MEDIA LIST
Welcome to this week's Video Column (cue tacky Roll Harris Stylophone music) with your host . . . Ross Parsons (cue tackier music). Right, let's meet the contestants . . . (music swells to crescendo).
I Who's Harry Crumb7. (PG) 95 mins. Who gives a flying tuck box who the lat owl is? out. in case you're wondering, he's a large private eye in a funny wig. Harry (John Candy) is the latest in a long line 01 distinguished Crumb investigators. This time he’s given the job oi tracking down the kidnappers ot a local millionaire’s beautiful daughter. It someone looking like an lnebriated Undercover Elephant is your cup oi tea, then stew in this. (RCA/Columbia, Rental).
I Three Fugitives. (15) 96 mins. Former prisoner and permanent hard man, Hick Holte, gets caught up in a tailed robbery (completely by accident guv’, honest). His hard-nosed villain contrasts well with Martin Short's hysterical and inept thiet as the two. along with Short's six year-old mute, embark on some eyecatching slapstick trying to, guess what? Yes, outrun the authorities. And this week on Escape from the Law, we’ve got a lovely lamilyioryou . . .(Buena Vista, Rental).
I Match oi the Day. 90 mins. De de de de de de de de deh. deh deh deh deh de deh. and so on. Relive the Saturday nights 01 the Seventies (it you were allowed to stay up till the English footy came on) as lots 01 people with strangely repellent hairstyles score memorable goals. (BBC. 29.99).
I THE CHDIRDDYS (18) 120 mins. One 01 the six, intriguineg titled,
'deviant’ movies recently released by CBS/Fox (all tor under a tenner). However, even real ‘deviant' butts would be hard-pressed to like this one. While Joseph Wambaugh's bestseller concentrated on how the boys in blue laced up to the gruesome struggle on the streets, the tilm tocuses only on the crass humour and camaraderie ot LA's finest. (CBS/Fox £9.99)
lISTINGS
I Painted Tales (C4) 5 .45—6pm. The first of 13 animated shorts, using the mellif'luous tones of George Melly to introduce children of all ages to classic and contemporary works of art. The first edition‘s adventures centre around Paul Klee's ‘Landscape with Yellow Birds'.
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I True or False (C4) 6—6.30pm. Viewers of Network 7will need no introduction to this spin-off, in which uncompromising playwright, director and actor Steven Berkoff challenges a panel to determine the truth or otherwise of two short films. I Public Eye (BBC2) 8—8.30pm. As a lead-up to the introduction of the PollTax in England and Wales on 1 April, Public Eye goes to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh to assess its administration, popularity and success.
I Arena: Next Time Dear God Please Choose Someone Else (BBC2)9L10.30pm. A celebration of Jewish humour, beginning in New York's Lower East Side, and going on to show the profound effect Jewish culture has had on American life. Milton Berle introduces archive footage of vaudevillians like Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice and the Marx Brothers, and everyone from Neil Simon to Lenny Bruce.
I lntemational Athletics (Scottish) 11.05pm—12.05am. From the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow, Britain v East Germany in the Dairy Crest Games.
I Working Girls (C4) 1 1.30pm-1. 15am. C4‘s festival of women’s cinema continues with Lizzie Borden‘s 1986 account of life in a Manhattan brothel, takingthe demystifying stance of prostitution as a job of work.
I Barry Manllow in Concert (BBCl) 12.10—lam. This was first shown in March last year, so it's well overdue for a repeat. Baz, in all his glory, at Birmingham‘s NEC.
SATURDAY 24
I The Wizard 01 Speed and Time (Sky Movies) 2-4pm. A mixture of drama and documentary, with Mike J ittlov playing himself, a skilled special effects artist. Great effects when they come along.
I Stromboli (BBC2)4.10—5.55pm. A Film Club double-bill of Rossellini‘s is split, with Voyage to Italy showing in the small hours. Both films are acclaimed as masterpieces. Stromboli was Rossellini‘s first film with lngrid Bergman, and sadly its impact was overshadowed by the controversy surrounding their love affair. I Little Shop at Horrors (Sky Movies) 6—7.30pm. Steve Martin, James Belushi and John Candy back up Rick Moranis, who discovers a rare and unusual plant. Some good doo-wop numbers and the voice of Levi Stubbs emanating from the plant's 49-foot lips.
I Scottish Eye (C4) 6.30—7pm. Drugs like Temgesic and Temazepan, readily available from doctors and chemists, have replaced heroin as the main cause of addiction in Glasgow — so much so that 90 per cent of intravenous drug users are now injecting the Reckitt & Colman ‘wonder drug'. The programme looks at the street
: compilers.
trade , the threatened violence against doctors and chemists, and shows film of a tunnel, seemingly dug beneath one Chemist's by addicts. I Missionaries (BBC2) 8—8.50pm. According to German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, Africa has become the ‘Christian lighthouse of the world‘, and ~ indeed the formerly dark continent has proven fertile ground for the countless missionaries who have boldly gone there. Julian Pettifer reports on this very Christian place, and some of the strange hybrids that have developed the re. I K2: Triumph and Tragedy (C4) 8-9pm. A well-deserved repeat for this documentary about the world‘s most dangerous mountain, which claimed 13 lives in August 1986 alone. I Prince Igor (BBC2) 8.50pm-12.25am. The spectacular Royal Opera House production of Borodin‘s ‘epic Russian opera’, with more than 200 performers. a cast of Slavonic soloists and the Royal Ballet, marks the 100th anniversary ofthc Opera's first performance. Ithirtysomething (C4) 9-10pm. Returning for its third series on British TV. and promoted to a Saturday night slot, the American series for grown-up people who'd rather not grow any more — and are having a hard enough time coping with being grown-up in the first place. ls it a ‘reassuring, classy soap‘ or ‘boring self-indulgent garbage"? The Emmy Awards favoured the first option.
I DorderWartare (C4) 10—1 1pm. The third and final part of Wildcat Theatre‘s account of Scottish history, written by John McGrath, takes us up to date, from the 18th-century riots against the Act of Union to Thatcherism and pitch invasions. I National Lampoon's Vacation (BBC!) 10.30pm—12.05am. Ghostbusters director Harold Ramis took the wheel for this unsubtle comedy from the Animal House stable. Chevy Chase is the father driving his family on a compute r-planncd cross-country motoring holiday, encountering awful jokes on the way.
I 9% Weeks (Sky Movies) 11.45pm—1.45am. Mickey Rourke puts Kim Basinger through some disturbing sexual rites. ‘Empty-headed designer bonking', according to our film index I
IVoyagetoitaly(BBC2)12.25—1.35am. The second film in the Rossellini double bill has oft been praised as ‘onc of the most beautiful films ever made‘, and the story of a bored English couple holidaying in Italy builds up into a genuinely romantic affirmation of life.
I Theml (C4) 1.25—3 .05am. The classic giant ants picture. Nuffsaid.
SUNDAY 25 i
I Dut ot the East: Twelve Days in November
' (C4) 4.40-5.25pm. A report from , I Czechoslovakia, filmed as the unrest was i 1 beginning there last year. It was shown on
C4 at the time, but now it and two other
: films about the revolutions of 1989 are
being shown over the next three weeks as a contemporary historical record.
I Fragile Earth (C4) 7—8pm. The greening of the European vehicle industry, and how it is possible to make the production
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i 5‘ .kx'
I Planes, Trains and Automobiles. (15) 92 mins. Dur Steve is stranded with a corpulent salesman (John Candy)when theirtlightis cancelled. Determined to make it home lor turkey and blueberry pie, the two set 011 on a ioumey which makes Napoleon's retreat lrom Moscow look like a summerstroll. John Hughes 3 relinquishes his position as a teenage commentator and graduates into the adult comedy world withthis amiable road movie. Despite its somewhat toothless script it is, needless to say, a must lor in-house Martin tans. (ClC. Rental).
. IGettingltRight.(15)102 mins. Director Randal Kleiser'ssomewhatdated view of Britain, lots at a ; peopletuggingtheir f ; lorelocksandsinging through the Blitz, well not quite.morelikea halt-hearted attempt to re-create Allie. Jesse
Birdsall is a sexually retarded hairdresser keen to break his duck. Enter (they do. he doesn't) atrio ol prospective lovers in
olderwoman Lynn Redgrave, scatty aristo-punk Helena Bonham-Carter, and girl-next-door type Jane 1 Horrocks. Horrendous i caricatures each and every one at them, know whatl ! mean? (Medusa, Rental)
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3 I The Rainbow.(15) (Ken
| Russell, UK, 1989) Sammi
Davis, Paul McGann.
Amanda Donohoe. Glenda Jackson. 104 mins. ‘Mad' Ken delivers an unusually restrained literary I adaptation ol the DH. l Lawrence novel. Sammi ; Davis (not the elderly black I tap dancer) is the young country lass anxious to see something of lite. She gets to grips with her lusty bisexual teacher Donohoe and has a (ling with taithless soldierboy Paul McGann en route to sexual awakening. Colourtul though it is. The Rainbow, rather pales in comparison to The Devils. Crimes 0i Passion orWomen In Love. (Vestron Video. Rental).
The List 23 Februarv — 8 March 1990 73