TiVoPlex
By John Seal
September 20, 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 09/21/04
12:30am Flix
Teenage Millionaire (1961 USA): Ah, youth…when young love blooms, hope springs eternal, and rock-and-roll fortunes are made. Jimmy Clanton stars in this light-headed and light-hearted musical comedy about a young singer hitting the big time and learning to cope with the resultant headaches and heartaches of fame. This was Clanton’s second and last film performance, the first being in the superior Alan Freed production Go, Johnny, Go! (1958), and was his last brush with the big time before induction into the US Army. By the time Clanton left the Army, the British Invasion had passed him by, dooming him to a career spent on the oldies circuit. As for the film, it’s nothing particularly special, but it does feature an elderly Zasu Pitts, an endearing performance by boxer Rocky Graziano, and performances by Dion, Bill Black’s Combo, Marv Johnson, and Jackie Wilson. Teenage Millionaire hasn’t been on television for at least five years, so set your timers. Also airs 9/26 at 3:30am.
8:30pm Black Starz!
Tasuma (2003 BRK-FRA): This gentle West African comedy stars Mamadou Zerbo as Tasuma, an army veteran who’s spent 50 years trying to get the pension he earned fighting for France in Vietnam and Algeria. Trouble surfaces when the grizzled vet takes out a loan to buy a mill to assist the local farmers: the promised pension still doesn’t come through, and the bank wants to foreclose on his property. Tasuma, a proud descendent of the Warrangari warrior tribe, won’t back down and chooses a jail term, but the local women decide to break him out of the joint. A minor but enjoyable film, Tasuma grossed a whopping $479 during its one-week American theatrical run.
Wednesday 09/22/04
3am Turner Classic Movies
The World Changes (1933 USA): A first-rate Warner Bros drama, The World Changes stars Paul Muni as a Midwestern farmer who strikes it rich in cattle, only to lose everything in the Great Crash of 1929. This multigenerational epic sounds like it could have been written by Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, or Upton Sinclair, but was actually based on a short story by Screen Writers Guild President Sheridan Gibney. Muni is, not surprisingly, excellent, but the supporting cast is equally fine, including the long-underappreciated Aline MacMahon as Muni’s mother (the actress was actually three years younger than Muni), Mary Astor, Mickey Rooney, and Pete Smith’s Speciality star Dave O’Brien. Superbly shot by director Mervyn LeRoy in collaboration with cinematographer Tony Gaudio, The World Changes is a forgotten gem of Depression-era filmmaking.
9:15pm Starz!
The Magdalene Sisters (2002 GB-IRE): Proving that women in organized religion are just as capable of abuse as men, The Magdalene Sisters shines a light on the plight of young women in an Irish asylum circa 1960. Based on well-documented events that took place in Ireland during the second half of the 20th century, this powerful film stars stage actress Geraldine McEwan as Sister Bridget, the sadistic head warder of the Magdalene Sisters Asylum. It’s here that wayward girls - you know, the kind who get raped, get knocked up out of wedlock, or are merely attracting undue male attention - were sent for rehabilitation, re-education, and nightmarish apprenticeships in the laundry business. The young actresses (Anne-Marie Duff, Nora-Jane Noone, Dorothy Duffy, and Eileen Walsh) are all excellent, but McEwan’s performance as chief villain is the one you’ll remember afterwards. Written and directed by actor Peter Mullan, The Magdalene Sisters makes its American television debut this evening. Also airs 9/23 at 12:15am and 9/27 at 10:05pm.
Thursday 09/23/04
12:35pm More Max
Horns and Halos (2002 USA): Still got room for one more George Bush documentary? I hope so, because after he gets re-elected, the floodgates are REALLY going to open wide. Yes, nothing incenses us lefties quite as much as the sight of Shrub. We react to his smirk in much the same way that our right-wing brothers and sisters reacted to the sight of Bill Clinton parsing his sentences and biting his lip when he needed to reflect empathy or sadness. But here’s the rub: Clinton was a tribute to the kind of up-by-your bootstraps individualism so beloved of the right, whilst Bush is merely the latest acorn falling from the tree of a mighty family dynasty. This film looks at the attempted suppression of a book entitled Fortunate Son, an unflattering portrayal of the rise and rise of The Silver-Spoon Kid from hopeless businessman to clueless governor of the state of Texas, with particular emphasis placed on Dubya’s alleged use of cocaine and his avoidance of National Guard duty. The book was written by James Hatfield, a felon convicted of attempted murder who committed suicide shortly after the book was reprinted by a small independent publisher when original house St. Martin’s Press withdrew it from circulation. In equal parts a biopic of Hatfield and reprint publisher Sander Hicks, as well as an indictment of the control freak who is George Bush the Younger, the film won the top award at the 2002 New York Underground Film Festival.
9:15pm Turner Classic Movies
Topaz (1969 USA): It’s poorly regarded by most critics and disliked by many Hitchcock fans, but I have a soft spot for the great director’s third-to-last feature, a Cold War tale of Soviet spies infiltrating the highest reaches of the French government. It’s one of Hitch’s most complex and (some would say) overplotted pictures, with a narrative arc more reminiscent of Day of the Jackal than Dial M for Murder. Little-known Frederick Stafford (who had served his apprenticeship in the popular OSS 117 spy series) is fine as a French secret agent assigned to uncover the spy ring, Dany Robin adds the va-va-voom factor as his wife, John Vernon offers a hilariously enjoyable turn as a Cuban revolutionary, Roscoe Lee Browne plays a Haitian agent masquerading as a flower salesman, and solid, reliable John Forsythe is fine, if somewhat left in the shadows, as Stafford’s CIA counterpart. Topaz is also technically superb, especially Jack Hildyard’s wide-screen cinematography and Michel Legrand’s lush score. If you enjoyed Torn Curtain, you’ll enjoy Topaz.
Friday 09/24/04
9:45am HBO 2
Chernobyl Heart (2003 USA): I gave a passing recommendation to this award-winning documentary last week when HBO piggy-backed it with Rory Kennedy’s controversial short film, Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable. Whilst Kennedy’s film is a solid if unexceptional piece of investigative filmmaking, Chernobyl Heart is an incredibly moving and disturbing look at the aftermath of the infamous 1986 nuclear meltdown in the Northern Ukraine (Last week I implied that the reactors were located in Belarus, but I was wrong; though 99% of Belarus is contaminated, the plants were actually located just south of the Ukrainian border). The film’s title refers to a genetic condition found in hundreds, if not thousands, of Belarusian children born since the accident, the direct result of radiation poisoning that has left them with holes in their hearts which can only be repaired by expensive surgery well beyond the means of the average citizen. Chernobyl Heart also takes an unwavering look at many of the other victims of this catastrophe, including children with thyroid cancer, mental retardation, and birth defects of all varieties. It’s a shocking and powerful film that I can’t recommend highly enough. Also airs 9/27 on HBO Signature at 7:45pm.
11pm Turner Classic Movies
Only One Night (1939 SWE): TCM has unearthed another obscure, made-in-Sweden Ingrid Bergman film for the Friday Night Import slot. I haven’t seen this one, but it involves a kept woman (Bergman) falling in love with the bastard son (Edvin Adolphson, also seen with Ingrid in 1938’s Dollar) of a wealthy nobleman (Olof Sandborg). This was the last of six films the actress made with director Gustaf Molander and was her penultimate Swedish language feature.
Saturday 09/25/04
5pm Fox Movie Channel
The Girl Can’t Help It (1956 USA): Why is this film still unavailable on DVD? Perhaps the greatest rock-and-roll film ever made, The Girl Can’t Help It is fun from the opening credits to the final fade-out. Director Frank Tashlin got his start directing Looney Tunes shorts for Warner Bros, and his eye for the outrageous is on full display here, as is his ability to transfer cartoon-like qualities to his characters. Starring ‘50s sex bomb Jayne Mansfield as the unlikely protégé of music promoter Tom Ewell (excellent here as always), the film is a wonderful excuse to parade various rock -and-rollers across the screen in glorious Technicolor. Need to see Little Richard, Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, Eddie Cochran, Fats Domino, The Platters, and The Treniers (The Treniers, I tell you!) in full color? This is the best (and in some cases only) way to see them that way. Tashlin also co-wrote the screenplay with Herbert Baker, and its hilarious over-the-top characters include the wonderful Edmond O’Brien (overweight and elderly only a few years after being a matinee idol) as “Fats” Marty Murdock, the over-the-hill gangster who hires Ewell to turn Mansfield into a star, and Henry Jones as O’Brien’s loyal-but-meek sidekick, Mousey. Perfect in almost every respect, The Girl Can’t Help It is the ultimate rock flick, embodying in its 99 minutes everything you need to know about the music that changed the world.
Sunday 09/26/04
3am IFC
The Bad Sleep Well (1960 JAP): Mommy, mommy, little Timmy’s fallen into the Bad Sleep Well and he can’t get out! For some reason that’s the image I always conjure up when I think of this title. No, this isn’t the film that inspired 2001’s horror favorite Jeepers Creepers, but a terrific (and deadly serious) Akira Kurosawa feature. Kurosawa was a great admirer of the works of William Shakespeare, and this is his uniquely Japanese interpretation of Hamlet. Starring Toshiro Mifune as an obsessed young executive out to solve the mystery of his father’s death, The Bad Sleep Well is also a critique of modern Japanese corporate culture, with Mifune’s buttoned-down samurai taking on an evil and corrupt boardroom warlord (Ugetsu’s Masayuki Mori). Cineastes will be pleased to hear that IFC appears to be airing the complete, 151-minute original version of this great film.
9pm Turner Classic Movies
Master of the House (1925 DEN): Another extremely obscure Carl-Theodor Dreyer silent comes to TCM this evening. It’s a drawing room comedy with a social conscience and stars Astrid Holm as the wife of a determinedly unsatisfied businessman (Johannes Meyer) who constantly complains about the failings of his family and the household help. To the rescue comes the family maid (Mathilde Nielsen), who hatches a plot with Holm’s mother to teach their lord and master a badly-needed lesson in humility. About as far from The Passion of Joan of Arc as Dreyer ever got, Master of the House remains one of his most accessible and enjoyable films, and to the best of my knowledge, has never been on the boob tube before.
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