Movies

21 November 2005

Guns of Hate

(1948) ABC, 1.10am (Thur)

Someone has given Ben Jason (Jason Robards) a new navel. Could this ventilation somehow be connected to the gold mine Jason discovered recently? Indeed it could, and the two bounders who plugged him, Morgan and Wyatt, are anxious not to be collared for the deed. So they conspire to have Bob and Chito fingered for the job - or loaded up, if you prefer. Bob and Chito are flung into the calaboose, but soon bust out, as innocent men are prone to do in black-and-white RKO oaters of the '40s. Marilyn Mercer, who features as the second female lead, Mabel, was a studio messenger at RKO before this role and probably resumed her duties in dispatch soon afterwards.

The Green Butchers

(2003) SBS, 10.30pm

Svend and Bjarne work as apprentice butchers for an employer who represents the worst of the old system - a cleaver of meat who would enthusiastically embrace the new industrial regime being promoted by the Federal Government. Disillusioned, they determine to open their own butchery - organic, of course - but they haven't got any money. So Bjarne orders doctors to switch off the life-support system that sustains his twin brother, a long-term patient after a car accident. With the brother mort, he inherits the family fortune and their butchery is soon up and running. Trouble is, it doesn't attract customers. One day Svend finds a corpse behind the shop - another accident victim. When their former boss visits the shop, looking for certain cuts, Svend hacks off one of the corpse's legs, marinates it and sells it. It's a hit and customers begin to arrive wanting similar cuts. The old Sweeney Todd formula - they wouldn't have a clue! Meat City! More black than green, the comedy has a deadpan tenor and is often macabre, but never gross. Not entirely suitable for vegetarians.

Swearing Allegiance

(1997) Seven, noon

Diane Zamora and David Graham (Holly Marie Combs from Charmed and David Lipper) are teenage sweethearts who believe their love is predestined. Good oh! But, bless my soul, if fate doesn't take a twist when they enrol at two different military academies. At David's college he encounters a raunchy cadet babe who, er, tests David's resolve. Naturally, he fails to resist the trouser Lorelei. When Diane learns of their close drill manoeuvres, she succumbs to an urgent desire to kidnap and kill her rival. This she does - with David's help. They are now in the slammer pondering their future. Pity. They could be at Abu Ghraib serving their country with distinction.


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