TCM, beginning at 6 p.m.

Turner Classic Movies concludes its monthlong Wednesday night tour across small-town and rural America with an evening of dramatic films whose sometimes bleak realism shows the less idyllic, if not outright darker, side of the heartland. First is Some Came Running (pictured) (1958), a tale set in the late ’40s about a troubled veteran (Frank Sinatra) who returns to his Midwestern hometown to deal with family secrets and small-town scandals. Dean Martin, Best Actress Oscar nominee Shirley Maclaine, Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Arthur Kennedy and Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Martha Hyer costar. Next, Peter Bogdanovich’s road comedy/drama Paper Moon (1973), shot in black and white, takes place in Kansas and Missouri during the Great Depression. Real-life father and daughter Ryan and

Tatum O’neal star as a Bible salesman and the orphan girl with whom he teams to form a money-making con team. Tatum O’neal, at age 10, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, making her the youngest winner in a competitive category in Oscar history. Costar Madeline Kahn was also nominated in that category. Bogdanovich also directed, as well as co-wrote, tonight’s next feature: The Last Picture Show (1971). Set in the early 1950s, the Best Picture Oscar-nominated film follows a group of high schoolers in a small Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically. Bogdanovich received a Best Director Oscar nomination for his masterfully rendered drama and also shared, with Larry Mcmurtry, an Oscar nomination for the screenplay, which is based on Mcmurtry’s novel. The stellar cast boasts a top-notch mix of then-newer

stars as well as classic character actors, including: Je” Bridges (Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee), Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman (Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner), Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson (Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner), Ellen Burstyn (Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee), Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager and Randy Quaid. Next, it’s back to the heartland during the Great Depression in the Best Picture Oscar-nominated Bonnie and Clyde (1967), starring Best Actor and Actress Oscar nominees Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the infamous outlaws who embark on a robbery and murder spree across the Southwest in the early ’30s. The landmark film, considered one of the first of the “New Hollywood” era, earned seven other Oscar nominations, including Best Director (Arthur Penn) and Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman and Michael J. Pollard). Estelle Parsons won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The evening concludes with another film about a male and female criminal pair with Terrence Malick’s atmospheric Badlands (1973). Loosely based on the reallife murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, the film stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as young lovers on the run across the Great Plains. — Je Pfeier