Pop culture Q&A

December 12, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

By Rich Heldenfels

McClatchy Newspapers

Q. How come the Academy Awards are always televised on ABC?

A. It just seems like always, because the network has aired the ceremony every year since 1976. But, according to the book “Inside Oscar,” NBC offered the first network telecast of the awards in 1953, when the studios were finally willing to let their supposed enemy, television, in on the fun. And NBC paid $100,000 for the rights.

According to the Motion Picture Academy, NBC carried the show from 1953 through 1960 and again from 1971 to 1975. But ABC has been the main TV home for the Oscars, having it all other years — and its deal runs through 2014. Though the numbers aren’t what they used to be, the Oscars remain a relatively strong TV draw, with a reported average audience of 41 million people for the 2010 telecast.

Q. I remember as a kid a show called “Hong Kong.” I never knew much about it except some detective and guest actors who appeared on the show. Could you give me some details on the starring actor, his character and some of the famous guest stars?

A. According to “The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows,” “Hong Kong” aired in 1960 and 1961 on ABC. It starred Aussie leading man Rod Taylor as Glenn Evans, “an American journalist living and working amid the intrigue of that exotic city.” Lloyd Bochner played Evans’ friend (and chief of police) Neil Campbell. Jack Kruschen was Tully, owner of “the swank nightclub where Glenn spent much of his free time.” Guest stars on the show included France Nuyen, Inger Stevens and Herbert Marshall.

Q. Would you be able to tell me if there is a video available of the 2004 made-for-television movie “Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman” starring Christine Lahti?

A. Unfortunately, I do not know of an authorized release of the movie on video.

Q. If memory serves me right, I attended the first film festival at Ohio University, and there was a foreign film (French?) with subtitles about a guy who was declared dead by the system, and he could not get himself declared alive. I think it was “The Death of a Bureaucrat,” but I’ve been unable to come up with anything about it. Am I close?

A. There is a movie called “Death of a Bureaucrat” or “La muerte de un burocrata,” from 1966. But the plot of the Cuban satirical comedy is a bit different from what you remember. According to “James Monaco’s Movie Guide” and other sources, it involves a dead inventor whose work card is buried with him, so his widow cannot collect his pension. Her nephew tries to exhume the body, is legally forbidden, steals the body but then can’t rebury it — because he never got the exhumation permit. The movie’s mocking of Cuban bureaucracy did not sit well with the Castro regime; it was banned in Cuba and, from what I can find, did not get shown in the U.S. until the late ’70s.

Q. I am looking for a movie starring James Garner and Julie Andrews as two elderly people who meet in a nursing home. I can’t remember the name of it. I’d like to know if it will be on TV.

A. Garner and Andrews worked together several times, including in the superb “The Americanization of Emily” (1964), which Garner has often mentioned as his favorite of his films, and “Victor/Victoria” (1982). You are remembering 1999’s “One Special Night,” which stars Garner and Andrews as two people who meet during their respective visits to a nursing home. After Andrews offers Garner a ride home, they are stranded in a cabin. Lifetime Movie Network has a telecast scheduled for 10 p.m. Dec. 20. The movie has been released on DVD and VHS.