Film choice

Kiss Me Kate (1953) BBC Two, 2.45pm ★★★★

Events backstage during a production of The Taming of the Shrew mirror the onstage shenanigans in George Sidney’s film of Cole Porter’s musical, shot in 3D (which is why everyone is constantly throwing things at the camera). Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel play the squabbling stars, but the highlights are the dance numbers: Ann Miller belting out Too Darn Hot and Bob Fosse in From This Moment On.

Robbery (1967) Talking Pictures TV, 9pm ★★★

Four years after the Great Train Robbery came Peter Yates’s film inspired by the actions of Bruce Reynolds and his gang. Stanley Baker stars as crime boss Paul Clifton, who puts together a team to rob a Royal Mail train. As meticulously told as the crime was planned, this film has largely been forgotten. But it does feature a thrilling car chase scene that secured Yates the job of director on Bullitt.

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (1979) BBC Two, 11.15pm ★★★★★

Having already returned to his epic Vietnam War film once with 2001’s sprawling Redux, which was longer than the slowly meandering Mekong, Francis Ford Coppola has now given us his definitive version, newly trimmed with enhanced sound and meticulously restored film. Martin Sheen stars as the soldier sent to kill an American colonel (Marlon Brando, superb). This is a magisterial war epic.