AUNTIE MAME (1958)
Channel 4, 1.05pm
Rosalind Russell broke her ankle playing the flamboyant title character in Morton DaCosta’s overlong but engaging comic memoir, based on the autobiographical novel by Patrick Dennis. Mame is a Depression-era bohemian socialite who believes in seizing the day, while Jan Handzlik plays the young nephew who drops into her whirlwind life. Russell and her co-star, Peggy Cass, both earned Oscar nominations. (143min)
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HEAT (1995)
BBC One, 10.35pm
Michael Mann, the creator of Miami Vice, spent years trying to make this heist thriller about an ice-cool bank robber battling an obsessive cop, finally shooting a TV-movie blueprint in 1989. Then the chance arose to make this ultra-glossy, visually ravishing big-screen version with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, who share just one memorably intense scene. Like his protagonists, Mann handles action better than emotion. (172min)
MEGHE DHAKA TARA (1960, b/w)
Channel 4, midnight
Supriya Choudhury plays the self-sacrificing daughter of a Bengali family in Ritwik Ghatak’s powerful social drama about newly impoverished refugees uprooted by the partition of India and Pakistan. Relocated to Calcutta, Nita (Choudhury) becomes a Cinderella figure to her pampered siblings and embittered parents. Loaded with poetic imagery, Ghatak’s tragic slice of life depicts both a family and a nation in crisis. (134min)
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MultiChannel
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SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (1994)
BBC Four, 11.20pm
Written and directed by the former production assistant George Huang, this riveting low-budget poison pen letter to Hollywood is built around a star turn by Kevin Spacey as a sadistic, sarcastic studio boss. Frank Whaley plays the innocent young office junior sucked into Spacey’s Machiavellian orbit. Savage fun. (101min)