6th
Coming This Week to a TV Near You, Sept 7-13, 2009
Welcome to the first of what we hope will be a weekly installment on some movies well worth catching on TV this week. So crank up that TiVo, throw some Orval Redenbacher in the microwave and get ready for some cinema goodness.
“The Thief of Bagdad” (TCM, 7pm, Thursday, Sept. 10) - This epic, faux exotic fantasy overflows with enough imagination for several movies, but somehow producer Alexander Korda wedged it all into one. What’s not to love? Drenched in rich 1940 Technicolor and boasting a knockout score by Miklos Rozsa, “Thief of Bagdad” has all the ingredients for timeless adventure: magic spells, a storm at sea, a flying carpet, a six-armed goddess, a gigantic spider, a ginormous genie, a terrific villain played by Conrad Veidt and much more. And at the center is Sabu as the world’s most adorable thief. — Phil Bacharach
“Colossus of Rhodes” (TCM, 5:15am, Monday, Sept. 14) - Turner Classic Movies brings us a triple feature of peblum goodness (that’s the sword-and-sandals genre most frequently associated with the Steve Reeves Hercules movies of the late 1950s). The first of the trio is “Colossus of Rhodes,” memorable because it was the first solo directorial job credited to Sergio Leone, whose later spaghetti westerns play a large role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” CoR stars American B cowboy actor Rory Calhoun as Darios, a Greek soldier in 280BCE who gets involved with a group of rebels. For this it took eight writers? — Doug Bentin
