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5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Seven Days to Noon (1950 GB): This odd Boulting Brothers thriller can't help but seem anachronistic these days, but it still has much to recommend it. The story revolves around nuclear scientist John Willingdon (Barry Jones), whose work on the bomb has led him to a dreadful conclusion: he can't live with the results of his work, and feels compelled to set off a nuclear explosion in the heart of London to convince everyone else of the futility of atomic weaponry. Such as unusual thesis certainly wouldn't have been front and center in an American film of the period; what moves the film into anachronistic territory, however, are the credulity-stretching scenes of London being evacuated in extremely orderly fashion once the threat is known. On further reflection, however, those scenes probably made perfect sense at the time: from my 21st century perch, it's near impossible to imagine Londoners patiently queuing for a bus to the country, but in 1950 memories of wartime evacuation would still have been fresh in the minds of the filmmakers and the audience. In this respect, Seven Days to Noon is as much World War II film as apocalypse movie. Screenwriters Roy Boulting and Frank Harvey won 1951's Academy Award for Best Writing, a bit surprising considering the film's political undertones, but well deserved.

Saturday 02/07/09

12:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Atomic City (1952 USA): War of the Worlds' Gene Barry stars in this forgotten "nuclear noir" from Paramount. He plays scientist Frank Addison, whose son Tommy (Lee Aaker) is kidnapped by nefarious foreign agents determined to squeeze some hydrogen bomb secrets out of Dad as ransom for his tow-headed offspring. It's up to the jut-jawed men of the FBI to put the kibosh on the commies and rescue poor little Tommy. Though the film is basically a police procedural in atomic age drag, it benefits from good New Mexico location footage and a decent Academy Award nominated screenplay by Sydney Boehm.

7:40 PM Encore Love Stories
Nine 1/2 Weeks (1985 USA): Airing on television for the first time in widescreen, Nine 1/2 Weeks made stars of Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger and featured what were considered to be, in 1985 at least, some very frank and revealing sex scenes. Personally, I think it's pretty bad, but Showgirls bad, which means it's actually really good for a laugh. Some folks like to watch paint dry; I prefer to watch ice cubes melt.

Sunday 02/08/09

6:45 AM IFC
Cousin Cousine (1975 FRA): Long unseen over US airwaves, arthouse hit Cousin Cousine makes a rare appearance this morning on IFC. It stars Marie-Christine Barrault (niece of Jean-Louis) and Victor Lanoux as middle-aged lovers Marthe and Ludovic. She's married to a serial adulterer; he's unable to hold down a job for more than a week or two. Together, they make utterly charming music, engaging in a lengthy platonic affair before getting down to the real nitty-gritty late in the proceedings. Director Jean Charles Tacchella's screenplay was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award (are we detecting a theme?) and the film went on to be a huge success in the mid '70s, when American audiences were open-minded enough to read subtitles.

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