Explore the work of legendary actors and actresses in some of their greatest cinema classics with the Public Television Feature Film Collection. These films, presented without interruption on CPTV and CPTV Spirit, feature an array of noteworthy performances.
Films airing in September 2023 include:
The Apartment
Insurance worker C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) lends his Upper West Side apartment to company bosses to use for extramarital affairs. When his manager Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray) begins using Baxter’s apartment in exchange for promoting him, Baxter is disappointed to learn that Sheldrake’s mistress is Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the elevator girl at work whom Baxter is interested in himself. Soon Baxter must decide between the girl he loves and the advancement of his career.
- Saturday, September 9 at 9 p.m. on CPTV
- Friday, September 29 at 8 p.m. CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 30 at 6 p.m. pm CPTV Spirit
In the Heat of the Night
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
- Saturday, September 16 at 9 p.m. on CPTV
- Friday, September 9 at 9 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 23 at 6 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
The Red Violin
The intricate history of a beautiful antique violin is traced from its creation in Cremona, Italy, in 1681, where a legendary violin maker (Carlo Cecchi) paints it with his dead wife’s blood to keep her memory alive, to an auction house in modern-day Montreal, where it draws the eye of an expert appraiser (Samuel L. Jackson). Over the years between, the violin travels through four different countries, where it has a profound impact on all those who own it.
- Friday, September 15 at 9 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 16 at 6 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 23 at 9:45 p.m. on CPTV
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
When a Soviet submarine gets stuck on a sandbar off the coast of a New England island, its commander (Theodore Bikel) orders his second-in-command, Lieutenant Rozanov (Alan Arkin), to get them moving again before there is an international incident. Rozanov seeks assistance from the island locals, including the police chief (Brian Keith) and a vacationing television writer (Carl Reiner), while trying to allay their fears of a Communist invasion by claiming he and his crew are Norwegian sailors.
- Friday, September 8 at 9 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 9 at 6 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 30 at 8 p.m. on CPTV
- Saturday, September 30 at 10 p.m. on CPTV
Stanley & Iris
Iris (Jane Fonda) has a rough go of it after the death of her husband. Though still grieving, she needs to support her dysfunctional family and so she lands a job at a bakery. Things start to look up when the kindhearted Stanley (Robert De Niro), a cook in the bakery, comes to her aid after she is mugged. When Iris realizes that Stanley cannot read, she makes it her goal to teach him. As Stanley approaches literacy, their friendship grows into something words cannot express.
- Saturday, September 23 at 8 p.m. on CPTV
- Friday, September 29 at 10 p.m. on CPTV Spirit
- Saturday, September 30 at 3 p.m. on CPTV Spirit