"And I Was Thankful To Have It!" or The Back-In-My-Day Post

It seems odd to me that, though I'm only 43, I'm actually writing a blog post called Back In My Day. Back In My Day is the sort of thing you usually hear cranky old men say, usually describing how horrible and tough things were and how people have no appreciation for how easy they have it today and how society has gone to hell because of it. It's also usually also tinged with nostalgia for a simpler time. I was born in the 1970s and a teenager in the 1980s. I freely admit to still enjoying music and certain movies from that time period, but I have no real desire to relive it and am actually not particularly nostalgic for it, either. Nonetheless, this is a Back In My Day post and it's being written for a reason.


Back in my day, if you wanted to see an old movie, you had to wait for it to be shown on TV. If it was a widescreen movie, it was being shown pan and scan, which meant you could be missing up to 2/3 of the picture. It was also edited for commercials, and there were commercials every five to ten minutes. And the TV screens weren't wide 16X9, they were square 4X3 screens.


Back in my day, we didn't have 110" screens with surround sound. The biggest TV we had was 25" and mono. My personal TV was 13", mono, and black and white. I watched many a late show on that TV. For those of you under the age of 20, the late show used to show movies on independent stations.


Back in my day, we didn't have Blu Ray or DVD. If you were lucky, you had a Super 8 projector with a 3 foot screen and could watch 10 to 20 minute digests of feature length movies. They were still putting these out in the 1980s, in fact. I have a 20 minute digest of The Empire Strikes Back still. If you had some money, you could get a VHS player. If you had some more money and the inclination, you could get a LaserDisc player, which gave a better image and had its movies in widescreen format. Of course, only 30 to 60 minutes of the movie would fit on a single side of a LaserDisc, so that meant either flipping the disc or changing it over. A simple two hour movie could be on two double sided discs. My family got the VHS player.


Back in my day, 3D TV was an occasional special shown on an independent station. You had to buy cardboard red and blue glasses from a local fast food or convenience store, turn out the lights, sit six to eight feet back, fiddle with the tint on the TV, and get next to no effect.


Back in my day, being a movie buff--especially a young one--really kinda sucked. The Three Stooges shorts and Looney Tunes cartoons were always cut up, Charlie Chan came on at 11 pm, and renting a movie meant going to a video store. And if the movie you wanted was out of stock...too bad so sad. Only a few video stores had a selection good enough to satisfy a classic fan. There was no On Demand or Netflix Streaming (which also sucks, but that's a different rant for a different day).


Why am I bringing all this up? Because it occurs to me that all too many movie buffs today--and not even the young ones per se--remember back in my day. And they should, because back in My day was--unless they're under the age of 25--back in their day, too.


We live in a high definition world now. We have Blu Ray with it's incredible image and sound quality. We have Surround Sound, to help put you in the middle of the action. We have widescreen TVs which allow 1:85 movies to be shown without black bars and Scope movies to be shown with minor black bars.  Our screen sizes are bigger, too. I have a 42" 3D TV. It's the largest TV I've ever had. Every so often, I think it's too small, but that's just a fleeting thought. This thing is a monster compared to what I grew up on.


When I was a teenager--or back in my day, if you prefer--the thought of seeing the 3D movies from the 1950s the way they were originally shown seemed like it would never happen. I watched most of those movies flat on TV, complete with commercial interruptions and no doubt editing. Except for the titles I saw on American Movie Classics, which were complete but also flat. Now I own four 50s titles on 3D Blu Ray, with at least one more promised to come out and have, in the past 14 years, managed to see nearly every one that still exists in 3D in the movies. I consider myself outrageously lucky in that regard. After all, 30 years ago, seeing Creature From the Black Lagoon in 3D meant tracking down the lousy anaglyphic VHS Universal released in 1980 or, if I was super lucky, seeing the anaglyphic 16mm print somewhere. Now, I not only own a 3D Blu Ray of it, which is gorgeous, I've managed to see it in the movies in full polarized 3D, exactly the way it was shown in 1954.  30 years ago, seeing Kiss Me Kate meant seeing it flat on VHS. There isn't a 3D Blu Ray of it (yet), but I have seen it on the big screen in proper 3D at least 4 times. Needless to say, I'm happy about both.


Point in fact, I have seen, either on TV or in the movies, 42 of the 43 movies that still exist in 3D prints from the 1950s. I may never get to see the 43rd in 3D, but I really can't complain about the rest of them.


I bring all this up because I have seen on the web and in person an awful lot of complaining about the so-called imperfect presentations of classic movies. The most recent bout has concerned the new Criterion Blu Ray of It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which has caused all manner of insane complaints, from the fact that the reconstructed footage doesn't look as good as the rest of the movie to the two or three scenes that have light Japanese subtitles to the complaints about the spaces between the radio calls during the intermission.


Good grief as Charlie Brown would say. Of course the reconstructed footage doesn't look as good. The trims were in bad shape to begin with. There's only so much that can be done. And as for the Japanese subtitles--try watching a whole movie like that. I've done it. I so wanted 3D copies of House of Wax and Dial M For Murder that for 10 years I had DVD-Rs of faded copies of the Japanese VHD disc in the field sequential format. And yes, I was thankful to have them.


When I first saw It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, guess what? It was the short version. On TV. In Pan and Scan. Mono. Edited for commercials. With the ending lobbed off, too! I didn't even know there was an intermission until someone taped the LD version off of TCM for me about ten years ago. Maybe I'm the easiest person in the world to please--I'm sure someone could accuse me of that--but I'm pretty happy getting to see this new extended version. Is it perfect? No, but I kinda knew that going in. Is it better than what I first saw 30 years ago? Oh, God, yes. I am in no way outraged by this Blu Ray. I am, however, a little outraged and disgusted by the people who are screaming that the Blu Ray is a rip off since it's not exactly what they want. Seriously? Seriously? Anyone who thinks that seriously needs to get a grip. This Blu Ray is far from a rip off.


Similarly, I went to the World 3D Film Expo III back in September in Hollywood. I'm surprised that this is my first mention of it on this blog as it was a really wonderful experience, but then again it may be like my friend Bob Bloom once said: when people enjoy something, they don't talk about it. They only talk if they hate it.


Well, I didn't hate the 3D Film Expo. I loved it. 10 days, 35 movies, 31 of which were from the 1950s. Some extremely rare material, including the 1947 Russian version of Robinson Crusoe. I was in my element for those 10 days, you can believe it. I am also willing to bet that that was my last time getting to see most of those movies in 3D. I think if I'm ever going to get to see them again, it'll be in boring old 2D. Some of them might hit 3D Blu Ray, some of them might get shown again in NYC. But I think I won't get to see quite a few of them in 3D ever again. Some of them, the last time I saw them in 3D was in 2006 at the second World 3D Film Expo. So yeah, it was pretty special for me.


Which is one of the reasons why certain people at the Expo drove me bonkers. They would sit in their seats and throw near full on temper tantrums about the presentation of some of the titles. One guy was literally slamming his fists on his chair because--are you ready for this?---Phantom of the Rue Morgue was being shown in 1:85 and not 1:33 like he wanted it to be. Really? Beyond the fact that 1:85 was the proper aspect ratio for the movie, really? How childish does one get? I could see getting up in arms if the movie was being shown out of sync, but it wasn't. Hell, I would have complained if it was out of sync, since that's a perfect way to get a 3D headache. But complaining that it's not in the aspect ratio you want it to be? Again, a grip needs to be gotten.


Part of the problem, I think, is that movie buffs--or at least certain ones--are so hung up on the presentation that they can't really sit back and enjoy the movie itself. All too often, I see complaints of one absurd nature or another--one guy complained about seventeen seconds of Digital Noise Reduction being used during opening credits (though nowhere else in the movie he admitted)--but nobody actually talking about the movie. Yes, we do have a right to expect certain movies to look perfect on Blu Ray--there's really no excuse for a new movie looking anything less than perfect and there are quite a few classics like The Wizard of Oz or Casablanca that should look perfect. But there are films that are rare and that rarity should be kept in mind far more than any perceived imperfections. Being able to see that rarity should also be cause for joy, not childish anger because it's not precisely what you want. You don't always get precisely what you want--and sometimes you don't deserve it either. I am of the opinion that more movie buffs should stop and consider the marvel of what they're seeing and be glad to see it once in a while. Because you never know. Something like it may never come around again.


Besides, back in my day, everything had imperfections. But we watched them and were thankful to have it!