By John Seal
January 6-12, 2003
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated - they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times PST.
Monday 1/06/03
1:15 AM Showtime
Jennifer On My Mind (1971 USA): Smilin’ Leonard Maltin hates this movie, but I’m partial to the post-Love Story ennui of it all. It was, indeed, written by the much-maligned Erich Segal, and tells the tale of poor drug-addicted Jenny, played ethereally by Peyton Place alumnus Tippy Walker. Michael Brandon, a TV Movie of the Week regular throughout the 70s, is Marcus, the boy who tries to save her from herself, and there are small but memorable roles by Robert De Niro and Barry Bostwick (yes, Barry, we know who you are). There’s also some typical early 70s folk-pop on the soundtrack, including a song by Tom Paxton, one of the original Greenwich Village folkies. Also airs at 4:15 AM.
3:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Employees’ Entrance (1933 USA): Starring the grievously overlooked Warren William as a ruthless department store mogul and a young and beautiful Loretta Young as the object of his unwarranted and unwanted advances, Employees’ Entrance is a typically excellent pre-Code Warners’ effort. Also featured are Ruth Donnelly - one of the finest character actresses under contract at the studio - and Wallace Ford. Immediately following at 5:00 AM is another Loretta Young classic, Midnight Mary, directed by William Wellman and co-starring the handsome Ricardo Cortez and the slightly less handsome Andy Devine.
11:15 PM Starz
Session 9 (2001 USA): I don’t like to repeat myself, but this is the third time I’ve recommended this film. If you enjoyed The Others or The Ring, this is a similar psychological tale of horror.
Director Brad Anderson does a superb job of maintaining a tense, creepy atmosphere, all the time pulling his punches and leaving most of the horror up to the viewer's imagination. Peter Mullan, David Caruso, and Josh Lucas are all excellent as renovation workers who discover some secrets better left undiscovered as they work within an abandoned mental hospital. If Session 9 hasn’t scared you yet, here’s another opportunity to catch the chill. Also airs 1/7 at 2:15 AM.
Tuesday 1/07/03
4:45 AM The Movie Channel
Studs Lonigan (1960 USA): I’m taking a flier on this one. Based on a novel by James T. Farrell and adapted for the screen by Philip Yordan (The Big Combo, The Harder They Fall, this tale of misspent youth in 1920s Chicago was considered raunchy and outrageous in its day. I imagine that makes it high camp now, but with a cast including Dick Foran, Frank Gorshin and Jack Nicholson along with an early score by Jerry Goldsmith, I’ll be tuning in to see what the fuss was about. Shot by the great Haskell Wexler, who went on to Academy Awards for Who Shot Virginia Woolf? and Bound For Glory, this also airs at 7:45 AM.
12:30 AM Flix
Fellini Satyricon (1969 ITA): This is listed as being shown widescreen. Hopefully that also means Flix is utilizing a sub-titled print, because the dubbed pan and scan version that occasionally airs is simply not worth your time. Assuming this is what I think it is, don’t miss Fellini’s bizarre interpretation of life in the Classical world. Pushing all sorts of boundaries in 1969, the film still has the power to shock, while maintaining the high artistic and visual standards you expect from Fellini.
12:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
Mildred Pierce (1945 USA): My favorite James M. Cain novel - and that is saying a lot, as I also love The Postman Also Rings Twice and Double Indemnity - was adapted brilliantly for the screen by Ranald McDougall and an uncredited William Faulkner. I consider this Joan Crawford’s greatest performance, but the hard work had already been done by Cain, who created a character of tremendous depth and suffering in Mildred Pierce, a woman making her own way in a man’s world. Pitted against a greedy and manipulative daughter (Ann Blyth) and weak-kneed lovers (Zachary Scott, Bruce Bennett), Crawford deservedly won the Best Actress Academy Award for this film.
Wednesday 1/08/03
The Sniper (1952 USA): Living in the Bay Area, you tend to see a lot of familiar landmarks in Hollywood movies, especially in the post-World War II era when location shoots became the order of the day. Here’s an excellent early example of the shot-in-San Francisco film, a movie about a mentally scarred veteran (Arthur Franz) who relives his wartime trauma by indiscriminately shooting the locals in between making laundry deliveries as part of his daytime job. Bad girl Marie Windsor plays against type as a woman who tries to get to know the introverted Franz but the real star is the city of San Francisco, not yet burdened with the ugly downtown developments of the 1960s and 70s.
Thursday 01/09/02
12:00 PM Flix
Ski Party (1965 USA): This is definitely a stretch, but it’s a slow day in the ‘Plex, so standards can be lowered a little. The continued success of AIP’s Beach Party series led the studio to branch out and try the same story in a snowbound setting. What makes Ski Party worth watching? Simply put, you will never ever have another opportunity to see James Brown perform in a ski sweater. An UGLY ski sweater, at that.
12:45 PM Sundance
Simon Magus (1999 GB): Did you watch it last week as I advised? WHAT? You really should follow my advice some time. I’m not going to reprint all my comments from last week - you can easily access that column from the pulldown menu - but I will restate my contention that this was the best British film of the 1990s. Also airs 1/10 at 2:30 AM.
Friday 01/10/02
5:00 AM Encore Mystery
The Harder They Fall (1956 USA): Humphrey Bogart’s swan song is one of Hollywood’s reliable chestnuts, a film about corruption in the fight game. Bogie plays a down-on-his-luck journalist hired by an up-and-coming promoter (Rod Steiger) to hype his new fighter, a gentle South American giant called Toro Moreno. Bogart takes on the assignment but soon discovers that Moreno can’t fight for beans, and that he’s being set up for the ultimate knockdown. A riveting film, brilliantly directed by Mark Robson.
1:30 PM Flix
Adventures of Gerard (1970 GB): Here’s a very obscure British film with a very interesting pedigree. Based on an Arthur Conan Doyle story, the film was directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, a Polish emigrant to Britain who went on to make the impossible-to-see Deep End (1970 GB, and featuring a soundtrack by the great German group Can) and the well-regarded psychological thriller The Shout (1978 GB). The cast includes Eli Wallach as Napoleon, Claudia Cardinale, Jack Hawkins, Norman Rossington, and John Neville as the Duke of Wellington (Neville went on, of course, to play Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam’s 1986 film and can currently be seen in David Cronenberg’s Spider.) There’s also a score by Riz Ortolani. Also airs 1/12 at 3:34 AM.
5:00 PM Encore Western
A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die (1972 ITA): Other than the Sergio Leone trilogy, it’s pretty hard to get see any of the hundreds of westerns produced in Europe during the 60s and 70s. Here’s one with a handful of American stars - Telly Savalas and the much missed James Coburn - as well as Italy’s great western-comedy team of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, who rose to international prominence with the Trinity series of films. Set in the Civil War, this was directed by Tonino Valeri (Day of Anger, My Name Is Nobody) and also includes a Riz Ortolani score.
11:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Forbidden Games (1952 FRA): Here’s another film I haven’t seen in over 20 years. Rene Clement’s story of the caustic and numbing effects of war on the young was the sort of film that was frequently broadcast on Los Angeles Channel 9, the local PBS affiliate, on Saturday nights. After moving to the United States, I grew up watching these films every Saturday night: they were my introduction to Bergman, Eisenstein, Lang, and so many others, including Clement. Now it’s up to TCM to carry the torch for these otherwise hard to see foreign films. Perhaps somewhere another 12-year-old is learning to appreciate subtitles…
Saturday 01/11/03
1:30 AM The Movie Channel
Youngblood (1978 USA): This obscure black action film stars the then-hot Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as another Vietnam vet with his heart set on freeing the streets from domination by death-dealing drug pushers. Coming late in the cycle, this AIP cheapie won’t be a classic - but it is a rarity, and it features a soundtrack by the Latin-funk group War.
9:00 AM Fox Movies
Return of Mr. Moto (1965 GB): No, it’s not the Peter Lorre Moto, it’s…Henry Silva?? Yes, the bug-eyed Brooklynite took over the role in this film, which producer Robert Lippert no doubt hoped would duplicate the success of the Harry Alan Towers Fu Manchu series that had recently debuted. Alas (or huzzah, depending on your opinion of white actors cast as Asian characters) this was to be the only new Moto film and the character has been resting peacefully ever since. Silva, of course, never looked back, charting himself a busy career throughout Europe and the United States, where he was most recently seen in Jim Jarmusch’s marvelous Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai and Stephen Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11.
5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954 USA): It’s Halloween in January on TCM tonight, and here’s the kick-off feature, the last great monster created by Universal Studios. Starring the beautiful Julie Adams as the apple of the gill-man’s eye, this atmospheric Amazonian epic introduced a monster with the innocent appeal of the original Karloff Frankenstein’s Monster or Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man. The Creature is a force of nature, neither good nor bad, but expected to conform to the rigid regimen of society by the scientists who come to ‘discover’ him. The current issue of Scarlet Street magazine has an excellent selection of articles on the gill-man, ranging from in-depth analysis of the three-film series to cast and crew interviews - visit them at http://www.scarletstreet.com for more. Following at 6:30 PM is the aforementioned Frankenstein (1931 USA), about which I need to say little else; The Mummy (1932 USA) at 7:45 PM, in all its expressionistic splendor; the original version of The Thing (1951 USA) at 9:00 PM; and RKO’s King Kong (1933 USA) at 10:30 PM, starring the still-lovely Fay Wray.
7:15 PM IFC
Naked (1993 GB): In the vast pantheon of unpleasant and generally clueless film characters, David Thewlis’ Johnny in Naked, Mike Leigh’s most brutal and downbeat film, must rank quite high. If you are disturbed by the sight of amoral men beating their women, this is a film to miss. If you’re not disturbed, please seek help. Either way, this is a terrific film with an amazing performance by Thewlis and the first major role for the incredibly talented and sorely missed Katrin Cartlidge.
8:00 PM Fox Movies
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972 USA): Fox has been airing all the original Apes movies recently, including the regrettable TV movies, but other than the first film, this is my favorite of the lot. And here it is in widescreen! This is the most thoughtful and political of the Apes series, and though Roddy McDowall is the ostensible star as Caesar - the ape who dare not speak his name - the estimable Hari Rhodes delivers the most riveting performance as Macdonald, a human who awakens the revolutionary consciousness of the seething mass of ape slaves. With good support from Don Murray and Severn Darden, this film features some of the most radical political philosophy ever presented in a major studio American film.
Sunday 01/12/02
1:15 PM IFC
Man of the Century (1999 USA): This was my favorite film of 1999. Lightweight fluff it may be, but this fish-out-of-water story firms, lifts, and supports my spirits every time I watch it. Gibson Frazier stars as Johnny Twennies, a reporter on a struggling New York newspaper who’s trying to get the big scoop and save his job and the paper’s independence. Set in contemporary New York, Twennies lives and breathes 1928, refraining from profanity, pre-marital sex, or unnecessary violence. What’s delightful about the film is the way he fits in the Big Apple, a city with enough room for every race, creed, color, sexual preference, or chronologic choice. Though people consider him a little odd, no one rejects him out of hand, and the film’s raucous and hilarious finale brings everyone together in a heart-warming affirmation of love’s power to trump all. If you don’t crack a smile during this film you’re dead.
3:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Caine Mutiny (1954 USA): I first saw this film when I was, oh, 11 or 12, and I spent the next few days walking around the house, rolling my fingers together and muttering “the shtrawberries! The shtrawberries!”. I’ve since read Herman Wouk’s novel of the same name, but the film is actually better, paring down Wouk’s tendency to overwrite in favor of a lean narrative about military loyalty, competence, and cowardice. Humphrey Bogart stars as the wretched Captain Queeg, assigned to command the sloppiest ship in the U.S. Navy. On the surface he seems like the right man for the job, whipping the sailors into shape and clamping down on disorder and sloth. When the U.S.S. Caine heads into action, however, things start to go horribly wrong, and it’s up to the ship’s other officers - played by Fred MacMurray, Jose Ferrer, and Van Johnson - to set a new course.
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Cameraman (1928 USA): One of Buster Keaton’s greatest and least-known films, The Cameraman gets a rare airing tonight. I haven’t seen it since it showed on TNT some years back, so I’m looking forward to revisiting this amazing romantic comedy about a newsreel photographer (played by guess who) and the series of unfortunate incidents he encounters as he plies his trade. The “Tong War” scenes are of particular note, but you mustn’t miss a single second of this masterpiece of silent comedy.
