Decades, 12:00 p.m. ET
Another strong weekend marathon courtesy of Decades – and this one is the longest one yet, occupying every remaining half hour of the weekend, late night and early mornings included, once the marathon begins at noon today. The show in question is The Adventures of Superman, and Decades presents selected episodes from the first six seasons. This first DC Comics adaptation for television (Batman and others already had been serialized for Saturday movie matinees) stars George Reeves as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper… and his titular alter ego. Earliest episodes were in black and white, but the series quickly made the move to color, so most of this weekend’s episodes from this 1952-58 series will feature our very colorful superhero. But no colorful supervillains – the bad guys in this TV series were run-of-the-mill, gun-toting bad guys. One thing to watch for: the famous sequences in which Superman would stand there, chest out and unblinking, as a gangster would bounce a round of bullets off his ‘S’ insignia, then duck as the same bad guy threw the empty gun at him. Also watch for the Lois Lane switcheroo. Long before Bewitched pulled off the caper of the two Darrins, Superman swapped out one Lois for another. Phyllis Coates played Lois for the first season, then was replaced by Noel Neill for the rest of the show’s run. And, you might ask, was actor Jack Larsen ever replaced as eager young cub reporter and photographer Jimmy Olsen? Gosh, no.
Showtime, 10:00 p.m. ET
Director Milos Forman, whose fabulous films have included One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, and Man on the Moon (the story of Andy Kaufman), did another wonderful job with this 1996 movie. It’s the fact-based story of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt’s first-amendment court battle – and Forman was bold enough not just to reposition the misogynist porn publisher as a defender of press freedoms, but to cast his movie biography just as boldly. Other directors had recognized the potential of former Cheers player Woody Harrelson (Oliver Stone in 1994’s dark Natural Born Killers, the Farrelly Brothers in 1996’s ultra-lite Kingpin), but Forman and Harrelson both took a big risk with this one – and it paid off. Harrelson’s leading lady, playing his wife, was another gamble: she’s played by Courtney Love, headline-grabbing widow of Kurt Cobain. She’s excellent here also. And if you look closely, there are other, smaller roles played by similarly unusual casting choices. People who don’t often act in movies, but who act in this one in brief supporting roles, include political strategist James Carville and, as a Cincinnati judge, Larry Flynt himself.
