Hollywood's big guns
OUT come the big guns tonight, admittedly pretty rusty old ones by now, but a classic is a classic, and The Guns of Navarone (Pearl, 9.30 pm) certainly falls into that category.
Its primetime enemy is The Desert Fox (World, 9.35 pm). But it is The Guns of Navarone which hits the target, Hollywood style. The cast, a veritable Hollywood Who's Who of the past, includes Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker, Anthony Quayle and Richard Harris. It should've been enough to make the Nazis lay down their weapons there and then. But then there wouldn't have been all those daring battles to fight and, of course, win.
It all starts when British intelligence learns that two enormous guns have been installed on the Aegean island of Navarone. The long-range field pieces are capable of destroying any British fleet trying to sail to Kheros, near Turkey, where a large British force is facing annihilation unless it is evacuated. It is the job of Captain Mallory (Peck) and a handful of men to land secretly on Navarone and disable the guns. And so the deadly game begins. It's full of cliches and impossible victories, but it is, nevertheless, a World War II adventure spectacle.
The Desert Fox is a war movie in a completely different vein and failed to wow the masses because it was a bit of a thinking-man's war movie . . . and also because it showed a German, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, in a sympathetic light. James Mason is as enigmatic as ever as the brooding and brilliant field commander in a film which spends more time tracing the general's remarkable career, from his success in North Africa to his defeat at el-Alamein, than scoring against the bad guys. Take your side.
There's a quirky little show (in a very quirky timeslot) on this evening. It's called Home Improvement (Pearl, 6.55 pm), and while you couldn't guess it because of the distinct lack of interest TVB has shown in it, Home Improvement is currently big, big, big in America, ranking as the number one primetime show last season.
Just in case you might want to tune into one of the hit comedies of the year, here's the low down. stars Tim Allen, best known as a stand-up comic until he took on the role of a popular TV handyman, Tim Taylor. Tim sees life and love in the 90s from a distinctly male point of view and each week he wades into a you-just-don't-understand conflict with his wife Jill, played by Patricia Richardson. In the States, academics are trying to fathom its extraordinary popularity with phrases such as, 'soft-focused intelligent reality'. Whatever. I just reckon you should try and get a look in before the series finishes and you wonder, yet again, why there's never anything good on the box.