2/23/24
Newsletter #562
The Crack of Dawn
Being the advanced age that I am, I have seen many technologies come and go, particularly in regard to movies. As I’ve mentioned somewhere along the way, video tape duplication began here in Michigan at a company called Magnetic Video in 1976, owned by Andre Blay. In the small world department, Mr. Blay was one of the producers of my buddy, Gary Jones’s movie, Mosquito (1994), in which I appear (naked). In any case, video tape didn’t catch on all that fast. Blay had to really bully the Hollywood studios to allow him to duplicate their movies. The only company that readily cooperated – meaning that they could see the profit potential in the idea – was 20th Century Fox, who ended up buying Magnetic Video in 1980 for $43 million, which was an immense shitload of money back then (thus giving Blay the means to put money into movies like Mosquito).
Eventually, as all these various movies were coming out on VHS tapes over the next 20 years, it occurred to me at some point that there were a lot of movies that were not making it to tape and never would. Since it cost money to transfer film to video, there were inevitably going to be thousands and thousands of films into which nobody was ever going to put any more money. Therefore, upon this technological conversion – film to tape – the standard library of movies – meaning, the movies that are readily available to see – shrunk. By a lot.
Then in 1995 DVDs came out, and the whole conversion process started again. Once again, many movies never made it to DVD. Now that movies are streaming, many titles will be lost again. Digital transfers made for DVDs do work on streaming, but since the technology has improved so much in the interim, you can blatantly tell if it’s a recent transfer or not. And many of the old digital transfers are just too ugly to watch (there’s a transfer of Quest for Fire on Prime that should be burned).
So I am constantly skulking around on all the various streaming services searching for movies to watch. Let me tell you, the present library of movies that are readily available has once again diminished considerably.
Which isn’t to say that if you look long enough and hard enough you might not find what you’re looking for. For instance, I bitched out loud that the original, 1940 version of Swiss Family Robinson was completely unavailable. Soon afterward, a friend who’d heard me sent me a YouTube link to the movie. Well, yes, it was the 1940 version of Swiss Family Robinson (with Thomas Mitchell as the father) but it was home videotaped off a movie screen from a crappy 16mm print. It was unwatchable, and therefore, in my opinion, still remains unavailable. And even though it was unwatchable, I watched enough to understand that the Disney remake is far superior. In this case, unlike most others, the movie really needed to be remade in color.
Swiss Family Robinson (1960) is another film that I simply love. I saw it at the theater as a kid, on a rerelease (which Disney did regularly back then) and I was blown away. I’ve seen it several times over the years – I owned a VHS copy; gone now – and the film holds up. It’s a beautiful production, with a terrific cast: John Mills, Dorothy McGuire (whom I’ve always loved), James MacArthur, Janet Munro (looking ridiculously cute), with not one, but two good Disney boys, Kevin Corcoran and Tommy Kirk. It also has the most wonderfully diverse, inclusive, and scary pirates, with the great Sessue Hayakawa as the constantly infuriated lead pirate. It’s full of clever booby-traps to thwart, though not kill, the pirates. Now that I give it some thought, Swiss Family Robinson may be Disney’s best live-action movie. Since I don’t feel like researching this claim, I’ll just believe that I’m right.
As I looked up the movie to find photos, I came upon yet another version of Swiss Family Robinson. It’s an early TV production from the 1950s with an impressively weird cast: Walter Pidgeon, Larraine Day, Patty Duke and Dennis Hopper? And if I felt like spending $11.95 for the DVD, I could see it. You just have to know that the sets, ships and pirates can’t be all that good, since it was probably shot in a studio in New York. Patty Duke and Dennis Hopper are the kids?
How I ended up here is a mystery.
Have a nice day. Luckily, the sun is shining here.
I have to admit...I watched the movie Mosquito just for you. So worth it.