By John Seal
October 28-31, 2002
This week’s TiVoPlex will be in two parts. Check back mid-week for the first four days of November. In the meantime, we have a fully stocked run-up to Halloween on tap for you. All times PST.
Monday 10/28/02
3:00am Turner Classic Movies
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932 USA): Besides having one of the all-time great movie titles, this gritty Depression drama is a terrific film in its own right. Paul Muni is on top of his game as an escaped (and falsely imprisoned) con, and there’s a typically outstanding cast of Warner Bros. stalwarts to support him: Glenda Farrell, Allan Jenkins and Edward Arnold amongst them. This is one of the films that established the Warner’s reputation for gritty realism, and it’s a fine example of the studio’s ‘30s work.
5:00am The Movie Channel
Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966 GB): For those who grew up watching Thunderbirds on television, the two feature films spun off from the series are an embarrassment of riches. Here’s the first one, basically an expanded episode of the series (how could it be otherwise?), but featuring all our favorite characters as they try to rescue a lost space explorer. This is the film that includes the remarkable puppet dream sequence that features a performance by Cliff and the Shadows (including a bespectacled Hank Marvin). Some ask, do androids dream of electric sheep? In Thunderbirds Are Go, puppets dreams of electric guitars. Also airs at 8:00am.
6:10am Encore Action
Thunderbird 6 (1968 GB): Most of the cast and puppets returned for this less-successful sequel to the first Thunderbirds film. Now the films are competing head-to-head on cable television. If you only can watch or tape one, watch Thunderbirds Are Go, but if you are TiVo-enabled or have an extra VCR handy, you really should record them both. Thunderbird 6 introduces a new vehicle for the International Rescue Team to use, but the film is more of a spy film than the earlier film, or indeed the TV series. Also airs 10/31 at 9:00am.
Tuesday 10/29/02
9:00am Turner Classic Movies
The Good Die Young (1954 GB): Here’s an obscure British film from the ‘50s that I’m really looking forward to. There’s a top-notch cast, including Laurence Harvey, Gloria Grahame, John Ireland, a very young Joan Collins, Stanley Baker, and Robert Morley, which is recommendation enough for this caper film that involves a plot to hold up a post office van. Directed by Lewis Gilbert, the still-active octogenarian who also helmed films like Alfie, You Only Live Twice, and the memorable Dirk Bogarde vehicle, Cast a Dark Shadow, this looks to be a very entertaining film.
7:00pm Fox Movie Channel
Tales from the Crypt (1972 GB): I seem to be recommending a lot of British films this week. Tales from the Crypt is one of a brief series of anthology films produced by Amicus Productions, the London-based firm run by Americans Milton J. Subotsky and Max Rosenberg in the ‘70s. These films all play like slightly more gruesome episodes of Night Gallery, and are equally well-written and cast, with segments based on stories originally published in William Gaines’ EC comics. This one features Peter Cushing, Ralph Richardson, Patrick Magee, and, erm...here’s Joan Collins again!
7:45pm IFC
Funny Games (1997 AUSTRIA): Here’s a very controversial feature from the land of Jorg Haider. A family is spending its summer vacation at a cottage in a bucolic and remote region of rural Austria. Two young neighbors named Peter and Paul drop by to borrow some eggs, but they’re really in the mood to play some cruel mind games with the family of three (not to mention their loyal dog). On a par with ‘70s shockers like Last House on the Left, Hitch Hike, and I Spit on Your Grave, this is a much more polished affair that is still extremely hard to watch. The acting is superb throughout, and the film's setup for a sequel is a neat tip-of-the-hat to the slasher genre. Also airs 10/30 at 12:15am.
Wednesday 10/30/02
12:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Stranger (1946 USA): Orson Welles’ vast body of work is often overwhelmed by the shadow cast by Citizen Kane. The Stranger is one of his very best films, and it deserves a much wider audience. Welles plays Dr. Charles Rankin, a recently hired professor at an exclusive boy’s school. He’s well-loved by both his students and the local community, but unfortunately Dr. Rankin has a dark secret: he’s an escaped Nazi war criminal called Franz Kindler, who’s being pursued by Edward G. Robinson (fresh off the trail of Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity), an investigator for the Allied War Crimes Commission. Welles’ brilliance as an actor shines through as he makes his characters and his audience empathize with his repulsive character; perhaps only Joseph Cotton in Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) carried off the same task with as much aplomb. A wonderful piece of work, and an unusual one from Howard Hughes’ RKO.
1:30am Showtime
10:30pm Summer (1966 USA-FRA): I know next to nothing about this film, but it was directed by Jules Dassin (Brute Force, Rififi, Topkapi), so it looks interesting. Based on a Marguerite Duras novel, I can’t imagine it’ll be action-packed, but a cast with Peter Finch, Melina Mercouri and Romy Schneider should make it worth a look. Also airs at 4:30am.
1:15pm Flix
Dial M for Murder (1954 USA): Not well-regarded by Hitchcock aficionados, Dial M For Murder is still one of the master’s most entertaining films. This was only Hitch’s third color film, but it’s a big step up from Under Capricorn and Rope. The audience is in on the secret from the start, but it’s enormous fun watching Ray Milland try to avoid the long arm of the law, personified by John Williams (the man who asked the question, “Do you remember this beautiful melody?” whilst flogging dreadful classical music records in the ‘70s). Grace Kelly is predictably beautiful, and the film has a gorgeous (if set-bound) look. Also airs 10/31 at 1:35am.
5:00pm IFC
Kwaidan (1965 JAP): I’ve mentioned before the stunning composition of ‘60s Japanese cinema, and here’s one more prime example. Kwaidan is another anthology film, collecting four ghost stories set in medieval Japan. The stories are hard for Western audiences unschooled in Japanese folklore and culture to grasp, but that drawback - still evident in movies as recent as Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away - shouldn’t keep adventurous viewers away from this beautiful film. Also airs at 11:15pm and 10/31 at 11:15am.
8:00pm Fox Movie Channel
The Innocents (1961 GB): On a great night for ghost stories, Fox is airing the wide-screen print of Jack Clayton’s superb adaptation of Henry James’ Turn of the Screw. When people talk about the good old days, when filmmakers could scare the pants off their audience without resorting to violence and blood, this is quite possibly the film they’re thinking of. Deborah Kerr gives the performance of her career as a nanny who comes to care for two lonely children who have developed some decidedly strange habits. Kerr’s hold on reality starts to give way, much as Catherine Deneuve’s would in 1965’s Repulsion.
10:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Portrait of Jennie (1948 USA): This is a flawed film that too often veers into saccharine sentiment, but is nonetheless worth watching for another great performance by Joseph Cotton and the Expressionistic direction of German exile William Dieterle, the man who directed the close-to-perfect Devil and Daniel Webster (1941). (Please tell me the proposed remake of that film with Jennifer Love Hewitt as the Devil will stew in Development Hell for eternity.) Cotton plays an artist who meets a young girl (Jennifer Jones) with a mysterious and tragic secret. For those of us who like a film romance that can empty an entire Kleenex box in one viewing.
Thursday 10/31/02
10:00am Turner Classic Movies
Strangers on a Train (1951 USA): Jennifer Jones’ ex, Robert Walker, stars as a soft- spoken psycho who wreaks havoc in the life of tennis pro Farley Granger. The two become enmeshed in a web of murder and lies leading up to one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most spectacular conclusions, this time aboard a speeding carousel. There’s a strong subtext of homosexuality in the film, as Walker’s relationship with Granger becomes particularly close. Granger still maintains that this subtext isn’t there, or at least wasn’t there when the film was made, but anyone who watches this film will find his story hard to believe. However you choose to view it, Strangers on a Train is a terrific film.
1:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Detour (1945 USA): Director Edgar G. Ulmer’s reputation has grown considerably since his death in 1972, but this is one of only a handful of his films that warrant the praise it receives. 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. At 67 minutes, the film is an exercise in brevity that holds lessons for some contemporary filmmakers who produce some Titanic celluloid bloaters. Not that I’m going to name names.
3:05pm Fox Movie Channel
Vault of Horror (1973 GB): If you enjoyed Tales from the Crypt, here’s another Amicus anthology. This one was actually going to be called Further Tales from the Crypt, but in the end another EC Comics title was utilized. If anything, this is a slightly better collection of stories, and features another outstanding assortment of British regulars, including Terry-Thomas, Denholm Elliott, Edward Judd, and Daniel and Anna Massey.
5:00pm Turner Classic Movies
London After Midnight (1927 USA): Are you suitably excited? ARE YOU? You should be, because this is the WORLD PREMIERE of the reconstructed-from-stills version of Tod Browning’s lost Lon Chaney “masterpiece” (We can call it that, because no one has seen it for 75 years). Whether the film really deserves its legendary status will remain a secret (unless a print shows up somewhere, somehow), but at least the story can now be seen in freeze-frame format
6:00pm Sundance
Spiral (1998 JAP): Folks bemoan the lack of availability of contemporary Japanese horror films in either theatrical or video release, but in recent months Sundance has gone some way to ending the unofficial boycott of these films. Halloween night brings re-broadcasts of this film and Ghost Actress (1996 JAP, 7:35pm). I haven’t seen the former, which is the sequel to the original version of The Ring, but Ghost Actress is a reasonably creepy and old-fashioned ghost story of a haunted film studio. The film falls apart towards the end but has a spooky edge missing from most Hollywood horror films.
