Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET
Another weekend, another welcome marathon from Decades. This time it’s of CBS’s The Wild Wild West, the bizarre mash-up of Westerns, comic-book villains and secret-agent capers that showed up on TV in 1965. That was when the traditional television Western, which ruled the airwaves as recently as 1959, was on the wane – and when the spy craze, thanks to the introduction of James Bond films, was all the rage. So in comes James T. West, a government spy under orders from President Ulysses G. Grant, fitted out with his own gadget-filled train car and partnered with a master of disguise fellow agent, Artemus Gordon. Ross Martin played Artemus, Robert Conrad played Jim West, and this series was bursting with beautiful women, violent brawls, and colorful bad guys. The biggest villain in The Wild Wild West also was the smallest: Miguelito Loveless, who was bent on world domination like Dr. Evil, and was played with so much playfulness by the diminutive Michael Dunn (pictured) that the show kept bringing him back, like a classic Batman bad guy. You can see Dr. Loveless today in episodes televised at 2 and 9 p.m. ET, and in additional episodes tomorrow. (Also tomorrow, at 6 a.m. ET: Speaking of the classic Batman 1960s TV series, watch for Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl in that series, as a sexy assassin named Ecstasy La Joie.)
Epix, 8:00 p.m. ET
Renée Zellweger plays Judy Garland in this 2019 biographical study, and plays her at a particular time in the singer’s life: the late 1960s, when Garland was filming a series of London stage shows as a late-career comeback. Probably to avoid either rights fees or lawsuits, or both, there’s little in this film about Liza Minnelli (though her siblings are included) – but Zellweger’s central performance, in the title role, is indeed something to see. And hear, because the former Chicago star is indeed providing the singing voice here for Judy Garland, including at scenes filmed and recorded, as they say, before a live audience.
HBO, 8:00 p.m. ET
Remember Danny, the little boy in Stanley Kubrick’s film version of Stephen King’s The Shining, who said “Redrum” in a scratchy voice and had a sensory gift known as “the shining”? Well, in this 2019 film adaptation written and directed by Mike Flanagan, based on the King sequel, Danny’s back – as an adult, only slightly less troubled than his possessed dad in the original film. Danny, this time, is played by Ewan McGregor, whose extensive resume already includes having starred in Moulin Rouge, a couple of Star Wars films, and as two very different characters in a season of FX’s Fargo series.
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
I have a lot to say about the groundbreaking 1964 Beatles movie musical – but I’ll save it for the book I’m about to dive into. (Writing, not reading.) Let’s just say that tonight, TCM has served up a perfect double feature of movies about the most influential and interesting musical artists of the 1960s: The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night, directed by Richard Lester, and Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back, a 1967 documentary by D.A. Pennebaker.
TCM, 10:00 p.m. ET
Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England is chronicled in this 1967 D.A. Pennebaker documentary, which captures all the insanity, and heightened reactions, as Dylan injected electric guitars and a propulsive into his former acoustic folk act. Backed by the musicians who would later call themselves The Band, Dylan is fearless and gleefully confrontational, upping the intensity and volume as some members of his audience boo – with one famously screaming “Judas!” at the former folk balladeer. It’s an amazing backstage look as well, and shows us a fawning Donovan, an out-of-it John Lennon, a smitten Joan Baez, and Dylan excoriating reporters at press conferences and in individual interviews with a rapier wit they seldom comprehended. “You know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” And the documentary starts with Pennebaker’s pioneering “video” for Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” in which Dylan flashes through cue cards of his lyrics as poet Allen Ginsberg loiters in the background. You don’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows… but you do need to watch this documentary.
