TiVoPlex
By John Seal
November 8, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Tuesday 11/9/10
9:45 AM Showtime 3
The Busy Body (1967 USA): One of ballyhoo genius William Castle’s least auspicious efforts, The Busy Body gets a rare boob tube airing this morning. TV funnyman Sid Caesar stars as two-bit hoodlum George Norton, assigned by mob boss Charley Barker (Robert Ryan) to collect a debt…from a corpse. Needless to say, things get messy. A top notch supporting cast - including Richard Pryor, Godfrey Cambridge, Anne Baxter, and Dom Deluise - can’t overcome the fact that The Busy Body just isn’t very funny, but Vic Mizzy’s score is a minor highlight.
10:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Meet the Baron (1933 USA): A morning of Edna May Oliver features on TCM is highlighted by this zany comedy headlined by the oft grating but frequently amusing Jimmy Durante. The Schnoz delivers the goods as Joe McGoo, man-servant of German jungle explorer Baron Munchausen (Henry Kolker). Joe and fellow pack mule Julius (forgotten radio star Jack Pearl, whose entire career revolved around playing various iterations of Munchausen on radio, film, and television) carelessly lose the safari’s water supply, the real Baron abandons them, and Julius is forced to masquerade as the nobleman in order to expedite their safe return to civilization. And what of Edna May? She plays Miss Primrose, the snooty Dean of Cuddle College, a ladies-only institution of higher learning that invites the fake Baron to speak after his return to the United States - with predictably disastrous results. ZaSu Pitts and The Three Stooges (here making their big screen debut whilst lumbered with unfunny sidekick Ted Healey) co-star.
7:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Local Hero (1983 GB): A few months ago TCM treated us to director Bill Forsyth’s breakthrough hit Gregory’s Girl, and now we get his follow-up, a far more successful - if not quite so enjoyable - light comedy starring Burt Lancaster. Burt plays Felix Happer, an oil company exec hoping to level a Scottish village and replace it with a new refinery. Sent to the village to buy up land, Felix encounters a roadblock in the form of hermit Ben Knox (Fulton Mackay), whose property is the key to the whole project. Will the almighty dollar trump the wistful desires of a single Scotsman? Co-starring Peter Riegert and Peter Capaldi, Local Hero raked in an impressive $6,000,000 at the US boxoffice. Now if we could get TCM to air Forsyth’s plumbing comedy, That Sinking Feeling, all would truly be right in the world…
Wednesday 11/10/10
1:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Long Memory (1953 GB): John Mills plays a wrongly convicted felon in this excellent film noir helmed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets). Mills is Phillip Davidson, now a free man after serving 23 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Phillip is determined to get revenge against the woman (Elizabeth Sellars) who set him up, but finds that she’s now married…to a policeman. Will Phillip see his task through to completion, or will the love of a good woman (Norwegian actress Eva Bergh) be sufficient salve for his wounds? One of the few truly great British noirs, The Long Memory features impressive London and Kent location photography by Harry Waxman, who’d previously shot Brighton Rock for John Boulting.
10:30 AM Fox Movie Channel
Alaska Passage (1959 USA): Super rarity alert! Here’s the first airing in eons of this independently shot, but released by Fox, Cinemascope adventure (sadly, Fox is airing it pan and scan today, but perhaps a widescreen print is in the offing). Directed by the prolific Edward Bernds in between Queen of Outer Space and Return of the Fly, Alaska Passage stars The Giant Spider Invasion’s Bill Williams as a trucker battling bad weather, crooked businessmen, and the Palin family in the wilds of The Last Frontier. No word on whether or not he sparks an international incident by straying across the border into Russia.
9:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Coward (1915 USA): Forgotten for decades until it was included on Image’s excellent Civil War Films of the Silent Era DVD, William Ince’s The Coward makes its TCM debut this evening. Written and directed by Ince, the film relates Rebel soldier Frank Winslow’s (Charles Ray) struggle to overcome his innate fear of fighting. When Frank finds himself behind enemy lines and in possession of vital secret information that may turn the tide of war in favor of the Confederacy, he realizes he must overcome his ‘cowardice’ and return to his unit. Like many Civil War features of the time, The Coward is resolutely pro-South in outlook, but at least Ince had an excuse: he’d already made at least one pro-North film, The Drummer of the 8th (also on the same DVD), two years earlier. Fair and balanced!
Thursday 11/11/10
9:45 PM Showtime Extreme
A Woman of Mystery (1958 GB): Another of those things that make you go hmmm, Woman of Mystery seems an unlikely candidate for Showtime Extreme. When it comes to potential screenings of rare titles, however, the TiVoPlex default is always set to "better safe than sorry," so just in case, here it is. A quota quickie from the Danziger Brothers, A Woman of Mystery was penned by future Avengers creator Brian Clemens and stars Dermot Walsh as an intrepid newsman trying to get the scoop about a suicidal hat-check girl. Look for 25-year old Michael Caine in one of his first (uncredited) screen appearances.
Friday 11/12/10
11:15 PM Turner Classic Movies
Galaxy of Terror (1981 USA): We’re not quite at the point where Fred Olen Ray meets Turner Classic Movies, but we’re getting closer ever day! Galaxy of Terror is a campy trash classic starring Happy Days’ Erin Moran as intergalactic empath Alluma, sent by The Planet Master to explore the treacherous planet Morganthus. What she finds is a mysterious pyramid and some horrifying Alien-style creatures. Also aboard the good ship Quest are Grace Zabriskie as the expedition’s captain, Ray Walston as ship’s cook, Zalman King, Robert Englund, and Sid Haig as crewmen, and the eternally boring Edward (not Eddie) Albert. And let’s not overlook the contributions of production designer and second unit director James Cameron, another man who can thank Roger Corman for his career (yes, this is a Corman production). Galaxy of Terror recently arrived on Blu-Ray and makes its widescreen television debut this evening.
Saturday 11/13/10
1:15 AM Showtime
Paris, Texas (1984 USA): For one brief, shining moment it seemed that Harry Dean Stanton might become a movie star, and Paris, Texas was that moment. Directed by Wim Wenders, the film stars Stanton as Travis Henderson, an amnesiac found wandering through the desert. Rescued by brother Walt (Dean Stockwell), Travis slowly begins to regain his memory whilst attempting to reestablish his relationship with son Hunter (Hunter Carson) and searching for estranged wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski). A huge arthouse and festival hit in its day, Paris, Texas features a memorable Ry Cooder score in addition to Stanton’s sterling performance. Airs again at 4:15 AM.
1:50 AM The Movie Channel
The Undeserved (2004 USA): Here’s an obscure but better than you might expect American indie. Paul Sado stars as the Faulknerian-sounding Vernal Hapgood, a student attending a pedagogically progressive Vermont high school. Vernal seems determined to fail, whilst best bud Charlie (James Martinez) copes with the dropping out and subsequent disappearance of gal pal Joy (Autumn Dornfeld), and other students deal with assorted teenage crises. Though a bit over-plotted and soapy, this largely improvised drama is an effective piece of low-budget filmmaking. Also airs at 4:50 AM.
7:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
Clipped Wings (1953 USA): Just when you thought the Bowery Boys had no more branches of the armed forces to screw up, along comes the ladies auxiliary of the United States Air Force. Once again, the lads encounter misfortune at the local recruiting office and end up in uniform. And once again they uncover a nest of spies. Look for Lyle Talbot and Tristram Coffin in supporting roles.
9:35 AM Flix
Day of the Locust (1973 USA): Before Matt Groening’s Simpsons there was Nathanael Hawthorne’s Day of the Locust. Donald Sutherland stars in this big screen adaptation of Hawthorne’s novel as Homer Simpson, an uptight accountant living in the sleazy back alleys of 1930’s Hollywood and in love with silver screen bit player Faye (Karen Black). Homer must compete for her affections with screenwriter Todd (William Atherton), whilst Faye’s father Harry (Burgess Meredith) tries to resurrect his pathetic vaudeville career and Geraldine Page’s Big Sister glowers in the background. Adapted for the screen by Waldo Salt, this is a relentlessly downbeat portrayal of losers living around the edges of success, and at almost two and a half hours in length, a pretty arduous slog. It’s not an easy film to like, but climaxes with an unforgettable sequence that confronts the nature and meaning of celebrity head-on.
Sunday 11/14/10
4:00 AM Sundance
Frontrunners (2008 USA): Hard to believe there’s more than one documentary about secondary school politics, but here’s the proof. 2006’s incredibly depressing Third Monday in October documented political competition at the middle school level, whilst Frontrunners turns the same trick for the even more devious older teens of New York City’s well-regarded Stuyvesant High School. Is there anything less attractive than watching impressionable young people assume the least attractive attributes of their elders? Also airs at 12:30 PM.
9:30 AM Turner Classic Movies
The Hoodlum (1919 USA): I might have overlooked this Mary Pickford meller if not for the presence of leading man Kenneth Harlan. Harlan was a pretty big star back in the day and he’s excellent here as poor but honest John Graham, a young man whose life has nearly been ruined by the machinations of oligarch Alexander Guthrie (Ralph Lewis). After Guthrie’s spoiled granddaughter Amy (Pickford) decides to spend some time slumming on the Lower East Side, she learns the sordid truth and determines to help John clear his name. This was Pickford’s second self-produced feature and was directed by future Academy Award nominee Sidney Franklin.
Monday 11/15/10
7:00 PM Sundance
Jar City (2006 ICE): A North Atlantic variant on the Fargo meme, this Baltasar Kormakur (White Night Wedding, 101 Reykjavik) joint follows the misadventures of an Icelandic police squad as they try to solve a particularly brutal murder. Worn-out chain-smoker Erlendur (Ingvar E. Sigurdsson) is in charge of the investigation, which dovetails with two other mysterious deaths, and he has a drug-addled teenage daughter to contend with, as well. The film is mordantly humorous - hence the Coen Brothers parallel - and though the audience learns who the killer is fairly quickly, offers enough surprises and plot twists to keep you engaged.