| 06.50 |
Invitation to a Gunfighter
George Segal plays a Confederate soldier who returns from the war to find the Union townspeople have seized his farm and hired a gunfighter to kill him. Written and directed by Richard Wilson, an associate of Orson Welles back in the Mercury theatre and Citizen Kane days, it's an allegory about political exile and conformity that spends too much time in debate at the expense of action. Nevertheless, it's an engrossing effort, lifted by a knockout performance from Yul Brynner as the elegant, Creole gunfighter Jules Gaspard D'Estaing - and you'd better pronounce that right - a role he turned into an android for the sci-fi film Westworld.
|
| 08.40 |
Girl with Green Eyes
Adapted by Edna O'Brien from her novel, The Lonely Girl, this sensitive tale of opposites is blessed with a highly literate script and affecting performances. 1960s starlets Rita Tushingham and Lynn Redgrave play the shopgirls who share a room but little else, until they meet shy and retiring writer Peter Finch. The decline in their relationship, as it transpires that he prefers the mousey Tushingham to the blowsy Redgrave, is conveyed with great skill. Debutant director Desmond Davis wisely allows the cast to go about their business and captures the atmosphere of Dublin with the eye of an experienced cinematographer.
|
| 10.35 |
The Way West
Directed by Andrew V McLaglen from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by AB Guthrie Jr, this spectacular western boasts a magnificent leading trio of Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and Richard Widmark in roles they were born to play. The scale is impressive as politician Douglas leads a wagon train west along the hazardous Oregon Trail to California. Mitchum is remarkably good as a scout and watch out for the young Sally Field in her movie debut. Bronislau Kaper's outstanding score is a splendid accompaniment to the action and deserves to be better known.
|
|
13.00 |
The Happy Thieves
Richard Condon's first novel The Oldest Confession was an entertaining yarn which provided the basis for this unentertaining yawn. The cause lay in the fatigued direction by veteran George Marshall, and the full-of-holes script. Nor are matters helped by the uneasy pairing of Rex Harrison and Rita Hayworth as two art thieves attempting to steal a priceless Goya from the Prado in Madrid. Needless to say, the robbery, like the film, fails to come off.
|
| 15.00 |
Exodus
Leon Uris's bestseller gets the Otto Preminger treatment in this accomplished, epic-scale retelling of events leading to the birth of Israel in 1948. With a script by Dalton Trumbo, it's a gritty, forthright and marvellously cinematic experience, although an overlong one. Superbly filmed on location in Super Panavision 70mm, it really benefits from viewing on the huge screen for which it was intended. Some critics weren't happy about the all-star cast and sentiment, though it's hard to imagine better casting than Paul Newman as Haganah leader Ari Ben Canaan or Eva Marie Saint as nurse Kitty Fremont. Sal Mineo was nominated for best supporting actor as freedom fighter Dov Landau, but the Oscar went to Ernest Gold's marvellously grandiose music, which has achieved classic status.
|
| 19.15 |
Young Billy Young
This may not be Robert Mitchum's finest western, but the ambling star still brings plenty of charisma to his role as a town marshal (as well as providing song vocals over the opening credits). The plot is nothing to write home about and is sustained by a supporting cast that includes Angie Dickinson (as a glamorous saloon girl) and David Carradine (as a ruthless gunslinger). The Billy Young of the title (Robert Walker Jr) is a sharpshooter on the run, picked up by lawman Mitchum during the search for the killer of his son (played by Mitchum's own offspring, Chris). The wicked Carradine and the honest Mitchum battle for Billy's soul; no prizes for guessing the outcome.
|
| 21.00 |
Band of Brothers
Easy Company makes the grim discovery of a concentration camp when the soldiers finally enter Germany. As the local citizens - who claim they were ignorant of its existence - are forced into a clean-up operation, news arrives that Hitler has committed suicide. Damian Lewis and Donnie Wahlberg star.
|
| 22.10 |
Band of Brothers
Easy Company overruns Hitler's Bavarian fortress retreat and the privates compare points to see who will be returning home as they nervously await news of their impending deployment to the Pacific. Starring Damian Lewis and Donnie Wahlberg.
|
| 23.05 |
Network
This was a thunderous, strangely eerie swan song for Peter Finch, who plays a bilious and increasingly demented TV anchorman, ranting on air against his powerlessness. It's a bravura performance from Finch - who was awarded a posthumous Oscar - given full flight by Paddy Chayefsky's daring, sumptuously satirical script, which throws a continuous hail of barbs at the electronic eye. Sidney Lumet directs with wild aplomb, allowing Finch free rein and keeping up a furious pace. Criticised by some at the time for a certain naivety and lack of subtlety, this remains one of the most devastating condemnations of the media's urge to exploit.
|
