TiVoPlex
By John Seal
March 29, 2004
From the obscure to the obscurest to the merely overlooked or underappreciated; they all have a home in the TiVoPlex! All times Pacific.
Tuesday 03/30/04
1:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Ship From Shanghai (1930 USA): Creeeeaaaak. No, that’s not the sound The Ship From Shanghai makes as it spools through the camera, it’s the sound it makes as it traverses the Pacific, destination: good ol’ US of A. Unfortunately, a maniacal steward (Conrad Nagel) seizes control of the vessel, and the sailing is far from smooth for Holmes Herbert, Kay Johnson, and the rest of the cast in this long-forgotten MGM melodrama. Action specialist Charles Brabin (Mask of Fu Manchu, Beast of the City) directed and future blacklistee John Howard Lawson (also responsible for such maritime-themed films as The Sea Bat and Earthbound) contributed the screenplay.
3pm Cinemax
Bus 174 (2002 BRA): This riveting film from Brazil won oodles of awards on the festival circuit but sadly was overlooked in 2003 by AMPAS, who chose to nominate crowd-pleasers like Bowling for Columbine and Spellbound for Best Feature Documentary. Playing a bit like a real-life version of Speed (but thankfully sans Keanu Reeves), the film tells the story of a hijacked bus, follows the mass media that pursued it, and investigates the tragic life of the disturbed young man who held its passengers hostage for over four hours. A powerful and worthy companion piece to Fernando Meirelles’ City of God, Bus 174 serves notice that social inequities and failed social policies can blow back just as badly as ill-advised misadventures in foreign lands. Director Felipe Lacerda got his start editing Walter Salle’s superb Central Station (1998 BRA). Also airs at 6pm.
Wednesday 03/31/04
1:30am Sundance
The Crow (1994 USA): I have a tendency to overlook films like this. They’re popular on release, they have long ancillary lives, and they air - over and over and over again - on premium cable. The Crow played throughout March on Encore Mystery, for example, but it recently popped up on Sundance’s schedule, with the art-house channel thankfully opting for a letterboxed print. Though I’m not a particularly enthusiastic proponent of Alex Proyas’ dark fantasy of death and vengeance, it’s one film that truly needs to be seen wide-screen for full appreciation. Starring Bruce Lee’s ill-fated son Brandon as the back-from-the-grave avenger, the film is brilliantly designed and shot, and is a technical triumph, featuring stunning art direction by Alex McDowell (Fight Club, Minority Report, and, um, The Cat in the Hat). Though the story is hardly original, Lee’s performance carries the film, with the actor lending surprising nuance to the role. Extremely violent and now dated due to the bludgeoning and unnecessary inclusion of pop hits of the day (plus the more appropriate use of Joy Division’s Dead Souls), The Crow remains an entertaining and well-made action flick and one of the better comic book adaptations of recent vintage.
Thursday 04/04/04
1:50am Encore Love Stories
Twentieth Century (1934 USA): The Love Stories channel seems to function as the Lifetime Channel for folks who dislike commercials, but for once they’re digging into the archives and presenting this terrific Columbia comedy about a struggling stage director (John Barrymore) trying to jumpstart his failing career by taking advantage of his relationship with a big Hollywood star (Carole Lombard). This is A material all the way, directed by Howard Hawks, scripted by the always-excellent Ben Hecht, and featuring a supporting cast of familiar faces like Roscoe Karns, Edgar Kennedy, and Herman Bing. Because TCM doesn’t have access to the pre-Sony Columbia catalogue (Encore has the exclusive rights at present), their older films don’t show up as often as they should, so take advantage of this opportunity to see this top-notch oldie.
5pm Fox Movie Channel
Something for the Birds (1952 USA): It’s probably the least well-known film on director Robert Wise’s resume - with the possible exception of 1989’s appalling Rooftops - but Something for the Birds is a charming if thoroughly fluffy romantic comedy. Starring Victor Mature as a rapacious oilman and Patricia Neal as a Washington lobbyist out to protect a flock of endangered condors from Mature’s capitalistic machinations, the film predictably finds the two falling for each other after a period of extended growling. Written by frequent Billy Wilder collaborator I.A.L. Diamond and co-starring lovable Edmund Gwenn, the film isn’t particularly special, but my lifelong crush on Neal and the film’s unavailability on home video forces me to include it in this week’s column.
Friday 04/02/04
12:30am IFC
La Femme Nikita (1989 FRA): Luc Besson’s outrageous action film about a female assassin leaves the American remake (titled Pointless of No Return, or some such) wilting in the shade. It’s stylish, glossy, and ridiculous, but Besson and star Annie Parillaud make the whole thing work. Even at almost two hours in length, La Femme Nikita never lets up, providing the audience with one of those much-vaunted (though usually disappointing) Hollywood thrill rides, and naturally, it’s from France. Look for Tchéky Karyo in a small role and Jean Reno in a memorable cameo. Also airs at 3pm.
1:30pm Turner Classic Movies
Attack! (1956 USA): Another gritty, quality film from director Robert Aldrich, Attack! stars Jack Palance as Joe Costa, an Army lieutenant sent on a reckless mission by a feckless commander, played surprisingly well by the usually mild-mannered Eddie Albert. Not too late to make a sequel, fellas. The supporting cast is equally excellent, including Lee Marvin, Richard Jaeckel, Strother Martin, and Buddy Ebsen. Aldrich has long been an underappreciated director, with terrific films like The Longest Yard, Kiss Me Deadly and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? to his credit. Featuring fine cinematography by Joseph Biroc and an intelligent screenplay by James Poe, Attack! is an above-average look at cowardice and loyalty on the front lines.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Gigi (1948 FRA): I did a double-take when I saw this one on the schedule. It’s airing in front of 1958’s well-known and much beloved (by others, not by me) Leslie Caron musical of the same name. Based on the Colette novel that also informed the much different American film ten years later, the original version is considerably less skittish about the more provocative aspects of the story, including the age of its title character (star Daniele Delorme was 22 when she played the 16-year-old Gigi, and Caron was 27), and the fact that she’s in training to be a high-class mistress for wealthy gentlemen. Directed by Jacqueline Audry - who cut her teeth working with auteurs such as G. W. Pabst and Max Ophuls - the look of 1949’s Gigi also contrasts sharply with Vincente Minnelli’s glossy adaptation, featuring stark black-and-white photography and absent the overdressed interiors provided by MGM.
Saturday 04/03/04
9:45pm Encore Mystery
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970 ITA): A big-budget precursor to the flood of police procedurals about to overwhelm Italian cinemas, Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen stars Gian Maria Volonte as an amoral police inspector testing the system to see just how much he can get away with. Co-starring Eurotrash regular Florinda Bolkan (Flavia the Heretic, Don’t Torture a Duckling) this is serious, non-exploitative cinema and was the winner of the 1971 Best Foreign Film Academy Award. Besides its complex and fascinating screenplay, the film also features a very fine Ennio Morricone score.
10:45pm Encore
Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985 USA): I admit it: When Freddy Krueger first starting slashing his way through the kiddies of Elm Street, his films gave me nightmares. Assuming, of course, I could get to sleep in the first place. Yes, I’m man enough to admit that the ghoul in the stripey pullover scared me witless. There’s something about films involving sleep deprivation that really get to me, whether it’s the Freddy series or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the supernatural elements creeped me out in a way Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers never could. In a set-up worthy of a horror sequel, it’s now 18 years later, Freddy is returning to premium cable after years of hack-and-slash edited airings on TNT and TBS, and I’m wondering if I need to buy some new underwear. Is this jaded horror-movie fan now inured to the worst that Hollywood can dish out? Or am I still the big girl’s blouse I was in 1985? All I know is I won’t be watching this with the lights out.
Sunday 04/04/04
7pm Fox Movie Channel
The Commitments (1991 IRE-GB): Anytime white folks sing soul music, images of Michael Bolton distressingly spring to mind. Luckily, the cast of Alan Parker’s Dublin-set dramedy - getting a rare wide-screen airing tonight on Fox - come straight from kitchen-sink Central Casting, and big-boned Andrew Strong (playing egotistical blowhard Deco Cuffe) easily laps Curly Bolton in the blue-eyed soul sweepstakes. The rest of the cast are fine, too, with particularly noteworthy performances by Colm Meany as an Elvis-obsessed dad and Johnny Murphy as the oracular Joey “The Lips” Fagan. Based on Roddy Doyle’s novel of the same name, this is a solid adaptation (by Doyle and the Dick Clement-Ian La Frenais team) that loses none of the working-class bite of the original story and dodges some dangerous bullets by providing a selection of decent and half-way convincing R&B music. Parker’s fondness for the musical genre bore fruit in The Commitments and makes up for misfires like 1982’s ponderous Pink Floyd: The Wall and the horrors of 1996’s Madonna vehicle, Evita. To paraphrase a number of characters in this film, it’s not a pile of shite.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
Champagne (1928 USA): With little fanfare, TCM is airing this very early Alfred Hitchcock silent this evening. Don’t expect a typical Hitch outing, though; this is one of the light comedies he made when first establishing himself as a filmmaker. Starring Betty Balfour and Jean Bradin as a young couple whose relationship is eyed suspiciously by Balfour’s father, played by quota quickie veteran Gordon Harker, Champagne also features still photography by Michael Powell, later to become one of the biggest names of British cinema in the ‘40s and ‘50s with producer partner Emeric Pressburger. The aptly titled Champagne won’t make you forget Strangers on a Train or Shadow of a Doubt, but fans of Hitchcock will definitely want to see it.
Monday 04/05/04
1am Turner Classic Movies
A Soldier’s Plaything (1930 USA): There’s a trio of intriguing obscurities on TCM this morning, two of which I’ve never seen, commencing with this very obscure Warner’s comedy starring silent comedian Harry Langdon. Langdon was a baby-faced clown now all but forgotten, but he was a star for Mack Sennett and Frank Capra for a few years in the ‘20s. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the transition to talkies well, and this is one of his few starring roles in the new medium before he was consigned to bit parts in two-reel billfillers like Goodness, A Ghost and Here Comes Mr. Zerk. A Soldier’s Plaything co-stars Jean Hersholt and Noah Beery and was directed by Michael Curtiz, so it’s unlikely to be a complete disaster, and will certainly be of interest to fans of Langdon or ‘30s cinema in general. It’s followed at 2am by an obscure MGM documentary, Tales of the Navajos (1949 USA), about which I know even less, and at 3am by Monogram’s Kid Dynamite (1943 USA). A few weeks back I heralded a false dawn when Fox Movie Channel mistakenly listed the Bowery Boys 1953 feature Private Eyes on their schedule, but this is the real deal: The East Side Kids before they turned into complete goofballs. Eternally youthful Leo Gorcey (still playing a teenager in 1957 at the age of 41!) plays a local boxing champ who ends up missing an important bout when he’s kidnapped by local hoods. Fellow East Sider Bobby Jordan (who appeared with Gorcey in over 30 entries in the series) takes Leo’s place in the ring, and wins the fight, leading to distrust and backbiting when Gorcey is released by his captors. I can’t guarantee satisfaction with any of these films (though at least Kid Dynamite is a known quantity), but it’s a fascinating assortment of Hollywood detritus.
9:30am Turner Classic Movies
The Squaw Man (1914 USA): Cecil B. DeMille’s original version of Edwin Apfel’s play The Squaw Man, a decidedly un-politically correct tale of a noble young savage who saves the life of a British aristocrat and then gets knocked up by him, punctuates a very full and satisfying week of TCM programming. De Mille really loved the story, which he went on to remake not once but twice (in 1918 and 1931), but this version was not only De Mille’s first directorial effort but was also the first feature-length film produced in Hollywood. At least this version cast Native Americans in supporting roles; by 1931, they were jettisoned in favor of white guys in makeup and Lupe Velez. It’s followed at 11pm by one of Cecil B.’s morality plays, 1915’s The Cheat, starring Fannie Ward as a woman who does her husband wrong by engaging in criminal and carnal activity with the great Sessue Hayakawa, here playing a Burmese (!) tradesman. If The Squaw Man isn’t offensive enough to upset modern viewers, The Cheat’s angles on infidelity, gender roles and racism should do the job.
9pm Showtime
Tribute(2001 USA): It’s true; I went to see Beatlemania in 1978. I even went to a Beatles convention that same year and enjoyed the polished mimickry of four lads from Southern California who called themselves Rain (Check out their fine Web site at http://www.raintribute.com/). So I do have a certain appreciation for the hard work that goes into tribute bands, that bizarre musical subgenre that has spread far and wide over the last two decades, resulting in salutes to artists as disparate as Neil Diamond, Oasis, and The Doors. This film takes a look at three such bands: Sheer Heart Attack, Larger Than Life, and The Missing Links, who respectively ape Queen, Knights in Satan’s Service, and The Monkees. It’s hilarious, heartwarming, and a worthy salute to those who worship at the altar of the Rock Gods, though sadly, these guys don’t seem to get as many groupies as the originals.
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