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SCMP Reporter

FRANCIS Ford Coppola's haunting contribution to the Vietnam war sub-genre, Apocalypse Now (Pearl, 9.30pm), was more than five years in the making and became a cause celebre before it opened.

  As documented by numerous press accounts at the time - it came out in 1979 - and by the book Notes, a collection of journal entries written by Coppola's wife, Eleanor, filming in the Philippines was hellish, disaster-plagued and decadent.

   The film began with a US$12 million budget and exceeded it by $31 million. Money from Coppola's own, obviously deep pockets, made up the difference.

  Eleanor Coppola later used her journals, together with documentary footage shot during the production, as the basis for 1991's Hearts Of Darkness, a fascinating account of the making of the film.

  Then there was the fat man, Brando. His character was intended to be a lean and mean Green Beret, but Brando showed up for filming weighing around 130 kg. He was so conscious of his ballooning waistline - muscle from his body-building days turned to fat - that he insisted on a clause being written into his contract that Coppola would not use any shots of his girth.

  Martin Sheen, meanwhile, had a heart attack and could not work for seven weeks. A typhoon halted production for another seven weeks, and through all this Coppola could not think of an ending. A small matter, and one he did not resolve well. Critics saw Apocalypse Now as a flawed masterpiece, most citing the allegedly pretentious and confused finale.

  What emerged was still the definitive Vietnam film, demonstrating Coppola's ability to combine serious art and popular entertainment.

  The plot structure was inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness and follows Willard (Martin Sheen), a cold and amoral army captain, as he journeys upriver to Cambodia to assassinate Colonel Kurtz (Brando), a renegade Green Beret who has set himself up as a god among Montagnard warriors and is using them as a third force.

  Despite its flaws Apocalypse Now is one of the most unforgettable war movies ever made. The scene in which US army helicopters play Wagner while attacking a Vietnamese village is one of the most spectacular battle sequences and the napalm destruction at the end involved the biggest explosion ever staged for film.

     THE Japanese film Tora-San, My Uncle (World, 9.30pm), directed by Yoji Yamada, is the 42nd in the Tora-san series, which makes Dynasty seem like a mere flash in the pan. Tora-san (Kiyoshi Atsumi) is a kind-hearted, meddlesome busy-body who dispenses a unique brand of homespun philosophy. The series started in the late 1960s. This came out in 1989 and features many of the characters who have been there for the duration.

     DO not expect The Vampyr (World, 12.40pm) to be a conventional Dracula movie. It is a BBC production, already shown in Hong Kong, and takes the form of a contemporary soap-style opera, replete with money-oozing villains and a singing Drac who gets a year of life for every three women he seduces and sacrifices.

     SHIRLEY McLaine made her debut in Hitchcock's 1955 comedy The Trouble With Harry (Pearl, 2.00pm), about a corpse that just won't stay dead and causes all sorts of bother for folks in a quiet Vermont town. It's offbeat for Hitch, but often funny, with a fine start turn from Edmund Gwenn and Bernard Hermann's first score for the great director.

     JONATHAN Ross returns for another episode of the The Incredibly Strange Film Show (STAR Plus, 5.30am). He casts a vitriolic eye and tongue over some of the strangest small-budget films ever made, paying particular attention to John Waters, director of Hairspray.

  Night Of The Creeps (Pearl, 2.10am) might qualify for a mention by Mr Ross. In 1959 a young lover (Jason Lively) disappears. In 1986 his body is found, comes to life and starts causing some serious mayhem among fraternity boys and girls.



A flawed masterpiece