First, the good news - Alex survived being shot at the end of Year Two! Not sure who the responsible party was. For the sake of argument, let’s say Maggie Simpson.
There’s also the small matter of the title sequence, in which our host Alex Cox - now sporting electric shock haircut avec late '80s power mullet - catches a train to the titular 'Drome; a train entirely populated by people who bare a striking resemblance to the Repo Man director. And the soundtrack? A breakneck C&W number that's not a hundred miles removed from what The Benny Hill Show theme would sound like were it performed by Charlie Daniels.
But what of the films the strand aired in 1990? Kicking off with 100% cult masterpiece Assault On Precinct 13 on May 6th, this would be a season dominated by The Terminator, which received its terrestrial premiere on June 24th.
But surely James Cameron’s picture was too successful, too massive to be suitable for Moviedrome? Such was the nature of the programme that Alex had no problem pointing up precisely this in his introduction to the picture. That said, our host was also quick to identify cultish elements of the blockbuster, not least the fact that it owed so huge a debt to Harlan Ellison’s Outer Limits episode ‘Soldier’.
Terminator wasn’t the only mainstream movie to air this year. An American Werewolf In London could equally be accused of being less Moviedrome and more multiplex - not the multiplexes really existed when John Landis’ film was released in 1981, but you get the picture. Again though, Mr Cox does a cracking job of celebrating the picture’s cult origins and deserves a round of applause for explaining that, while vampires can only be killed by fire, removal of the head or a stake through the heart, “Werewolves can only be killed by a silver bullet or the SAS.”
Away from these tent pole offerings, Moviedrome 4: The Reckoning featured films that every serious film fan should see such as Brazil, Get Carter and Yojimbo, together with mainstream misfires like Jack Nicholson’s Goin’ South and Tony Richardon’s The Loved One, and out-and-out cult pictures; principally Leonard Kastle’s The Honeymoon Killers.
Were I in the business of picking nits, I might venture that it was a shame the series ended on a low-key note - Jim Jarmusch’s Down By Law’s terrific but it’s as much a stranger to crescendo as Helen Keller. Far better to bid adieu with Ulzana’s Raid from 'future ‘Drome MVP Robert Aldrich. Or with Halloween not a million miles away, Dead Of Night could have closed the series out with a shudder.
Were we 12 months further along, Moviedrome 1990 might have reached a climax with a double-bill of The Great Silence and A Bullet For The General. As it was, these ace spaghetti westerns aired over the two Sundays prior to the season finale. Not that there’s anything wrong with Down By Law, quite the opposite. However, substitute that film’s lo-fi melancholy for the shrieking injustice of Sergio Corbucci’s The Great Silence and you’d have had a climax so shocking, it’d probably take you until Season Four to get your breath back.
Moviedrome - Season Three (1990)
Assault On Precinct 13 (May 6th, 10:00pm)
Brazil (May 13th, 10:40pm)
Get Carter (May 20th, 10:00pm)
Goin’ South (May 27th, 10.35pm)
Dead Of Night (June 11th, 12.05am)
The Termiantor (June 24th, 10.40pm)
The Honeymoon Killers (July 1st, 10.20pm)
Ulzana’s Raid (July 8th, 11.15pm)
The Love One (July 15th, 10.50pm)
An American Werewolf In London (July 22nd, 10.30pm)
Yojimbo (July 29th, 10.25pm)
A Wedding (August 5th, 10.20pm)
The Phenix City Story (August 12th, 10.20pm)
Walk On The Wild Side (August 19th, 10.20pm)
The Big Silence (August 26th, 10.10pm)
A Bullet For The General (September 2nd, 10.05pm)
Down By Law (September 9th, 10.40pm)
Wow! What a lineup. I think this may just have been Moviedrome’s greatest year.