By John Seal
January 20-26, 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 01/20/03
Midnight Turner Classic Movies
Wild Boys of the Road (1933 USA): This incredible Depression-era drama follows the exploits of two teenage boys who hop freight trains in order to pursue a better life out West. Starring Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips as the likely lads, Wild Boys of the Road is a prime example of the realistic fare produced by Warner Brothers throughout the 1930s. Director William Wellman also directed the equally remarkable - and even more shocking - Heroes For Sale the same year.
5:00 PM Encore Mystery
The Woman In the Window (1945 USA): Fritz Lang’s noir classic stars Edward G. Robinson as Richard Wanley, a Gotham College professor who becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman (Joan Bennett) and ends up enmeshed in the murder of her boyfriend. Written and produced by Nunnally Johnson, this film was arguably the high water mark for Lang’s American career, coming out in between Ministry of Fear and Scarlet Street. Watch for little Bobby Blake in a brief appearance as one of the Prof’s offspring.
6:00 PM IFC
SLC Punk! (1999 USA): I’ve recommended this one before, but I love it so much I’m going to plug it again. Anyone who spent time in the American punk underground will recognize archetypal characters they knew or know in this amazingly realistic portrayal of the suburban punk subculture. All the issues are here: poseurs, sell-outs, authenticity, straight-edge, rebellion, boredom...and, of course, the perennial problem of whether mods and punks can get along! Matthew Lillard is terrific as a rebellious kid trying to escape the humdrum realities of suburbia, belying the fact that he was also about to appear in dreck like Wing Commander and She's All That. Not to mention Scooby-Doo, of course, where Lillard saved an entire film from being completely and utterly unwatchable. Also airs 1/21 at 1:15 AM.
Tuesday 01/21/03
Midnight The Movie Channel
1984 (1984 GB): Michael Radford's version of 1984 is as grey and bleak as one would hope and imagine and is one of the all-time best screen adaptations of any novel. John Hurt is perfect as Winston Smith, the workaday drone who makes the mistake of falling in love when love is against the law. This was also Richard Burton's last film, and it's nice to see him ending his career on a high note after spending much of the previous decade in mediocre Eurotrash movies. When this film came out, the future it posited still seemed somewhat fantastic; in 2003, we live in a corporate state and wage perpetual war against ever-shifting enemies.
3:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Scene of the Crime (1949 USA): MGM were never a studio much associated with film noir, but here’s one of their concessions to the style, a well-made police procedural starring Van Johnson as a cop out to exonerate his partner, found murdered with stolen cash in his pockets. Perhaps he and co-stars Arlene Dahl and Gloria DeHaven could get together and make a sequel? There could even be a role for Norman Lloyd, here cast as a - surprise! - heavy. Memo to MGM: get the four of them together for a DVD commentary before it’s too late.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Popi (1969 USA): Prior to Popi’s release, Puerto Ricans were portrayed in Hollywood films either as hoodlums or victims. This was the first major release to offer another take on the New Yorican experience. Casting Alan Arkin in the lead role doesn’t look all that good in retrospect, but the rest of his family members are played by Hispanic actors and Arkin is excellent, so perhaps we can overlook the politically incorrect flaws of a 33-year-old film. At any rate, Arkin plays a father determined to get his children out of the old neighborhood by disguising them as Cuban defectors. Wow, 33 years old, and the film’s absurd narrative conceit could still be considered contemporary. Good light family entertainment and widescreen to boot.
Wednesday 01/2203
5:45 AM Sundance
Decasia (2002 USA): Playing like a bizarre hybrid of Mohsen Makhbalmaf’s heady Once Upon A Time, Cinema, Stan Brakhage’s Dog Man Star, and one of Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy, this film was created by Bill Morrison, who actually worked with Reggio on Nagoyqatsi. Consisting of apparently "found" footage in various states of decay, Decasia is a short (67 minute) meditation on the impermanence of life and art. Acting as a big screen version of Brion Gysin’s legendary dream machine, the film exudes a calming and meditative influence. I found myself pondering the fate of many of Decasia’s subjects: are these the last surviving images of these people? Are we seeing the only remaining evidence of a particular traditional Arabic or Greek dance? And where precisely WAS that camel going? My personal highlight from the film is actually some of the most "recent" footage: children on a 1950s style school bus look directly and piercingly into the camera, silently breaking the fourth wall ala Jean Seberg in Breathless. Decasia is all the more mysterious for shrouding the source material in anonymity: no clues are provided as to where the film came from, who is in it, or whether or not it is real or fabricated. You can also visit www.decasia.com, but you won’t find any more answers there.
Thursday 01/23/03
1:25 AM The Movie Channel
Gas Pump Girls (1978 USA): Films like this one populated cable channels in the brave early days of the industry, much like creaky old silents and "B" westerns filled in the gaps during TV’s adolescence. They haven’t been around much lately, but between this and the recently revived and surprisingly raunchy The Cheerleaders (1973 USA), perhaps they’re coming back into fashion. Part soft-core skin flick, part disco exploitation musical set in a petrol station, Gas Pump Girls has room for former Bowery Boy Huntz Hall as "Uncle Joe" as well as 50s tough guy Mike Mazurki. I swear that’s why I’ll be watching it. Also airs at 4:25 AM.
7:00 AM Showtime
Haunted House of Horror (1969 GB): When you think British horror films, you think of Hammer first. Then you think of Amicus. If you’re still thinking after that, you’re forced to move down another notch to Tigon, the short-lived production company that also brought us The Virgin Witch, Doomwatch, and Beast In the Cellar. Actually, I’m being a little unfair, as all those films have something to recommend them. Not sure how the same can be said about this proto-slasher flick starring Frankie Avalon, but it sure is a rarity, and it was directed by 25-year-old Michael Armstrong, who went on to helm the bizarre Mark of the Devil one year later.
12:45 PM HBO Signature
The Dish (2000 AUS): Not to be confused with the Bhutanese football epic The Cup, this is a gentle and entertaining Australian film about that country’s role in landing a man on the moon. Starring Sam Neill in between dinosaur epics, The Dish will have you hoping programmers spoon out more Aussie comedies like the caustic The Castle or even Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris. Well, not really, but I desperately wanted to work that pun into the column.
10:00 PM HBO
The She Creature (2001 USA): Shortly before he died, Samuel Z. Arkoff co-produced a series of in-name-only, straight-to-cable remakes of some of the classic AIP monster titles. She Creature was the best of the bunch, setting its tale of a mysterious mermaid abducted for profit firmly in the Gothic genre. Rufus Sewell and Carla "Mom of Spy Kids" Gugino are both good in lead roles, and the film holds together very well until it decides to show its creature in the last reel, at which point it becomes a more typical guts-‘n’-gore monster bash. Nonetheless, it’s worth watching and a fine example of what can be done on a very limited budget and with a little imagination. Also airs 1/24 at 1:00 AM.
10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Black Cat (1934 USA): The film that broke the British censors’ back and contributed to that country’s horror ban of the 30s and 40s, this was also Universal’s last big effort before settling into the sequel routine with Frankenstein and Dracula. Starring an against type Bela Lugosi as good-guy Vitus Werdegast and a fiendish Boris Karloff as malevolent Hjalmar Poelzig (what a great pair of names!), The Black Cat features scenes of torture and sadism that overstepped the acceptable boundaries of mid 1930s taste. With the British market off-limits, Universal clamped down on their horror films and never produced another one as powerful or disturbing as this.
Friday 01/24/03
1:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Detour (1945 USA): I’ve never really understood the cult of Edgar G. Ulmer, but here I am, recommending his two best films back to back (yes, he was the man behind The Black Cat’s camera). Made for no money by the Poverty Row studio PRC, this film is truly a masterpiece of low-budget filmmaking and one of the greatest film noirs. The film pairs Tom Neal and the appropriately-monikered Ann Savage as a duo of drifters trying to out-con each other as they drive across the desert. The film disturbingly mirrors the realities of Neal’s life: the actor was regularly featured in Confidential! Magazine in the 1950s, broke Franchot Tone’s cheekbone in a fight over doomed starlet Barbara Payton, and served six years in prison in the late 1960s for the involuntary manslaughter of his wife. At 67 minutes, the film is an exercise in brevity that provides lessons for contemporary filmmakers who produce Titanic-length celluloid bloaters.
8:05 PM Encore True Stories
Lenny (1974 USA): Bob Fosse’s biopic of comedian Lenny Bruce looks terrific. Filmed in stark black and white by Clint Eastwood regular Bruce Surtees, this early example of the docudrama has two top-notch performances by Dustin Hoffman (as Bruce) and the underappreciated Valerie Perrine (as wife Honey). The film assumes the weight of a Greek tragedy - we know, of course, how the story ends before it begins - but that won’t stop you from watching and praying that, somehow, the inevitable doesn’t happen. The final shot of Hoffman - or is that really Lenny Bruce? - is gut-wrenching.
Saturday 01/25/03
1:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Bicycle Thief (1948 ITA): One of the greatest neo-realist films to come from Italy in the late 40s and early 50s, The Bicycle Thief was Vittorio de Sica’s first international success. Not as affecting as his later Umberto D (now there’s a sad movie), this is still well worth your time.
7:00 PM Starz
Point Break(1991 USA): Proving once and for all that I am not immune to the charms of the ridiculous Hollywood action film, Point Break has so many strikes against it, I’m surprised I ever sat down to watch it. Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent! Patrick Swayze as a surfin’ bank robber in a Nixon mask! Kathryn Bigelow behind the camera! And yet - and yet - something about this absurd concoction is maddeningly entertaining - can’t be the screenplay, that’s by the guy who wrote Varsity Blues - well, there’s no explanation. Point Break is a guilty pleasure par excellence, a mélange of gunplay and intrigue that can’t be topped. Not even by K-19: The Widowmaker.
Sunday 01/26/02
5:00 AM Flix
Face-Off (1971 CAN): Not to be confused with John Woo’s awful action film of the same name, this Canadian obscurity is a drama about a hockey player (Art Hindle) who falls for a hippie folk singer (Trudy Young) and how the two cope with a long-distance relationship. I know it doesn't sound very interesting, but I actually found it riveting - in a very quiet, Canadian sort of way.
7:00 AM Fox Movies
All the Planet of the Apes movies, in chronological order and in widescreen, are being aired by Fox not once but twice today. It all starts at 7:00 AM with the original Charlton Heston epic, followed at 9:00 AM by Beneath…, at 11:00 AM by Escape From…, at 1:00 PM by Conquest of…, and at 3:00 PM by Battle For…. Commencing at 5:00 PM the cycle is aired again. These aren’t rarities or oddities, of course, but this is a very rare opportunity to see all the films back-to-back in their correct aspect ratios, so put off the housecleaning and settle into your butt-groove.
9:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
My Best Girl (1927 USA): This week’s silent Sunday feature is a romantic comedy starring Mary Pickford and the inimitable Buddy Rogers, she as the lowly shop-girl, he as the handsome millionaire who falls in love with her. Hey, didn’t they just remake this with J Lo and Ralph Fiennes? Pickford and Rogers were, of course, married for 42 years, so perhaps some of the real life romantic sparks will show up on screen (though Pickford would remain married to fellow United Artist-founder Doug Fairbanks until their divorce in 1936).
