TCM Schedule for Thurs, July 16, 2026: Ginger Rogers / Horror with John Carpenter, Part 1

Prime time: Giant critters, crazed scientists, mutated humans, lot of dead guys. Wacky stuff. Could be laughs with a bottle of Chardonnay, a big bowl of popcorn, and some ganja.


Happy Birthday Ginger Rogers, born July 16, 1911.

Rogers won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in Kitty Foyle (1940, airing today), and performed during the 1930s in RKO's musical films with Fred Astaire. Her early films with Astaire are credited with saving RKO from bankruptcy. The finest of these, Top Hat (1935), airs today. Rogers career continued on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century.

Rogers was born in Independence, Missouri, and raised in Kansas City. She and her family moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when she was nine years old. In 1925, she won a Charleston dance contest that helped her launch a successful vaudeville career. After that, she gained recognition as a Broadway actress for her stage debut in Girl Crazy. This led to a contract with Paramount Pictures, which ended after five films. Rogers had her first successful film roles as a supporting actress in 42nd Street (1933) and Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933).

In the 1930s, Rogers's nine films with Fred Astaire are credited with revolutionizing the musical genre and gave RKO Pictures some of its biggest successes: The Gay Divorcee (1934), Top Hat (1935) and Swing Time (1936). But after two commercial failures with Astaire, she turned her focus to dramatic and comedy films. Her acting was well received by critics and audiences in films such as Stage Door (1937), Vivacious Lady (1938), Bachelor Mother (1939), Primrose Path (1940, airing today), The Major and the Minor (1942) and I'll Be Seeing You (1944). After winning the Oscar, Rogers became one of the biggest box-office draws and highest-paid actresses of the 1940s.

During her long career, Rogers made 73 films. In 1999, she ranked number 14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of female stars of classic American cinema.

FULL BIO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_Rogers



DAYTIME: listings EST

6:15 AM Having Wonderful Time (1938)
A New York girl finds love at a summer resort.
Dir: Alfred Santell Cast: Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Red Skelton

7:30 AM Primrose Path (1940)
The youngest child in a family of prostitutes tries to go straight with a working man.
Dir: Gregory La Cava Cast: Ginger Rogers, Joel McCrea, Marjorie Rambeau

9:15 AM Romance in Manhattan (1935)
A New York chorus girl helps an illegal immigrant build a new life in the big city.
Dir: Stephen Roberts Cast: Francis Lederer, Ginger Rogers, Arthur Hohl

10:45 AM Top Hat (1935)
A woman believes that an enamored dancer is her best friend's husband.
Dir: Mark Sandrich Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton

12:30 PM Shall We Dance (1937)
A ballet dancer and a showgirl fake a marriage for publicity purposes, then fall in love.
Dir: Mark Sandrich Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton

2:30 PM Carefree (1938)
A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be helping into marriage.
Dir: Mark Sandrich Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy

4:00 PM The Barkleys of Broadway (1949)
A married musical team splits up so the wife can become a serious actress.
Dir: Charles Walters Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Oscar Levant

6:00 PM Kitty Foyle (1940)
A working-class woman endures scandal and heartbreak when she falls for a socialite.
Dir: Sam Wood Cast: Ginger Rogers (Oscar, Best Actress), Dennis Morgan, James Craig



PRIME TIME, LATE NIGHT, EARLY MORNING

8:00 PM The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
An astronaut mutates into a deadly alien organism upon returning to Earth.
Dir: Val Guest Cast: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Margia Dean

9:30 PM It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
A blood-sucking monster stalks the crew of a U.S. spaceship.
Dir: Edward Cahn Cast: Marshall Thompson, Shirley Patterson, Kim Spalding

11:00 PM Them! (1954)
Federal agents fight to destroy a colony of mutated giant ants.
Dir: Gordon Douglas Cast: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, James Arness

12:45 AM The Black Scorpion (1957)
Giant prehistoric scorpions terrorize the Mexican countryside.
Dir: Edward Ludwig Cast: Richard Denning, Mara Corday, Carlos Rivas

2:30 AM The Killer Shrews (1959)
A formula turns a shrew into a giant, man-killing beast.
Dir: Ray Kellogg Cast: James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis

3:45 AM The Wasp Woman (1959)
The search for eternal youth transforms a corporate exec into a giant wasp.
Dir: Roger Corman Cast: Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris

5:00 AM The Cyclops (1957)
A scientific expedition discovers a 25-foot tall mutant.
Dir: Bert I. Gordon Cast: James Craig, Gloria Talbott, Lon Chaney Jr.