TCM Genre movies schedule...

[Christopher]

Oh, Tarzan definitely qualifies as fantasy/SF -- at least the original books do, with apes having their own languages, all sorts of lost civilizations and tribes of man-apes, etc. The movies have fewer of those elements, but their treatment of a feral human raised by apes is no doubt pretty fanciful -- and the supposed "jungles of Africa" that he operates in don't really correspond to anything in reality. (There's a relatively small amount of tropical rainforest in west/central Africa, but what Burroughs described was more like the South American rainforest, IIRC.)

A while back there was a TV show called Tarzan: The Epic Adventures that was filmed in South Africa, and there was a pretty blatant mismatch between the fake jungle set on the soundstage and the real African savannah of the location shooting, supposedly within walking distance of each other in story terms.

[Christopher]

Klaus wrote:

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Saturday 8/11 James Mason
5:30 PM Journey to the Center of the Earth (’59)

I just caught this one. Haven't seen it in a long time. I wasn't sure I wanted to revisit it, but it's actually a pretty good movie, if you can tolerate the musical numbers from Pat Boone, the barely-attempted "Scottish" accents, and the very weak acting from Diane Baker in a role that becomes quite minor after the first act. The script is good, with some clever dialogue, and James Mason and Arlene Dahl are strong leads. There's not a lot of scientific credibility in the story, yet there's some excellent dialogue about how science works as a discipline and why it's important to explore the unknown.

And of course the "Dimetrodon" iguanas with glued-on sails were a cheesy blast of nostalgia from my childhood. Plus I'm pleasantly surprised to discover that the film never made the mistake of referring to Dimetrodon as a species of dinosaur. (It actually predated the dinosaurs by 30 million years and belonged to the synapsids, the category of animal from which mammals descended, rather than reptiles.)


The next couple of weeks on TCM seem to be devoid of anything in the SF/fantasy area. The only things I can find with even peripheral genre interest are:

Requiem for a Heavyweight, Mon. Aug. 20, 10:45 AM: Written by Rod Serling
The Three Musketeers (1948), Tue. 8/21, 10:30 AM: If Robin Hood counts as a "superhero," maybe the Musketeers do?
Inherit the Wind, Wed. 8/22, 2 AM: Not science fiction, but it's about science and society.

[sojourner]

TCM is probably laying off the genre stuff until the Halloween season kicks in.

[RJDiogenes]

It seems to me that I saw Journey To The Center Of The Earth not too long ago. It's a great movie. Pure fantasy, but there's nothing wrong with that. You can't go wrong with underground oceans, giant monsters and ancient ruins.

[Christopher]

But that's what's interesting about it -- that a "pure fantasy" movie that was so bad with the factual details of science could get it so very right when talking about the philosophy of science and the methodology of the scientist.

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, that's an interesting juxtaposition. Of course, when the original novel was written it was probably not considered quite so way out. And the confident talk of scientific methodology probably contributes to the willing suspension of disbelief. Or maybe people just wanted to see the monsters.

[Christopher]

Well, I don't expect the average moviegoer to geek out over positive affirmations of the power of science and discovery the way I would.

[Klaus]

Here's a present for you then...

[RJDiogenes]

I think I'll go with "All the universe."

[Agent Richard07]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) is on tonight at 8PM EST.

[Greg Cox]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) is on tonight at 8PM EST.

Thanks for the alert, although I prefer the Fredric March version.

[Klaus]

Something about Tracy as a monster just doesn't compute...

[RJDiogenes]

I have a DVD with both the 30s version and the 40s version on it. After watching the 30s version, the 40s version is like My Fair Lady or something. It's not bad or anything, but the 30s version really crackles.

[J.T.B.]

This Saturday (Sept. 1):

7:45 am Eastern: The Black Cat
9:00: Thunderbirds Are Go
11:30: Fail Safe
4:00 pm: 2010

[Greg Cox]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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I have a DVD with both the 30s version and the 40s version on it. After watching the 30s version, the 40s version is like My Fair Lady or something. It's not bad or anything, but the 30s version really crackles.

It's the difference between pre-Code and post-Code Hollywood. The 30's version is surprising frank and brutal, especially in its depiction of the abusive relationship between Hyde and Ivy, while the 40's version seems rather too tame and tasteful by comparison.

Or so I recall. I haven't seen the Tracy version since I was a kid.

There's an old story about how some celebrated author (Somerset Maugham?) visited the set of the 40s version--and couldn't tell whether Tracy was playing Jekyll and Hyde that day!