TELEVISION TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS FILMS
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I The Family Jewels (BBCl) 12.45—2.20am. An orgiastic delight for the Rupert Pupkins of this world. as Jerry Lewis dons no fewer than seven disguises (including that of Mafia Don) to play the various uncles from whom an orphaned girl must pick an adoptive father. Slushy 1965 comedy.
I Massacre in Rome (Scottish) 2.35—4.20am. Richard Burton and Marcello Mastroianni in a World War 11 adventure about a Vatican priest opposing the killing of 300 hostages in Rome.
FRIDAY 30
I Return to Glennascau (BBCZ) 8.05—8.35am. Orson Welles made this ghost story during breaks in the shooting of Othello. about a man who picks up a hitch-hiker with a strange story to tell.
I Portrait of Jenny (BBCZ) 8.35—10am. A struggling artist encounters the mysterious Jenny Appleton. who sings him a song before disappearing. She reappears periodically during the winter and the artist believes he has found his inspiration.
I The Rouge Stallion (Scottish) 10.25am—12.25pm. A widow and her children move to New Zealand and after saving a wild horse. they discover the reason for local landowners‘ hostility towards them.
I Freaky Friday (BBCI) Ham-12.35pm. Disney comedy with a young Jodie Foster. who changes places with her mother.
I A Song Is Born (Channel 4) 1.30—3.35pm. Howard Hawks musical with Danny Kaye as a musicologist who begins stepping out with a nightclub singer.
I Problem Child (BBC 1) 2.35—3.50pm. Adopted and returned 30 times to the orphanage. Junior is a troublesome child. a monster for foster parents. Now yet another hapless couple have taken him into their home. and all hell is going to descend upon them. Flippant and funny. I Journey to 02 (Scottish) 3.30-5.10pm. An animated Dorothy. with voice by Liza Minnelli. journeys back to Oz to find evil is still alive and well in the magic land. I Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (BBCZ) 4—5.40pm. Classic MGM a11- singing all-dancing musical loosely based on the Rape of the Sabine Women. Despite the arch symmetry. it remains a colourful and vigorous affair with a cosin effective score and excellent choreography.
I The Four Feathers (Channel 4) 4.50—7pm. The son of an army family resigns his commission before his regiment heads off to war. He receives white feathers from three fellow officers and his fiancee. who all accuse him off cowardice. Stung into action. he enters the war his own way.
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I Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (BBC 1) 6.35-8pm. Made cheaply and made millions. though turtle merchandising fever has thankfully died down.
I Rambling Rose (BBCZ) 9—10.50pm. Sleepy Georgia of 1935 is the setting for this classy period piece in which a barefoot farm girl is taken in by a more prosperous family. Rose (Laura Dern) is a naive temptress and among those who fall
for her simple charms are thirteen-year- old Buddy.
I Stir Crazy (Scottish) 10.20pm—12.25am. Entertaining prison comedy with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as two wrongly-imprisoned jail birds who plan a breakout.
I Get Carter (BBCl) 12.10—2am. Michael Caine as Jack Carter returns to his native Newcastle to investigate the mysterious death of his brother. and becomes embroiled in the local underworld. Excellent British take on the American noir gangster movie.
I The Swarm (Scottish) 12.25-3. 10am. A scientist. who discovers a swarm of killer bees is heading for Houston. clashes with the military over the most effective way to deal with the buzzing threat.
I Zardoz (Channel 4) 12.35—2.40am. Bizarre and bleak 70s sci-ft from John Boorman. Colourful and sparky. but weighed down by hippy-drippy anti-war kick. Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling star.
HDGMANAY
I Asterix and Cleopatra (Scottish) 9.25—1 1. 10pm. Asterix. Obelix. Getaftx and Dogmatix head to Egypt for animated
; fun based on the ever-popular cartoon
books.’
I Gigi (BBCZ) 3.10—5pm. A magnificent Vincente Minneli musical set in Paris in 1900 about a young girl who turns her back on her family by marrying an unsuitable man.
I Stop 0r Mom Will Shoot (BBC 1) 6.50—8. 10pm. Unfunny Sylvester Stallone comedy with Sly playing a cop who fights the bad guys and sleeps with the boss when he‘s not being fussed over by his Clucking mother.
I Two-Way Stretch (Channel 4) 7.50-9.30pm. Early Peter Sellers comedy from 1960. with a cast of British favourites including Bernard Cribbens and Wilfrid Hyde White who play a prison
I breakout gang headed by Sellers.
‘ I like Father, like Son (Scottish)
9-10.55pm. Reasonably funny body swap comedy with Dudley Moore as a surgeon who gets to act like a teenager when he accidently trades places with his son.
I The Smallest Show on Earth (Channel 4) 930-1 1pm. Second in the Peter Sellers double bill about a young couple who take over a run-down cinema.
NEW YEAR’S DAY
I It’s Always Fair Weather (BBC 1) 7.35—9. 15am. Gene Kelly musical about three wartime pals who organise a reunion.
I Summer Holiday (BBCl) 11.10am-12.55pm. As in ‘We're all going on a . . .‘ Cliff Richard vehicle (a double- decker bus) for songs and good time vibes on a trip to Greece.
I The little Kidnappers (Scottish) 12.40—2. 15pm. Turn of the century drama about two Scottish orphans who. after being sent to their grandfather in Canada. mistakenly kidnap a neighbour‘s baby.
I Tom Thumb (Channel 4) 1.15—2.55pm. Children‘s musical about the tiny character who gets the better of his elders. with Peter Sellers and Terry Thomas as the outsmarted baddies.
I Star Trek Ill: The Search for Spock (BBCI) 2.20—4pm. Leonard Nimoy directed this excellent instalment of the big screen Trekkie saga. in a story about the search for Spock‘s body. Meanwhile the Enterprise itself faces a final journey to the spaceship breaker’s yard.
I liragonslayer(Scottish) 3.15-5. 15pm. Scary adventure fantasy get in medieval times. with one of the best special effects dragons in the business.
I The Red Shoes (Channel 4) 5.30—8pm. Unbeatable dance film from Powell and Pressburger about a young ballet dancer pulled in opposite directions by the two men in her life. Should she sacrifice love for her art? Screened with a documentary
94 The List 16 December 1994—12 January 1995
about Emeric Pressburger by his grandsons. See Television highlights.
I LA Story (BBCZ) 9.30-1 lptn. Entertaining comedy fantasy about a city of shallowness with Steve Martin as a television weatherman who undergoes a major life transformation when neon advertising signs begin to send him messages.
I G.I. Blues (Channel 4) 10pm—midnight. Capitalising on Elvis‘ stint in the army. Hollywood makes a GI. movie about a guitar-playing soldier stationed in Germany. including hit songs ‘Wooden Heart' and ‘Blue Suede Shoes‘. First in a short season of Elvis programmes and films. See feature.
I The Rocketeer (Scottish)
11.15pm— I. 15am. Entertaining comedy about movies in the 30s with Timothy Dalton as a Nazi agent trying to steal Howard Hughes‘ rocket.
I Breakfast at Tiffany’s (BBC 1 ) 12.10-2am. Truman Capote wrote the book. Blake Edwards directed and Audrey Hepburn plays marvellously the kooky good-time girl who befriends struggling writer George Peppard. A perfect combination.
I Tilt (Scottish) 1.15—3.15am. Pinball movie with Brooke Shields as the flipper queen who challenges the reigning champ. I Fun in Acapulco (Channel 4) 1.20—3am. Ursula Andrews is Elvis’ ‘Bossa Nova Baby‘ in a film about a singing lightguard.
I New Road to India (Scottish) 3.15—5.55am.
JANUARY 2
I Return oi Peter Crimm (B BC2) 7.30—8.50am. Lionel Barrymore as well- meaning Peter Grimm arranges the marriage of his adopted daughter shortly before his death. The husband he choses turns out to be a bounder and Grimm returns as a ghost to sort out the marital problem.
I The Curse of the Cat People (BBCZ) 8.50—10am. Sequel to the creepy Cat People this is an equally unsettling film from 1944 about a young boy who enters a fantasy world inhabited by the ghost of his father‘s first wife.
I Return to 02 (BBC 1) Ham—12.45pm. Sequel to The Wizard ()fO: with Dorothy returning to 02 to find the Emerald City in ruins.
I Citizen Kane (BBCZ) 12.15—2.10pm. Orson Welles‘ arguably unsurpassed masterpiece based loosely on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. The story is told in flashback as
newspaper reporters search for the key to ‘
Kane‘s life after his death.
I Guns in the Heather (Scottish) [2.40-2.40pm. Spy adventure from 1968 starring Glenn Corbett.
I Bless This House (BBCI) 1.30—3pm. Started off as a sitcom with stars Sid James and Diana Coupland transferring to the big screen as a suburban couple whose son is about to get hitched. Expect Curry Oil-style humour.
I On Golden Pond (Scottish) 2.30—4.30pm. Classy ifsentimental drama with an excellent performance from Henry Fonda. his last as it turned out. about an old man worried about senility. Jane Fonda plays his daughter and Katherine Hepburn his wife.
I Superman IV: The Guest for Peace (Scottish) 5.15—7pm. Not very good instalment of Clarke Kent‘s big screen adventures, with the superhero doing battle with evil computer programmer Richard Pryor.
I Carousel (BBCZ) 6—8.05pm. Gordon McCrae is a carnival master of ceremonies who abuses his girlfriend in this all-singing.a11-dancing Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
I Blue Hawaii (Channel 4) 7.05—9pm. Elvis is a tour guide put in charge of a group of school girls. whose advances he fends off without much success.
I Gorillas in the Mist (BBCl) 8.30—10.35pm. Based on the true story of an anthropologist's attempts to save gorillas in Africa. Stunning scenery and a powerful performance from Sigourney Weaver as the obsessive conservationist. I Elvis and the Colonel (Channel 4) 9.30—11.20pm. Docu-drama about Elvis' relationship with his powerful manager who had an enormous influence on the singer‘s life and career.
I Poltergeist III (Scottish) lO.50pm—l2.35am. The restless spirits from the other side are still after O’Rourke. now living with relatives. This movie is almost. but not quite. absurdly awful enough to be funny.
I The Doors (BBCZ) 10.()5p1n—12.20am. Oliver Stone takes on the over-sized Jim
Morrison legend and isn‘t found lacking. Some magnificent sequences such as the Doors in the desert. and some preposterous telescoping of events — Morrison and Manzarek form a band and within seconds they‘re knocking out ‘Light My Fire’.
I King Creole (Channel 4) 11.20pm-1.30am. One of the best products of Elvis in Hollywood is about a nightclub singer who becomes embroiled in the New Orleans underworld.
I Code of Silence (BBC 1) 12.10—1.45am. Chuck Norris is a Chicago policeman waging war against the city's drug barons in this entertaining action thriller.
I Shooter (Scottish) 1235-1152111). Television movie based on the exploits of a band of gung-ho war photographers in Vietnam.
I Girls! Girls! Girls! (Channel 4) 2.45—4.35am. Elvis as seafaring gent who moonlights as a club singer.
I Don’t look Now We’re Being Shot At (Scottish) 2.45—5pm. Terry Thomas is a squadron leader who bails out over France. only to land in the middle of a French farce from 1966.
TUESDAY 3
I Come live With Me (BBCZ) 9.05—10.30am. Marriage-of-convenience comedy with James Stewart as a writer who gets hitched to an Austrian woman who wants to live in America.
I Hall a Sixpence (BBC2) l().30am—12.50pm. A chipper Tommy Steele inherits a fortune and heads for the upper echelons in this sparky musical.
I Devotion (Channel 4)
10.30am—12. 15pm. English litertature hammed up for Hollywood with this story about the Brente sisters.
I Magnificent Obsession (BBCZ) 1.15—3pm. latte Wyman and Rock Hudson in a film about an eye surgeon who restores the sight of a woman be blinded in a car crash.
I Father, Dear Father (BBCl ) 2.15—3.50pm. Based on the television series with Patrick Cargill as a writer with teenage daughters contemplating a second marriage.
I Man With the Gun (Channel 4) 2.25-3.50pm. Suspenseful western with Robert Mitchum as the sheriff rounding up the baddies.
I Big Top Pee Wee (BBCZ) 7.10—8.30pm. The circus comes to town and Pee Wee Herman gets a fixation. Off-centre comedy from Paul Reubens who started as a big hit with kids but has his share ofcult appeal amongst adults.
I Simple Men (Channel 4) 10—1 1.45pm. Excellent road movie by cult director Hal Hartley. whose new film Amateur is out now. about a couple of brothers who set out in search of their father. Downbeat but plenty of dry humour.
I Vigil (BBC2) 12.20—1.55am. New Zealand film about a stranger who arrives at the farm run by a widow and her daughter.
I Jack Ahoy! (Channel 4) 1.25—2.45am. Comedy with Jack Hulbert as a sailor who saves the admiral's daughter from bandits.