THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994 TAG: 9406230066
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO, TELEVISION COLUMNIST
DATELINE: 940625 LENGTH: Long
With an aide, the general talks about what the next morning will bring.
{REST} ``The Rebs will hit us just about at first light. Keep a clear eye.''
Buford sees a vision of men charging valiantly into battle and being butchered valiantly in battle.
The film ``Gettysburg,'' which TNT will premiere Sunday and Monday nights at 8 p.m., is a vast sweep of memorable images such as the one in which Buford asks his junior officers at Gettysburg, ``Do you have any idea what is going to happen here in the morning?''
What happened the next morning was the start of three days of fighting in the Civil War, which left a third of the participants dead, wounded or lost. Turner Pictures put that story on film for movie theaters with a cast that includes Elliott, Jeff Daniels, Tom Berenger and Martin Sheen.
This weekend, its comes to TV screens, which are way too small to hold writer-director Ronald F. Maxwell's epic.
``Our cinematic family refers to it as `our beloved epic,' '' Maxwell said.
He said it was a nearly mystical experience to re-create the fateful events near Gettysburg in 1863. ``None of us who participated in the film remain unmoved or unchanged by it.''
Elliott wanted everything to be absolutely authentic, so he volunteered to pay for the little touches on Buford's uniform that made it look real. Note the tarnished stars on his shoulder boards.
``Sam was a purist,'' said Robert Lee Hodge of Arlington, Va., who was one of the 5,000 ``re-enactors'' hired for ``Gettysburg.''
The next few days on TV will be a feast, a grand buffet, for Civil War enthusiasts, the people who can't see or hear enough about the war when brother fought brother. PBS on Sunday at 8 p.m. brings back the series that had millions of viewers caught in its spell when it first aired.
WHRO will show all 11 hours of ``The Civil War'' ending on Thursday night at 8.
It is Public Broadcasting's not-so-subtle way of reminding audiences what a great documentarian Ken Burns is in the weeks before his newest enterprise airs on PBS. ``Baseball'' - all 18 1/2 hours of it - begins on Sunday, Sept. 18.
TNT is declaring tomorrow Civil War Sunday, and rightly so, with the TV premiere of ``Gettysburg'' and the screening of five other movies about the war between the states starting at noon with ``The Distant Trumpet.''
And when Part 1 of ``Gettysburg'' concludes on Sunday night, Turner Pictures has one more item of interest for Civil War buffs. ``Gettysburg Journal'' is a 30-minute look behind the scenes at the making of the four-hour film.
Never before has so much fake facial hair been applied to the faces of so many actors.
Now let's consider other sounds of fury heading for the tube in the days to come.
If it isn't floods or earthquakes or mudslides, it's fires. The people of Southern California pay dearly for living in that superb climate. Sunday night at 8, The Weather Channel shows the horror and heroics involved in recent fires that destroyed 187,000 acres and left 25,000 Californians homeless. ``The Burning Season'' will be on again Monday at 1 a.m.
Did you see Dick Clark the last time he appeared on TV? A wrinkle or two was showing on his face. The man is aging, finally. America's perpetual teenager pops up on prime time on NBC at 8 p.m. Saturday with a parcel of tapes from his video vault to do ``American Bandstand's No. 1 Hits.'' I will be very disappointed if I do not see Chubby Checker dancing The Twist. Boyz II Men will perform.
On The Weather Channel on Sunday night you have fires - fires that stretched for 150 miles. On ABC Saturday at 8 p.m., you'll see rain, and lots of it. The excellent ``World of Discovery'' series, with Richard Crenna in the host's role, focuses on the monsoon of the Indian subcontinent. On ``Chasing India's Monsoon,'' you'll see a place where 40 inches of rain fell in ONE DAY.
And where does all that rain go after it falls? Into rivers, of course. What a segue to our next TV treat - ``The Adventures of Huck Finn,'' which premieres Sunday at 7 on The Disney Channel's ``The Magical World of Disney'' series. In this production, Elijah Wood plays the Huckster who sets himself free on the mighty Mississippi River. Jason Robards plays a rogue named King.
How about an evening with Frank Sinatra when the singer was in his prime? A&E has Ol' Blue Eyes at his best on Thursday night at 9 in an hour taped 24 years ago at the Royal Festival Hall in Monaco. Don't you love it when Frank sings about the lady who's a tramp?
More music on TV, from the present: VH-1 on Sunday night at 8 is putting on a two-hour concert live, ``VH-1 Honors,'' during which Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks, Michael Bolton and the musician formerly known as Prince are scheduled to appear. The ``honors'' angle here is that the artists are deeply involved in charities from Farm Aid to Feed the Children, and VH-1 wants to acknowledge that. That makes it an awards show.
More from the world of music: MTV on Saturday and Sunday is presenting ``MTV's Big Shows Showcase.'' Blockbuster specials. Cool regular programs. It starts at 1 p.m. Saturday and continues Sunday at 9 a.m.
``The Power of Dreams'' series, which generated some buzz when it first aired on The Discovery Channel earlier this month, will be repeated Saturday starting at noon and continuing until 3 p.m. Can dreams heal us? Show us the future? Change the course of history? It's all here for you to ponder. Later Saturday on TLC, at 10 p.m, is a program just as fascinating: ``The Mystery of Birth.'' Makes you feel special to have arrived at all.
What's the hottest movie at the cineplexes? ``Speed.'' Been dying to know how the cast pulled off those daring stunts on wheels? Check out ``HBO First Look: `Speed''' on Home Box Office Monday at noon. And on Sunday at 1:45 p.m., HBO takes a peek at how ``Wolf,'' with big, bad Jack Nicholson, was filmed. Inside stuff here. by CNB