WEDNESDAY
JUNE 24
2015

BIANCULLI’S BEST BETS

 

Crackle, 3:00 a.m. ET

I ought to post a Best Bet whenever Crackle offers a new weekly installment of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee during its streaming season, because they’re always wonderful, always entertaining, and invariably worth the time. This week’s new installment, available starting today on the Crackle website, features Seinfeld trading memories, one-liners and wry observations with none other than Bill Maher. At one point, Seinfeld tells Maher that he’s really enjoying the conversation. Ditto. And for a long video chat about the creation and content of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, see our new Paley Center video, featuring Seinfeld being interviewed by David Letterman, on TVWW’s Video Worth Watching.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET

It’s merely coincidental that TCM is showing 1966’s One Million Years B.C. the same time that IFC is showing the 2008 film 10,000 BC, and the same night PBS is premiering First Peoples (9 p.m. ET; check local listings), a documentary about the rise of early Homo sapiens. The real reason TCM is showcasing this movie tonight is because Wednesdays, this June, are devoted to “Pin-Up Girls,” and One Million Years B.C. is one of the early, indelible examples of Raquel Welch’s body of work. If you’re looking for historical or scientific accuracy, don’t bother. But if you’re looking for a prehistoric pin-up, you’ve found her.

 
  
 
 

TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET

Another of tonight’s TCM “Pin-Up Girls” features, this one, from 1965, could have been shown Monday as part of the network’s tribute to the late Christopher Lee. He, and frequent cinematic partner Peter Cushing, are in this one as well. This version of She – the original source of the phrase  “She who must be obeyed,” the way Rumpole used to refer to his wife on Rumpole of the Bailey – isn’t the first movie version of the H. Rider Haggard novel. The story and character, about a fearsome and apparently immortal white queen ruling a hidden city in East Africa, were seized upon at the very birth of the cinema: the great director and stage magician George Melies presented a special-effects-laden silent short, called Haggard’s She: The Pillar of Fire, in 1899, and revisited the character and gimmickry as part of his The Mystical Flame in 1903. In 1908, director Edwin S. Porter, of The Great Train Robbery fame, did a more faithful version of the book, starring Florence Auer as “She.” Other silent versions, increasingly complex, starred Marguerite Snow as “She” in 1911, Alice Delysia in 1916, Valeska Suratt in 1917, and Betty Blythe in 1925. But once the sound era hit the cinema, only one She movie was filmed for the next four decades: 1935’s She, starring Broadway singer Helen Gahagan in her only screen role. But then, in 1965, came the version of She shown tonight, starring Ursula Andress (pictured) as She Who Must Be Worshiped. By me, anyway…

 
  
 
 

Sundance, 11:00 p.m. ET

This is Episode 2 of this German-language period spy series, set in the same Ronald Reagan Cold War era as FX’s The Americans. Only this time, the hero is a young East German hired to impersonate an aide for the Stasi foreign service in the West. It’s got an unusual flavor, a sense of humor as well as danger, and the central character, played by Jonas Nay, is surrounded by treachery and surprise. Well worth a visit – and don’t be spooked by the subtitles. There's lots of action -- and occasional English.
 
  
 
 

TCM, 2:15 a.m. ET

In 1968, three years after Ursula Andress starred as She, Jane Fonda starred in the title role of Barbarella, a sexy sci-fi romp based on a French comic strip and directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim. There’s so much to say about this film – including that its villain, Durand Durand, inspired a similarly named music group in the Eighties. Anita Pallenberg (pictured with Fonda) steals every scene she’s in as the Great Tyrant, but give it up for Fonda, as well as her costumer: She’s even funnier and flashier here than she was in 1965’s wonderful Western spoof, Cat Ballou – and in almost eight years of selecting photos for Bianculli’s Best Bets, this may be my all-time favorite day. Forgive me… Old screen crushes die hard.

 
  
 
 
 
 
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David Bianculli

Founder / Editor

David Bianculli has been a TV critic since 1975, including a 14-year stint at the New York Daily News, and sees no reason to stop now. Currently, he's TV critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and is an occasional substitute host for that show. He's also an author and teaches TV and film history at New Jersey's Rowan University. His 2009 Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', has been purchased for film rights. His latest, The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to the Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific, is an effusive guidebook that plots the path from the 1950s’ Golden Age to today’s era of quality TV.