Turner Classic Movies has four WWI-themed movies coming up in April.  We make no claims that these are historically accurate movies, but may be enjoyable anyway.

April 20th

Knight Without Armour (1937).  After two years as a Czarist British agent posing as a Russian Commissar, he rescues a Russian countess from her Bolshevik captors.  Stars Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat.  9:00 a.m. CT.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953).  This may be a stretch to call it a WWI movie.  Marjorie Winfield’s engagement to Bill Sherman, who has just arrived home from fighting in World War I, serves as the backdrop for the trials and tribulations of her family.  Stars Doris Day, Gordon MacRae, and Leon Ames.  9:00 p.m. CT

April 22nd

Wilson (1944).  A chronicle of the political career of US President Woodrow Wilson.  Alexander Knox, Charles Coburn, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Thomas Mitchell, and Vincent Price.  2:00 p.m. CT

IMDB Trivia:  This was, perhaps, the only box office disaster in the history of Hollywood to have received so many Oscar nominations (10), to have won as many Oscars as it did (5), and to have received so much critical acclaim.

Franklin D. Roosevelt screened the film at the Second Quebec Conference in 1944. Among those watching was Winston Churchill, who was decidedly unimpressed and left early to go to bed.

The Spy in Black (1939).  A German submarine is sent to the Orkney Isles in 1917 to sink the British fleet.  Stars Conrad Veidt, Sebastian Shaw, and Valerie Hobson.  11:30 p.m. CT

Blair Tarr is the Museum Curator of the Kansas State Historical Society. He oversees the three-dimensional collections of the Society, but has special interests in the Civil War, Wichita-made Valentine diners, and Leavenworth's Abernathy Furniture. In the last few years he has also done a lot of cramming on The Great War. He is a past president of the Kansas Museums Association and the Civil War Round Tables of both Kansas City and Eastern Kansas. He is currently a board member of the Heritage League of Greater Kansas City.