TiVoPlex

By John Seal

July 15-21, 2003

Any movie with a puppy this cute is a must-see.

From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated, they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times PDT.

Tuesday 07/15/03

7am Turner Classic Movies
The Firebird (1934 USA): German émigré William Dieterle directed this so-so mystery that is noteworthy for a fantastic cast. Heartthrob Ricardo Cortez stars as a young Viennese man-about-town pitching woo to innocent Anita Louise, much to the chagrin of her mother and father, played by Verree Teasdale and Lionel Atwill. After Ricardo comes to a sticky end, police inspector C. Aubrey Smith steps in to solve the crime, which he accomplishes in the requisite 74 minutes. Star-spotters should keep their eyes open for an uncredited appearance by Jane Darwell, a few years away from her Academy Award-winning performance in The Grapes of Wrath (1939 USA).

2:20am More Max
Hannie Caulder (1972 GB): No one ever claimed that Raquel Welch was a good actress, but this is probably her best effort, an odd rape-revenge western with some inappropriate comic touches added by Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, and Strother Martin as the miscreants who ravage Raquel and kill her husband. The film is achingly beautiful to look at, with Edward Scaife’s cinematography capturing the most surreal aspects of the Spanish desert, and Ken Thorne’s score is equally noteworthy. Add in the oddest Robert Culp performance ever, Christopher Lee as a gunsmith, and the sure-handed direction of Burt Kennedy, and you’ve got a most unusual and thoroughly entertaining western.

9pm More Max
Happy Times (2001 CHI): Last week I recommended director Zhang Yimou’s The Road Home and mentioned his collaborations with cinematographer Hou Yong. Here’s their most recent work, an atypical comedy-drama about a May-December romance set amid the insalubrious and cramped confines of the Happy Times Hotel, actually a bus available for rent to local lovers by the hour. This being a Chinese film, the amorous couples aren’t allowed to close the bus’s door, as the 50-something bachelor owner insists that things stay on the up-and-up. Happy Times is a low-key character study with a sly but warmhearted look at life and love in modern China.

Wednesday 07/16/03

10pm Turner Classic Movies
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982 USA): It’s anathema to some cinema purists, but Carl Reiner’s black-and-white take on film noir has some very funny moments. Starring Steve Martin a year after his triumphant appearance as Arthur Parker in the terrific period-piece musical, Pennies From Heaven, the film inter-cuts characters from a number of ‘30s and ‘40s films with contemporary footage of Martin’s private investigator as he pursues the murderer of a prominent cheese scientist. Director Carl Reiner also appears as Field Marshal Von Kluck, the German agent in charge of apprehending the caseusologist. If you don’t mind seeing Bogie, Barbara Stanwyck, and Veronica Lake rubbing shoulders with the wacky Texan, you’ll enjoy this silly Mel Brooks-style comedy, which is being aired on TCM in wide-screen.

Thursday 07/17/03

12:15am IFC
Cube (1997 CAN): It can't really supply a satisfactory conclusion, but until it gets to the final reel, Cube is a thoroughly satisfying existential exercise masquerading as science fiction. A group of strangers stranded in a maze of interconnecting cubes try to fathom a way out whilst coming to terms with why they're in the maze in the first place. No Exit, anyone? As a side note, how can a sequel (Hypercube: Cube 2) be produced with absolutely no input from the original director, producers, and screenwriter, and without a single original cast member appearing? Just wondering. Also airs at 3am.

1:30pm Black Starz!
Cornbread, Earl and Me (1975 USA): I avoided this film for years because of its dreadful title, but it’s actually a very good drama unfairly lumped into the blaxploitation category. Berkeley native and former NBA star Keith Wilkes plays Cornbread, an aspiring high-school athlete gunned down by overzealous police. Lawyer Moses Gunn tries to separate fact from fiction when the fuzz attempt to exonerate themselves, and the cast also includes the always-excellent Rosalind Cash, Bernie Casey, TiVoPlex favorite Madge Sinclair, Thalmus Rasulala, Antonio “Huggy Bear” Fargas, and a very, very young Laurence Fishburne.

Friday 07/18/03

12:45am The Movie Channel
Born to Win (1971 USA): Released in the same year as Jerry Schatzberg’s Panic in Needle Park and overshadowed by that excellent tale of heroin addiction, Born to Win is deserving of rediscovery. George Segal stars as J, a street hustler with too much hair who’s always on the prowl for his next fix. Karen Black co-stars as his co-dependent companion, and there are smaller roles for Robert De Niro, Hector Elizondo, and Paula Prentiss. Superbly directed and co-written by Czech-born Ivan Passer, Born to Win (confusingly released as Born to Lose in some markets) is a forgotten gem in dire need of reappraisal. Look for New York character actor Burt Young in a small role as a hood. Also airs at 3:45am.

11pm Turner Classic Movies
Le Corbeau (1943 FRA): Fans of the original versions of Diaboliqueand Wages of Fear should be excited by this rare opportunity to see one of director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s earliest films. It stakes out familiar psychological ground, with the mysterious title character (The Raven) sending threatening letters to various big wigs in a provincial French town. As the townsfolk try to determine the identity of their poison-pen pal, they begin to turn on each other as sordid rumors begin to circulate, all based, of course, on the contents of the libelous letters. Starring Ginette “the most murdered actress in France” LeClerc, this film was actually produced with the help of a German company. As a result, Clouzot was temporarily blacklisted after the war, but the film can hardly be viewed as a collaborationist piece of art, though in the immediate post-war period it was apparently considered unpatriotic. Clouzot may not have been a patriot, but he certainly qualified as a misanthrope, and Le Corbeau fits neatly into his filmography of deceit, deception, and death.

Saturday 07/19/03

12:05am Sundance
American Fabulous (1992 USA): Definitely not for all tastes, this is a very simple documentary that consists entirely of footage of a man sitting in a car. Really. Luckily, that man, Jeffrey Strouth, had some incredibly funny stories to tell about his life as an outcast and a gay man growing up in rural Ohio. Not all the stories hit the mark, but you’ll be hard-pressed not to laugh out loud at least once, and his enthusiasm and joie de vivre - no less amazing considering he was dead of AIDS before the film was released - will win over many viewers. Toothless drag queens, heroin, and potato salad all feature prominently in this fabulous salute to a man who lived life to the fullest.

1am Turner Classic Movies
Gaslight (1940 GB): Four years before George Cukor’s Gothic romance was released, the original film version of Patrick Hamilton’s play was released in British cinemas. Directed by Thorold Dickinson (The Queen of Spades), Gaslight stars Anton Walbrook and Diana Wynyard in the roles later popularized by Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. Most film fans prefer the glossier Hollywood take on the story, but this remains an atmospheric, low-budget adaptation nicely shot by early Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Knowles. Both versions are good, but this is the one that gets the TiVoPlex nod.

6pm Sundance
Agni Varsha (2001 IND): If you’re like me (my condolences if such is the case!), you’ve been in deep withdrawal since the end of TCM’s Bollywood festival last month. Luckily for us, Sundance is airing this lush fantasy film, based on part of the great Indian literary epic The Mahabharata. Jackie Shroff (excellent as the seasoned film star in 1995’s Rangeela) stars as a priest who tends to a holy fire and plans to end a ruinous drought by offering a sacrifice to the God of Rain, played by guest star Amitabh Bachchan (the narrator of Lagaan and a huge star on the sub-continent). As befits a Bollywood epic, there’s magic, romance, and song in this relatively-brief (by Bollywood standards - 130 minute) film. Also airs 7/20 at 1:30am.

Sunday 07/20/03

6:40am Encore Action
Cockleshell Heroes (1955 GB): This was one of the very first films I was ever aware of as a child, perhaps even trumping my knowledge of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968 USA), the first film I ever saw on the big screen. My father had some old promotional bookmarks he’d saved from Cockleshell Heroes’ initial release in 1955, and with no sense of how vast the collectors market would be in the future, I used them because they had a really cool picture of Jose Ferrer printed on them. I’m not sure where those bookmarks are now, but here’s the film, a patriotic salute to the men of the Royal Marine Commandos and their exploits in the Second World War. Ferrer also directed the film, written by Bryan Forbes and produced by future Bond main man Cubby Broccoli. Co-starring Trevor Howard and featuring Christopher Lee in a small role as a submarine commander, this is a true, if somewhat embellished, account of a daring attack on German shipping in the French port of Bordeaux. Sadly, this looks to be the cut version that sacrificed 13 minutes of presumably unintelligible footage for the American market, and the film isn’t being aired in wide-screen, but it’s a worthwhile pick nonetheless for military buffs. Perhaps TCM will bring us a complete CinemaScope print one day.

Monday 07/21/03

12:45pm Turner Classic Movies
Pop Always Pays (1940 USA): I’ve never seen this film, but I love the title. Reputedly a lightweight comedy, this RKO B feature stars Mexican Spitfire regular Leon Errol as a father whose daughter (Oakland-born Amanda Blake) wants to tie the knot with her fiancé (Dennis O’Keefe). Of course, money is a problem, and when Pop promises to pitch in, only to find himself $1,000 short, complications ensue. There’s no reason to expect this to be very good, but I do love that title.

6pm Sundance
Automatic Kalashnikov (2000 GER): The story of the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle is told in this German documentary that features interviews with the weapon’s inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov. If you’ve ever wondered about the automatic weaponry that is favored by insurgents, drug lords, and gun nuts around the world, here’s your chance to lock-and-load your AK-47 knowledge. Boo-yah!

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