I See A Dark Stranger No, Not Johnny Depp, But The Tea Leaves Suggest It Soon Will Be
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday May 28, 2002
I See a Dark Stranger (1945)
1.35am (Weds), ABC: Viewers contemplating this late-night entertainment might do well to avoid disturbing tea-leaf patterns and opt for a herbal bag instead one offering an infusion of cinnamon, pot-strength blarney and diluted Guinness. Twinings Ballykissangel-Style Leprechaun's Breath or O'Daft's Traditional Shillelagh Char should do nicely. Deborah Kerr stars as Bridie Quilty, an Irish colleen who loathes the Brits and willingly ventures to London under the auspices of a bogus IRA cell to gather intelligence data for the Germans and help spring a Nazi spy from one of Her Majesty's weekenders. The rotten, misguided slag! But bless my soul and shamrock if she doesn't find her determination wilting as she succumbs to the charms of Lieutenant David Bayne (Trevor Howard), a suave counter-intelligence operative. This is the young and rakish Howard, of course, not the rubicund old gasper he was to become later in his career. Hopeless tosh, really, but well scripted and nicely acted in the Hitchcock manner. It's a wonder the plot hasn't gone to Burbank Retreads Inc to be cobbled into an Academy Award nominee something for Gwyneth Paltrow and Johnny Depp.
The Great Outdoors
8pm, 7: Laura Csortan heads off to Alaska's Kodiak Island with her trusty Kodak for a spot of bear spotting. How appropriate, I hear you cry, given that she was spotted posing, almost bare, in one of those dreadful magazines for modern, sophisticated chaps ... a publication which passed unsolicited across On the Air's desk last week. I trust she is more appropriately attired for this expedition. Shelley Craft takes the ferry to a hideaway outside Port Vila to look at the fish. Have they fixed the dunny yet? Tom Williams stays at a B&B that resembles Dr Dolittle's celebrated home in Puddleby.
All Saints
8.30pm, 7: Terri calls to advise her colleagues she is unable to make it to work. A sickie?! Is she lovesick or has last week's vigorous rumpo encounter with Mitch left her as exhausted and emotionally drained as a million viewers? I shudder to think.
Dockers
11pm, ABC: Tommy and Macca have been wharfies all their adult lives. Tommy's son, Andy, is a relative newcomer to the docks. There's a bit of a blue on the pier prompting Andy and his gang to immediately stage a strike. Tommy, Macca and 500 others walk out in support. Can they get a drink at the trendy Big House pub nearby? Ricky Tomlinson who is always worth watching features with Christine Tremarco from The Leaving of Liverpool. Crissy Rock and Lee Ross also appear.
Guardians of the
Forest
3.30pm, SBS: The Global Environment Outlook released last week cites demands for fresh water and power as crucial factors in human sustainability. Such demands, the report suggests, are invariably met to the detriment of wildlife and forests. This program, about the Orang-Asli people of the Malay peninsula, is a case in point. The Orang-Asli regard themselves as guardians of the forest, but for them progress has become another word for genocide. Squeezed off their land, marginalised in every way and forced to integrate into communities with which they have no ties, they now face the destruction of their culture by a giant dam project. The old ``burn down the village to save it" logic prevails just as it does in our sophisticated world where democracy is being ringbarked in order to preserve it.
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald