2 Random Appreciations...

The weather outside is abysmal. It was raining for most of the night, then it froze over and now it's snowing like a bastard outside.

It's time like these, especially when most people are talking about Super Bowl commercials, that I let my mind wander over various topics.

APPRECIATION #1 - TCM

I recently started getting Turner Classic Movies, and it is like crack to a classic movie fan like me. Over the last couple of decades I've noticed a dearth of classic movies playing in syndication, or on the hundreds of cable channels, meanwhile the same cheaply made Lifetime women-in-peril movies appear to run on a loop until the tape wears out.

I think TCM's motto should be: "Where All The Watchable Movies Went."

But I've come to two conclusions from watching TCM.

1. Seeing films restored from original negatives for high definition viewing has made me love the look of classic Technicolor movies. 

Growing up, back in the dark ages when classic movies were played on television the tapes used were made from scratchy old theatrical prints. So often the picture was grainy, scratchy, and the colour, when it was an older colour film, was either washed out to the point of being black and white, or the tinting was all wrong making old movie stars look orange, or to be more exact, modern reality TV stars.

But looking at the versions TCM airs, taken from the original negatives, and carefully restored by experts using the latest technology I am blown away. I recently watched The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn and Olivia De Haviland and saw an appreciation of colour as both a special effect and a storytelling device that you don't really see done so fully these days.

2. I've also been watching some of the classic action and adventure movies on TCM. The old fashioned swash-bucklers like the aforementioned Robin Hood, and the other Errol Flynn vehicle Captain Blood, as well as two-fisted crime films like Point Blank with Lee Marvin.

Those movies gave me an appreciation for old fashioned action and practical special effects. Too many action/adventure movies these days rely on tossing in fantastical elements to justify spending big on CGI. The ones that don't take the plunge into total fantasy as a genre do it as a style. Too many modern action heroes are superhuman ninja-kung-fu masters, whether they could possibly be, or not, and they almost never run out of bullets.

I like the old fashioned, grittier, brawling style of movie action. It required filmmakers to use composition, montage, and choreography to do it, where too many modern filmmakers believe in tossing in CGI and shaking the camera a lot. Let's see more of it.

APPRECIATION #2: BRITISH ACTORS

If you're a regular reader of this blog you probably already know that I appreciate British actors a lot, and recently saw some new evidence of their work ethic.

I like to watch British crime dramas. Have the word "Inspector" in the title, and the odds are pretty good I'll give it a chance. One such show is DCI Banks a British crime series which is based on books written by a Canadian. In the first episode is a character named Lucy Payne, played by actress Charlotte Riley. She's an in demand actress who works quite a lot in British film and television, and, barring any spoilers, plays a pivotal role in that episode.

Over a year later, the character returns in another episode, but with a twist. Her character's paralyzed, disfigured beyond recognition, and only appears on camera for a few minutes in total. During that appearance she doesn't speak, or even move.

Now any actress could have played the character, since no one being able to recognize her is a major plot point and she doesn't even move, but Charlotte Riley returned to do it.

Can you imagine many busy in-demand Hollywood actors being willing to give up possibly a couple of days in heavy make-up for what is essentially a non-speaking, non-moving cameo that couldn't possibly pay all that much?

Not many.

That's why you got to love those British actors.

An Appreciation: The Sandbaggers

When I was a kid we had a local TV station with a bizarre notion of "after-school" programming.

The first thing I remember them showing were silent short comedies with Charlie Chaplin and others. Then came the anarchic comedy of the British trio The Goodies, and after that came The Sandbaggers.

The Sandbaggers was a radical shift from the other afternoon time wasters, something obvious from its opening credits...

As you can tell, it's not a comedy or a kid's show. It is, in fact, probably the best TV show you have never seen.

It was a spy drama from ITV conceived and written by  Ian Mackintosh, a British naval officer turned TV writer that ran for three series from 1978-1980. It was the anti-matter response to the James Bond movies, turning away from fantasy to cold and often cruel realism.

It centres on Neil Burnside the director of operations for MI6. Unlike 007, Burnside isn't classically handsome, he doesn't drink martinis, or any alcohol, his love life is pretty well dead since his divorce, and judging by the freakish size of his shirt collars he doesn't have 007's high end fashion sense. He commands a team of three agents called "Sandbaggers" who handle ultra sensitive "special operations" all over the world.

Often the biggest problems didn't come from the KGB but from the internal fights between MI6 and MI5, and the political machinations of Burnside's ex-father-in-law who is the government's most senior bureaucrat.

The show was never a big hit, earning just enough in the ratings to justify another series. However that all came to an end when its creator/writer Ian Mackintosh mysteriously disappeared in a small plane somewhere in or near British Columbia, Canada.

ITV decided that no one could take over the reins, and let the show end after 20 episodes.

A handful of stations in North America, mostly PBS and CBC ran the reruns, usually as filler, where it developed a small cult following. Aside from me the most famous member of this cult was writer Greg Rucka who says his comic series Queen & Country was inspired by The Sandbaggers.

I was recently able to revive my membership in the cult when I splurged over $100 for the Sandbaggers DVD box set.

Some may say that I spent too much for a box set containing fewer episodes than a single season of an average American network show. But after I've seen some of the episodes, I must say that it's a case of quality over quantity.

The show's gritty realism gives it an almost documentary feel as it explores the world of Cold War era espionage. You can't watch it without thinking that must be what it was really like.

It also shows you the power of good writing.

You see the show had a low budget, even by British TV standards, and the production values are minimal. Interiors were shot on 2  inch analog videotape and exteriors were shot on grainy 16 mm film, creating a visually jarring effect to those not used to British TV of that era.

There's also very little action in the show. The number of shots fired in a season of The Sandbagger is probably less than the average episode of an American TV show. Possibly because they couldn't afford the blanks.

Yet despite the low budget and thin production values, it's a compelling show. It commands that you concentrate on what's going on, and you can't help but follow that command because it's so damn intriguing. 

So if you have the money, and want a spy drama without fantasy I say get yourself The Sandbaggers from Amazon. In my opinion, it's well worth it.