As we return to cable screenings of movies that are unreleased on video, the coming month demonstrates a particularly strong emphasis on famous Hollywood features that have mysteriously evaded ancillary distribution (i.e., very few documentaries and shorts on the list, this time around). April 2008 is packed with exciting highlights for the discerning viewer, and my top two picks are sure to stop all film buffs in their tracks: a rare cable screening of Bernardo Bertolucci’s wild incest drama Luna from 1979, and a documentary portrait of one of the most exciting and innovative filmmakers of the past 50 years: the brilliant Canadian documentarist Allan King, whose efforts Warrendale and A Married Couple forever changed the way that audiences look at nonfiction cinema. So hit your easy chair, keep your popcorn bowl and your king-sized universal remote nearby, and as always: fire up that glitter box.

1. Luna (1979) (Nathan’s #1 Pick of the Month). Bernardo Bertolucci’s deeply eccentric and disturbing drama – the tale of a widowed American opera diva and her son who relocate to Italy and lapse into sordid incest, while the son falls into the pit of heroin addiction – represents a most unusual attempt to place the extremist classical tragedy of opera in a contemporary context. I last saw it about six years ago, and while I’ll be the first to admit that something about it doesn’t quite work, neither can I shake any of the images or the lead performance by Jill Clayburgh from my mind. Several aspects of this film render it extremely compelling and haunting, from the lunar imagery of the opening credit sequence and the epilogue, to the operatic lyricism of the overall narrative and the scenes in which the lead character and her son push the edge of the envelope into dangerous psychosexual territory. It is most entertaining after reading Dr. Claretta Tonetti’s wonderful analytic tome on Bertolucci, in which she devotes a chapter to this movie. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/4 at 3:30am.

2. Actuality: The Life and Art of Allan King (2006). (Nathan’s #2 Pick of the Month). Visionary Allan King is one of the two or three most brilliant “unknown” filmmakers around; ask any American about him, and those who claim to recognize the moniker will invariably mix him up with the comic Alan King, of Inside the Comedy Mind fame. A clarification may be necessary here: this King is in fact a Canadian filmmaker who redefines the word “fearless.” He made his mark in the ’60s with two efforts: the shockingly raw juvenile delinquency documentary Warrendale, and A Married Couple – that notorious cinema direct free-fall into the familial dysfunction of a Canadian family, Antoinette, Billy, and Bogart Edwards, in which we’re helplessly exposed to the terror of a marriage bursting at the seams. (If one wants to see the granddaddy of all contemporary “reality” television, and even the point of inspiration for its predecessor, An American Family, this is it – and it makes anything on current television – yes, even Breaking Bonaduce - look like baby food by comparison). King went on to chalk up a resume of equally daring, provocative and compelling films even through recent years (and, at 78 years old, he’s still active). This documentary provides a nearly perfect point-of-entry to his entire body of work. Screens on the Sundance Channel: 4/7 at 5:30pm, 4/12 at 10am, 4/17 at 5am.

3. Down to the Sea in Ships (1949) – The most unusual aspect of this seemingly straightforward maritime drama (about a young tyke and his grandfather who hit the waves together in a New Bedford whaling vessel) is the years-ahead-of-its time Freudian psychodrama that takes up the better part of two hours. It may defy audience expectation throughout, and falter at times, but it never ceases to intrigue. It sports three stellar lead performances by Lionel Barrymore (doing a variation on his nasty Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life), a twelve year old Dean Stockwell, and the late Richard Widmark, whom we recently lost. Director Henry Hathaway also tosses in a handful of terribly exciting adventure sequences. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/4 at 11:30am.

4. Dragonwyck (1948) – You’ll recognize, in this period chiller, one of the antecedents of decades of wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing psychological thrillers, from the sublime to the horrendously exploitative. Rarely was it done with as much grace, or as deft of a hand, as it is here. And who better to pull it off than Mr. Poe himself, Vincent Price? He stars as Nicholas Van Ryn, a feudal Dutch landowner in the 1840s who collects dues from local residents, and detests and resents his wife for her inability to give him an heir; his only offspring is one daughter, which does him little good. Along comes lovely, fetching Miranda Wells (Gene Tierney), hired as an au pair to care for Nicholas’s daughter. Sensing his opportunity, Nicholas promptly decides to off the missus, and court and marry Miranda – thereby giving himself a new carrier for a male heir. Of course the heroine’s safety falls into the clutches of this monomaniacal bastard, and of course she has absolutely no idea. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/3 at 8am and 4/25 at 9:30am.

5. Heartsounds (1984) – Glenn Jordan helmed one of the finest telemovies of the last thirty years with this delicately-handled yet emotionally charged docudrama about the difficult experiences of Martha Weinman Lear, when her husband, Harold, suffers an ongoing series of heart attacks. As the leads, Mary Tyler Moore and James Garner are nothing short of perfection. Working with Jordan, from a script by Fay Kanin (adapted from Weinman’s bestselling memoir) the two actors bring to fruition a series of moments dazzlingly poignant and authentic; seldom has a film struck so many real and deeply resonant chords, mirroring the tensions and emotional contradictions of real life experience. Screens on the Encore Love Stories Channel, 4/1 at 5:45am, 4/5 at 9:10am, 4/15 at 9:30am, 4/25 at 7:15am.

6. Kid Blue (1973) – Dennis Hopper stars in this comic western that veers wildly into the offbeat; he plays the title character, an inept turn-of-the-century train robber making a series of unsuccessful attempts to go straight in the tiny Texan village of Dime Box. Most critics who initially dismissed this film completely overlooked its satirical elements – among other things, it subtly and knowingly satirizes the conventions of the western genre and skewers the old west per se while excoriating work in an anti-establishment vein. The script was co-authored by none other than Crazy Like a Fox star John Rubinstein; he, co-scenarist Edwin “Bud” Shrake and director James Frawley add lots of nice little touches, such as a hilarious role for Peter Boyle (who plays a phony minister, Preacher Bob) and a subplot involving a bizarre flying contraption. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/25 at 2:30am.

7. Thanks a Million (1935)–As produced by Darryl F. Zanuck at 20th Century Fox, this clever little political satire-cum-musical comedy has Dick Powell persuaded by his conniving manager (Fred Allen) to run for governor of Pennsylvania. He becomes immediately disillusioned by the corruption surrounding him, and speaks out against it – which of course makes him even more popular with the public. The humor here is consistently on target, the satire deft and knowing, and the soundtrack a sheer delight – it includes such numbers as “Happy Days Are Here Again” (a song original to this film), “I’ve Got a Pocketful of Sunshine,” “Sugar Plum,” and the title tune. Screens on The Fox Movie Channel, 4/10 at 7:30am.

8. The File on Thelma Jordon (1949) – The legendary Robert Siodmak (The Killers) helmed this tough and bitter film noir outing, in which a district attorney (Wendell Corey) becomes unwisely involved with the title character (Barbara Stanwyck), a shady femme fatale on trial for murder. The picture offers innumerable satisfying twists and turns, a complex and semi-empathetic lead character in Jordon (an element unusual for a noir), and – on a tonal level – intriguing erotic threads that run throughout. George Barnes’s stunning black and white cinematography also provides a strong asset. Screens on Turner Classic Movies, 4/13 at 10am.

9. The Maltese Bippy (1969) – I’ve consciously avoided including potboilers and misfires on this monthly list, but (like Bogdanovich’s At Long Last Love, which also crops up on cable from time to time), this is one of those titles that everyone seems to reference amid discussions of awful yet “unseen” disasters. A theatrically-released spinoff of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In that unceremoniously bombed at the box office, its nearly incoherent premise has Dan Rowan and Dick Martin playing two directors of cheesecake films who end up kvetching around inside of an old house, where one develops a delusion that he’s turning into a werewolf. Working together with journeyman director Norman Panama (Not With My Wife, You Don’t!), the two never manage to stir up a single laugh, but they do plunge headfirst into garish kitsch, and enlist the support of a truly bizarre vintage cast that includes Robert Reed, Julie Newmar and Fritz Weaver. This one has to be seen to be believed; a concept movie in which the concept doesn’t work, it belongs in the category of such late ’60s/early ’70s bombs as Skidoo and The Phynx. (And it is rated G!) Screens on Turner Classic Movies, 4/21 at 6:15am.

10. Get the Picture (short) – The extraordinary Brian Cox headlines this short drama that excoriates photojournalistic opportunism. Screens on The Sundance Channel, 4/15 at 6:45am.