The Fugitive: One of the finest dramas of all time
The Fugitive
Viewers who tuned in to ABC at 10 PM on Sept. 17, 1963, a Tuesday, to try out the brand-new show entitled
The Fugitive could have no idea that the program they were about to watch would soon develop into one of the true glories of 1960s television. Today, of course,
The Fugitive needs no introduction, and you hardly need me to tell you of what a quality and timeless entertainment it remains to this day. Its story line has since become something of a classic, and you would need to have been living in a cave for the past half century not to be familiar with it. The program has since been transformed into a megahit 1993 film starring Harrison Ford, been reimagined into several more television programs, and been the subject of at least a half a dozen books, several conventions, and a lively Facebook fan page. Even those who have never seen or read any of the above probably know, merely by cultural osmosis, that the ori
The visual unconscious of
The Searchers is mediated by its anti-hero protagonist Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne. Ethan operates at the centre of the visual field of the film from beginning to end. The film opens with a shot of his sister-in-law, Martha (Dorothy Jordan), seeing him walking in from the desert, while gradually the rest of her family, including the dog, come out of the homestead to see him. With the wind blowing into the faces of Martha’s children, Ben (Robert Lyden) and Lucy (Pippa Scott), it’s almost as if seeing Ethan has physical effects.
Between the film’s end and its beginning, the visual results of the various violent acts committed by the Comanche upon the settlers are seen only by Ethan. Some of the characters implore him to tell them what he’s seen, or let them see as well, all of which he prohibits. “Did they…? Was she…?” Brad (Harry Carey Jr.) cries to Ethan, concerning his kidnapped, raped, and murdered fiancé Lucy, to the latter’s
Movies on TV this week to help get you through Lockdown
Reporter:
Safe Saturday 2/1 Syfy @ 9pm
It s that time again. Stath O Clock. Mei is a young girl with important information in her head and the only man who can protect her from dodgy Russian mobsters, dodgy Chinese Triads and dodgy cops is Luke Wright. Boaz Yakin s 2012 thriller is a blast. Crunchy, silly, nasty and filled with cleverly shot action and solid one liners. Jason Statham does his usual thing well and is ably supported by Anson Mount and Catherine Chan.
Working Girl Saturday 2/1 RTE1 @ 11.45pm
Tess s secretarial job is ticking her off and when her boss has an accident she sees it as an opportunity to spread her wings. But big business in the 80 s is still a man s world. The big hair and the bigger shoulder pads might date it but this 1988 comedy is as fun and as relevant as ever and a first rate turn from Melanie Griffith turns it into something very watchable indeed. Harrison Ford and a
YOUR STARTER FOR TEN
1 Which senior Labour minister of a few years ago has written four volumes of memoirs, each of them named after a Beatles song?
2 Who, in 2018, became the first ever Booker Prize winner to come from Northern Ireland?
3 Which office has been held by Quentin Blake, between 1999 and 2001; Jacqueline Wilson, between 2005 and 2007; Michael Rosen, between 2007 and 2009; and Julia Donaldson, between 2011 and 2013; and is currently held by Cressida Cowell?
4 What is the name of the 1852 book, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, that was the best-selling novel of the 19th century?
Name the one play by Shakespeare (pictured) that is set in the 11th century
Autumn Leaves (1956) is interesting in how its two genres struggle with each other rather than blend.
When the Criterion Channel put together its “Frame of Mind” collection of films about psychiatry, it included two Joan Crawford films: 1947 s
Possessed, a noir melodrama, and
Autumn Leaves, from 1956. Another melodrama with noir elements,
Autumn Leaves is less successful than
Possessed but still interesting for the way its two genres struggle with each other rather than blend, and the way psychiatry’s invoked not just to tie up the plot but to resolve the tensions of the film’s story.
Directed by Robert Aldrich from a script by Jean Rouverol and Hugo Butler (who, blacklisted, were credited together as “Jack Jevne”), Lewis Meltzer, and Robert Blees, it’s the story of Millie Wetherby (Crawford), a lonely typist in Los Angeles. We see her isolation, and then see her meet Burt Hanson (Cliff Robertson). The significantly younger Burt takes a romantic interest i