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

Tuesday 06/26/07

1:45 AM Turner Classic Movies
Victim (1961 GB): Dirk Bogarde stars as the victim of a blackmailing scheme in this excellent drama directed by social problem specialist Basil Dearden. Bogarde plays Melville Farr, a successful lawyer whose late night dalliances with handsome young men have attracted the attention of an underhanded photographer. Melville has been married for many years to Laura (Sylvia Sims), her unwitting service as a beard allowing him to build his practice and become one of Britain's most highly regarded barristers. Enter stage right slimy Sandy Youth (Derren Nesbitt), whose snapshots of Farr in compromising positions with rent boy Barrett (Peter McEnery) threaten to derail his career. The first British film in which the word ‘homosexuality' was uttered, Victim was initially banned in the United States, but has long since earned its due as a groundbreaking feature - and the fact that Bogarde himself was a closeted gay man only adds to its impact.

6:30 PM Sundance
Plagues and Pleasures On the Salton Sea (2004 USA): When you think eco-documentary, you probably don't associate the genre with bad taste auteur John Waters. The two make an unlikely intersection here, with the fish out of water Waters providing narration for this unusual feature about California's Salton Sea, the state's largest saline lake and a one-time vacation destination that is now a poster child for ecological disaster. Once a fisherman's paradise during the 1950s, the Salton Sea is now best known for mass fish die-offs and botulism. Filled with delightfully outre footage from old promotional films and depressing contemporary footage of piles of dead fish, Plagues and Pleasures On the Salton Sea is essential viewing for anyone interested in the history and development of California. Also airs 6/28 at 9:30 PM.

Wednesday 06/27/07

1:30 AM Sundance
Derailroaded: Inside the Mind of ‘Wild Man' Fischer (2005 USA): For those of us who grew up listening to Dr. Demento every Sunday night, the name Wild Man Fischer meant one thing, and one thing only: the weekly repetition of a tuneless little ditty entitled My Name Is Larry. Little did we know that Larry ‘Wild Man' Fischer was not merely the construct of someone's imagination, but a real person suffering from a serious mental disorder who managed to get a record deal on Frank Zappa's Bizarre label years before fellow idiot savant Daniel Johnston ever saw the inside of a recording studio. It's unfortunate that anyone ever gave Larry Fischer the idea that he could have been a contender - the man is utterly though guilelessly lacking in talent. On a slightly happier note, Wild Man, who parted ways with Zappa after an incident involving a thrown bottle, has seen his condition improve of late thanks to finally being treated correctly for depression and schizophrenia.

5:00 PM Turner Classic Movies
Staircase (1969 GB): An evening of gay-themed films from the late 1960s kicks off with Stanley Donen's Staircase, a paean to a pair of mincing, bitchy London hairdressers. The two are played by a limp-wristed Richard Burton, who is good but over-the-top, and a more restrained Rex Harrison, who was possibly more comfortable in his role than was the hyper-masculine Welshman. It's by no means perfect, but was the first film from a major studio to attempt a realistic portrayal of a gay couple, beating William Friedkin's The Boys in the Band by a year. If you can overcome some of the not-so-flattering gay stereotypes, you'll find a warm-hearted and moving film that was well ahead of its time and still remains quite entertaining. It's followed at 7:00 PM by the aforementioned Boys In the Band (1970), the first American film to plunge headlong into the gay subculture; at 9:15 PM by The Fox (1968), a D.H. Lawrence adaption about a lesbian couple living in rural Canada; and at 11:00 PM by The Killing of Sister George (1968), a surprisingly frank exploration of same-sex love in modern-day Britain. All four films are making their TCM debuts, and are of course airing in their correct aspect ratios.

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