THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR T (1953)
Channel 4, 10.20am
Decades before Jim Carrey made The Grinch into a household name, Roy Rowland’s bizarre musical was the only previous live-action adaptation of a Dr Seuss book. A triumph of psychedelic visuals and perverse imagination, it stars Tommy Rettig as an orphan boy who falls asleep during his piano lesson and dreams about a tyrannical music teacher (Hans Conried) holding him captive in a nightmarish castle. Inspired, surreal fun. (89min)
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SLIDING DOORS (1998)
BBC One, 11.05pm
Gwyneth Paltrow honed her cut-glass English accent in this clever but slight romantic thriller from the writer and director Peter Howitt. In the first of two parallel plot lines, Helen (Paltrow) boards a London Tube train in time to catch out her unfaithful boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch). In the second, she misses the train and her life takes a different turn. Securing a rising star such as Paltrow for a low-budget British feature was clearly a coup, even if Howitt ultimately settles for lightweight whimsy. (99min)
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PACIFIC HEIGHTS (1990)
Channel 4, 11.40pm
A late addition to the 1980s boom in thrillers about imperilled yuppies, Pacific Heights stars Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith as a professional couple who rent out rooms in their plush new home to the tenant from hell (Michael Keaton). Schlocky but gripping, John Schlesinger’s domestic horror drama is elevated by string performances, especially Keaton’s creepily charming psychopath. (102min)
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MultiChannel
ALFIE (2004)
Sky Movies 1, 8pm
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Jude Law falls well short of Michael Caine’s iconic Jack the Lad in Charles Shyer’s fairly pointless remake of the 1966 classic. Like the film, Law’s womanising Manhattan playboy is handsome but empty. (103min)