A Dickensian twist

If the plot of tonight's film, Greedy (Pearl, 9.30pm), sounds familiar it's because the screenwriters have knowingly nicked it from Charles Dickens. In Greedy, Kirk Douglas plays a miserable old grump called Joe McTeague, who is sitting on a pile of money watching his relatives try and worm their way into his affections, and more importantly into his will. This of course is what happens in Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewitt, about a stern patriarch who trusts almost no one, including his only decent heir.

Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who wrote this updated version, also acknowledge two more inspirations in the choice of the family name McTeague. McTeague is the name of the famous Frank Norris novel about a man who loses everything in his pursuit of money, which was made into a classic eight-hour silent movie called Greed by Erich von Stroheim in 1925.

There are moments when Ganz and Mandel wander slightly into Von Stroheim territory, forgetting perhaps that this is supposed to be a funny movie, not tragedy. This will never be one of Douglas's best films, but he clearly enjoys himself as Old Joe, who has hired a pneumatic 'nurse' called Molly to look after him, much to the horror of his family.

There are an almost endless number of ways in which a wealthy elderly relative can amuse himself with his family, and Old Joe manages to explore most of them. The producers deliberately picked a cast that could cope with the comedy, and in fact the actors playing his avaricious nephews and nieces are nearly all currently starring in sitcoms on Hong Kong television.

Michael J Fox, who plays the nicest of them, young Danny, is of course in Spin City. Phil Hartman, who plays Frank, is the voice of Doug McClure in tonight's episode of The Simpsons, and Jere Burns is smug Jack in Something So Right.

There is nothing wrong with animal documentaries but there are only so many hours of lions, tigers and bears viewers can be expected to take, so thank God TVB have decided to screen something slightly different this evening.