What Was The Last Movie You Watched?

[Doctor Strange]

One of the few movie books I have somehow lost over the years that I really miss is a Janus Films rental catalog circa 1970. It was like a single-volume foreign film masterpiece syllabus. Their logo was always a mark of quality!

Just last night(!) I watched a classic DVR'd from TCM that opened with the Janus Films logo: Pather Panchali by Satyajit Ray.

 

[Fading Fast]

Okay, I am not going to defend "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" for being partly inspired by Sunset Boulevard,... but I am going to inject a little reminder about 1959. Sunset Boulevard had had a successful theatrical run nine years earlier... and disappeared. In 1959, most big Hollywood studios hadn't yet sold their films for broadcast TV airings. Of course, this was decades before cable, VHS, DVD. And it wasn't like Sunset Boulevard was running twice a year on TCM, could be streamed from Netflix, could be looked up on Wiki, or was constantly being citied in Internet forums like TFL. Much of Twilight Zone's initial audience probably hadn't seen it. Or if they had, it was a single viewing nearly a decade earlier: they certainly didn't know it intimately like we do.

So before you accuse Serling of ripping off a classic film, please note that that classic film was nowhere as well known as it is now when he wrote that episode. Just sayin'...

(Also, it's a darn good early Zone episode - only the fourth one - that benefits from its feature-film-veteran talent. Excellent performance by Ida Lupino, music by the great Franz Waxman [who had scored Sunset Boulevard!], direction by thirties/forties pro Mitchell Leisen.)

I do believe it is a rip off in the sense that it was a cut down / modestly altered / but basically the same story TV version of the movie. I do agree it's well done and I enjoy the episode, but it's either the greatest coincidence ever, or he lifted the story - and even some of the sets' style - pretty much right out of the movie.

To be sure, everything is derivative of something, but on the continuum, I'd call "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" much closer to the "rip-off" side than the "derivative" side of it.

But also, since it is so obviously a TV copy of the movie (even acknowledging all your good points about a nine-year-old movie being out of the public's view in a way movies aren't today), maybe it really was done in homage - it's not like the Serling brain lacked for ideas.

 

[Fading Fast]

Indeed. I was one of those kids eagerly watching the broadcast TV premieres of films like Hitchcock's fifties masterworks on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies back then. (I remember being pretty baffled by Vertigo, which wasn't yet considered one of Hitch's greatest films, but a confusing misfire.) And then there were the cut-nearly-to-incomprehensibility-to-fit presentations daily on ABC's 4:30 Movie, which gave nearly 30 minutes of its 90-minute slot to commercials!

And as we've discussed before, important silent and foreign films were turning up on pre-PBS educational stations like NYC's WNET/13, and even in late night shows on local stations. (I think it was WWOR/9 that had a foreign film festival series at 11:30 Sunday nights.) You could (and I did!) see great stuff... but it was always on the station's schedule, not yours. Very, VERY different from now!

A company called Janus Films, which is still around today, distributed a great package of British films of the '30s and '40s during the '70s, mostly to PBS stations, and you saw all kinds of unique things there -- Ealing comedies, Jessie Matthews musicals, early Hitchcock, you name it. I can remember staying up late one night to see Anny Ondra in "Blackmail," which is one of those films that I only saw once and there are still images from it in my head -- the hallucination of the stabbing knife appearing on the big electric sign, brrrrrr....

These types of pictures got quite a lot of play on 1950s television in the US, before the major studios unloaded their pre-1948 libraries, but TV Guide always priggishly identified them as "British" in the listings so that viewers wouldn't be disturbed by the exotic accents and adult themes.

It's funny, but as I was reading these posts, I, too, remembered that with some effort and looking (which I did), these old movies did pop up in the cracks and crevices of TV in the '70s (and not just on Saturday or Sunday afternoon as filler which is where I saw most of them) - late at night, on some local station, on an occasional local affiliate of a network, as part of a Saturday "special" or even on the network itself (although, those were usual the "big" ones - "Casablanca," etc.) - but also I remember finding them on those odd UHF channels that came in fuzzy on my old B&W TV. You never knew, if you could find it (and see it), what would pop up there, but you'd get some cool old movies that were not the familiar ones - when you got lucky.

 

[AmateisGal]

What got me hooked on classic movies was our Nebraska PBS station's show, Silver Screen Classics, hosted by Ron Hull, a legend in Nebraska broadcasting. I think they were on Saturday nights. That's where I first saw Ball of Fire, Laura, Union Pacific, and a few other classics.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dana Hersey's "Movie Loft" on Channel 38 out of Boston in the 70s and 80s was like a crash course in 1930s-40s film -- they had the Warner and pre-48 Paramount packages, and you never knew what was going to turn up next. They'd get into the more recent stuff once and a while too -- they were the first TV station in the US to show "The Deerhunter" uncensored, and that was a very big deal at the time. Hersey was a perfect movie host -- knowledgeable and interesting but not pedantic and beardy. He's still doing voiceover work in the Boston area, but where he really needs to be is on TCM.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Started my Disney's "Aladdin"-VHS cassette, right now!

Legendary, funny and f....n' awesome on german synchronization and the endless adult-jokes.

 

[Zombie_61]

...And then there were the cut-nearly-to-incomprehensibility-to-fit presentations daily on ABC's 4:30 Movie, which gave nearly 30 minutes of its 90-minute slot to commercials!...

ABC's butchery of those movies was shameless. I remember tuning in one afternoon to watch M*A*S*H (1970), and near the end of their "4:30 Movie" run ABC had reduced the time slot to one hour. Incomprehensible is definitely the word to describe it--between editing the movie for content and making time for commercials it was like watching an extended highlights reel, and if you hadn't seen the movie before you'd have absolutely no idea that it even had a comprehensive story. Less than a year later ABC ditched the "afternoon movie" concept in favor of extending their news broadcast, and I can't say I was disappointed.

 

[3fingers]

Does anybody here have the Warner Archive streaming channel? I had it a few years ago and was greatly disappointed in what it offered. I tried again after they claimed to have overhauled it and was equally disappointed the second time.
I keep hoping that they will figure it out, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[Worf]

Does anybody here have the Warner Archive streaming channel? I had it a few years ago and was greatly disappointed in what it offered. I tried again after they claimed to have overhauled it and was equally disappointed the second time.
I keep hoping that they will figure it out, but I won't hold my breath.

Same here, tried it several times. In this instance you DON'T get what you pay for. Worthless!

Worf

 

[DesertDan]

The Thing From Another World

 

[Fading Fast]

Same here, tried it several times. In this instance you DON'T get what you pay for. Worthless!

Worf

TCM remains the greatest value offering in the world (even if I can't tell you what I pay for it in the hateful "bundle" that Spectrum [formerly Time Warner] forces on me to get TCM).

 

[Edward]

Finally got around to seeing The Last Jedi last night. Very nice bit of cinema. Backdrop: I'm an ex-Star Wars fan for whom the franchised died when Greedo shot first, before George Lucas began his three-film urination on its grave. For me, The Force Awakens was perfectly entertaining, mostly despite Harrison Ford's phoned-in 'performance' and the complete and utter lack of emotional impact in his death. It did the same job as Star Trek Generations by bridging one generation to the next (with the added complication that Star Trek hadn't been all but destroyed by its own creator before that). I rated Rogue One far above it. TLJ is another success, also far above TFA. Luke Skywalker was never this engaging or interesting before - a vast improvement on the character as was. Really, the whole film is a study in mythology - what is the value of myth, what is the danger in doggedly clinging to myth, dogma versus compassion, all sorts of interesting themes, very relevant today, all while making sympathetic protagonists out of people who are, essentially, terrorists. Laura Dern is superb as displaying true heroism without seeking recognition for it. It's almost O'Caseyesque the way, in this film, it's the women who demonstrate reserve and pragmatism, while the men mostly rage impotently, or at best achieve only pyrrhic victories. I also enjoyed very much how it subverted Lucas' worst sin in the prequels, which was melding an unpleasant strain of Calvinist predestinationism into the Jedi. That Luke points out the Jedi were arrogant and wrong to think they had a monopoly on the Force was a real turning point. The major characters all make choices - good, bad, wrong, right.... even Luke, who in the original trilogy does almost nothing other than what he is told to by others, finally makes real choices of his own. Bravo Mouse.

 

[AmateisGal]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Okay. I was a HUGE fan of first two Pirates movies - the third one jumped the shark. The fourth one...I never finished watching. I got so bored I turned it off after 20 minutes.

The fifth one was on Netflix and my daughter and I wanted to watch it, so we did last night. It's better than the fourth one - but not as watchable as the third one.

Disappointing film (even Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow couldn't even save it) except for ONE THING: Will Turner was rid of the curse that put him on The Flying Dutchman and he and his wife, Elizabeth Swan, are officially back together!!!

I'm such a romantic that when Will was cursed to the Flying Dutchman, only able to come ashore every 7 years (I think) to see Elizabeth, I was utterly devastated. Now, at last, that ripped piece of my soul is made whole.

(Okay, I'm KIND of kidding here about the soul bit...but I was really, really happy about those two finally being together).

 

[3fingers]

TCM remains the greatest value offering in the world (even if I can't tell you what I pay for it in the hateful "bundle" that Spectrum [formerly Time Warner] forces on me to get TCM).

I don't have cable television anymore. We have an antenna and we used a Roku until the kids thought we needed a bigger screen and gave us a smart TV last Christmas. I would love to pay for TCM, but despite numerous stories claiming that it was coming, AFAIK there is still not a streaming option for TCM. I suppose it has to do with their cable contracts, but with the number of cord cutters out there these days it should be a profitable market for them.

 

[Big J]

@Edward, the wife and I went to see TLJ on Dec 23rd.
I agree with everything that you wrote about Luke; he's never had so much to say, nor an opinion of his own before. Isolation seems to have made him a regular chatterbox!
I also agree that the 3 'prequels' would give anyone the impression that Luke was severely mislead by Obi Wan and Yoda as to the exact nature of The Force (there's some parasite thing in your blood, what? No one told Luke that!).
I didn't notice the gender thing (perhaps because gender roles seem so 'forced' in the new films to me- possibly due to the old Family Guy criticism about the original films that Leia was 'the only woman in the galaxy' in the original trilogy), but I think that's true.
I couldn't help but watch Laura Dern's final sacrifice and think, 'Gee, given the dozens of fighter pilots that died attacking that Star Destroyer at the start, why haven't the rebellion been using this tactic all along?', since it's clear by the end of the film that staffing levels in the Rebellion are pretty low.

I have to admit that I liked Rogue One much more. I felt that it was more grown up and darker. It made those points about terrorism/freeedom fighters much better. After all (as the old joke goes), when everyone cheers when the Death Star gets blown up, no one thinks about the cleaning guy on minimum wage, or the ladies in the cafeteria who just got blown up with it. RO was a much more nuanced film IMHO.

 

[Benzadmiral]

I do believe it is a rip off in the sense that it was a cut down / modestly altered / but basically the same story TV version of the movie. I do agree it's well done and I enjoy the episode, but it's either the greatest coincidence ever, or he lifted the story - and even some of the sets' style - pretty much right out of the movie.

To be sure, everything is derivative of something, but on the continuum, I'd call "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" much closer to the "rip-off" side than the "derivative" side of it.

But also, since it is so obviously a TV copy of the movie (even acknowledging all your good points about a nine-year-old movie being out of the public's view in a way movies aren't today), maybe it really was done in homage - it's not like the Serling brain lacked for ideas.

There's also the possibility that, in larger cities anyway, Sunset Boulevard could have been featured at a revival. The studios occasionally re-released films that had done well. I recall a double feature of From Russia With Love/Goldfinger in the spring of '66, not long after Thunderball, running at one of my local first-run movie houses. Serling could easily have seen SB at such a revival in LA.

The film was endlessly parodied on TV in the Sixties and Seventies, or so it seemed to me. So somebody must have remembered it well.

 

[Fading Fast]

There's also the possibility that, in larger cities anyway, Sunset Boulevard could have been featured at a revival. The studios occasionally re-released films that had done well. I recall a double feature of From Russia With Love/Goldfinger in the spring of '66, not long after Thunderball, running at one of my local first-run movie houses. Serling could easily have seen SB at such a revival in LA.

The film was endlessly parodied on TV in the Sixties and Seventies, or so it seemed to me. So somebody must have remembered it well.

All good points. If he or one of his writers hadn't seen SB first, then that TZ episode is the greatest coincidence - EVER!

 

[Doctor Strange]

Of course he had seen the film, Serling was already a pro writer in 1950. I never suggested that he hadn't, just that film was not as well known to the general public when he wrote the TZ episode as you might assume based on later distribution policies and post-broadcast era media.

My first exposure to the Bond films were in double features in the late sixties: Dr. No and From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. You Only Live Twice hadn't come out yet. But the Bond films were big hits, and the very popular sixties spy craze (U.N.C.L.E., etc.) made them very profitable re-releases. Sunset Boulevard was a downbeat film, and the studios hated the way it depicted the movie biz: I very much doubt that it had any kind of significant revival run after 1950, but I guess it could have. In general, older films were considered to have little value for their makers until "ancillary markets" like TV became accepted as profit centers.

Addendum: And let's recall that Sunset Boulevard was a feature-length drama (with a touch of Wilder's black comedy), whereas "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" one of the earliest half-hour TZ eps... which was most concerned with establishing the "Serling twist", that is, instead of the fading star being driven to murder, she finds a magic way to live within her old films.

Here again, there was a wall between serious drama ("highbrow") and fantasy ("lowbrow") in those days that I doubt younger folks can even understand. Not to mention a wall between movies (first class entertainment) and TV shows (the idiot box) that represented that same kind of distinction. All of this is long gone now. (Hell, the Netflix interface can't even correctly differentiate between movies and TV series when you ask it to!)

 

[LizzieMaine]

Revivals were pretty common in the days of block booking as a way of cutting costs -- studios were committed to provide X-number of films each year: so many A pictures, so many B pictures, so many shorts, so many cartoons, etc. But the contracts with theatres didn't specify that these had to be *new* pictures, and thruout the pre-television era, it was common for studios to pad out the back end of these contracts with reissues. These reissues usually came in packages, a set number per season, depending how much the studio wanted to save, and were most often burned off by the theatres as the back end of double features. This practice is the reason movie credit titles usually listed copyright dates in Roman numerals -- the studios wanted to obscure the fact that not all the product they were releasing each year was up to date. The lesser studios -- Columbia, RKO, and Universal -- were especially known for this, and Poverty Row studios would reissue their stuff on the states-rights market ad infinitum to squeeze every possible dollar out of it.

But after the end of block booking around the turn of the fifties, this practice, for the most part, dried up. There were still a lot of reissued shorts and cartoons -- by the sixties *most* short product was reissues -- and some series of B films were being reissued for the Saturday matinee crowd, but few post-1940s A pictures got theatrical reissues during the 1950s or early 1960s.

It's sometimes possible to tell if you're looking at a reissue print or an original by checking the MPPDA seal in the credits -- if it gives a certificate number ending in R, you're looking at a print made for a re-release. The Breen Office often required recertification even if a film had already gotten a certificate on its original release.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Right. For example, the "Blue Ribbon"-titled Merrie Melodies were reissues of earlier WB cartoons.