THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 16, 1996 TAG: 9603150112
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
WITH THOUSANDS of old movies in their vaults, the folks at Turner Broadcasting are forever thinking of new ways to package and present these flicks to cable subscribers - to tease and tempt us into watching TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies.
In a new special, Turner revives Hollywood's golden age of bad girls when Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow, Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck were queens of the silver screen. You'll see clips galore in ``The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful: Women in Movies.''
The show premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday on TNT, followed by two more airings at 10 and midnight.
It's better than other specials of the ``dusty old films'' genre principally because Turner brought in scenes of movies starring contemporary femme fatales including Sharon Stone, Glenn Close, Kathleen Turner and Kathy Bates.
What man's blood doesn't run cold when he hears Turner in ``The War of the Roses'' say to Michael Douglas: ``When I watch you eat, when I watch you sleep, when I look at you lately, I just want to smash your face in.''?
And Turner is also seen as perhaps the ultimate femme fatale in ``Body Heat.'' Of that film, which made her a star, Turner said in an interview, ``I never thought of myself as having
femme fatale power. It was a real revelation to have power over men. It was quite enjoyable.''
Turner producers Jacoba Atlas, Kyra Thompson and Gail Torr break down the documentary into eight categories from ``The Femme Fatale,'' which includes Stanwyck, Stone and Turner, to ``The Dame'' (Mae West and Barbra Streisand) to ``The Fury'' (Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Close and Bates).
``The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful'' is great fun, a show you should tape and enjoy in bits and pieces. No need to take it in all at once.
St. Patrick's Day isn't about to come and go without TV taking notice. The Disney Channel on Sunday at 9 p.m. presents ``Irish Music and America: A Musical Migration.'' Bono of U2 is featured.
A&E has two specials to mark the day - ``Saint Patrick: The Man, The Myth'' on ``Biography'' on Sunday at 8 p.m., followed by ``The Great Irish Famine'' at 9.
The march of new series continues past St. Patrick's Day as the networks play shows that don't stand much of a chance of making their fall schedules.
If a March show does stick, it could be ``Boston Common'' on NBC starting Thursday at 8:30 p.m. Great time slot. Anthony Clark stars as a Virginian from the Blue Ridge who accompanies his sister to college in Boston and then sticks around, doing his best Forrest Gump imitation.
Fox at 9:30 p.m. Sunday premieres ``Local Heroes,'' about friends since high school in Pittsburgh who never grew up. ``Champs'' on ABC tried the same format and bombed. At 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Fox brings on ``The Show,'' in which John Bowman stars as a TV writer on a variety show.
And let us not forget that come Sunday at 7 p.m., NBC sends up ``Dateline'' against creaky ol' ``60 Minutes'' on CBS.
Here's another tray of TV snacks for the week ahead:
Bryant Gumbel is back on Home Box Office with the fifth edition of ``Real Sports,'' which is TV's best sports show. This time around (Sunday at 9 a.m.) he focuses on Hakeem Olajuwon of the Houston Rockets and the 1966 Texas Western U. national basketball champions . . . WGNT runs back-to-back episodes of ``The Hitchhiker'' starting Saturday at midnight . . .
The very funny ``Dream On'' series is nearing its finish on HBO. On Wednesday night at 10 p.m., you can see Martin Tupper and the gang in their next-to-last new episode. Martin asks to marry Judith. Again . . . One of pop music's more interesting personalities, Sting, is profiled by Bravo on ``The South Bank Show'' Monday night at 10. ``I never aspired to any of this,'' Sting says of his career in music and films. Real name: Gordon Summer . . . The Weather Channel's first documentary of the year, ``The Power of Weather,'' premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. Get up close with blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes and the personal favorite of coastal Virginians, the raging nor'easter. In the same arena, The Learning Channel on Wednesday night at 9 offers ``Wonders of Weather: Things That Fall From the Sky.'' Would you believe that hail can be fatal? . . . The Sci-Fi Channel isn't always just reruns of network shows that never caught on. On Saturday night at 8, the channel presents an original film, ``Star Quest,'' about eight people from the United Federation of Earth exploring the planet Trion. . . . Hunk alert! On Sunday at 9 p.m., the E! Entertainment Network presents ``Sexy Men of Prime Time.'' And the sexiest guy in prime time is: Urkel, the love potion man. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
[Glenn Close...]
[Rita Hayworth...]
by CNB