Anyone who has read this blog for any period of time know I love old movies. Columnist Bill Varble in today's Medford Mail Tribune newspaper writes of some of the difficulty finding old movies at the video store. He writes:
I was unable to find DVDs of such Robert Altman classics as "MASH," "McCabe and Mrs. Miller" or "Nashville" at a video store. These aren't silents or art films or obscure, independent pictures. They're modern classics from the 1970s.
A young woman working in the store did not know the films. She explained that what drives the rental business is "new releases," or films within the first year or two of their theatrical runs.
I have found the same problems when I go to the DVD stores in an attempt to locate classic films. Most of the young clerks have no idea who or what I am looking for.
Varble continues:
My generation grew up in part with the classic pictures of an earlier time, the heyday of the studio system. Some were commercial junk, just like now. The best filtered to the top.
How did they become part of our world? Because they were still being shown on television. These days there's no shelf life. With cable, you don't see the classics unless you watch Turner Classic Movies or belong to Netflix or have the luck to live near a video shop with a respectable classics section.
So true, I discovered most of the old classic films on the Late Late Movie on TV. I can still remember staying up much too late discovering old classics like "Since You Went Away" and "Sergeant York" which I just got on DVD. I remember the Sunday/Saturday afternoons watching John Wayne in Rio Grande or Fort Apache on TV. It was only later I learned that some of the best John Wayne films were directed by John Ford
Varble quotes a college professor, who he is in email contact with, as saying about the younger generation:
"When I talk to a student who IS aware of the virtue of older films, I ask why they watch and appreciate older films. The answer is usually that their parents loved older films and so they were exposed to a lot of interesting stuff while they were growing up."
My children, having me as a father, have been exposed to a lot of old films. The biggest hurdle I had to overcome with my kids was convincing them that some of the best movies of all time are in black and white.I can still remember "Oh we don't want to watch that because it's in black and white." Now they love old movies as much as I do. Last night after we got home from a Christmas party my son went down to my "Movie Room" and I found him watching one of his and my favorites "It's a Wonderful Life" and yes it is in Black and white. We stayed up till midnight watching that film. Our Daughter loves "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" which is also in black and white. She now lives and works in Washington DC and I can't help believing that my introducing her to that film in her youth, at least partly, led to her present occupation. Note both of these films star Jimmy Stewart and were directed by Frank Capra.
Varble, ends his column with:
I suggest going out and renting all the Bogart pictures you can find, along with W.C. Fields, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Hitchcock mysteries and John Ford westerns and John Huston melodramas and anything by Frank Capra and John Ford and Billy Wilder.
I sure agree about John Ford and Frank Capra. For a link to my DVD collection on DVD Aficionado click on the title above)
