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TCM Genre movies schedule...

No problem. I figured you'd picked up that detail from Wiki. But I suspect that this is a fan theory being treated as fact and perpetuating itself across the internet. Kinda like the "Victoria Vetri played Isis on STAR TREK" thing. :)

And, as we've discussed in other threads in the past, just because Work B shares an idea with Work A does not necessarily mean that Work B was deliberately copying Work A, let alone making Work B "officially" a new version of Work A.

HORROR EXPRESS is a weird, creepy movie that somebody really needs to remake someday. And how often do you get to see Lee and Cushing acting opposite Telly Savalas? :)
 
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Greg Cox said:
No problem. I figured you'd picked up that detail from Wiki. But I suspect that this is a fan theory being treated as fact and perpetuating itself across the internet. Kinda like the "Victoria Vetri played Isis on STAR TREK" thing. :)
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Too bad. The idea that there was an obscure "other" adaptation of "Who Goes There?" aside from the Thing films was enticing. I guess that's why the rumor caught on.
 
Now of course I want to watch the movie again just to be sure that Campbell isn't mentioned in the opening credits .... . ..
 
Christopher said:
If they're the things with a "Watch TCM on Demand" icon next to them in the schedule, then none of the genre films this month are included.
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It looks like none of the future movies have the link, so I don't think they add them until after they air.
Any of you guys ever seen Zardoz? I've heard a lot of references to it over the years, but this will be my first chance to see it.
Does TCM still show all of the movies completely uncut? I know they did when I used to have it, but that was several years ago, so I wasn't sure if that was still the case.
 
I haven't seen ZARDOZ in decades. Teenage me found it bewildering, but I might have to check it out again after all these years.

And, yes, I'm convinced that it was one of the inspirations for Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video. Really. :)
 
Zardoz always struck me as being not just odd but particularly 70s odd. I've wondered what science fiction would've been like had it not been for Star Wars. 70s science fiction was often cold and remote and often had a lot of geometric design (and lots of facial hair).

Greg Cox said:
Teenage me found it bewildering, but I might have to check it out again after all these years.
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Teenage me liked all the small breasts on display...
 
Mr. Adventure said:
Zardoz always struck me as being not just odd but particularly 70s odd. I've wondered what science fiction would've been like had it not been for Star Wars. 70s science fiction was often cold and remote and often had a lot of geometric design (and lots of facial hair).
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Exactly. Prior to STAR WARS, "serious" 70s-era SF movies (as opposed to low-budget drive-in fare) were almost always dystopian and often a bit chilly: Silent Running, Soylent Green, Rollerball, Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Omega Man, the Planet of the Apes franchise, etc. If nothing else, STAR WARS dispelled the notion that A-list science fiction movies had to be somber cautionary tales . ...

(LOGAN'S RUN is the missing link between dystopian 70s sci-fi and the post-Lucas stuff, in that it tried to combine a dystopian vision of the future with lots of colorful action and adventure.)
 
I always liked TMP because even though it was post-Star Wars it was so very much in that 70s vein.

Switching topics, I caught up with The Mask of Fu Manchu. It's dated in its oft-mentioned, if not obligatory, racial attitudes and white-washing but also in some of the acting. However it's a lot of fun and its brief runtime doesn't wear out its welcome.

I love how in early films electricity is this amazing transformative force. The gung ho archaeologists put one in mind of Indiana Jones but there's a lot of likely influence on Big Trouble in Little China. At one point Myrna Loy is decked out very much like Kim Catrall as Lo Pan's coerced bride.

Not to mention the elaborate deathtraps. There's a very cool one involving a see-saw, a counter-weight losing sand and a pit of crocodiles. After freeing himself, the victim runs through the moving animals before escaping in a convincing manner.

If you can accept it for what it is the movie has a lot to offer, very much like a feature length serial.
 
Mask of Fu Manchu is a great Myrna Loy movie.

I've got Zardoz on DVD. It's really fantastic if you like surrealism and natural female bodies. And if you like natural male bodies, you'll see more of Sean Connery than you ever dreamed possible. But it's definitely of the times. It's a trip, man.
 
Admiral2 said:
Marooned once unfairly got the MST3K treatment. It's not so bad. Based on a book by Martin Caidin, it was Apollo 13 before Apollo 13. This the one I'm looking forward to.
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The other thing I've always found interesting about "Marooned" was it WAS labeled as 'Science Fiction' in it's day; BUT at the time it was made we were routinely orbiting Apollo Command Modues <--- And my point is - even then it should have just been labeled a 'Drama'.

Even today it retains the 'Science Fiction' tag if you look at it on Cable/Satellite listings. I just find that interesting.
 
Noname Given said:
The other thing I've always found interesting about "Marooned" was it WAS labeled as 'Science Fiction' in it's day; BUT at the time it was made we were routinely orbiting Apollo Command Modues <--- And my point is - even then it should have just been labeled a 'Drama'.
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Well, it's borderline. There were things about it that might've been hypothetically possible at the time but hadn't been achieved yet. And there hadn't ever been a crisis or rescue mission like that in real life. So it still fell into the realm of "What if...?" in that respect.

You could put Gravity in the same category. Is it science fiction? It doesn't posit any technology beyond what we have in reality, but it's based on a hypothetical situation that hasn't ever occurred. (And it massively fudges the physics to make the disaster far more extreme than it actually could be, but there are plenty of non-SF stories that play fast and loose with physics, chemistry, etc.) So it's a borderline case.

Heck, this goes back to Jules Verne and Around the World in 80 Days. He didn't write it as a conjecture of the future, but as an illustration of something that was theoretically doable at the time given the existing transportation technology; it just hadn't been done yet. And it was done later in real life, by intrepid journalist Nellie Bly and others. But we still think of it as one of Verne's science fiction works. The fundamental question that defines an SF story is "What if...?" It posits something that hasn't happened yet and explores one possible outcome. And that often does encompass things that are possible in the present day but simply haven't occurred yet. (That's why I list Seven Days in May as a genre film -- not only because it was set in the near future, but because it was a "What if?" story about a coup in the US government.)
 
I think for our purposes Marooned is much more likely to appeal to the fans of retro SF&F than something like common TCM fare like say Seven Brides for Seven Brothers so I'd rather see it included than quibble over its inclusion.
 
I watched Zardoz on the app this morning. It was definitelyas weird as I expected, but I enjoyed it. Once you get past the weirdness, I thought it was actually a pretty good story with some interesting ideas. The Vortex almost seem like a society they might have run into in one of the Star Treks.
After everything that happened, I was surprised Zed ended up with Consuela of all people at the end. I was really expecting it to be May. I was a little disappointed we didn't get to see what their son found after he left the cave. The origin of the name Zardoz was kind of a fun twist. I was also disappointed they revealed the whole thing with Arthur in the opening narration, I actually think I would have liked it better of we didn't find that out until Zed did.
I think it could actually be interesting to see someone make a more coherent modern remake.
 
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I was on the fence about whether to set the DVR for Zardoz. I guess my laziness made my decision for me. Maybe next time.
 
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