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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 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.

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