Movies to Tape

The Big Street (TNT Sunday at 9:05 a.m.): Lucille Ball’s favorite among her dramatic films is this endearing 1942 Damon Runyon tale in which Ball’s ill-fated, flashy, gold-digging Manhattan singer is adored by Henry Fonda’s naive busboy. This is the “Midnight Cowboy” of a more innocent era. (1:55)

Sounder (Channel 7 Sunday at 1 p.m.): Martin Ritt’s stirring 1972 film stars Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield as a resilient backwoods Louisiana couple struggling to raise a family as sharecroppers in the depths of the Depression. (2:00)

Go Tell the Spartans (Channel 11 Friday at 2:30 a.m.): An unjustly neglected, terse, acrid account of our early involvement in Vietnam, directed by Ted Post and starring Burt Lancaster as a crusty, lusty combat veteran in one of the best performances of his career.