New York City beauty-spa operator Polly Rochay (Polly Moran) graciously opens her home to her penniless sister, Marie (Marie Dressler), and her family from back home in South Bend, Ind. Polly's snooty, social-climbing daughter, Joyce (Sally Eilers), is horrified by her poor relations, especially Marie's pretty and kindhearted daughter, Vivian (Anita Page). When Joyce's wealthy boyfriend, Johnnie (Buster Collier Jr.), takes a liking to Vivian, Joyce's jealousy sparks a family-wide rift.

(But Johnnie ends up having to marry Joyce and I think we know why!).

Thursday, Oct. 18 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid (Season 1 | Episode 12 - aired 18 December 1955)

Petty thief Harold 'Stretch' Sears has served several prison sentences, and is again out on parole. He is given a job as a department store 'Santa Claus', but his cynical nature makes the job difficult. Miss Webster, who arranged the job for him, keeps trying to encourage Sears, but only succeeds in irritating him. As Sears does his best to get through the holiday season, he notices a bad-tempered boy who keeps coming to the store, arguing with him that there is no Santa Claus, and stealing small items from the store. Fearing for the boy's future, Sears feels an odd impulse to do something for the boy.

Wednesday, Oct. 17 - Evenings for Sale

Evenings for Sale (1932)

Impoverished Count von Degenthal (Marshall) plans to commit suicide and spends his last night at a costume ball. There he meets lovely Lela Fischer (Maritza) and falls in love with her. A chance meeting with his former butler brings a job offer as a gigolo in a dance club. He dances with Jenny Kent (Boland), a wealthy American heiress, and she becomes so enamoured with him that she buys his castle, clearing all his debts. The count gives her his treasured ring in gratitude, and Lela misinterprets this as an engagement to be married and shuns him. Kent receives news from America that she has become a grandmother, and it dawns on her that she has been foolish in pursuing a much younger man. She returns to America, Lela's misunderstanding is cleared up, and she and the count reconcile.

Tuesday, Oct. 16 - Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Unlucky Gambler

Sherlock Holmes (1954–1955): The Case of the Unlucky Gambler (Season 1 | Episode 37 - aired 18 July 1955)

A young boy shows up at Baker Street, asking for Holmes' help in finding his missing father. Holmes' investigation reveals that the man is a gambler on the run from his creditors, and the team begins to make the rounds of the seedy gambling underworld in search of the boy's father.

Monday, Oct. 15 - Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Guilty Witness

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1962): Guilty Witness (Season 1 | Episode 11 - aired 11 December 1955)

Stanley Crane is working at his grocery when Mrs. Verber comes in with a badly bruised face. Stanley's wife Dorothy believes that Mr. Verber hits his wife, and is having affairs with other women. Back at home, the Cranes hear the Verbers having a violent argument in the apartment above theirs. The next day, when Mr. Verber is missing, and soon afterward a detective starts poking around the apartment building, the Cranes can't help suspecting the worst.

Sunday, Oct. 14 - The Steel Fist

The Steel Fist (1952)

In an unidentified Central European country "somewhere behind the Iron Curtain," a group of students stage a riot to protest the Soviet occupying government's forced labor program. Student Erik Kardin leads the protest, and when the police hunt for him, turns for help to his uncle, Prof. Kardin...

Roddy McDowall stars as Erik, an idealistic young student in an unnamed Iron Curtain country. Pursued by the communist police for speaking his views, Erik is sheltered by the underground. While being smuggled out of the country, he finds time to fall in love with Marina (Kristine Miller), who unfortunately has also developed a close relationship with Red-army officer Giorg (Rand Brooks).

Saturday, Oct. 13 - Absolute Quiet

Absolute Quiet (1936)

Businessman Gerald Axton goes to his ranch to rest, having had a near-heart-attack due to business worries. But while there (with his female assistant who makes his heart flutter as much as his business worries), a pair of escaped criminals crashes the party, as well as a plane load of passengers who literally crash in. Coincidentally, the plane was carrying the state's governor, whom Axton was at odds with, Axton's ex-paramour and her lover, whom Axton was sending away under false pretenses, and a reporter willing to write up all the sordid details.

Friday, Oct. 12 - A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He has his crew bail out safely, but figures it is curtains for himself. He gets on the radio, and talks to June, a young American woman working for the USAAF, and they are quite moved by each other's voices. Then he jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup in heaven. They couldn't find him in all that fog. By the time his "Conductor" catches up with him 20 hours later, Peter and June have met and fallen in love. This changes everything, and since it happened through no fault of his own, Peter figures that heaven owes him a second chance. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.

Thursday, Oct. 11 - Chad Hanna

Chad Hanna (1940)

In the 1840s, Chad Hanna (Fonda), a New York country boy working along the canal in Canastota, New York, joins a travelling Huguenine circus. He falls in love with beautiful bareback rider Albany Yates (Lamour), but she spurns him. Chad then finds himself attracted to another runaway, country girl Caroline Tridd (Darnell).

Though everybody assumes that the boy is slow on the uptake, Chad manages to save the circus from financial ruin.