Fantastic Voyage (1966)
Channel 4, 10.05am
The premise alone proved preposterous enough to earn this Cold War science fiction thriller the enduring status of cult classic. Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch play leaders of a medical team who are miniaturised and injected into the body of an injured scientist so they can salvage the secret of world peace. Piloting a microscopic submarine, the team face a desperate race against time, sabotage and hostile antibodies. The cleverly staged interior landscape of the body helped to secure Fantastic Voyage an Oscar for production design, but otherwise this irresistibly schlocky relic is pure Austin Powers. (100 min)
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ANNE OF THE INDIES (1951)
Channel 4, 2pm
Inspired by a genuine 18th-century female pirate called Anne Bonney, Jacques Tourneur’s swashbuckling high-seas melodrama stars Jean Peters as the eponymous seafaring bandit queen and Louis Jourdan as the suave French prisoner who steals her heart. Anne of the Indies delivers all the required genre conventions of sea battles, sword fights and sadomasochistic lashings. But Tourneur elevates these B-movie ingredients with visual panache, spiced with a dash of proto-feminist subtext. (81 min)
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THE GIFT (2000)
E4, 10pm
An atmospheric slice of Southern Gothic with a paranormal twist, The Gift was co-written by the actor- director Billy Bob Thornton. Based partly on Thornton’s own psychic mother, Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) is a fortune-teller in a backwater Georgia town whose feverish visions help her to track down killers and their victims. On unusually restrained form, Sam Raimi, the director of Evil Dead and Spider-Man, stokes up the eerie tension while juggling a stellar cast that includes Katie Holmes, Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear, Hilary Swank and Giovanni Ribisi. (111 min)