Imagine that there are very few common social, political or cultural grounds on which Lou Reed and Larry Hagman might comfortably meet.
To find them rhapsodizing about the pleasures of motorcycles-very, very specifically about Harley-Davidson motorcycles-is to understand, if not appreciate, the unique allure of Harleys.
“Harley-Davidson: The American Motorcycle” (7 p.m. Monday, Turner Broadcasting System) is as detailed a show as one might want. It covers the history of motorcycling and makes a strong-if sometimes too poetic-case that those who ride Harleys are tapping into some vein of American individualism, like cowboys or astronauts. It also gets down to the specifics of virtually every Harley model since the first.
The show’s boosterish, self-aggrandizing tone-this is the “official” biography of the company-blemishes what is otherwise a fascinating look at the history of motorcyles, taking us back to 1868, when Frenchman Louis Perreaux strapped a steam engine to his bicycle and . . .
Bill Harley and the three Davidson brothers, Walter, Arthur and William, founded their company in 1903 and it has withstood wars, depressions, foreign competition and a serious image problem.
The image problem was born on the 4th of July, 1947, when a motorcycle rally in Hollister, Calif., turned into a riot and led to a series of unfavorable biker portraits in print and films, such as the movie “The Wild One,” with Marlon Brando as the leader of a vicious gang of bikers.
Great exchange from that film:
Woman: “What are you rebelling against?”
Brando: “What have you got?”
Less engaging to those who don’t know a gasket from a clutch are the changes in the company’s engines-from the V-Twin in the 1910s to the “flathead” (1929-35), “knucklehead,” “panhead,” “shovelhead” and, from 1984 to the present, the “blockhead.” Many stars-Reed, Hagman, Travis Tritt, Peter Fonda, Judd Nelson, James Caan, David Crosby and Wyonna Judd-are paraded to praise Harleys.
There might have been nothing to praise had not a group of executives and founding-family members bought the company back from AMF in 1981. Thanks to its innovative “blockhead” engine-and some brilliant marketing and ads-the company leaped back to health, becoming the most successful motorcycle company in the world and an icon of American industry and independence. We could do worse.
– “The Great Bears of Alaska” (8 p.m. Monday, Discovery Channel) is less one of those playful nature romps than an interesting look at the North American grizzly bear. Their lives are weird: six months spent in hibernation alternating with six months spent in energetic search for food. To watch a crowd of grizzlies fishing for salmon in Alaska’s McNeil river is to marvel at the graceful power of the animals and to appreciate, as best a human can, nature’s variety.
– Tim Matheson is a goof who falls, via the personal ads, for a seemingly perfect woman (Tracy Pollan), who turns out to be anything but in “Dying to Love You” (8 p.m. Tuesday, CBS-Ch. 2). Aspiring to thrills-the film’s original title was “Lethal White Female”-this is a tame thing.
– Joanne Woodward and Brian Dennehy are wonderful to watch in an otherwise predictable love-between-opposites story called “Foreign Affairs” (7 p.m. Wednesday, TNT cable).
They turn on vast amounts of charm and display abundant acting skills in trying to make writer Chris Bryant’s adaptation of Alison Lurie’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel something other than just another love story.
Woodward is Virginia Miner, an English professor on a research trip to England. Dennehy’s a gregarious Tulsa sanitation-company engineer named Chuck Mumpson.
They meet on the plane to London, different in every way: He’s a self-styled cowboy filled with small talk, and she’s a decorous sort who adores curling up with a good book.
But you know what will happen, and it does, thanks to many chance encounters in England and to the efforts of Virginia’s friend Edwin (Ian Richardson).
The script has a nasty habit of using Edwin’s homosexuality as a comedic device and diverts our attention from the main mating dance to a romance between a research assistant and an actress.
That said, it is a joy to watch Woodward and Dennehy do their thing. A more polished pair you’re not likely to see on TV for quite some time.
