Silent gem in DW Griffith's 1916 classic Intolerance

"I DON'T care for modern films - all crashing cars and close-ups of people's feet." The quote is from silent screen star Lillian Gish, and she had a point.

A scene from animated film Gnomeo & Juliet.

"I DON'T care for modern films - all crashing cars and close-ups of people's feet." The quote is from Lillian Gish, star of the silent screen, and she had a point.

Today's soundtracks are so loud and intrusive that the idea of a silent film should appeal to many viewers. The ABC is obliging by showing Intolerance (Thursday, 2.40am, ABC1), DW Griffith's 1916 silent classic. Gish appears in a film with four interlocking stories about political and social oppression, set in ancient Babylon, Judea in the time of Christ, Reformation Europe and turn-of-the-century America.

Quaint as it may seem today, it remains a visually stunning work that set the pattern for any number of Hollywood epics. The stories are intercut with increasing frequency as they approach their climax, and the cumulative effect is overwhelming.

Among the early classics of the sound era was Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning, about a tramp who takes over the household of a well-to-do French couple after they rescue him from the Seine. Hollywood remade it in 1986 as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (Thursday, noon, Seven), which has the distinction of being the first and only film from Disney (or rather, its Touchstone label) to be R-rated for US audiences.

Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfuss are the couple whose mansion is home to their two children, a sexy Latino maid and the family dog Mike, who makes regular visits to a doggie psychiatrist. The mood is agreeably hysterical and the performances never less than likeable, though it's always a bad sign in a comedy when an animal steals the limelight.

Robert Altman was on familiar ground when he made Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Sunday, 1.30am, ABC1), about members of a women's James Dean fan club who come together to pay tribute to their hero on the 20th anniversary of his death. As usual in films about reunions, intimate secrets are revealed and the insecurities of these unhappy women are explored to comic and touching effect. The cast, including Cher, Sandy Dennis and Kathy Bates, couldn't be better.

Gnomeo and Juliet (Saturday, 7pm, Seven) is a computer-animated version of Shakespeare's tragedy played by a cast of garden gnomes in an English garden. Eight writers are credited (not including Shakespeare). The animation is flawlessly lifelike, but the lovers, voiced with insipid cuteness by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt, never engage us.

Someone decided a film about star-crossed gnomes and feuding neighbours needed some standard action-flick stuff to generate excitement, so lawnmower races provide loud-revving diversions. "What's in a gnome?" sighs Juliet, in what passes for the balcony scene. It may be the film's best line.

BEST ON SHOW

Down and Out in Beverly Hills (MA15+)
4 stars
Thursday, noon, Seven

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (M)
4 stars
Sunday, 1.30am, ABC1

Intolerance (PG)
5 stars
Thursday, 2.40am, ABC1