15 - 21 APRIL 2023

Since the pandemic, I have wondered if cinema as we know it (or would like it) is still viable. Two films were reviewed in my newspaper last Friday: Air, a film about a training shoe, and a Super Mario Brothers movie. Good grief! Mind you, new TV offerings are also in short supply this week – so we’ll focus on golden oldies (or not-so-golden as the case may be). 
TIGHT SPOT (1955) Saturday 15 April 9.30-11.25pm TP (Channel 82)    
This is quite a rare example of 1950’s film noir: Ginger Rogers is the girlfriend who is reluctant to testify against gangster Lorne Greene (later Ben Cartwright in Bonanza); Brian Keith is her protection and Edward G Robinson the attorney. Director Phil Karlson’s best work was with medium-budget thrillers (although he did make the 1951 Lorna Doone). His The Phenix City Story, released the same year, is a cracker, although neither could match Joseph H. Lewis’s The Big Combo. The 1955 vintage was, truly, a memorable one! 
THE SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH (1957) Sunday 16 April 3.00-4.40pm TP (Ch 82)         
Expectations for Empire of Light have been high, but it is light years away from this British classic. Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna inherit a run-down cinema; its staff includes Peter Sellers and Margaret Rutherford. The film is a peerless, and respectful, tribute to the dedication and love of film that, for decades, were the mainstay of so many small-town cinemas. 
BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA (1966) Wednesday 19 April 3.00-4.30pm Legend (Channel 41)       
Wow – nice one and thank you, Legend! John Carradine essays the role of Dracula one more time; the famous outlaw who bars his path is played by Chuck Courtney who, if memory serves, played Dan Reid, the nephew of the Lone Ranger, in the popular TV series. (If it doesn’t serve, I’ll apologise next week!) It was the penultimate film of William ‘One Shot’ Beaudine. He started his career directing shorts in 1915, and did some good early work with Mary Pickford, W.C. Fields and our own Will Hay. However, of the 120-or-so films he made after 1938, only a couple rose above the Grade Z level (and this wasn’t one of them). Will members please join me in my prayers: ‘Legend, we implore you to show his final “masterpiece” Jesse James meets Frankenstein’s Daughter’ . . . .