TiVoPlex
By John Seal
October 4, 2004
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 10/05/04
5am IFC
Let Him Have It (1991 GB): This true crime film retells the tragic story of Derek Bentley, a mildly retarded young Englishman who was executed in 1953 for a murder he didn’t commit. Bentley is played sympathetically by future Dr. Who Christopher Eccleston, and there’s the usual superb British supporting cast, including Paul Reynolds as the real villain (who ultimately served time but was later freed) and Tom Courtenay and Eileen Atkins as Derek’s parents. You can learn more about the case, and about the fight against capital punishment in ‘50s and ‘60s Britain, at http://web1.pipemedia.net/~sar/bentley/db_main.html. Also airs at 11am, on 10/7 at 9am, on 10/8 at 6:45am, and on 10/11 at 1pm.
8:35am Showtime 3
The Way Home (ROK 2002): This remarkable South Korean drama is one of the finest onscreen depictions of childhood you’re likely to see…and its protagonist is one of the least sympathetic of recent years. Seven-year-old Seung-Ho Yu plays a city boy left with his mute country grandmother whilst his unemployed mother tries to find a job back home. The culture clash is quickly and starkly apparent, as the boy discovers he’ll have to walk miles to replace the batteries for his Gameboy. To add insult to injury, his silent grandmother doesn’t know what Kentucky Fried Chicken is, and, surely the greatest humiliation of all, he has to use a chamberpot. Yu’s performance is thoroughly believable: the child is impetuous, stubborn, and incredibly selfish, but he has a formidable match in Eul-Boon Kim as Grandma, equally stubborn and much more patient than her young charge. A quiet triumph of minimalist cinema, The Way Home cleaned up at awards ceremonies around the world. Also airs 10/8 at 10:15am.
2pm Turner Classic Movies
Girl Crazy (1932 USA): Comedy team Wheeler and Woolsey star in this first-rate RKO musical comedy featuring songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including the classic I Got Rhythm. They play Jimmy and Slick, the friends of handsome big-city playboy Danny (Eddie Quillan), whose womanizing ways have forced him to relocate to deepest Arizona. With spare time on his hands, Danny starts his own dude ranch, but soon finds himself embroiled in local politics when Jimmy - much to the chagrin of the locals - decides to run for sherriff. If you’ve seen any Wheeler and Woolsey vehicles, you know you’re in for double entendres, broad physical comedy, and non-stop action, and Girl Crazy doesn’t disappoint. Look for Marx Brothers' straight woman Margaret Dumont in a small role, as well as Lon Chaney Jr. - in only his second screen appearance - in the chorus line.
Wednesday 10/06/04
Midnight The Movie Channel
Pact with the Devil (1968 MEX): Here’s one from the "Too Good to be True" Department, which is located right next door to the "I’ll Believe It When I See It" Department. How obscure is this film? It didn’t even get a theatrical release in the United States. Is it any good? Who knows; the film has been virtually unseen for over 30 years. And why do we care? Well, Pact with the Devil stars John Carradine as a mad doctor experimenting with youth serum! Produced by the usual suspects of Mexi-horror, including writer Ramon Obon, composer Gustavo Cesar Carrion, and editor Juan Jose Munguia, this film probably won’t be much better than The Black Pit of Dr. M or Swamp of the Lost Monster, but it’s certainly been harder to see than those home video staples. At least it was until now, assuming TMC’s programming schedule is correct.
3pm Fox Movie Channel
Panic in the Streets (1950 USA): A terrific suspense film with a noir attitude, Panic in the Streets chronicles the efforts of a doctor and policeman trying to track down the source of bubonic plague before it spreads throughout the city of New Orleans. Directed by Elia Kazan and adapted by Richard Murphy, the film features one of Richard Widmark’s best performances as Doctor Clint Reed, as well as the debut of Jack Palance as an unwitting carrier of the dread disease. The underappreciated Paul Douglas plays police officer Tom Warren, and he and Widmark make an excellent pairing in this dramatic buddy movie. Also airs 10/7 at 5am.
Thursday 10/07/04
4:30am Turner Classic Movies
Escape From Crime (1942 USA): This well-above-average B feature stars Richard Travis as a falsely convicted ex-con who gets a fresh start as a freelance shutterbug after his release. You can probably guess what happens next: he takes snaps of a bank robbery (winning him a job at the local paper), saves a police detective from sure death, and seeks revenge (strictly through legal means, of course) against the villain who framed him. There’s nothing new or unexpected here, but Escape From Crime looks great thanks to cinematographer James Van Trees and Travis makes for an engaging lead.
Friday 10/08/04
12:50pm Encore Westerns
A Man Called Sledge (1970 ITA): James Garner’s one and only spaghetti western, A Man Called Sledge is an average Euro-oater with terrific photography by Luigi Kuveiller and a first-rate cast of American actors taking a Spanish vacation. Garner plays a villain with a price on his head who, along with Dennis Weaver, Claude Akins and some Italian actors you’ve never heard of, plots to break into a well-guarded prison and steal a cache of gold from the Feds. They successfully pull off the heist, but the gang starts to come apart as they make their desert getaway. Filled with action, fine acting by the American leads, and some of the most bizarre music you’ve ever heard (the song Other Men’s Gold is unusual to say the least, even for a spaghetti western), A Man Called Sledge is never less than entertaining. Pity Encore isn’t airing it wide-screen. Also airs at 8:50pm.
9:30pm Sundance
The Eye (2002 THA): This fine horror film from the Pang Brothers (Bangkok Dangerous) makes its American television premiere this evening. It’s another in the long line of "treacherous body part" films that extends all the way back to Edison’s original Frankenstein (1910) and Robert Wiene’s The Hands of Orlac (1925). This time the treacherous transplanted organs are corneas instead of hands or brains, and the patient/victim is a young woman who starts seeing ghostly apparitions after recovering from her operation. Even if you don’t care for horror films, you can’t help but be affected by Angelica Lee’s gentle and subtle performance as the woman who sees more dead people than Haley Joel Osment. The perfect film for the run-up to Halloween.
Saturday 10/09/04
1am Turner Classic Movies
Salt for Svanetia (1929 USSR): A pair of classic Soviet films air this morning. First up is Salt for Svanetia, an amazing pseudo-documentary that chronicles the hardships of life in the post-Revolutionary expanses of the rural USSR. There are images in this film you will never see anywhere else - of birth, of work, and of death - all presented bluntly, yet with exquisite artistry. Soviet propaganda it may be, but what propaganda! It’s followed at 2am by one of the greatest films of all time, Dziga Vertov’s revolutionary Man with a Movie Camera (1929). Watch this amazing experimental film and appreciate the creative energies that October 1917 unleashed. A clear (and superior) forerunner of films like Koyaanisqatsi, Man with the Movie Camera will tease and provoke your eyes until its quick-cut ending will leave you gasping for more. Any serious film student has to see this film.
7am Sundance
Gaja Gamini (2000 IND): This week’s speculative pick is an Indian film that promises to provide considerably more food for thought than your average Bollywood song-and-dance-athon. A disaster at the box office, Gaja Gamini was directed by octogenarian painter M. F. Hussain, and features some of India’s favorite stars, including the great Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) as, believe it or not, Leonardo da Vinci. Plot summations make it sound a bit like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, with Hussain paying tribute to the power and strength of women through the ages. Right on, sister, right on!
1:40pm Fox Movie Channel
Shock (1946 USA): Vincent Price plays Dr. Richard Cross, a psychiatrist treating a patient (Oakland born Anabel Shaw) sent into a state of somnambulism after witnessing a murder. Unfortunately for Dr. Cross, she starts to recover and soon recognizes the killer: him! Shock plays like an on-the-couch version of John Farrow’s masterful The Big Clock, with Price desperately trying to find a way out of his predicament with the aid of his scheming nurse (Lynn Bari). Also airs on 10/10 at 3:40am.
Sunday 10/10/04
4am Showtime 2
Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile (2004 USA): I’m not a big Beach Boys fan; in fact, I could probably count the number of Beach Boys songs I like on one hand. Nonetheless, I’ll be eagerly anticipating this documentary about the tortuous genesis of Smile, the album long touted as one of the Gnostic gospels of modern pop music. Recorded in the wake of the wildly positive critical reaction to 1966’s Pet Sounds, the expectations piled on Smile were an overwhelming burden for Wilson and a major cause of his breakdown and decades-long sojourn in his bedroom. This Showtime documentary covers the history of this 35-year-long project - only now getting an official release via Nonesuch Records - and includes interviews with drummer Hal Blaine, bass player Carol Kaye, and songwriters Van Dyke Parks, Burt Bacharach, and Jimmy Webb. Also airs at 1:35pm.
5:15pm Turner Classic Movies
The Devil Bat (1941 USA): If you’re a man who likes to wear cologne, you may have second thoughts after watching The Devil Bat. Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Carruthers, a mad genius whose newest invention is stolen from him by the company that sponsored his work. Probably should have read that intellectual property clause in your contract, Bela. Rather than getting his revenge via litigation, Carruthers develops a special perfume, as well as giant bats trained to kill those who wear it! A little dab’ll do ya, indeed, as executives of the firm soon discover to their chagrin. Prints of this poverty-row production from PRC haven’t aged well (did ANY PRC films get preserved properly?), but the crackles and jumps give the film a special flavor, and the absurd dialogue by John Neville will provide laughs, both intentional and unintentional. Great fun if you’re in the right mood.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
Judex (1916 FRA): Chapters 4-7 of this early serial, recommended in last week’s column, air this evening.
Monday 10/11/04
4:50am Encore Mystery
Walk East on Beacon! (1952 USA): An hysterical anti-Communist screed dolled up in the drag of a police procedural, Walk East on Beacon! simply isn't up to the task of alerting us to the dangers of a Fifth Column in our midst. Well filmed but weedily written (and based on a magazine article by the Dark Prince of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover), the film stars Republican senator-in-waiting George Murphy as a G-Man hot on the heels of a Red sleeper cell. Murphy was never much of an actor, and here he's strictly in Jack Webb just-the-facts-ma'am territory. Location photography in Boston gives the film a boost, but overall Walk East on Beacon! can't match either the red-hot emotional power of Pickup on South Street or the creepy intensity of My Son John, two other Red Menace films of the period.
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