MEDIA LIST
FRIDAY 15
I Eye to Eye (BBCZ) 8—8.30pm. The life and times of Claudia Jones. who founded both the West Indian Gazette and the Notting Hill Carnival. and has been an inspirational figure for two generations of black people in this country.
I The Way of an Eagle (C4) 8—8.3(lpm. Bill Paterson lends his distinctive tones toa documentary on the much-misunderstood golden eagle.
I Omnibus (BBCl) 10.20—1 1 .20pm. The question ofwhether it‘s possible to portray the brutality of rape on film. avoiding titillation. was brought to a head by The Accused. This programme . entitled Rape: That's [:‘rilerrainmeni? . looks at the way this topic has been treated in the cinema. I Alfred Hitchcock (C4) 10.30—11.4(lpm. See panel.
I Bound for Glory (C4) 11.40pm—2.25am. David (Kung Fu) Carradine plays Woody Guthrie in this acclaimed 1976 movie. based on the singer‘s autobiography. Resonances with The Grapes ofWrath abound — not least because Carradine‘s father appeared in the earlierfilm.
SATURDAY 16
I Rapido (BBCZ) 6. 15—6.45pm. The very wonderful Antoine de Caunes — and ifyou can understand more than one word out of his every hundred then your name‘s Miles Kington — links the Eurythmics. Tears For Fears. Bon Jovi. Jim Jarmusch and Swiss gypsy Stephan Eicher.
I The Last Night of the Proms(BBC2) 7.30—8.25pm. (BBCl ) 8.55—10pm. Sick bags at the ready. Word has it that this year‘s theme is to be the lagerlout.
I Have You Seen Drum Recently? (BBCZ) 8.25—9.45pm. Drum was a magazine. based on Life and Picture Post. which was launched in I95] and aimed to reflect life in the black townships of South Africa. This programme. made by its first staff photographer. Jurgen Schadeburg. is both a story of the magazine and of black South African life in the Fifties. I L‘Histoire d'Adele (C4) 9— l().5()pm. Truffaut‘s film version of the true storyof Victor llugo‘s daughter. who fell in love with an English officer and descended into madness. stars Isabelle Adjani and Bruce Robinson. who was later to write and direct Wit/mail and I and How to (iel Ahead in A (1 t'eriising.
I The New Homeowner's Guideto Happiness (BBCZ) 9.45—10. l5pm. Judge (Beverly Hills ( 'op) Reinhold and Demi (Blame it on Rio) Moore as an upwardly-mobile couple in the second of three specials featuring American comics. I The Robbie Coltrane Special (Scottish) l().1(l—l 1.10pm. The comic actor. veteran of 21 film roles and inumerable TV appearances. shows off his gift for disguise in a number of sketches: aspoof documentary on the ill-starred rock group Robbie Wilson and Sedgley Park; a parody of the old black-and-white Scotland Yard case histories; and slipping into drag as the headmistress of aSt Trinians-type school for a sly comment on privatising education.
I Saturday Matters ( BBCI)
ill. 15— 10.45pm. To scotch the rumours of his recent death. Neil Kinnock chats to Sue Lawley. (iasp as he swerves past any probing policy questions. (iroan as he
splatters right into them.
I Talk of the Week (C4) 10.50—11.50pm. Melvyn Bragg presents a one-off talk show in which he and his guests discuss the week behind them. Don‘t expect The Last Resort.
I Absence of Malice (BBCI) l().55pm—12.5()am. Paul Newman and Sally Field star in Sydney Pollack‘s tense 1981 movie. A union leader in Miami disappears and the finger points at innocent liquor merchant Newman.
SUNDAY 17
I On the Record (BBCl) l—2pm. Return of the excellent lunchtime political magazine programme. distinguished by the crocodile graphics and John ‘Trevor‘ Cole‘s witty Westminster diary.
I The All-Ireland Gaelic Football Final (C4) 3.15—5.05pm. From Croke Park. Dublin.
_ PSYCHDTIC REACTION
Preceded by a documentary built around a rare interview with the Master of Suspense himself (Friday 15), Channel 4 begins the most extensive restrospective it has dedicated to any director with Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers on a Train’ on Sun 17. The 26 films being shown in the season comprise around half of Hitch’s total output, from his first British-made talkie, ‘Blackmail’ (1929), and a showcase film entitled ‘Elstree Calling’ to which he contributed one sequence, to his last Hollywood hits; ‘Psycho’ (1960), ‘The Birds’ (1963) and ‘Marnie’ (1964), taking in murder movies and psychological thrillers that set such a standard that their creator’s name became the adjective that younger directors aspired to have tagged on to their own films.
The season includes his two favourite examples of his own work, ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943), his quietestiilm, and ‘The Trouble With Harry’ (1956), about a corpse that just won’t stay buried, as well as the only film he based on real events; the unforgettable ‘The Wrong Man’ (1957), starring Henry Fonda as the innocent jazz musician accused of armed robbery.
Also of note are two films in which Hitchcock imposed severe limitations on himself, namely ‘Rear Window’ (1954), seen from the point of view of a wheelchair-bound James Stewart, and ‘Rope’ (1948), an adaptation of Jack Hamilton's play, with Stewart again, filmed in continuous takes the whole length of a 35mm reel. Not to be missed is the virtuoso piece ‘Forelgn Correspondent‘ (1940) which ended up with an impassioned plea for America to join the War and which was praised as ‘a masterpiece of propaganda’ by none other than Joseph Goebbels.
‘Rebecca' (1940), adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s novel, was
the close relative of Australian Rules Football is played between Mayo and Cork.
I Not in the Stars (C4) 7—8pm. Computer predictions are made for just about everything that affects humankind as scientists inch towards a completely mathematical form of clairvoyance. This programme shows how they build computer models of the outside world in much the same way as our brains do. and basically asks why we bother at all ifthe results are likely to be unreliable. From the same team that made the Chaos documentary.
I Man and Music: Vienna - End of an Empire (C4) 8—9pm. The first of a trio of programmes takes the period 1820—1890. when the city was the musical capital ofa dwindling empire. Next week. we see the full flowering in painting. architecture and music that took place in Vienna in the closing years of the l9th Century.
I The Boat (BBCZ) 8.05—9.30pm. Welcome repeat of the two-part award-winning German series set in the claustrophobic confines ofsubmarine U-96: ‘a journey through hell'.
I Screen One: 1996 (BBCI)
9.05— 10.40pm. Keith Barron plays a Scotland Yard detective who. in the mid-1990s. is called to Wales to investigate a series of shootings by the police. eventually finding his own life at risk.
I Hitch on 4: Strangers on a Train (C4)
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described by the esteemed critic Leslie Halliwell as ‘the supreme Hollywood entertainment package’, and is the third film in the season on Tues 24, followed by another Daphne du Maurier adaptation, ‘Jamaica Inn’ (1939) in November.
Hitchcock much preferred making adaptations to having his writers generate original stories. Authors like the aforementioned Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith and Jack Trevor Story were adapted by screenwriters of the calibre of Thornton Wilder, Raymond Chandler and J B Priestley.
That doesn‘t mean that the scripts were faultless, but Hitchcock’s assured direction usually carried them through, with the help of screen favourites like Ray Milland and Grace Kelly in ‘Dial M For Murder' (1954), Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren in ‘Marnie’, Montgomery Clift in ‘I Conless’ (1953), the various appearances of James Stewart and of course the immortal characterisation of ‘Psycho”s Norman Dates by Anthony Perkins. (Alastair Mabbott)
9—10.55pm. See panel.
I Young Guns: Pretty in Pink (BBC2) 1(l.1()—1 l.45pm. The first in a season of recent American films is the movie that launched Molly Ringwald. a girl fromthe wrong side of the tracks who secretly dreams of (wait for it) gatecrashingthe high school prom.
I The South Bank Show (Scottish)
10.35—1 1 .35pm. Amier. only slightly preferable to Amis Sr. airs his views on class. porn. fatherhood and London. while Harry Enfield plays the lager lout Keith in dramatised sections from Amis‘s new novel. London Fields
MONDAY 18
I Eminent Victorians (BBCZ) 8.20—9pm. Starting tonight. novelist and biographer A N Wilson looks at the lives of six great men and women of the 19th Century. The first subject. Prince Albert. says Wilson. actually embodied the characteristics attributed to his wife. Victoria.
I Caught on a Train (BBCZ) 9—10.20pm. Poliakoff is often drab stuff to plough through. but this play. starring Peggy Ashcroft. caught the imagination of enough people to win it a carriageful of awards.
I A Nuclear Free Pacific (C4) 9-10pm. The history of nuclear testing and dumping in the South Pacific. leading up to the Treaty of Raratonga. which made it a nuclearfree zone in 1985.
I China and Revolution (1911-1949) (C4)
1 1pm—12.05am. Touching only tangentially on the recent events in Tiananmen Square. this two-parter draws from archive footage and personal reminiscences. Followed by the movie Legendin Tianyun Mountain. the most popular film in China when it was made in 1981 . concerning the ‘anti-rightist‘ purge ofl957.
TUESDAY 19
I Survivors Guide ll (C4) 6.30-7pm. Returns to tackle a range ofissues facing young people and launch a nationwide investigation into the difficulties encountered in finding accommodation in a strange city. A tougher programme than the Bill & Ben presenters might suggest. I The Paradise Club (BBC!) 9.30—l().2()pm. Leslie Grantham‘s current bound-to-be-biggie. lle stars as the heir to a criminal empire whose brother happens to be an eccentric priest — shades of old Pat O'Brien movies here. and you can't go wrong with a chestnut of an idea like that.
WEDNESDAY 20
I Janet Jackson‘s Rhythm Nation 1814 (BBCZ) 6.50—7.20pm. ‘A spectacular music fantasy" based around her new album — shades of her brother‘s ill-conceived extravaganzas.
I Inside Story: Miss USSR (BBCl) 9.3(l—ll).3()pm. The chaotic preparations for the first Soviet beauty contest. an ideologically-dodgy undertaking by Gorby in order to show that the Russians are so civilised that they must import the erassest frivolities of the West before tampons and condoms.
THURSDAY 21
I Wildlife Showcase: The World of the Wlly Black Bear (BBCZ) 8—8.30pm. The relationship between man and the black bear in areas like Yosemite Park isthe subject of this programme, and it‘s a lot closer than we imagine from this comfortable distance. Laws in California prohibit food being left in a car where it can be seen — and forcibly extracted — by bears.
I ND (Scottish) l(l.35—l 1.05pm. Burnett. Campbell and Forsyth continue to unearth the best entertainment and arts happening in Central Scotland.
I Clive James Meets Jane Fonda (BBCl) 9.35—l().25pm. It took Clive James five
48 The List 15 — 28 September 1989