Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), Monday 26 September 1994, page 30


TV MOVIES

1. GREAT VIEWING 2. WORTH A LOOK 3. IN DESPERATION

The First Teachcr (1965), 12.30pm, SBS: This Soviet film, directed by Andrei Mikhaikov-Konchalovsky, is set in 1923 and centres on a young teacher who arrives in a poor Kirghiz village, meeting with/hostility from the locals as he attempts to change their ways. Natalia Arinbasarova won Best Actress at Venice in 1966 for her role. O

Chocolat (1988), 9.30pm, SBS: Director Claire Denis recalls the last years of French colonialism in West Africa through the memories of the daughter of a district officer in 1950s' Cameroon; It is .an "intriguing, dignified" film, says Bloomsbury's Foreign Film Guide, in which there is a sense that "ultimate harmony is doomed by misperception and 'progress'.". ©.

Better Off Dead (1985), 12.30am (Win): Rudderless comedy drama starring John Cusack and David Ogden Stiers about a teenager who despairs when his girlfriend ditches him — that is, until the new girl comes along. ©

Hey! Hey! USA (1938), 2aro, ABC:

For some reason, the ABC is show-, ing two films this week from the .'30s about heroic education experts, and both involving a Will Hay. Will acts in this one in which the expert sails to America, falls in love with gangsters, and saves a boy from being kidnapped by them. © The Servant (1963), 2.20am (Win): This Harold Pinter screenplay has a star cast including Dirk Bogarde, James Fox, Sarah Miles and Wendy Craig. A rich, ineffectual young man is gradually debased and overruled by his sinister manservant and his sexy "sister". ©

TUESDAY

Rockabye (1986), 12 noon, (Prime): A young mother's baby is kidnapped in midtown New York and an ambitious woman journalist helps her search. ©

My Friend Ivan Lapshin (1986), 12.10am (SBS): Ivan Lapshin, a police chief in a provincial Russian town in the cold winter of 1935 is intent on tracking down a notorious gang of criminals, and in particular, its ruthless leader. Directed by Alexei Gherman, it offers outstanding performances and detail of Soviet life in the lead-up to the Stalin purges. ©

Where. There's a Will (1936), 2am (ABC): Well, yes, there is a Will in this one, too — Will Hay, in fact, who wrote it. In this one, a seedy education expert sponges on his rich relations but redeems himself by rounding up gangsters at a Christmas party.

Why did so many experts in the 1930s find education so unfulfilling

Marianne Sagebrecht and Brad Davis in Rosalie Goes Shopping on Saturday at noon on the ABC.

that they yearned for excitement? ©

WEDNESDAY

An Eight is Enough Wedding (1989), 12 noon (Prime): I think we can all guess what sort of wedding this is going to be. The Bradfords don't go out of their way at first to welcome David's second wife, but if they haven't seen the error of their judgmental ways by the end of the program, 1 think 1 might watch it. © '

Gervaise (1956), 12.30pm (SBS): Rene Clement directs this screen adaptation of Emile Zola's L'Assommoir. Maria Schell, who won Best Actress at Venice in 1956, plays a washerwoman who is aban. doned by the father of her two

children and tries to create a new life for herself, but finds the poverty of 19th century Paris crushing. ©

Third Degree Burn (1989), 8.30pm (WIN): Hired to trail a millionaire's alluring wife, private investigator Scott Weston winds up in a torrid -affair with her —and. becomes the prime suspect when the millionaire is murdered. Stars Teat Williams and Virginia Massen. ©

Turtle. Diary (1985), 1.30am (WIN): Two self-confessed eccentrics take it upon themselves to release turtles from captivity in the London Zoo. Another Harold Pinter screenplay, with Glenda Jackson and Ben Kingsley in the main roles. ©

Hands of a Stranger (1962), 2.05am (ABC): After a pianist's hands are

mutilated in an accident, the hands of a murderer are transplanted to his wrists with dire consequences. Stars Paul Lukather, Joan Harvey, Irish McCalla, Barry Gordon. Q

Peeping Tom (1960), 3.20am (WIN): Another love-it-or-hate-it number, depending on your sensibilities. Directed by Michael Powell and starring Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer and Anna Massey, it's about a psychopathic murderer who photographs his victims at the moment of death. Q or ©

THURSDAY

My First Love (1988), 12 noon (Prime): When widow Jean (Bea Arthur) resumes a relationship with Sam, a high-school sweetheart, she finds herself competing against a younger woman to win him back. Also stars Joan Van Ark. Q

La Belle Noiseuse (1991), 9.30pm (SBS): An .artist who had abandoned painting a decade earlier persuades .Marianne (Emmanuelle Beart) to pose nude for him. But he asks her to bare more than her body. Winner of the 1991 Cannes Jury Prize. From France. Q

FRIDAY

Burke and Wills (1985), 12' noon (Prime): Jack Thompson plays Robert O'Hara Burke and Nigel Havers plays surveyor William John Wills in this epic about the men who were the first to cross the

Australian continent, but who died on the return trip. Also stars Ralph Cotterill, Greta Scacchi and Drew Forsythe. ©

Aerograd (1935), 12.30ptn (SBS): Bloom.sbury calls it "one of the most unforgettable of. Soviet films of the 1930s". A new city under construction in Siberia is almost destroyed by eight Japanese saboteurs smuggling dynamite across the border. Although overly patriotic, memorable scencs include a plane fight, a priest comforting war widows, and a villain dying mouthing the words "Mama". Q -

Broken Lance (1954), 8.30pm (ABC): Spencer Tracey, Richard Widmark and . Robert Wagner star in this stftry about a Texas cattle baron who finds his power disintegrating when conflict arises between sons of his first and second marriage. A western remake of House of Strangers. O '

SATURDAY

Rosalie Goes Shopping (1989), 12 noon (ABC): The delightful Marianne Sagebrecht stars in the comedy about a materialistic Bavarian woman who lives with her American husband in Stuttgart, Arkansas. Rosalie somehow manages to beat the system despite her addiction to credit cards. A poke in the eye at American consumerism. Q

Green Grass of Home. (1982), 12.30pm (SBS): Hou Xiaoxian's film centres on a university graduate who is posted to the country as

a teacher, bringing positive changes to the lives of the locals. Directed by Hou Xiaoxian, From Taiwan, in Mandarin. Q

One Crazy Summer (1986), 8.30pm (WIN): Follow up to Better Off Dead (Monday, Win). A teenage misfit spends the summer in New England. With John Cusack and Demi Moore. ©

Hollywood Harry (1985), 1.25am, (WIN): Robert Forster- and Joe Spinel! star in this ordinary film about a private eye employed to find a young girl who has turned up in an X-rated movie. ©

Naked Prey (1966), 3.15am, (WIN): Cornel Wilde directed and. stars in this well-done safari movie. In 1840. African natives give a white hunter a headstart before they close in on him for the kill as if he were a lion. Q

SUNDAY

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955), 2.30pm (Capital): James Stewart and Doris Day star in Hitchcock's disappointing remake of his 1934 film of the same title. An American doctor and his wife witness the murder of a French secret service agent who tells them before dying of an assassination that is to take place soon. Doris's Que Sera Sent tagged a Best Song Oscar to the film. ©

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), 8.30pm (Win): Harrison Ford dons his rumpled fedora for the third, time as Indiana Jones, this time to look for his lather (Sean Connery) who disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail. It fits the template stamped by the other two. but is a marvellous Saturday-matinee-styie, flick all the , same. .Directed by Spielberg, it co

stars Denholm Elliot and River Phoenix. O

Cody — A Family Affair (1994), 8.30pm (Prime): Australian drama starring Gary Sweet as Cody, a cop who's not afraid to break a few rules. Cody and his off-sider, Fiorelli, are on the trail of-a diamond smuggling ring but a search of a car shipment from overseas reveals no hidden diamonds. So Cody goes undercover as a diamond dealer ■— until an old friend unwittingly blows his cover. ©

Brimstone (1949), 4.15am (Prime): A US marshall brings a bunch of cattle-rustling outlaws to halt. Stars Rod Cameron. Walter Brennan and Adrian Booth. © >

List compiled by MAX McMANUS with the help of Bloomsbury's Foreign Film Guide, Leonard Mallln's Movie and Video Guide 1994, and Halllwell's Film Guide. For space reasons, not all movies screening

are listed.

The Ratings Report

Weekly shares*, 6pm to midnight, week beginning September 11

Prime WIN Capital • ABC SBS 21.8 31.0 27.0 17.2 3.0

The Top 20 programs

PROGRAM

STATION

DAY

RATING*

AUDIENCE'

1 Lois & Clark

Prime

Monday

18.0

73

2 World's Greatest Commercials

Prime

Sunday

17.2

70

3 RL: Winfield Cup

WIN

Sunday

16.9

' 69

4 Eyewitness News

Capital

Sunday

15.2

62

5 Baywatch

Capital

Sunday

14.6

.59

6 Seaquest DSV

Capital

Sunday

14.3

58

7 Home Improvement

Prime

Wednesday

13.9

' 56

8 Hey Hey its Saturday

WIN

Saturday

■ 13.7

56

9 Heartbeat

ABC

Sunday

- 13.0

53

10 Sixty Minutes

WIN

Sunday

12.9

52

11 Seinfeld

Capital

Tuesday

12.8

52

12 RL: Brisbane v Norths

Prime

Saturday

12.7

52

13 Simpsons

Capital

Weeknights

12.1

49

14 Mad About You

Capital

Tuesday

11.9

48

15 Burkes Backyard

WIN

Friday

11.8

48

16 Eyewitness News

Capital

Saturday

' 11.6

47

17 Looking Good

WIN

Wednesday

11.4

46

18 Blossom

Prime

Thursday

11.4

46

19 Eyewitness News

Capital

Weeknights

11.3

.46

20 Home Improvement

Prime

Sunday

11.2

45

'Shares are a percentage ol the people actually viewing. Ratings are a percentage ol the potential audience. Ratings

figures are averaged out over the past four weeks accounting for the most recent figures each week '

The' audience figures 'are In thousands. Source: AC Nielsen (