[TMC Underground] This week on TCM Underground

[Ubiquitous]

Shirley Clarke’s incredible PORTRAIT OF JASON at 2:00 AM
and THE FOX at 4:00 AM.

--
Crooked Hillary demands a vote recount--except in states she barely
won. Apparently, those were accurately tabulated.

[Michael Black]

On Fri, 2 Dec 2016, Ubiquitous wrote:

> Shirley Clarke?s incredible PORTRAIT OF JASON at 2:00 AM

> and THE FOX at 4:00 AM.
>

But it's not fiction, it's a documentary of someone who sort of lived a
fictional life in real life.

I did once see her The Connection, in a theatre though not on first
release. I remember very little of it. It did have Roscoe Lee Browne
("Box" in "Logan's Run"), but I thought there were some other people
connected to it. An improvisational group or something, there was a
reason I went and saw it that time, and I don't think it was the topic, or
even the fame of the movie.

Michael

[Ubiquitous]

Deathwatch (1980):
A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

The Sorecerers:
A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

>Deathwatch (1980):
>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

>The Sorecerers:
>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.

Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.

Also, the scheduled time might be helpful.

[A Friend]

In article <o2hpem$onf$1...@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman

Well, there you go asking for facts again!

[Adam H. Kerman]

How thoughtless of me.

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o2hpem$onf$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:

Death Watch (it was hard to find because they had it listed as two
words) is on Sunday from 12:15 am to 2:30 am on TCM and TCMHD.

The Sorcerers is on Sunday at 2:30am on TCM and TCMHD.

--
Join your old RAT friends at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1688985234647266/

[Adam H. Kerman]

anim8rfsk <anim...@cox.net> wrote:
>"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

>>>Deathwatch (1980):
>>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

>>>The Sorecerers:
>>>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.

>>Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
>>please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.

>>Also, the scheduled time might be helpful.

>Death Watch (it was hard to find because they had it listed as two
>words) is on Sunday from 12:15 am to 2:30 am on TCM and TCMHD.

>The Sorcerers is on Sunday at 2:30am on TCM and TCMHD.

Mountain Time

[Ubiquitous]

Actually, it's been on TMC for over a decade now.

>Also, the scheduled time might be helpful.

The former plays at 2:15 EST and the latter at 4:30 EST.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>a...@chinet.com wrote:
>>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

>>>Deathwatch (1980):
>>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

>>>The Sorecerers:
>>>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.

>>Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
>>please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.

>Actually, it's been on TMC for over a decade now.

Ubi, you know that I know that you're spreading misinformation deliberately.

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o2i5r8$ld7$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:

> Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
> >a...@chinet.com wrote:
> >>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>
> >>>Deathwatch (1980):
> >>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
> >>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.
>
> >>>The Sorecerers:
> >>>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.
>
> >>Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
> >>please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.
>
> >Actually, it's been on TMC for over a decade now.
>
> Ubi, you know that I know that you're spreading misinformation deliberately.

What, he's typing TMC instead of TCM?

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o2i1m9$1nr$2...@news.albasani.net>,

Maybe. Arizona time. I honestly don't know if that's the same as
Mountain Time this week or not.

[suzeeq]

No DST so yep, you're the same as Mtn time until March.

[Adam H. Kerman]

One of the Indian reservations observes Daylight time. It entirely
surrounds a reservation that doesn't. Arizona is a weird place.

[Ubiquitous]

In article <o2i5r8$ld7$1...@dont-email.me>, a...@chinet.com wrote:
>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>>a...@chinet.com wrote:
>>>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

>>>>Deathwatch (1980):
>>>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>>>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.
>>>>
>>>>The Sorecerers:
>>>>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.
>>>
>>>Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
>>>please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.
>>
>>Actually, it's been on TMC for over a decade now.
>
> Ubi, you know that I know that you're spreading misinformation
> deliberately.

Umm, what are you babbling about?


--
The old Soviet leaders had it right. Our destruction comes from within:
Moochers, parasites, and Obama.

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o2ians$af8$1...@news.albasani.net>,

I know. Why the Hell would they do that? They voted for Hillary too.

[suzeeq]

You mean besides being an oven half the year..?

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>a...@chinet.com wrote:
>>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>>>a...@chinet.com wrote:
>>>>Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

>>>>>Deathwatch (1980):
>>>>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>>>>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

>>>>>The Sorecerers:
>>>>>A great hypnotist develops a technique for controlling minds.

>>>>Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could you
>>>>please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.

>>>Actually, it's been on TMC for over a decade now.

>>Ubi, you know that I know that you're spreading misinformation
>>deliberately.

>Umm, what are you babbling about?

Please stop using an inappropriate Subject tag.

[Michael Black]

Maybe that's the one thing they consider not to be weird?

Michael

[Michael Black]

On Fri, 9 Dec 2016, Ubiquitous wrote:

> Deathwatch (1980):
> A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
> producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.
>

Somehow that doesn't sound strange nowadays.

Michael

[Dimensional Traveler]

Well, Anim does live there. :)

--
Running the rec.arts.TV Channels Watched Survey.
Fall 2016 survey began Sep 01 and will end Nov 30

[Dimensional Traveler]

They didn't want to pay for a Trump Wall surrounding them?

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o2iifm$25v$4...@dont-email.me>,

They don't pay for anything. They don't even pay taxes.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Oh. That's mean.

[Ubiquitous]

TROLL-O-METER

5* 6* *7
4* *8
3* *9
2* *10
1* | *stuporous
0* -*- *catatonic
* |\ *comatose
* \ *clinical death
* \ *biological death
* _\/ *demonic apparition
* * *damned for all eternity

[A Friend]

In article <6ZKdnUlDQIdXu9DF...@giganews.com>, Ubiquitous

What you're being told, correctly, is that your header has been wrong
for quite a while. Underground isn't on TMC (The Movie Channel); it's
on TCM (Turner Classic Movies). There is no such thing as "[TMC
Underground]." There's no reason to drag out the troll-o-meter.

[Michael Black]

Is that a new Troll-O-Meter?

I don't remember the levels above 10, though maybe I wasn't paying
attention.

Michael

[Bastette]

But only in the daytime. It's fun when the temp drops 40-50 degrees
after sunset.

[Ubiquitous]

He did not say it was wrong or incorrect, nor did he give any reason.
When challenged, he doubled down on it.
It was the only logical conclusion.

[Ubiquitous]

et...@ncf.ca wrote:
>On Fri, 9 Dec 2016, Ubiquitous wrote:

>> Deathwatch (1980):
>> A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>> producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.
>
>Somehow that doesn't sound strange nowadays.

It was in 1980, pre-reality TV.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:

Ubi, you are lying with intent. What I wrote is quoted above:

Ubi, you've been tagging these [TMC Underground] for years. Could
you please use an appropriate Subject tag? It's never been on TMC.

I asked you to use an appropriate Subject tag because the Subject tag you
were using was inappropriate. In the next sentence, I stated explicitly
that the programming in question had never been on TMC.

You are well aware it's not on TMC, as you ALSO used "TCM" on Subject.

In other followups, you've continued to refer to TMC, and you have
yet to use an appropriate Subject tag.

Because you didn't immediately own up to your error, because you
argued instead of making the correction, because you followed up with
the Troll-O-Meter, I stand by my statement that you have been spreading
misinformation deliberately.

You think you're being cute, using TMC and TCM interchangeably, trying
to confuse the reader. It's not. Knock it the fuck off. This is real
shithead behavior.

[Adam H. Kerman]

Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
>et...@ncf.ca wrote:
>>On Fri, 9 Dec 2016, Ubiquitous wrote:

>>>Deathwatch (1980):
>>>A man has camera implanted in his brain and is hired by a television
>>>producer to film a documentary of dying woman without her consent.

>>Somehow that doesn't sound strange nowadays.

>It was in 1980, pre-reality TV.

Congratulations, Ubi, on finally making the Subject tag correction.

[anim8rfsk]

In article <o345lk$cr5$4...@dont-email.me>,

"Adam H. Kerman" <a...@chinet.com> wrote:

I talked to Ubi about this over on The Facebook, and he's either dicking
with me or it was really an honest mistake. If the change sticks, I'm
going go with the latter.

[Ubiquitous]

Tonight on Underground at 2:45 am: KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1976).

Followed by ALICE, SWEET ALICE.

[Ubiquitous]

web...@polaris.net wrote:

>Tonight on Underground at 2:45 am: KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1976).
>Followed by ALICE, SWEET ALICE.

Horror movies have long availed themselves of the iconography and
sacraments of the Catholic Church, whose essential mystery has been
exploited by film directors to ramp up whatever horrors the
screenwriters have devised. Churches and their adjoining hallowed
grounds became a battle theatre in the war between good and evil in
such silent films as Georges Méliès’ DEVIL IN A CONVENT (1899) and
Benjamin Christensen’s HAXAN (1922) but the desire to skirt
controversy kept Hollywood horrors from being too church-specific.
Heroes of fright films churned out in bulk from Universal Studios
during the 1930s and 40s and from Hammer Film Productions in the
1960s and 70s tended to be laymen rather than clergy: academics
steeped in the occult or passersby who understood (or came to
appreciate) the power of the cross, while the church itself was paid
only lip service. Rare is the horror movie that grounds its plot
mechanics in Catholic orthodoxy, building character on a Papist
mindset, and using its doctrinal absolutism and attendant
contradictions as a catalyst for self-reflection and a springboard
for screams. The success of William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST (1973)
was a genre game changer, encouraging a less generic approach to its
metaphysics while engendering the critical charge of being a
recruitment film for the Roman Catholic Church. Less personal, but
no less divested of Catholicism, Richard Donner’s THE OMEN (1976)
returned the conversation to the Holy See but bearing the message
that, even if God wasn’t dead, his battle was lost. Lost in the
shuffle of these provocative blockbusters, whose sense of spectacle
too often overwhelmed their finer points, was the most Catholic
horror movie ever made.

ASA03

Though THE EXORCIST made heroes of a pair of mismatched priests
thrown together in common cause, buddy-cop style, American horror
movies produced in its wake tended to rely on the old trick of
cashiering unaffiliated skeptics, agnostics, and downright atheists
to fight the good fight, with church folk assuming the duties of war
movie drill sergeants–characters who sound the charge but drop out
of the narrative well before the third act. An exception to this
rule is Alfred Sole’s self-financed independent feature ALICE, SWEET
ALICE (1976), which opens with the ghastly murder of a young girl
(Brooke Shields, in her film debut) on the day of her first holy
communion, suspicion falling on her own sister (Paula Sheppard, as
the eponymous Alice). A self-taught regional filmmaker who had come
to movie-making through the peregrinate study of painting,
architecture and drama, Sole shot the film in 1975 in his hometown
of Paterson, New Jersey, under the working title COMMUNION. Though
Sole and co-writer Rosemary Ritvo wring extreme disquietude from the
glum and not infrequently eerie iconography of Catholic Church,
their perspective is from the inside looking out. Set in 1961, at a
point in American history when papism was enjoying a measure of
legitimacy with the election of Catholic President John F. Kennedy,
but before the concessions to modernity of the Second Catholic
Council (aka Vatican II), ALICE, SWEET ALICE localizes tension and
horror in the dilemma of believers who find their complicated
personal lives to be at odds with the unyielding medieval tenets of
a faith that is supposed to be their bulwark against Satan and all
his works.

alice01

Alfred Sole represents the reverse Hollywood dream, being a film
director who really wanted to production design — a vocation in
which Sole has worked for the past two decades, following a
relatively brief tenure as a writer-director. An interior designer
before he turned to cinema, Sole would accumulate props and set
elements on his own initiative, even before he had a film project in
which to use them; that packrat nature pays off in ALICE, SWEET
ALICE, which Sole made for considerably less than half a million
dollars (most of that in deferred payments) but which boasts a
texture and an abundance of quiet style that masks its lack of
wherewithal. Excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 1972 for
having made an X-rated movie as a money-raiser (and for using the
home of the Archbishop of Paterson as an establishing shot), Sole
nonetheless retained strong ties with local municipal agencies,
whose contributions to ALICE, SWEET ALICE resulted in exceedingly
high production values for an indie shot off-and-on over the course
of a year, with cast and crew working for the most part without pay.
Unable to afford Hollywood actors, Sole approached New York theatre
troupers, cadging leading lady Linda Miller (daughter of comedian
Jackie Gleason and ex-wife of THE EXORCIST star Jason Miller) from
Bill Gunn’s THE BLACK PICTURE SHOW (for which she had been nominated
for a Tony) and sending a script to Geraldine Page; then midway
through the two-year run of Alan Ayckbourn’s ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR,
Page passed on the chance to play the pivotal role of church
housemaid Mrs. Tredoni but recommended Mildred Clinton, then most
recognizable for having played Al Pacino’s mother in SERPICO (1973).

asa06

Against all odds, the completed film (then still known as COMMUNION)
caught the attention of executives at Columbia Pictures, who agreed
to distribute and went the extra mile of commissioning a tie-in
paperback novelization from Bantam Books. Due to some shady back
room dealings on the part of the film’s producer, the Columbia deal
was suddenly off the table, forcing Sole to accept an offer from
Allied Artists, who ordered the title change to ALICE, SWEET ALICE.
(The novelization by Frank Lauria was published in July 1977 under
Sole’s original title.) Due to a copyright snafu, the film was
allowed to lapse into public domain, denying Sole and his
collaborators their rightful recompense. (The escalating celebrity
of Brooke Shields led to a 1981 re-release under yet another title,
HOLY TERROR, which garnered a surprisingly compassionate review from
New York Times critic Vincent Canby). It just may have been this
reversal of fortune that led to ALICE, SWEET ALICE becoming a bona
fide cult film, widely available (if in greatly varying degrees of
quality) on bootleg VHS tapes through the next decade rather than
being warehoused in the vaults of a major studio. Strong word of
mouth kept the film alive in the hearts of horror aficionados, who
classified it as an early example of an American “giallo” (Italian
for “yellow,” the color assigned to Italian pulp novels, a term
later associated by Italian psycho-thriller films of the 1970s,
which in turn paved the way for the American slashers of the 1980s)
and the cinematic lynchpin linking Bob Clark’s BLACK CHRISTMAS
(1974) to John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978).

[Ubiquitous]

web...@polaris.net wrote:

>Tonight on Underground at 2:45 am: KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1976).

The success of occult horror films and the wave of animal rampage
epics in the '70s resulted in some strange fusions, with put-upon
youths using their supernatural powers to unleash crawling mayhem on
their enemies in films like the snake-oriented Stanley (1972) and
Jennifer (1978). It was inevitable that someone would come up with
the idea of using spiders as an instrument of psychic vengeance, in
this case that most ubiquitous of '70s pop culture spiders, the
tarantula. The furry creepy crawlies had been supporting players in
the 1972 AIP film Frogs, but they took center stage in Kiss of the
Tarantula (1976), the opening salvo in a small run of tarantula
vehicles including Kingdom of the Spiders and the made-for-TV
production, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo (both 1977). The fad died
out fairly quickly, but tarantulas remained reliable scene stealers
in brief scenes throughout the '80s in films like Raiders of the
Lost Ark (1981) , Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), The
Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), and most graphically, The Beyond
(1981).

Shot in Columbus, Georgia (hometown of Oscar-nominated writer-
director Nunnally Johnson), Kiss of the Tarantula was the second and
final narrative feature film for director Chris Munger following
Black Starlet (1974). An apprentice to drive-in specialist James
Bryan on such films as Escape to Passion (1970), Munger made both of
his films for producer Daniel Cady, a prolific force behind several
drive-in programmers including multiple John Hayes titles like Grave
of the Vampire (1972) and Sweet Trash (1970) before switching to
adult films (under the name "William Dancer") and the VHS perennial,
Dolly Dearest (1991). Cady also wrote the script for this film with
collaborator Warren Hamilton, Jr., a future Hollywood sound effects
editor on projects like The Thing (1982) and Apollo 13 (1995). A
jack of all trades, Hamilton even edited this film, the last of five
features he cut including The Black Bunch (1973) and C.B. Hustlers
(1976).

The film marked the sole theatrical and production effort for the
Georgia-based Cinema-Vu, and it actually seems to go out of its way
to disguise its Southern origins; the actors speak with flat
American accents, the architecture features only a vague hint of
local flavor, and the outdoor scenes focus on generic woods and
house exteriors. One-shot leading lady Suzanna Ling disappeared from
the screen after this film (accounts suggest she became a stage
actress in Atlanta), and almost all of the talent was intended to be
pulled from local thespians and technicians for a breakneck ten-day
shoot. However, professional actors were eventually pulled in,
particularly Eric Mason, who plays Walter; a veteran TV actor, he
had also graced such films as The Candidate (1964) and the
aforementioned Grave of the Vampire, likely the reason for his
casting here. Also notable was cinematographer Henning Schellerup,
who had shot several prime grindhouse titles like Curse of the
Headless Horseman (1972) and went on to lens the notorious Silent
Night, Deadly Night (1984) as well as work as a second unit camera
operator on A Nightmare on Elm Street the same year. Horror fans
will also note the unusual electronic score by Phillan Bishop; this
would be his last film after providing equally striking, unnerving
synthesizer compositions for two 1973 chillers, the marvelous
Messiah of Evil and the oft-maligned but underrated The Severed Arm.

The film was later revived in Columbus in 2002 for a screening at
the Columbus Museum, where details emerged about its paltry budget
($60,000) and the film's promotion, with Darlene Drady Henderson
(daughter of executive producer Curt Drady) enlisted to transport
live tarantulas to various cities' radio and television stations as
a novel publicity stunt. The primary house location was also
revealed as the home of veterinarian Nonie Eakle, also used in The
Green Berets (1968). According to Henderson's interview with the
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, the experience of making the film proved
to be disillusioning with a bad distribution deal and dubious
financing nearly costing them their house. The film still retains
something of a cult following in its hometown, particularly former
actor John Suhr (who appears as the funeral preacher) who keeps a
substantial collection of memorabilia associated with the film. Odd
and fascinating, it's unique as the only Columbus-shot entry in the
legacy of regional horror films that flourished in the 1970s and a
trailblazer in the short but memorable history of tarantula terror
cinema.

By Nathaniel Thompson