Deadly Amusements
by Jim Ridley
TV highlights Nov. 23-29
These listings presume that you have both 1. cable and 2. a VCR. In other words, don’t stay up all night unless you have to. Cable channels marked with an asterisk (*) are not yet available in all sections of Nashville; to find out whether your area receives these stations, call Viacom at 244-5990.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1:15 a.m. Thursday, TNT) When fur trapper Howard Keel marries Jane Powell, his burly brothers decide to acquire women of their own by any means necessary. Stanley Donen’s marvelous 1954 film is one of the few musicals that appeals even to people who don’t usually enjoy them, chiefly because of Michael Kidd’s exhilaratingly athletic dance sequences and a boisterous Johnny Mercer-Gene DePaul score. Watch for Russ Tamblyn, a young Julie Newmar (here Newmeyer), and Jacques D’Amboise among the dancers.
The Great Escape (7 p.m. Saturday, The Family Channel) The granddaddy of all POW escape movies, based on the true story of a massive Allied break from an impregnable Nazi prison camp. The movie is filled with memorable moments—claustrophobic Charles Bronson crawling through an escape tunnel, master forger Donald Pleasance discovering his eyesight is failing—but the most famous scene has Steve McQueen making a hell-for-leather motorcycle dash for the Swiss border as half the German army pursues. If you enjoy this, check out the Criterion laserdisc edition, which features a ton of supplemental material and fascinating commentary by director John Sturges.
Austin City Limits (8 p.m. Saturday, WDCN-Channel 8) An evening with two of the most ingratiating live performers in contemporary folk music, Nanci Griffith and Iris DeMent. If DeMent performs “Childhood Memories,” this one’s a keeper for the VCR library.
Time After Time (6 a.m. Sunday, A&E) Nicholas Meyer (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution) wrote and directed this ingenious 1979 romantic fantasy, in which Jack the Ripper (David Warner) escapes through H.G. Wells’ time machine into modern-day San Francisco, closely pursued by the horrified Wells (an adorably flustered Malcolm MacDowell). Mary Steenburgen plays Wells’ beloved. Miklos Rosza composed the lush, old-fashioned score.
My Left Foot (2 p.m. Sunday, WXMT) A roaring, passionate, and utterly absorbing biography of Christy Brown, the Irish writer and artist who overcame cerebral palsy to become a world-class hell-raiser. Daniel Day-Lewis’ astonishing (and physically punishing) performance as Brown is reason enough to watch, but Brenda Fricker is just as good as Christy’s tower-of-strength mum. And if you’re worried you’re going to find the usual syrupy movie-of-the-week sentiments, the movie’s spirit is typified by one of the greatest barroom brawls ever.
The Man in the Moon (8 p.m. Sunday, Lifetime) Robert Mulligan’s 1991 film had the misfortune to be released the same year as a much more popular period drama about the South, Martha Coolidge’s indelible Rambling Rose. But this gentle and unexpectedly tragic portrait of two girls coming of age in 1957 Louisiana boasts an absolutely stunning performance by Nashville actress Reese Witherspoon, a major talent who has been used all too often in minor films. As a 14-year-old girl who develops a crush on an older boy, who in turn loves her big sister, Witherspoon never strikes a false note; her performance ranks with Jean-Pierre Leaud’s Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows among the great cinematic portrayals of anguished adolescence.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1 a.m. Monday, Comedy Central) The classic episode featuring Eegah!, a confoundingly awful caveman epic with seven-foot Richard Kiel, nonacting cult hero Arch Hall Jr., and some of the crappiest ’60s rock songs ever.
(Monday, 9 a.m. AMC) One of the most famous movies by the celebrated Dorothy Arzner, a pioneering female director in 1930s Hollywood whose films are considered an early feminist touchstone. In Arzner’s 1933 drama, Katharine Hepburn plays a strong-willed aviatrix forced to choose between her career and her love for a married man (Colin Clive from Frankenstein).
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