TCM Genre movies schedule...

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, TCM never censors anything. I think I have When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth on DVD, but I can't remember.

A mixed bag this month, I guess, although there's plenty of good (but familiar) stuff. I'm not familiar with Berkeley Square, though, so I'll have to try to catch that.

6:00 AM: One Million B.C. ('40): Not the Raquel Welch version, alas.

This is actually just as good as One Million Years B.C. Carole Landis is as lovely as Raquel Welch and Victor Mature is far better than, uh, that other guy.

 

[Greg Cox]

Looking forward to When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. I haven't seen that since I was a kid, when I saw it at Midway Drive-In on a triple bill with Trog and Valley of the Gwangi.

And I'm pretty sure the version I saw back in 1970 didn't have any nudity. I'm pretty sure I would've remembered that.

 

[Redfern]

...as far as Ms. Vetri, TCM doesn't cut anything.

I can attest to that when I stumbled across a "wee morning" broadcast of "Heavy Metal". I tuned in during the beginning of the "Taarna" segment. The city was laid siege by the Lok'Nar possessed army anf the philosophers summoned the last Tarakian. As in the theaters and home video releases, we cut to the flying sequence of the robed figure approaching the temple. The figure dismounts within the inner sanctume and we see the feminine features beneath the hood. "Okay, watch TCM either excise the upcoming shots or 'blur' strategic regions of the frame." The robes parted and...Hello! Not a single frame was removed or "pixelated". There was the entire swimming sequence and the "suiting up" sequence (That's armor?!). Later, after the Lok'Nar forces capture her, she trolleyed into the leader's throne room on that rack upon which she's, ah, "secured".

I will admit I was rather surprised. Pleased to learn TCM doesn't censor its presentations, but surprised never the less.

In short, if TCM left "Heavy Metal" intact, I doubt it would cut any other movies.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Greg Cox]

Absolutely. They run lots of old horror and exploitation stuff uncut, often in the wee hours of the morning: "Blood from Satan's Claw," "To the Devil, a Daughter," etc. Complete with the original nude scenes.

 

[Christopher]

^Not to mention Roddenberry's Pretty Maids All in a Row.

 

[Silvercrest]

I really hope they show Logan's Run again soon. My DVR recording keeps getting cancelled, overwritten by another recording, etc. At least three times, possibly more! My track record here is so bad it's suspicious. (Just that movie and Doctor Zhivago — no others.)

 

[Klaus]

And the [body-double] nude swimming scene in Tarzan and His Mate...

 

[Christopher]

...as far as Ms. Vetri, TCM doesn't cut anything. Don't think I've ever seen that one.

For what it's worth, TCM's schedule is now showing a 100-minute running time for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, which is consistent with the longest running length given on IMDb, suggesting it is the uncut version. However, it also says it's rated TV-PG.

 

[Greg Cox]

...as far as Ms. Vetri, TCM doesn't cut anything. Don't think I've ever seen that one.

For what it's worth, TCM's schedule is now showing a 100-minute running time for When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, which is consistent with the longest running length given on IMDb, suggesting it is the uncut version. However, it also says it's rated TV-PG.

There was a time when you could sneak mild nudity into PG-rated fantasy flicks. See Dragonslayer, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, etc. Maybe this is same case.

 

[Christopher]

There was a time when you could sneak mild nudity into PG-rated fantasy flicks. See Dragonslayer, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, etc. Maybe this is same case.

Well, it's not PG, it's TV-PG, which is a rating system that's only been in use since 1997. Although its uncut UK version had an A certificate, which at the time meant not recommended for children under 14, so pretty much equivalent to PG -- but by British standards of acceptability. The US version was rated G, but that was with the more adult bits cut out.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Movie ratings are spurious enough, the TV rating which is created by the content provider themselves is probably even moreso. Regardless of which version they show a TV-PG is not unreasonable, the movie is pretty harmless.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

For the record, When Dinosaurs ... is indeed uncut and retains it title as the jiggliest of all dinosaur movies. I haven't seen the classic with Raquel in a while but this might be my favorite of these One Million type movies. Has great potboiling action with the birth of the moon, cool stop motion monsters, pulchritude galore, jealous lovers, funny cave talk and big tidal waves.

 

[Christopher]

^Good news. That's next on my viewing list. I watched the 1940 One Million B.C. today. It's interesting that it wasn't made earlier, since once you get past the introductory sequence in the present day, it's basically a silent film. Sure, it has pretty elaborate special effects, but so did Metropolis. I couldn't really enjoy the effects sequences, though -- partly because I've seen them recycled in a much worse movie (Valley of the Dragons) not that long ago, and partly because I'm not happy about how the animals were evidently mistreated in shooting them. Plus it's pretty silly to see an armadillo with rubber horns passed off as a triceratops, or whatever that was supposed to be.

And I have to disagree with RJDiogenes -- while Carole Landis was cute and very well-built, she wasn't in Raquel Welch's league.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Im going backwards, I have One Million BC still on the VCR. I was thinking there was some connection with silent movies but I might be thinking of She. EDIT: looking on IMDB I see it was directed by Hal Roach so maybe that's part of it given his history.

 

[Christopher]

For the record, When Dinosaurs ... is indeed uncut and retains it title as the jiggliest of all dinosaur movies.

Yup, I see what you mean... Pretty nice. Although that blonde wig really made Victoria Vetri's face look different (in the parts where, y'know, I was actually paying attention to her face).

I was quite impressed by Jim Danforth's stop-motion work. He always did impressive stuff, on a par with Harryhausen, and arguably better in one respect: Harryhausen's work always tended to strobe, but Danforth had a clever trick of double-exposing consecutive frames onto each other to create a semblance of motion blur, and it really made the animation look smoother and more lifelike. He also did some great compositing work with the live-action, like that shot where the cavemen had the ropes around the plesiosaur's neck and there were live-action people both in front of and behind the stop-motion plesiosaur, manipulating ropes that seemed to connect to its neck from both directions. That was awesome. (Although there was one shot in the plesiosaur sequence where you could see it reflected against the glass pane behind it.)

On the other hand, they threw in a few shots of iguanas and alligators with frills stuck to their heads, and those were jarringly inept in contrast to the superlative Danforth effects. What happened there?

So let's see if I've got the hang of the cave language... basically, these guys are really obsessed with Japanese dogs and really don't like Phil Niekro.

 

[Redfern]

Watched a DVR recorded edition of "2001" on the 13th (an annual "tradition" I try to maintain when I can), so I just "casually" watched it yesterday. Though it appears TCM played the closest to the theatrical version as possible for TV by having the "overture", the "intermission" and the "exit music" screen "cards". I didn't even realize there was an "exit music" screen at first as I had my head turned away from the TV. the music didn't seem any longer than other cuts, so I can only assume the closing credits were much briefer in the original 1968 Cinemascope release. Can anyone clarify one way or the other?

However, I did watch "2010" a bit more attentively as I haven't seen it in "wide-screen" since I saw it at the theater in 1984. I had to smile at the "international history" presented in the movie compared to how events really unfolded. Primarily that there's still a Soviet Union in 2010 and a "Cold War" ready to grow "hot" any moment. From on screen evidence alone, the state of international affairs is left a bit nebulous in Kubrick's 1968 film. Plus, hearing Heywood Floyd's successor talking about the President having his "finger on the button". Of course, the film was supposedly paralleling what was happening in the early 1980s. Ironic how differently reality unfolded.

What really made me giggle was the contrasts of technology. Of course, like Kubrick's classic, both spaceflight and the state of artificial intelligence (as represented by HAL) is far, far in advance of what we really got. But then one sees the computer monitors, televisions and laptops depicted in the movie. I'm not talking about the hardware aboard the Leonev, which by cinematic tradition as "ruggedly" Russian. No, I mean what we saw in Chandra's office, Bowman's widow's kitchen and the portable system Floyd used upon the beach. CRTs (both computer and television) with curved surfaces and edges, as deep as they are wide. And the laptop as bulky as a briefcase and a keyboard that used maybe a quarter of the surface area. Though we didn't actually see the monitor, I suspect they would have depicted a "green" screen or 16 color resolution at the most. I just found it amusing how I was watching the movie on a set I purchased in, well, 2010, 47 inches, flat and technically light enough to hang on the wall (with the proper brackets) with resolution that outdid any screens in Hyams' sequel. Shoot, even "2001" depicted display screens that could have been the equivalent of iPads. They're in the scene when Bowman and Poole eat breakfast upon the Discovery. They watch a BBC broadcast with time edited interviews about themselves. (It was no doubt backlit projection trickery with the screens actually mounted upon the meal nook table, but the "illusion" was that they were portable devices because their corners "casually" hung over the edge of the table.)

And yet, the visual technology in "2010" seems to have taken a step backwards, not just compared to the real world, but also compared with "2001".

No, it wasn't enough to "ruin" the film for me, goodness no. But things like that do make me pause and consider how differently reality veered.

Oh, and I wonder how all that extra "daylight" from a "fusing" Jupiter" would have affected plant and animal life here on Earth?

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Christopher]

However, I did watch "2010" a bit more attentively as I haven't seen it in "wide-screen" since I saw it at the theater in 1984. I had to smile at the "international history" presented in the movie compared to how events really unfolded. Primarily that there's still a Soviet Union in 2010 and a "Cold War" ready to grow "hot" any moment. From on screen evidence alone, the state of international affairs is left a bit nebulous in Kubrick's 1968 film. Plus, hearing Heywood Floyd's successor talking about the President having his "finger on the button". Of course, the film was supposedly paralleling what was happening in the early 1980s. Ironic how differently reality unfolded.

Yeah. The original novel of 2010 did assume the USSR still existed, but portrayed the astronauts and cosmonauts getting along just fine in the spirit of scientific cooperation. The movie threw in the Cold War tensions to make it more "topical," but just ended up making it feel rather painfully dated in retrospect.

Oh, and I wonder how all that extra "daylight" from a "fusing" Jupiter" would have affected plant and animal life here on Earth?

That was alluded to in the novel. "Many nocturnal creatures had been seriously affected, while others had managed to adapt. The Pacific grunion, whose celebrated mating pattern was locked to high tides and moonless nights, was in grave trouble, and seemed to be heading for rapid extinction." Lucifer (as the former Jupiter was renamed) was 50 times brighter than the full Moon, but distant and small enough that it didn't really contribute significant heat to the planet -- which makes sense, given that the Sun doesn't contribute much heat to Europa. It mainly just banished darkness and kept anyone from seeing stars in the sky (unless they went into space). Although I assume that would only be during the times when Earth is between the Sun and Jupiter/Lucifer, so that Lucifer is in the sky when the Sun isn't; but oddly, the book implies it's a constant.

 

[Klaus]

I think the US-Soviet tension was added to the movie because it reflected the current Reagan-era situation and nervousness about war. It wasn't a coincidence that the movie crisis flashpoint was in Central America.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

He also did some great compositing work with the live-action, like that shot where the cavemen had the ropes around the plesiosaur's neck and there were live-action people both in front of and behind the stop-motion plesiosaur, manipulating ropes that seemed to connect to its neck from both directions. That was awesome. (Although there was one shot in the plesiosaur sequence where you could see it reflected against the glass pane behind it.)

It looked to me like the ones in the back were stop motion. I hadn't noticed that before. I think my favorite was those nighttime shots with the giant crabs.

 

[Christopher]

I think the US-Soviet tension was added to the movie because it reflected the current Reagan-era situation and nervousness about war. It wasn't a coincidence that the movie crisis flashpoint was in Central America.

Yes, exactly. As I said, the goal was to make the film more topical and current. But that just dates it in retrospect. The book is more timeless.

He also did some great compositing work with the live-action, like that shot where the cavemen had the ropes around the plesiosaur's neck and there were live-action people both in front of and behind the stop-motion plesiosaur, manipulating ropes that seemed to connect to its neck from both directions. That was awesome. (Although there was one shot in the plesiosaur sequence where you could see it reflected against the glass pane behind it.)

It looked to me like the ones in the back were stop motion. I hadn't noticed that before. I think my favorite was those nighttime shots with the giant crabs.

Maybe we're not talking about the same shot. I rewound to check, and the ones in the back in the shot I'm talking about (when they had its pinned down to ground level) looked live to me. They were close enough to the camera in that shot that they would've looked really fake as stop-motion puppets.

Besides, they weren't directly, physically interacting with the plesiosaur (like later when Sanna's pet dinosaur picked her up and carried her to safety, or when the pterosaur grabbed Tara), just holding onto a rope that appeared to connect to the rope around its neck. That's the kind of situation where a stop-motion animator would use rear-projected actors pretending to interact with a creature that's being animated in front of the projection screen. Harryhausen did that all the time, e.g. in The Valley of Gwangi when they lassoed the tyrannosaur. The guys in the back are the easy part. But in this case there was an added element of people moving in front of the plesiosaur, matted on top of the completed animation, or maybe acting before a front-projection screen.