TiVoPlex

By John Seal

August 19-25, 2003

Hackman hides from the agent who got him the part in Heartbreakers.

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

Tuesday 8/19/03

3am Turner Classic Movies
Man with a Million (1954 GB): Gregory Peck took a trip to Britain to make this forgotten Victorian-era comedy for the Rank Organization. Adapted from Mark Twain’s short story, The Million-Pound Bank Note, the retitled Man with a Million stars Peck as the unwitting recipient of an extremely large sum of money, all in the form of a single currency note. He can flash the note around town and get anything he likes for free (who has enough change to break it?), but he soon learns that money can’t buy him love. Directed by Ronald Neame (still with us at 92, and active in the industry since the 1930s), written by Jill Craigie (the late wife of Labour MP Michael Foot), and shot by the great Geoffrey Unsworth, this is a first-rate bit of fluff, featuring amongst the supporting cast Joyce Grenfell, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and Bryan Forbes, as well as an uncredited appearance by Ernest Thesiger (Dr. Praetorius in 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein) as a bank director.

9pm Black Starz!
The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1973 USA): An atypical conclusion to director William Wyler's career, The Liberation of L. B. Jones is an interesting if flawed look at racism in a small Southern town circa 1970. The title character is played with typical aplomb by Roscoe Lee Browne, a classically-trained actor, university professor, and record-setting track athlete. How's that for a curriculum vitae? Adapted for the screen by the reliable Stirling Silliphant (The Lineup, In the Heat of the Night), the film details the efforts of undertaker L.B. Jones to divorce his cheating wife (Lola Falana) who's engaging in an affair with the local redneck policeman, played to the hilt by Anthony Zerbe, who can't afford to let HIS wife know that he's sleeping around. Lee J. Cobb is also on hand as the district attorney, and there are small roles for Lee Majors, Barbara Hershey, Yaphet Kotto, Fayard Nicholas, Dub Taylor, and Chill Wills. With cinematography by TiVoPlex fave Robert Surtees, a score by Elmer Bernstein, and a downbeat and realistic ending, this is well worth a look. Also airs 8/23 at 10:30pm.

Wednesday 08/20/03

4am Cinemax
The Red Tent (1971 USSR-ITA): Well, it would be a RED tent, wouldn’t it? This big-budget Russo-Italian co-production stars Sean Connery as Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, apparently the only Scandinavian in the world with a Scots accent. Also featured is Peter Finch as General Nobile, whose flashbacks to an accident involving the Italian airship under his command highlight Connery’s rescue mission, ably assisted by Soviet radiomen who pick up SOS calls from the airship’s survivors. Claudia Cardinale, Hardy Kruger, and Massimo Girotti (Last Tango in Paris) provide the balance of the film’s box office appeal, whilst the bottom of the bill is filled up by Soviet actors. This is the 121-minute international release version (the Soviet version runs over three hours), features a first-rate Ennio Morricone soundtrack, and was co-written by Italian industry veteran Ennio De Concini (1973’s Hitler: The Last Ten Days).

5pm IFC
A Decade Under the Influence (Part 1) (2003 USA): Touted as an “expanded” version of the recently-released IFC original documentary, A Decade Under the Influence is being broadcast on television as a three-part mini-series in conjunction with a number of features highlighted in the film. It’s not clear what’s been added to Richard LaGravenese’s and the late Ted Demme’s work, but the theatrical version clocked in at 108 minutes, and the expanded is getting three full hours of air time, so there could be substantial changes. The list of interviewees featured is truly impressive, ranging from top-of-the-line old-timers like Scorsese and Coppola to present-day auteurs such as Alexander Payne and Paul Thomas Anderson. It’s also my pleasure to inform you that motormouth Quentin Tarantino is nowhere in sight. Also airs at 8pm and 11pm. Part Two airs 8/21 at 5pm, 8pm, and 11pm, Part Three on 8/22 at the same times. All three episodes air back to back 8/23 at 5pm and 10pm.

Thursday 08/21/03

4:30am The Movie Channel
Flight From Ashiya (1964 USA): Directed by Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days), and starring Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark, and George Chakiris as three pilots on a rescue mission who experience flashbacks to previous adventures (thus contributing to this week’s synchronicity theme), Flight From Ashiya is a run-of-the-mill adventure story that I like for an extremely silly reason: the British psychedelic band Kaleidoscope took the title of the film and turned it into a top-notch late ‘60s pop record. The song and the film otherwise have nothing in common, so it really is silly for me to issue a recommendation, but here are some lyrics to contemplate whilst watching it:

“Cigarettes burning, faster and faster,
Everyone talking about the everafter,
And captain sits and seems to be in a daze,
One minute high,
The next minute low,
Nobody knows where we are,
Nobody knows where we are,
Nobody will ever know why,
Nobody will ever know why…”

I’m sure all that stuff about being high and low is about the difficulties of negotiating a successful take-off and landing, and that the cigarettes are Lucky Strikes, which presumably leave the captain in a daze, and gasping for breath. Yul Brynner did, after all, die of lung cancer, a nasty end that possibly could have been avoided if he had heeded the prescient warning supplied by this record in 1967. At least Widmark and Chakiris are still with us, as is love interest Shirley Knight, though co-star Suzy Parker and narrator Paul Frees have since moved on. Also airs at 7:30am.

5pm Encore True Stories
Crumb (1994 USA): Before Terry Zwigoff made the incomparable Ghost World (2001 USA), he made this grueling documentary about the troubled and talented Crumb family. The focus is on R. Crumb, the counterculture hero of the comics who came to loathe the burden his accidental fame brought him, but there's also considerable time spent with Robert's brothers Charles and Maxon. Charles and Maxon make Robert look like a rock of success and stability, and the film is uncomfortable viewing, never sparing the viewer sordid but true stories of sexual abuse, insanity, and suicide. Zwigoff luckily doesn't mistreat his subjects, keeping an appropriate distance that would be entirely impossible for a documentarian like Nick Broomfield to maintain. Also airs 8/22 at 12:50am.

Friday 8/22/03

6pm IFC
The Conversation (1974 USA): Film fans remember Francis Ford Coppola for his overrated Godfather trilogy and his masterpiece, Apocalypse Now. In between those Marlon Brando-mumblefests, however, Coppola made this quiet little film that has slowly assumed its rightful place as one of his best efforts, if not one of the best productions of the decade. Starring Gene Hackman as Harry Caul, a mild-mannered surveillance expert with a nifty assortment of bugging devices, The Conversation anticipated the explosion of spying technology at the end of the 20th century. Harry is hired to stalk a couple apparently engaged in an illicit romantic relationship, but as he gathers and pieces together the evidence, a murder plot begins to emerge, and he has a crisis of conscience; is he aiding and abetting an assassination scheme? More timely now than ever before, The Conversation is a film about complicity, privacy (or the lack thereof), and the amoral world of big business. Frederic Forrest and Cindy “Shirley” Williams are the couple, John Cazale is Hackman’s sidekick, Harrison Ford has a small role as a corporate flunky, and TiVoPlex favorite Allen Garfield puts in an appearance. Being aired wide-screen, this post-Patriot Act-age is the perfect time to reacquaint yourself with one of the best films of the 1970s. Also airs at 9pm.

8pm Sundance
The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001 JAP): Another Takashi Miike film that I have yet to see, this is apparently a black comedy about a city family trying to run a country inn. Unfortunately, their guests are few and far between, and those that do check in have the unfortunate habit of checking out shortly thereafter, accompanied by the Grim Reaper. It sounds a bit like a cross between the recently recommended (and admired by me) Chinese films Shower and Happy Times, but this being Miike, I’d expect things to be a little edgier here, what with backyard burials, karaoke singing, and fullblown musical numbers hinted at in the film’s précis. Also airs 8/23 at 9:30pm.

Saturday 8/23/03

2:30pm More Max
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 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. Director Sebastian Gutierrez has since gone on to write the forthcoming big-budget films Gothika and The Big Bounce.

11:05pm Showtime 2
The Cockettes (2002 USA): Love them or loathe them, there’s never been another theater group quite like San Francisco’s Cockettes. Founded in the late 1960s by a hippie named Hibiscus, the troupe took to the stage of the City by the Bay’s Palace Theater, where their outrageous improvisational drag act started to draw big crowds. Their guerrilla theater developed and became more polished and rehearsed, and the Cockettes soon were treading the boards in New York, where the reaction they drew was decidedly unkind. Their demise was assured, though the group soldiered on for a little longer on the West Coast, but the political chasms accentuated by the trashing given the troupe in the Big Apple eventually led to a break-up. This film is an amazing time capsule, featuring a generous selection of impossibly rare footage as well as numerous interviews with surviving cast members, not all of whom were (or are) male or gay. The original home of soul-disco singer Sylvester, The Cockettes were also the starting point for Screamers singer and performance artist Tomata Du Plenty, though Tomata, sadly, doesn’t warrant a mention in the film.

Sunday 8/24/03

3am Turner Classic Movies
The Naughty Flirt (1931 USA): This ancient and forgotten Warner’s romantic comedy stars Alice White as a society gal out to feather her cap with top-notch lawyer Paul Page. Myrna Loy co-stars as the sister of Douglas Gilmore, another social butterfly trying to win White’s heart, and Marian Marsh (who appeared as Trilby in John Barrymore’s version of Svengali the same year, and who turns 90 this coming October) has a bit part as one of Ms. White’s friends. It’s pretty creaky fare, but at 57 minutes, a worthwhile look for fans of Loy and Marsh.

8:35am Encore Mystery
A Study in Terror (1965 GB): One of the better post-Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes features, A Study in Terror stars the always-excellent John Neville(The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Spider) as Holmes, Donald Houston as Dr. Watson, and portly Robert Morley as brother Mycroft. Unfortunately, Derek and Donald Ford’s screenplay thrusts the great detective into the Jack the Ripper case (a mistake repeated by John Hopkins in the 1979 film Murder by Decree), forcing the incomparable Holmes into the uncomfortable position of either solving a murder case still officially considered unsolved, or fictionalizing a solution to the infamous 1887 killing spree. That’s only going to offend Ripperologists such as myself, of course, but if you couldn’t care less about Sir William Gull’s venereal patients or whether artist Walter Sickert left clues to the crimes in his paintings, you’ll enjoy this feature, which co-stars a young Judi Dench, Anthony Quayle, and Frank Finlay. Also airs at 3:20pm.

Monday 8/25/03

2am Encore Westerns
The Toll Gate (1920 USA): William S. Hart was a huge star in the early days of cinema, and The Toll Gate was one of his many self-produced, self-written starrers. He plays a bad guy with a heart of gold who stumbles across a widow and her young son as he is pursued by the sheriff's posse. Sure as shootin', he reforms, as the love of a good woman once again works its magic. Fans of silent cinema and Westerns in general will get a kick out of this one.

6pm Sundance
Divorce Iranian Style (1998 GB): Definitely NOT to be confused with 1961’s Divorce Italian Style, 1967’s Divorce American Style, or, Heaven forbid, 1975’s Divorce Andalusian Style, this is a straightforward and frequently depressing look at the annulment procedure in the Islamic Republic of Iran. A man can legally separate from his wife by simply telling her he is divorcing her, but for a woman to win a divorce case, she must prove her husband insane, impotent, or financially bankrupt. Recording a single day’s happenings in Tehran family court, this documentary emphasises the culture clash of East and West, Muslim and secular, and medieval and modern.

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