Movies

29 January 2007

Sinbad The Sailor

(1947) ABC, midnight

Doug Fairbanks jnr and Maureen O'Hara? I'll take it! An agreeable serving of swashbuckling escapism with Doug sailing the seven seas in search of hidden treasure (try that line in your best Sean Connery accent). In the port of Daibul, his ship is confiscated and put up for auction. Spunky adventuress Shireen (O'Hara) makes a bid but Sinbad picks the auctioneer's pocket and is able to make a higher bid. Not surprisingly, he fancies Shireen - much to the displeasure of the emir (Anthony Quinn), who decides to go at him with a large sword. With one bound ... and a kiss ... he's free but only briefly. They end up sailing away to Deryabar to loot the fabled treasure of Alexander the Great (aka Brad Pitt the Elder). Splendid sets, terrific costumes but the plot, alas, is well below par.

Isle of the Dead

(1945) ABC, 2.05am (Tue)

Having led his troops to victory in a Balkan battle, General Nikolas Pherides (Boris Karloff) visits a nearby island to pay his respects at his wife's tomb. He is somewhat miffed to find the grave has been opened and her body stolen. With the help of Oliver Davis, an American journalist, he begins a quest to recover the missing coffin. A local identity, Mr Albrecht (Jason Robards snr), offers hospitality and a fellow house guest, Kyra, explains local vrykolakas (Greek vampires) are up to no good. A good deal of killing ensues as General Pherides loses the plot and director Mark Robson struggles to keep his material under control.

The Green Butchers

(2003) SBS, 10.55pm

Svend and Bjarne are apprentice butchers for an employer who would enthusiastically embrace the WorkChoices regime. Deeply disillusioned, they determine to open their own organic butchery but lack money. So Bjarne orders doctors to switch off the life-support system that sustains his twin brother, a long-term hospital patient. This allows him to inherit the family fortune and their butchery is soon up and running. Trouble is, it doesn't attract customers - until they carve up a corpse discovered behind the shop and sell choice cuts to their former boss when he arrives seeking stock to fulfil a large order. These chops are a gourmet sensation and customers flock in. The old Sweeney Todd formula: "Dja reckon they know what they're missing? They wouldn't have a clue!" Svend responds by killing more itinerants and slicing up their bodies. Meanwhile, the twin brother, assumed dead, is alive and wandering about in a semi-comatose state, looking for Bjarne.


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