Asterisk indicates a film of exceptional interest. All times are EDT.
Saturday, October 10
*11:00 a.m. (TMC)--THE GODFATHER (1972)--Francis Coppola's classic film about the Mafia as a form of capitalist endeavor. With Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Robert Duvall. (MJ)
*12:45 p.m. (HBO)--WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S 'ROMEO + JULIET' (1996)--Inventive and exciting modern-dress version of the play. Starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. (MJ)
*2:00 p.m. (TMC)--THE GODFATHER, PART II (1974)--One of the few sequels that measures up to its predecessor. The origins of the enterprising, murderous Corleone family. With Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, and Diane Keaton. Directed by Francis Coppola. (MJ)
2:00 p.m. (HBO Plus)--LOST IN AMERICA (1985)--Yuppies, played by Albert Brooks (who also directed) and Julie Hagerty, give up their good corporate jobs to tour the country in an RV, with disastrous (and funny) results. (MJ)
*3:45 p.m. (AMC)--Band of Angels (1957)--A remarkably complex look at black and white relations in Civil War America. Clark Gable plays a Southern gentleman with a past as a slave trader, Yvonne DeCarlo is a Southern belle who discovers she has black ancestors and Sidney Poitier is an educated slave. Directed by Raoul Walsh, from the novel by Robert Penn Warren. (DW)
5:45 p.m. (HBO)--THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)--Vacuous, silly film about the future in which the future of the universe hinges on a Brooklyn cabdriver (played in proletarian style by Bruce Willis) finding something called 'the fifth element.' Worth seeing only for its imaginative settings and special effects. Typical scenery-chewing villainy by Gary Oldman. Directed by Luc Besson. (MJ)
*8:45 p.m. (HBO Family)--SUPER MARIO BROTHERS (1993)--Underrated, highly imaginative film version of the popular video game, to which it bears only a slight resemblance. The two plumber brothers (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo) visit an alternate universe in which evolution took a different course, leaving dinosaurs as the dominant species. Dennis Hopper overacts wonderfully as the dinosaur dictator of this world. (MJ)
9:45 p.m. (Starz)--AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (1997)--Mike Myers plays a double role in this consistently amusing send-up of James Bond movies and the manners and styles of the 1970s. (MJ)
*10:00 p.m. (Encore)--THE BOYS IN COMPANY C (1978)--One of the better realistic films about the Vietnam War. Avoids the cliches of most other war films. With James Whitmore, Jr. and Stan Shaw. Directed by Sidney J. Furie. (MJ)
10:00 p.m. (FXM)--ALL THAT JAZZ (1979)--Choreographer/director Bob Fosse's overwrought autobiographical film about his mental and physical crackup. Not strictly speaking a musical, but it is filled with musical numbers--including a bizarre one occurring during the main character's open-heart surgery. With Roy Scheider and Ben Vereen. (MJ)
11:00 p.m. (TCM)--THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)--Claude Rains made his film debut as the mad scientist who discovers a method of being invisible and terrorizes a British village. James Whale directed this version of the H.G. Wells story. (DW)
12:15 a.m. (HBO Plus)--LOST IN AMERICA (1985)--See 2:00 p.m.
2:00 a.m. (Encore)--EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977)--One of the best bad movies ever made. Preposterous and misguided, it is nonetheless rich with images and vision. Nominally the sequel to the original EXORCIST, this film bears a thin relationship to it. Starring Linda Blair, Max Von Sydow, James Earl Jones, and Richard Burton. Directed by John Boorman. (MJ)
4:00 a.m. (TCM)--THE BODY SNATCHER (1945)--One of the Val Lewton-produced thrillers, with Henry Daniell as a doctor forced to deal with the nefarious Boris Karloff to obtain cadavers for his work. Based on the Robert Louis Stevenson short story; directed by dull Robert Wise. (DW)
Sunday, October 11
6:30 a.m. (Starz)--AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (1997)--See Saturday, at 9:45 p.m.
*6:45 a.m. (Cinemax)--I CONFESS (1953)--Alfred Hitchcock's tale of priest, played by Montgomery Clift, who hears a confession of a murder and later becomes accused of the crime. Filmed in Quebec. (DW)
7:00 a.m. (A&E)--CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)--Effective very low-budget horror film shot with an unknown cast at a deserted amusement park in Lawrence, Kansas. Directed by Herk Harvey. (MJ)
10:00 a.m. (TCM)--IN A LONELY PLACE (1950)--Nicholas Ray film in which Humphrey Bogart plays a tormented, abusive Hollwood screenwriter. With Gloria Grahame and Frank Lovejoy. (MJ)
12:00 p.m. (Cinemax)--PAT AND MIKE (1952)--Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy play a leading female athlete and her manager, respectively, in this lightweight piece. Directed by George Cukor. (DW)
3:00 p.m. (TCM)--THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)--See Saturday, at 11:00 p.m.
*3:00 p.m. (A&E)--RIO BRAVO (1959)--Classic Howard Hawks western, with John Wayne as a sheriff, Angie Dickinson as a dance-hall girl, Dean Martin as a drunk, and singer Ricky Nelson joining forces to thwart a jail-break and other crimes. Much first-rate dialogue by Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. (DW)
4:40 p.m. (Starz)--AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY (1997)--See Saturday, at 9:45 p.m.
5:30 p.m. (HBO Plus)--BREAKDOWN (1997)--Suspenseful thriller in which the wife of a meek computer programmer (played by Kurt Russell) disappears during a cross-country trip. One of the last performances by the late, great character actor J.T. Walsh. (MJ)
6:00 p.m. (AMC)--Man Without a Star (1955)--King Vidor-directed western, with Kirk Douglas as a drifter, Jeanne Crain as a manipulative rancher. (DW)
6:00 p.m. (TCM)--CLASH BY NIGHT (1952)--Fritz Lang directed this melodrama that sees Barbara Stanwyck, as a woman bored with her fisherman husband Paul Douglas, suddenly taken with Douglas's cynical friend (Robert Ryan). Clifford Odets wrote the story. (DW)
1:30 a.m. (Cinemax)--THE FIRM (1993)--Another film that takes a shot at the legal profession. In this paranoid potboiler, a young, ambitious lawyer finds out that his high-toned firm is totally owned by organized crime. An unremarkable film is saved by a remarkable performance by Gene Hackman (always dependable), playing a cynical partner. Directed by Sydney Pollack, from the bestseller by John Grisham. (MJ)
3:45 a.m. (HBO)--THE GODFATHER, PART III (1990)--Not the best of the GODFATHER trilogy, but a cut above most current films. This time, the Corleone family, led by Michael (Al Pacino), gets involved with the sinister machinations of the Vatican and international finance. With Andy Garcia, Diane Keaton, and Sophia Coppola. Directed by Francis Coppola. (MJ)
4:00 a.m. (A&E)--CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)--See 7:00 a.m.
4:30 a.m. (HBO Plus)--SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW (1997)--In Copenhagen, a half-Inuit scientist (Julia Ormond) investigates the suspicious death from falling of a young Inuit boy. A quiet, brooding film with beautiful photography of Denmark and Greenland is marred by a conventional melodramatic ending with a conventional corporate villain (overplayed by Richard Harris with evil white hair). Also starring Gabriel Byrne, Robert Loggia, and Vanessa Redgrave. Directed by Bille August. (MJ)
Monday, October 12
*7:45 a.m. (HBO Signature)--THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980)--David Lynch's moving film about society's cruelty toward John Merrick, the grossly deformed 'elephant man,' set in the context of the brutality of the Industrial Revolution in London at the turn of the century. John Hurt plays Merrick. With Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft, and John Gielgud. (MJ)
8:00 a.m. (Sundance)--TOUCH (1997)--Interesting but disappointing film written and directed by Paul Schrader about faith healing in the South. With Christopher Walken and Bridget Fonda. (MJ)
*8:45 a.m. (Showtime)--HAMLET (1996)--Kenneth Branagh starred in and directed this long, unabridged film of Shakespeare's play. It is exciting and lucid, and it dispenses with the oedipal nonsense of other recent versions. Branagh is strong in the part, and Derek Jacobi is the definitive Claudius. Also starring Julie Christie and Kate Winslet. (MJ)
*9:00 a.m. (Cinemax)--THE COURT JESTER (1956)--Classic Danny Kaye farce of confused identities in the Middle Ages. Lots of witty verbal humor. Directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama. (MJ)
9:00 a.m. (Comedy)--HEAVEN HELP US (1985)--On-the-mark depiction of life in a Catholic high school in 1960s Brooklyn. With Donald Sutherland, Andrew McCarthy, and Wallace Shawn. Directed by Michael Dinner. (MJ)
10:00 a.m. (Sundance)--THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD (1995)--Bizarre crime thriller about horrific revenge exacted by mob boss (played with extreme creepiness by Christopher Walken in a motorized wheelchair) upon local hoods. With Andy Garcia and Steve Buscemi. Directed by Gary Fleder. (MJ)
10:30 a.m. (AMC)--The Naked City (1948)--A 'neo-realist' treatment of a murder case, filmed self-consciously on the streets of New York. Barry Fitzgerald and Howard Duff play leading roles. The film provided the basis for the subsequent television series. Directed by Jules Dassin and co-scripted by Albert Maltz, both soon to be blacklisted. (DW)
12:00 p.m. (FX)--NIGHT AND THE CITY (1992)--Fair remake of the superb 1950 film noir by Jules Dassin. In this version, directed by Irwin Winkler, Robert De Niro takes the Richard Widmark part, and the scene is shifted from London to New York City. The shady world of boxing promotion is well captured in the screenplay by Richard Price. (MJ)
*2:00 p.m. (AMC)--Strangers on a Train (1951)--Hitchcock classic, with Farley Granger as a callow tennis player and Robert Walker as a psychopath, based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, co-scripted by Raymond Chandler. (DW)
*4:00 p.m. (FXM)--THE GANG'S ALL HERE (1943)--Delightful Busby Berkeley film, with the usual lush and intricate musical sequences, but this time in rich Technicolor. Watch for the not-so-subliminal chorus line of bananas in Carmen Miranda's 'The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat' number. (MJ)
4:00 p.m. (Comedy)--HEAVEN HELP US (1985)--See 9:00 a.m.
5:00 p.m. (Sundance)--THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD (1995)--See 10:00 a.m.
6:00 p.m. (AMC)--Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)--The story of American colonials in upstate New York during the Revolutionary War. With Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, in one of John Ford's more modest works. (DW)
7:00 p.m. (Sundance)--TOUCH (1997)--See 8:00 a.m.
*8:00 p.m. (AMC)--The Heiress (1949)--William Wyler directed this screen version of the stage play based on Henry James' Washington Square. Some memorable moments, with Olivia de Haviland as the poor, neglected heroine, Ralph Richardson as her monstrous father, and Montgomery Clift as her fortune-hunting suitor. Score by Aaron Copland. (DW)
9:00 p.m. (Family)--NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION (1983)--Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo star in this often hilarious low comedy about a quintessentially middle-class family's cross-country trip to the Wally Land theme park. The sequences with Imogene Coca are especially funny. Directed by Harold Ramis. (MJ)
10:00 p.m. (HBO)--THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (1997)--Satan (portrayed in an over-the-top performance by Al Pacino) runs a white-shoe law firm in New York City. Keanu Reeves, as an ambitious young lawyer, makes a Faustian bargain and suffers for it. A very funny horror film that trades on the public's distrust of the legal profession. (MJ)
1:00 a.m. (Bravo)--FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966)--Francois Truffaut's adaptation of the Ray Bradbury dystopian science fiction story about a world in which firemen are sent around to set fire to books, which are banned items. Oskar Werner plays a fireman who rebels; with Julie Christie. (DW)
1:30 a.m. (AMC)--My Favorite Wife (1940)--Amusing film, directed by Garson Kanin, with Irene Dunne, thought dead, returning to find husband Cary Grant married to another woman (Gail Patrick). Produced and co-written by Leo McCarey. (DW)
3:25 a.m. (HBO)--FACE/OFF (1997)--Hong Kong action director John Woo lets out all the stops in this exciting, humorous, and (of course) preposterous film about a government agent (John Travolta) and his terrorist nemesis (Nicolas Cage) exchanging faces. (MJ)
*5:00 a.m. (HBO Signature)--THE PRODUCERS (1968)--Mel Brooks wrote and directed his funniest film, about two producers whose plan--to mount a deliberately awful Broadway musical that will flop and thereby bring them a tax bonanza--backfires. Starring Gene Wilder and the great, rarely seen (because of blacklisting) Zero Mostel. (MJ)
Tuesday, October 13
6:00 a.m. (TCM)--BRIGADOON (1954)--Vincente Minnelli's rendition of the Lerner and Loewe musical about two hikers (Gene Kelly and Van Johnson) in Scotland who happen upon a village that comes to life every 300 years. Colorful and charming, but suffers badly from being shot on an obvious Hollywood soundstage. Also starring Cyd Charisse. (MJ)
6:00 a.m. (FXM)--THE GANG'S ALL HERE (1943)--See Monday, at 4:00 p.m.
*6:15 a.m. (Cinemax)--PANIC IN THE STREETS (1950)--One of Elia Kazan's best films. Two gangsters roam the streets of New Orleans, and one of them is carrying pneumonic plague. Great suspense. Jack Palance and Zero Mostel play the thugs, and Richard Widmark is a public health doctor. With Barbara Bel Geddes. (MJ)
*11:30 a.m. (HBO Plus)--FEARLESS (1993)--Jeff Bridges experiences the eerie effects of having survived a jetliner crash. Stunning performance by Rosie Perez. Directed by Peter Weir. (MJ)
*12:00 p.m. (TCM)--CASABLANCA (1942)--The Michael Curtiz classic about life and love in wartime Morocco, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. (DW)
12:30 p.m. (Bravo)--FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966)--See Monday, at 1:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m. (HBO Signature)--GALLIPOLI (1981)--Peter Weir's antiwar film about Australian soldiers caught in a major battle of World War I. With a young Mel Gibson. (MJ)
2:00 p.m. (AMC)--Brute Force (1947)--Jules Dassin's prison drama with Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford, Yvonne DeCarlo and Hume Cronyn as brutal prison official. Scripted by Richard Brooks. (DW)
*3:00 p.m. (History)--MEN IN WAR (1957)--The seriously underrated Anthony Mann directed this film about the Korean War. With a cast of stalwart character actors, including Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, and Vic Morrow (father of Jennifer Jason Leigh). (DW)
3:45 p.m. (AMC)--Dark City (1950)--Charlton Heston in his film debut, as a cynical lowlife who, along with a few accomplices, takes Don DeFore in a card game, with unforeseen consequences. Future Dragnet co-stars, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, are two of Heston's pals. With Lizabeth Scott and Viveca Lindfors. Directed by William Dieterle. (DW)
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--Anatomy of a Murder (1959)--Otto Preminger directed this absorbing courtroom drama. James Stewart is the defense lawyer; Ben Gazzara, Lee Remick and Arthur O'Connell costar. Duke Ellington wrote the score. Rather daring in its day. (DW)
10:00 p.m. (HBO Signature)--NETWORK (1976)--Heavyhanded satire on the TV industry. News anchorman (Peter Finch) has a psychotic episode on a national broadcast; his formless rage is taken up by the general populace. He is then regarded as a prophet. Sidney Lumet directed the Academy Award-winning script by Paddy Chayefsky. Starring Peter Finch as the mad newsman. (MJ)
*12:55 a.m. (TMC)--BOUND (1996)--A fine first film by brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski. Cinematically, it's a bit of a show-off, but it all works, re-mining familiar film noir elements. A mob money launderer's mistress and her ex-con lesbian lover conspire to run off with the mobster's loot. Played broadly, and often with humor, by Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, and Joe Pantoliano. (MJ)
*2:30 a.m. (TCM)--THE HUMAN FACTOR (1979)--Underrated film by Otto Preminger about a double agent working in British espionage. Definitely not a thriller. From the novel by Graham Greene. With Nicol Williamson, Iman and Derek Jacobi. (MJ)
3:00 a.m. (AMC)--Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)--Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur play the leading roles in one of Frank Capra's Depression parables. Longfellow Deeds (Cooper) has $20 million and wants to give it away to those in need; Arthur is the hard-boiled reporter trying to figure him out. (DW)
3:50 a.m. (HBO Family)--THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)--See Saturday, at 5:45 p.m.
Wednesday, October 14
6:00 a.m. (TCM)--Ah, Wilderness! (1935)--Based on the relatively lighthearted Eugene O'Neill play about turn-of-the-century small town life. Directed by Clarence Brown, with Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore and Mickey Rooney. (DW)
*7:00 a.m. (HBO Signature)--THE GRADUATE (1967)--Important coming-of-age film about a young man (Dustin Hoffman, in his first big role) deciding whether to throw in his lot with the adult world. Should he cast off his rebelliousness and join the prospering middle class of the late sixties--i.e., go into 'plastics'? Anne Bancroft is the memorable middle-aged seductress (and mother of his fiancée) Mrs. Robinson. Excellent music by Simon and Garfunkel. Directed by Mike Nichols. (MJ)
*8:35 a.m. (AMC)--Force of Evil (1948)--The principal film effort of director Abraham Polonsky, soon to be blacklisted. A parable about American capitalism. John Garfield plays the lead, a crooked lawyer from the wrong side of the tracks, who faces a moral crisis over a Fourth of July holiday. With Thomas Gomez and Beatrice Pearson. (DW)
11:00 a.m. (HBO)--SUPER MARIO BROTHERS (1993)--See Saturday, at 8:45 p.m.
*12:00 p.m. (TCM)--Julius Caesar (1953)--Joseph L. Mankiewicz's intelligently filmed version of Shakespeare's tragedy. James Mason as Brutus, John Gielgud as Cassius, Louis Calhern as Caesar and Marlon Brando as Antony. (DW)
*2:00 p.m. (TCM)--Madame Bovary (1949)--Vincente Minnelli's film version of the Gustave Flaubert novel about a bored provincial wife who thinks she has found true love. Jennifer Jones is Emma Bovary, with Van Heflin, James Mason. (DW)
12:50 a.m. (TMC)--MARATHON MAN (1976)--Exciting, convoluted spy thriller about stolen jewels, Nazis hiding out in the US, and the CIA. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Roy Scheider. Laurence Olivier is particularly effective as a sadistic Mengele-type dentist. Directed by John Schlesinger. (MJ)
1:00 a.m. (HBO Family)--CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)--Steven Spielberg's special-effects-filled take on UFO sighting as a religious experience. Starring Richard Dreyfuss. (MJ)
3:00 a.m. (TMC)--SERPICO (1973)--Al Pacino plays a loner cop taking on corruption in the New York Police Department. As always, director Sidney Lumet captures the texture of New York City. (MJ)
5:05 a.m. (HBO Signature)--THE GRADUATE (1967)--See 7:00 a.m.
Thursday, October 15
6:00 a.m. (TCM)--Gaslight (1944)--Charles Boyer tries to drive Ingrid Bergman mad in George Cukor's period thriller. (DW)
12:00 p.m. (TCM)--The Philadelphia Story (1940)--George Cukor directed this film adaptation of Philip Barry's stage play about a spoiled mainline socialite yearning for--well, what exactly? One critic calls it 'simply the breaking, reining, and saddling of an unruly thoroughbred,' i.e., Katharine Hepburn. (DW)
*12:00 p.m. (AMC)--The Gunfighter (1950)--Gregory Peck is a gunslinger trying to live down his past. Henry King directed, from a script by William Bowers and Andre de Toth. (DW)
*1:00 p.m. (HBO)--WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S 'ROMEO + JULIET' (1996)--See Saturday, at 12:45 p.m.
3:30 p.m. (Sundance)--TOUCH (1997)--See Monday, at 8:00 a.m.
8:00 p.m. (AMC)--MY FAIR LADY (1964)--George Cukor's beautiful film of the Lerner and Loewe musical adapted from Shaw's PYGMALION. Exquisite costumes and sets by Cecil Beaton. Starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn (whose singing is actually done by Marni Nixon). (MJ)
*10:00 p.m. (HBO Signature)--THE PRODUCERS (1968)--see Monday, at 5:00 a.m.
11:00 p.m. (HBO Family)--THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)--See Saturday, at 5:45 p.m.
11:30 p.m. (HBO Signature)--LOST IN AMERICA (1985)--Yuppies, played by Albert Brooks (who also directed) and Julie Hagerty, give up their good corporate jobs to tour the country in an RV, with disastrous (and funny) results. (MJ)
*1:00 a.m. (HBO Signature)--FEARLESS (1993)--Jeff Bridges experiences the eerie effects of having survived a jetliner crash. Stunning performance by Rosie Perez. Directed by Peter Weir. (MJ)
1:05 a.m. (HBO Plus)--THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (1997)--See Monday, at 10:00 p.m.
1:10 a.m. (HBO Family)--CONTACT (1997)--An intelligent, refreshingly non-xenophobic film on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Jodie Foster plays the single-minded astrophysicist in this adaptation from the novel by the late Carl Sagan. Unfortunately, toward the end the film becomes mushy-minded and tries to make its peace with religion. (MJ)
*2:25 a.m. (Starz)--THE DAY OF THE LOCUST (1975)--Excellent adaptation of Nathanael West's classic grotesque novel about 1930s Hollywood. Starring Donald Sutherland Karen Black, and Burgess Meredith. Screenplay by the once-blacklisted Waldo Salt. Directed by John Schlesinger. (MJ)
4:00 a.m. (Sundance)--TOUCH (1997)--See Monday, at 8:00 a.m.
Friday, October 16
*6:55 a.m. (TMC)--THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (1985)--Woody Allen combines Keaton's SHERLOCK JR. and Fellini's THE WHITE SHEIK to come up with a satisfying tale about a drab housewife (Mia Farrow) romanced by a character (Jeff Daniels) who literally steps out of the movie screen. (MJ)
8:00 a.m. (HBO)--THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)--See Saturday, at 5:45 p.m.
9:30 a.m. (AMC)--Unfaithfully Yours (1948)--Not Preston Sturges at his best, but still amusing. Rex Harrison is a symphony conductor convinced of his wife's (Linda Darnell's) infidelity. (DW)
10:30 a.m. (HBO Plus)--BREAKDOWN (1997)--See Sunday, at 5:30 p.m.
11:30 a.m. (AMC)--Champion (1949)--Effective boxing drama, with Kirk Douglas as selfish, ambitious fighter determined to get to the top and stay there. Paul Stewart is his friend whom he betrays. Directed by Mark Robson. (DW)
12:00 p.m. (AMC)--MY FAIR LADY (1964)--See Thursday, at 8:00 p.m.
*12:00 p.m. (FX)--THE CULPEPPER CATTLE COMPANY (1972)--An unjustly forgotten film about a naive young man joining up with a cattle drive. Grittily realistic depictions of the daily working life of cowboys--the kind of detail rarely shown in Westerns. A gem. With Gary Grimes, Billy 'Green' Bush, and Geoffrey Lewis. Directed by Dick Richards. (MJ)
*1:00 p.m. (HBO Family)--SUPER MARIO BROTHERS (1993)--See Saturday, at 8:45 p.m.
4:45 p.m. (HBO)--THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)--See Saturday, at 5:45 p.m.
6:00 p.m. (HBO Plus)--LOST IN AMERICA (1985)--See Thursday, at 11:30 p.m.
8:00 p.m. (TCM)--Act of Violence (1949)--Fred Zinnemann directed this well-meaning effort. Robert Ryan is a crippled, former soldier in pursuit of a former officer who betrayed his men while a prisoner. With Van Heflin, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor. (DW)
8:05 p.m. (TBS)--THELMA & LOUISE (1991)--Ridley Scott directed this film about two women who inadvertently become fugitives from the law and take off across America in their convertible. The script tries too hard to combine the road-movie genre with its feminism and fails to convince, but Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are memorable as the pair. (DW)
*9:00 p.m. (TMC)--THE GODFATHER (1972)--See Saturday, at 11:00 a.m.
9:30 p.m. (TCM)--The Great Escape (1963)--Steve McQueen and James Garner stand out in this World War II prisoner-of-war escape film. Routine in many ways, directed by John Sturges. (DW)
10:30 p.m. (AMC)--DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952)--Marilyn Monroe, in an early role, is a demented babysitter who threatens to kill the child in her care. With Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, Jim Backus. Directed by Roy Ward Baker. (DW)
*12:00 a.m. (TMC)--THE GODFATHER, PART II (1974)--See Saturday, at 2:00 p.m.
1:55 a.m. (TBS)--TOOTSIE (1982)--Dustin Hoffman is amusing as an actor who can't find work as a man, but finds great success as the female star of a television soap opera. Sidney Pollack directed; with Jessica Lange, Teri Garr, Dabney Coleman. (DW)