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3:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Nowhere to Go (1958 GB): If it had been made in 1950s France by a director named Clouzot or Melville, this Ealing production would be a regular on the revival circuit and in film school classrooms. Sadly, it's a completely unheralded film. Expertly directed by Seth Holt, who co-wrote it with critic Kenneth Tynan, Nowhere to Go features an in-transit-to-Europe George Nader as an American con man in London, looking to score by stealing a valuable coin collection owned by American expatriate and silent film star Bessie Love. His companion in crime is the docile but dangerous Bernard Lee, and there are double crosses and dirty dealings aplenty. The real star of the film, however, is Paul Beeson's amazing cinematography, always artistic but never too showy. Beeson also did sterling work in Ealing's The Shiralee (1957), and it's hard to understand how his career ended up on Harry Alan Towers scrap-heap. Dizzy Reece's outstanding jazz score (his only film work) fits the story like a glove and Maggie Smith makes her film debut as Nader's love interest. All in all, Nowhere to Go is a great film and a true work of art.

4:00 PM Showtime
The Bank Job (2008 GB): One of my favorite guilty pleasures of 2008, The Bank Job makes its small screen debut this afternoon. Set during the grim, shag pile ‘70s, the film stars Jason Statham - close cropped despite it all - as Terry Leather, a wide boy hired to break into a Baker Street bank vault. Terry thinks he's doing it for the loot - but there are ulterior plans afoot, and the cash is only a cover for acquiring some embarrassing photographs. Directed with style by Roger Donaldson and featuring an excellent screenplay from the Dick Clement-Ian La Frenais team, The Bank Job also airs at 7:00 PM.

8:00 PM Sundance
Somebody Told Me About Carla Bruni (2008 GB): I'm not sure what to expect from this documentary, which I haven't seen yet, but here's what I DO know: Carla Bruni is the beautiful ex-model wife of right-wing French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, and the film includes appearances from singer-songwriter Julien Clerc and willowy sexagenarian chanteuse Francoise Hardy. I don't know much about Bruni and I'm not much of a Clerc fan, so I'll be tuning in for Francoise, in hopes that she'll take down her guitar and gently belt out a version of Tout les Garcons et les Filles. Yeah, I know the odds are pretty long. Also airs 9/10 at 11:30 AM.

Thursday 09/03/09

1:45 AM Showtime Extreme
Beowulf (2007 USA): This ever so slightly above average sword and sorcery epic makes its widescreen television debut this morning. The great Ray Winstone dons armor as the heroic title warrior, hired by King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) to kill the monster Grendel (a perfectly cast Crispin Glover), who's been laying waste to his realm. Mission accomplished, but the beat-downs strangely go on, and Beowulf soon finds himself confronting an even deadlier opponent - Grendel's mum (Angelina Jolie)! Also on hand in this Neil Gaiman penned, Robert Zemeckis-helmed fantasy: Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson, and Alison Lohman.

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