New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

9:00 AM Turner Classic Movies
Jungle Jim in the Forbidden Land (1952 USA): Remember when Jungle Jim (Johnny Weissmuller) went to Pygmy Island? This time Jim goes to the “Forbidden Land”, where the inhabitants are giants played not by the likes of Billy Curtis but by the otherwise unheralded and long since forgotten Clem Erickson and Irmgard Helen H. Raschke. Really - those are their names, and neither of them ever made another film. Weissmuller, meanwhile, is as wooden as ever, but on balance this is one of the more entertaining films in the series.

Sunday 10/14/12

10:15 AM Sundance
The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006 USA): Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover did not like John Lennon. The lank-haired Liverpudlian was, they believed, a terrible and even dangerous influence on American youth, and Hoover’s FBI worked hard to keep him out of the United States. Lennon, of course, had relocated to the States in the early ‘70s and begun supporting a number of radical political causes, and the Feds desperately tried to deport him on the basis of a British drugs conviction. This fascinating and still topical film is essential viewing for any self-respecting Lennon fan, and anyone who cherishes civil liberties and the right to dissent.

10:30 PM Turner Classic Movies
The Unknown (1927 USA): Not quite as well known as director Tod Browning's sound films, The Unknown is nonetheless an outstanding example of silent horror, featuring a brilliant performance by Lon Chaney as an apparently armless circus knife-thrower. He wants to win the heart of young Joan Crawford, who has a fervid fear of male appendages (I'm not making this up; only Tod Browning could do that). You won't believe the conclusion.

Monday10/15/12

1:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Contraband (1940 GB): Conrad Veidt crosses swords with Nazi spies in this obscure but very good suspenser from the Powell-Pressburger production team. Veidt plays Andersen, a Danish sea captain whose shore passes are stolen whilst his ship is docked in an English port. And not just stolen: the passes have been purloined by a pair of shady characters (Esmond Knight and Valerie Hobson) who seem to be up to their necks in monkey business. Written by Emeric Pressburger and directed by Michael Powell, Contraband is great fun, and is surely the only film you’ll see in which Leo Genn and Peter Bull play brothers!

4:00 AM Showtime 3
Cracks (2009 GB-IRE): Fans of the sepulchral Eva Green (that’s Green as in “Gren”) will want to check out this rather odd feature about life at a 1930’s girls’ boarding school. Green plays the school’s diving teacher (no budget cuts here, apparently), a young beauty who exerts a strong and possibly unhealthy influence upon the young ladies in her charge. When new girl Fiamma (Maria Valverde) shows up and dislodges team captain Di (Juno Temple, daughter of Julien) from the top of teacher’s pecking order, bad things begin to happen. The film gets a bit silly towards the end, but Green is quite good (and easy on the eyes).

11:15 AM Turner Classic Movies
Toward the Unknown (1956 USA): William Holden plays an Air Force officer trying to regain the trust of his men in this handsomely mounted Mervyn LeRoy feature. Holden plays Lincoln Bond, whose Korean War exploits have since been overshadowed by his breakdown whilst being subjected to torture - sorry, enhanced interrogation - after being shot down and captured by the enemy. Now stateside and no longer allowed to fly, Bond has been assigned to assist with testing of a secret experimental aircraft - but not every one on base is happy to see him. The story is engaging, the supporting cast (L.Q. Jones, James Garner, Lloyd Nolan) excellent, and the aerial footage impressive.

Continued:       1       2       3