This Week on TCM
- Posted by Johanna on March 8, 2008 at 9:17 pm
- Category: Movies/TV
Some notes about what’s showing this week on Turner Classic Movies.
Where the Boys Are (Sunday, 3/9, 6:15 PM ET, 1960) — If you’re tired of winter weather, check out this classic paean to Spring Break mating rituals. Given its time period, you also get an old-fashioned message that boils down to “good girls get rich Ivy League boys, too-friendly girls don’t get called back, which leads to date rape, which makes them go crazy and wind up walking down a highway at night until they’re put into the hospital.” But until then, sun, fun, underage drinking, wacky hijinks with strippers, and college girls who admit that they’re interested in fooling around, before the sexual revolution.
The X From Outer Space (Monday, 3/10, 2:00 AM ET, 1967) — Gotta love Japanese monster movies — this one features a “giant chicken from outer space”. Not available on DVD! Make your own recording now!
Plan 9 From Outer Space (Monday, 3/10, 3:30 AM ET, 1959) — Ed Wood’s cheesy fan-favorite. Aliens, zombies, AND vampires, but all anyone remembers is the pie plate spaceships, the surprisingly light night scenes, and the guy who scratches himself with his own gun. I’d heard about it as the supposed Worst Film of All Time from the Golden Turkey Awards book long before I saw it. I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s entertainingly bad instead of “oh, please, make it stop!” bad.
And wow, that’s all I’m recommending this week. I guess I’ll finish up my Buffy rewatching session. Or maybe get more reading done.
March 9, 2008 at 8:39 am
Where the Boys Are is a long-time favorite, and a revelation to people who want to think that pre-pill, everyone was sexually pure. and it’s got GREAT actors (well, except for Connie Francis, and she’s still better than most singers of the era in terms of her acting). Jim Hutton should have been a mega-star, and Paula Prentiss is fabulous.
a fun, interesting movie, especially if people think it’s just another Beach Party movie (which is what most people seem to expect if they don’t know it at all).
March 9, 2008 at 12:27 pm
If you like PLAN 9, then I hope you caught Ray Dennis Steckler’s RAT FINK A BOO BOO on last Friday’s TCM Underground. Steckler is a film maker who enjoys the film making process enough to make lots of movies, but not so much as to feel driven to any sort of competency. RAT FINK A BOO BOO (”A” should have been “AND” but it was misspelled on the titles and Steckler didn’t see any compelling reason to fix it) apparently started life as two separate films, one about a rock and roll star, the other about a gang of psychopaths stalking a young woman.
Other directors might have been daunted at the idea of shooting a film about a rock star without sound, but Steckler often shoots MOS and dubs in dialog later. This helped him with RAT FINK because as he lost interest and actors in the two uncompleted films, he got the bright idea of suddenly turning the rock star into a costumed superhero, Rat Fink, who then saved the young woman from the psychos.
A clever salvage job (and Rat Fink wearing a mask helped disguised the fact it wasn’t the rock star actor for most of the film) but still not long enough to pad the movie out to feature length. So in the climactic battle a gorilla escapes from its keeper, grabs the heroine, and Rat Fink and Boo Boo are off to the rescue again.
Still not long enough? Steckler and co. in costume crashed a local Christmas parade and through editing and dubbing turned it into a victory parade for Rat Fink.
Not a good movie by a long shot, but like PLAN 9 a genuinely entertaining one.