The Last Chapter: Reflections on 30 Years of Watching Cliffhanger Serials

The serial that started it all for me

Back in December of 1988, I walked into a Movies Unlimited store, went over to the section marked serials and decided to rent one out called Nyoka and the Tigermen. I had heard about serials during the decade as a fan of the Indiana Jones movies, which I was told were modeled on the old cliffhangers. But I had never watched one. This particular serial was a jungle adventure, which was something I dug back in the day, so I figured why not? Over the course of the next 3 days, I watched all 15 chapters. It was, I had decided, a pleasant diversion and I finally got to see where the idea for my favorite movie series came from.

A month or so later I was in Movies Unlimited again and decided to check out another serial. I picked one called Mysterious Doctor Satan. Besides having a great title, it had a guy in a goofy mask on it's cover and an even goofier looking robot so I thought it might be fun. Oh, it was. When I picked a third serial a couple of months after that it was because it was considered one of the best of all time. That serial, Daredevils of the Red Circle, was the serial that hooked me on the format for good. By the summer of 1989 I was trying to write my own serial. That script, a 12 chapter affair called The Dark Avenger, has yet to be made by me. Next summer is 30 years since the commencement of that script, so maybe.

A little history lesson for the uninitiated.

The cliffhanger serial began as a format with a long lost serial called What Happened to Mary? in 1912.Some of the early silent serials, including arguably the most famous one of all The Perils of Pauline, didn't have cliffhangers but instead each episode was complete. But audiences enjoyed the peril part and producers quickly learned that the best way to bring them back was to leave your hero or heroine facing certain death. By the time the serials started to talk, there were over 400 silent serials made. Sadly, only a small handful survive to this day.

The first part talking serial was released in 1929 from Mascot Pictures. King of the Kongo starred Boris Karloff as it's villain and had two sound sequences per chapter. Recorded on a special disc that played in synchronization with the film, most of the sound discs are gone now, though you can find two scenes on YouTube with the sound intact. Universal was the only other hold over from the silent era to continue to make serials and they in fact released their first all talking serial in 1930, a not very good western called The Indians Are Coming. There were some fairly bad independent serials released in the early 1930s as well. Then Mascot became part of a merger to form Republic Pictures in 1936 and serial history was changed.

While the first four Republics are pretty rough around the edges--as a matter of fact I happen to hate their second serial Undersea Kingdom--they picked up the pace with their fifth serial, 1937's Dick Tracy. Director William Witney started later that year with The Painted Stallion and began to turn the serial into a true art form. Witney's style of filming fight scenes where one move was a single camera shot influenced many other directors over the years. You can even see the Witney style in the fight between OO7 and Red Grant in From Russia, With Love.

Columbia entered serial production in 1937 with Jungle Menace starring famous wild animal trainer Frank Buck. Why not? Republic's first serial was also a jungle serial with Buck's rival Clyde Beatty. Serials got better as the 30s wore on until some incredible stuff came along during the war years. All three major serial producing serials were at the top of their game in the early 1940s, even if some of the wartime serials may make the PC crowd cringe today with their depictions of Japanese agents. But that's a discussion for another time.

Still considered the greatest serial ever

The end of the Second World War saw budgets being slashed. Universal jumped ship in 1947. Republic and Columbia toughed it out into the 1950s but by then most of the really good serial actors had either retired, gotten too old, or died. Instead audiences were treated to stock footage laden chapters with actors who were hired more for their resemblance to a stuntman than any actual acting ability. TV had caught fire around this time, too, with youngsters able to watch shows like The Lone Ranger every week for free. And so between TV, the non-existent budgets, and a general refusal to evolve--no serials were ever made in color at a time that movies were moving more into color--the serial died a sad and depressing death. The last couple of years, it was as if nobody even tried anymore. Republic called it quits in 1955 with lousy mystery serial that forgot to have any suspects called King of the Carnival. Columbia, the last one in, was the last one out with an equally forgettable western called Blazing the Overland Trail. You can tell how bad this one is by the fact that even the villain sounds bored with it.

There were a few jabs after that. The most famous is a four chapter silent spoof known as Captain Celluloid Vs. the Film Pirates. The Return of the Copperhead was a 12 chapter serial allegedly shot in the 1970s but never released or edited, though a pretty unimpressive trailer exists. I entered the fray with a 12 chapter serial in 2001 that I called King of the Park Rangers. I wrote it over a few days in 1999, initially as a joke. Since there were quite a few Republics with the title King of the... where the lead male was named King, I said I was going to do the same, but make King a woman! 17 months of filming later, King of the Park Rangers was released. It still sells a few copies here and there all these years later, too! 2006 saw another spoof serial made, Monarch of the Moon. A second serial from the same company was announced but never made. I gave serials a second shot in 2008 with a mystery serial that I called The Dangers of Deborah. There was another low budget four chapter serial being made called Thirty Second Doom, but to the best of my knowledge, it was never completed.

Flash Gordon

When I started watching serials 30 years back, I had no idea what type of influence they would have on me. I certainly never planned to watch them all. But for a few silent serials, I have watched them all. Or at least all that exist. The good, the bad, and the what the hell did I just watch? I had read about them before watching them and foolishly allowed the opinions of others to influence my thoughts on the format early on. Indeed, to hear some writers and fans talk, there's only 66 good serials, those being the 66 that Republic released. Stuff and nonsense says I. Republic had plenty of stinkers and the other studios had plenty of good ones. Flash Gordon wasn't made by Republic. It was an Universal serial and remains one of the best serials ever made. Batman was made by Columbia in 1943 and it's one of the Caped Crusader's better screen efforts actually.

If I'm being honest, I think the company who made the best adaptations from other sources was probably Universal. The majority of their adaptions are pretty faithful to the source material, Buck Rogers notwithstanding. Then again, had they actually adapted the Buck Rogers strip as it was written, that serial would be banned right about now.

He's no Captain America, but she's better than Bucky!

Republic had a habit of taking the title and then making up whatever they wanted. For instance, their Captain America serial has absolutely nothing to do with Captain America. They changed the character from Army sad sack Steve Rogers and kid sidekick Bucky Barnes to fighting D.A. Grant Gardner and his secretary Gail Richards. Okay, Lorna Gray as Gail was an improvement over Bucky but it still has nothing to do with the strip. As for their Dick Tracy adaptions, well...I'm not convinced Chester Gould actually watched any of them since they tend to be Dick Tracy in name only. Serial fans often moan about Columbia's Superman serials, but at least in those serials, Superman is still Clark Kent and Lois Lane still works for the Daily Planet. Had Republic actually made their Superman serial in 1940, it's anyone's guess what we would have got. Yeah, it might have been good, but it probably wouldn't have really been Superman. Anyway, I like the two Columbia Superman serials even if the flying cartoon Superman is pretty silly. They're fun and that's all that should be required of any serial.

Ironically, the last of the sound serials I had to watch was one of the Republic Dick Tracy serials. The third in the series, Dick Tracy's G-Men, was an entertaining way to go out. Ralph Byrd was playing Tracy for the third time (you could tell when he was playing the character in the 1950s TV show he was sick of it) and he was always a good serial hero. There were a few of the serial regulars popping up in it and Jennifer Jones, at the start of her career, played the thankless role of Tracy's secretary Gwen. There was the usual amount of action and thrilling cliffhangers and William Witney and John English were directing at the top of their game. It seemed appropriate to go out on a Witney serial since he had directed Nyoka.

In between Nyoka and Dick Tracy's G-Men, there were many, many chapter viewings. For a time there was a message board called The Serial Squadron that I would go to and serial fans would gather on to discuss serials until the site owner decided he was more interested in selling serials than allowing discussion of them. There was even a yearly festival called SerialFest where fans would gather to watch serials on the big screen, discuss them, drink, and share a camaraderie. But SerialFest is dead and the Squadron is pretty much non-existent. Then again, a number of fans--some of whom I got to call friend--have died over the years. My best friend, who acted in both my serials, passed away in 2011 when we only had about 10 left to watch. It took me seven years, but I kept my promise to finish them.

And so, 30 years of watching serials has culminated in seeing the last of them. There's a little something bittersweet about the whole experience. 30 years, 219 serials, 2,913 chapters, and more hours than I want to consider. A lot of it was a good time. While it is true that some of it wasn't, I can't say that I regret watching them all. Perhaps one day the missing sound serials will resurface or someone who isn't me will make another serial. Should that day come, I'll be happy to watch. But until then, it was a fun ride while it lasted.

The Problem With Piracy

When I was a teenager several decades ago I had a friend who know a kid who was a compulsive shoplifter. This kid whom I never met apparently didn't believe in paying for anything. My friend's attitude was that so long as the kid was stealing from places like 7-11, it was cool. But if the kid chose to steal from a Mom and Pop shop, then he was a jerk. What my friend failed to get about this kid is that the kid, like most thieves, didn't care who he stole from. This kid wasn't Robin Hood.

Hollywood has done a very clumsy job with explaining why piracy of films, music, etc is wrong. I hope this article does a better job.

Full disclosure before we begin: I am no angel. I have bought and traded for plenty of bootleg DVDs in my time. The bootlegs I have obtained have been movies that were otherwise unavailable, however. That means a lot of serials and some vintage 3-D titles like Jaws 3-D and House of Wax. However, as those same titles became available on legit sources, I was happy to throw the bootlegs out and get the legit version. I had a bootleg field sequential version of House of Wax for ten years. I had it for the very reason that Warner Home Video refused to release it that way. When they finally did in 2013, the bootleg went in the garbage and the 3D Blu Ray was purchased. It would be my delight to continue to do so as these things continue to come out.

I suspect, however, that I'm a bit of an extraordinary case. I sadly know people, in particular in the serial community, who are like "meh" when it comes to getting a legit version of something they've had in a bootleg for years. I personally find that attitude odd since the legit version will clearly look better than the bootleg. Going back to House of Wax, I'd much rather watch a restored 3D Blu Ray of that movie than a faded DVD-R with Japanese subtitles.

Of course, Piracy among classic movie fans usually is driven by the desire to see something that Hollywood just won't release on video. You can't get too uptight with serial fans, I suppose, if they throw their hands in the air and decide that the only way to see a serial like The Spider's Web is to buy a bootleg off some jerk on the internet.

But the issue of Piracy goes way beyond classic movie fans buying Song of the South bootlegs because Disney won't release it in this country. Piracy is all over the place. I don't need to tell you that, since probably there's a decent number among you reading this engaging in it. I myself know a shocking number of people who brag about downloading torrents and who own jailbroken Firesticks or similar boxes so that they don't have to pay for cable. The rational varies from "sticking it to the man" or "movies/cable are too much money". "Besides," they go, "what does it matter if I download Star Wars before it comes out? That movie's going to make money hand over fist anyhow."

Yes, movies and cable are a lot of money. If you're a family of five and want to go to a 3-D showing of Star Wars on a Saturday night, yes, it can run you upwards of $100 depending on where you live. Then again, if you're downloading Star Wars, you're not watching it in 3-D anyhow. So why not just go to a 2-D matinee where it's cheaper? AMC has movies before noon at $6 or something like that. Want to know when I try to go the movies? That's right, AMC before noon. Especially for a 3-D movie. Back in the day, AMC would have $3 five o'clock shows. That was literally the only time I would go to the movies.

I don't have cable. I have an antenna, Netflix, and Hulu. A whole lot cheaper than cable.  "Yeah, but you gotta watch commercials!" they'll say. Yeah. And??? I've watched commercials my whole life. And Netflix doesn't have commercials, nor does my Hulu subscription. Your argument is fail.

As I've said in this blog before, it's not 1985 anymore people. We have options that don't involve stealing.  If you can't afford/don't want to see Star Wars or Justice League in the movies, it's not like you have to wait years for them to come to video or show up on TV. They'll both be on DVD by next Spring, probably for $20 or less. If you have cable, you can rent them for a few bucks on On Demand. You can get them from Redbox for $1. You can watch them on Netflix as part of an $8 a month subscription service. Yes, in the 1980s we would have to sometimes wait years for a VHS release of a movie. Yes, those VHS releases were $90 at first. But it's the 21st Century, not the 1980s.

The problem is it's not just a matter of downloading Star Wars or some old serial Sony refuses to release on DVD. Go back to the story of the shoplifter. That kid didn't care who he stole from: Mom and Pop Shops were the same to him as the Big Chain Store. And it's literally the same with people who commit and/or support piracy. They don't care who exactly they're stealing from so long as they get it for free.

I know small independent filmmakers who have to troll the internet to make sure bootlegs of their movies aren't available. Because people will bootleg those movies and make them available for download. And people will download those movies rather than pay $15-$20 to the guy who made the movie. I've made independent films and it's happened to me, so I know what I'm talking about. Small independent filmmakers have to make movies often with their own money or the money of investors. They have to pay for props, locations, sometimes actors--everything the big Hollywood guys have to pay out. So when you dear downloader decide you're not going to pay money for their movie, you're going to download it instead because "what if it's no good?" otherwise known as you're just a cheapskate, you are taking away money from those filmmakers. You are making it harder for them to make their investment back.

God forbid I actually defend the porn industry, but those guys know the effects of piracy as well as the small independent filmmaker. They spend hundreds to thousands of their own dollars to shoot content, offer it for sale, one person buys it then distributes it for free on sites like Pornhub. You probably think every person who works in porn makes billions of dollars and lives in a McMansion. I know a couple of people in the industry who are walking away because they are losing their shirts due to the piracy epidemic.

What the downloaders and bootleggers don't seem to get is that ultimately they will be on a self-destructive path. If content producers, be they big Hollywood studios, small independent filmmakers (like me for instance) or pornographers can't make money at something, they won't/can't continue to do it. Paramount, for instance, has openly stated that they won't release the Republic serials on DVD and Blu Ray because of the rampant piracy. They've finally released a few, but if serial fans want more it behooves them to actually buy the releases and not download the bootleg.

Go back to the porn industry for a moment. Let's say you have a favorite porn star. That porn star either makes their own clips or works for other people. If, instead of buying those clips you go watch them or download them on a torrent site, the porn star doesn't make money or the person they work for doesn't make money. They can't continue to make clips if they aren't making money and so they leave the industry. The self-righteous among you may say "Great!" but then trade out the porn star for the Mom and Pop Deli down the street. The one who makes those sandwiches you love to eat at lunch? If people rip off that Deli all the time, what happens? They go out of business and you can't get those sandwiches you love anymore from them. If you like the movie the small independent filmmaker makes but you download it for free instead of buying it, he can't afford to make another movie you might like. It's all the same principle.

Am I suggesting that piracy is the same as shoplifting? Yes, yes I am. You might not have considered it shoplifting, but that's exactly what it is. Downloading a movie---I don't care if it's Star Wars or The Gangbang Girl Part 967--is exactly the same as walking into a store and sticking a candy bar in your pocket and walking out without paying for it because $1.25 is too much for a Snickers bar. To not put too fine a point on it, you're not "sticking it to the Man". You're being an asshole. You are stealing money from someone. Just because they're in the Entertainment industry doesn't mean they're rich.

Let's break this down by numbers for a moment. I make a film for $6,000 say. If I self distribute the movie, I have to buy all the materials to make the copies--the DVD-Rs, the cases, the covers. Incidentals like electricity and mailing supplies come into this, too. If I sell the disc for $20, It's going to cost me roughly $10 to self distribute the disc. That means I need to sell roughly 600 copies just to sort-of break even. Over 600 to make a profit. If one person buys the disc and puts it up for torrent on the internet, and 599 people decide that rather than buy the movie, they'll just download, guess what? I just lost $5,990. If I sell it on Amazon, I get roughly $6 a copy, which means I have to sell 1,000 copies to break even.

Let's go back to the porn model for a moment. Porn producer hires porn star for content. The producer spends $500 for that shoot. He sells it on something like Clips4Sale for $10 a clip. I asked a friend who does this what he makes off those clips. He says Clips4Sale takes 40%. So the producer then makes $6 per clip. Theoretically, to make a profit the producer only has to sell 84 copies of the clip. 84 copies might not sound like a lot, but if one person buys it and posts it to Pornhub and nobody else buys it, that producer just lost money.

Trade the porn producer out for a low low budget horror filmmaker. He makes a film for $500, only has to sell 50-80 copies to make a profit but loses money because the film instantly pops up on Pirate Bay. Maybe that $500 horror movie is as awful as you think it will be but the horror filmmaker still has a right to make a living the same as the Deli down the street. If you don't think that, then the problem is with you and not the filmmaker.

I'm talking about films, but the same goes for musicians. They pay money out to a studio to record a song. If you download that song off whatever free music downloading service there is and not to the musician, then you are killing that musician's livelihood the same as killing the Deli's livelihood.

Let's put it this way: if you owned the business, would you want people stealing from you because they were too cheap to buy your product? Would you want someone breaking into your home and taking your money? If the answer is no, then think before you hit that download button.

Millennials May Actually Care About Classic Movies After All

The New York Post on August 16, 2017 did an article called Millennials don't really care about classic movies. It was based off a so-called poll conducted by FYE.com of 1,000 millennials and 1,000 people over the age of 50. Besides being fairly sloppily written, it asserted that millennials don't watch old movies and find black and white movies boring. Much has been written about this article in the past two weeks, with people offering up vigorous defenses of young people and/or offering up lists of movies that young people should see. That's all well and good but it doesn't address the basic problems with the article. The first of which is simply the fact that the definition of classic movie has evolved over the years whether we are aware of it or not.

Go back to the 1970s when the nostalgia rage kicked into high gear. In 1977, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was 40 years old, Miracle on 34th Street was 30, and Jailhouse Rock with Elvis was 20. It's 2017 now. At this point in time, Star Wars is 40, The Princess Bride is 30, and Titanic is 20. Show me a millennial who hasn't seen Star Wars and I'll show you a weird millennial. The goalposts have moved. Movies that we may or may not necessarily consider "old" are in fact just that. In a couple of years, the first Harry Potter movie will be 20. How many people really look at Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and think "man, that's an old movie!"? But it really kinda is at this point in time. I'm pretty sure there's millennials watching Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Those are movies heading into the classic definition pretty rapidly, too.

Yes, if your definition of "classic movie" is only movies stops on December 31, 1959, you may or may not have a point about millennials. However, if you expand the definition of classic movie to anything 20 years old or older--which seems to me to be a good enough starting point--then yes, millennials are watching classic movies. Just not necessarily the type of classic movie you may be thinking of.

"Ah-ha!" Some old internet troll who hates millennials is probably thinking right now. "You've just proven the point of the Post article! The Post is right! Blasted young people are disemboweling classic movies!"

I don't know about that. And even if they are, I'm not convinced I want to totally throw them under the bus for it, either. But the other issue the Post article fails to take into account is a key one: availability.

40 years ago, you had independent TV stations. These stations would have an eight o'clock movie, a Late Movie, Saturday afternoon horror double features of Universal and Hammer horror movies followed by a Tarzan movie, Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto late night Saturday night, and comedies with the likes of Abbott and Costello, Blondie, The Bowery Boys, The Marx Brothers, Martin and Lewis and Laurel and Hardy. The Eight O'Clock movie and the Late movie were made up frequently of movies from the 30s through to the 60s. You would have an Alfred Hitchcock week or a Humphrey Bogart week or an Universal Monsters week on these stations. None of which happens anymore. There are few if any independent stations left. Those that are left are showing none of the above.

"Yeah," the same cranky old fart troll is saying, "but all that stuff is on DVD!"

Okay. So tell me where you can rent the DVDs of all this stuff. Oh, wait, that's right. You can't. Not really. Once upon  a time there were video rental stores that you could walk into and find this stuff on the shelf. 30 years ago, I could walk into Movies Unlimited and browse the shelves and find a Republic serial or a Hitchcock movie. Those type of stores don't exist anymore. Netflix is pushing streaming over disc and their streaming service mostly consists of their own product. You can't stream Burt Reynolds let alone The Bowery Boys on Netflix. Yeah, you can buy DVDs, but most of the time not in stores. Take a run over to your local Best Buy if you don't believe me. If the movie is more than a couple years old and not a mega blockbuster, you won't find it on the shelf. Seriously. You can't buy Mamma Mia--a movie less than 10 years old--in the store at Best Buy. So how is a young person going to find Charlie Chan? So that leaves ordering the discs through something like Amazon, which means you have to know exactly what you're looking for.

You can't really fault millennials for not watching what they aren't exposed to. The same thing holds up for TV and radio. 30 years ago, stations would show M*A*S*H and All in the Family at 7:00. Nowadays they show 2 Broke Girls or Seinfeld or The King of Queens. There used to be an AM station in Philadelphia that played Big Band music and OTR shows. That station is a Talk Radio station now. In 1987, the oldies station played Billy Haley and the Comets and Lesley Gore. Now they play Huey Lewis and the News and Belinda Carlisle. You can't shake your fist at some 20 year old for not listening to Shake, Rattle, and Roll when the stations won't play it anymore. You can't yell at a 20 something for not listening to Guy Lombardo when the station that played Guy Lombardo replaced him with Rush Limbaugh. And you can't look down on that same 20 year old for not watching Rear Window when Rear Window isn't as accessible as it used to be.

"Yeah, but there's things like the TCM Fathom events! I bet you millennials don't go to that!"

Okay, tell me this. Look at this year's list of TCM Fathom events and tell me how many movies of the 1930s and 40s are on it? Let me answer that for you: one. Casablanca. That's it. Everything else is 1950 on, with quite a few from the 70s and 80s.

This isn't the fault of millennials. If it's anyone's fault, it's the fault of the people doing the programming and running the stores. That's an older folks problem, not a 20 year old's problem. Which, by extension, means that it's not just millennials turning their nose up at older movies. It's people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. I was in Best Buy when Sony released the 1943 Batman serial on DVD about 10 years ago. A guy in his 40s walked up, picked up the box, saw the year of the serial, made a disgusted remark about said year, and put the box back down. And that's Batman we're talking about. Imagine if Sony had released a serial like The Secret Code instead.

Of course, you also have the older folk who feel the need to apologize for old movies. Leonard Maltin did an introduction on the DVD of The High and The Mighty that was absurd in the extreme. He felt the need to explain that it wasn't like a modern movie and moved at a slower pace. Umm, Leonard: the people who are going to watch The High and The Mighty are already aware of that. You don't need to explain it as if you're apologizing for the movie not being like The Fast and The Furious.

So yes, if you want to blame the "slow death of movies from the golden age"--assuming there is such a thing going on--on anyone, blame it on the older folks. If you don't expose the young folks to that stuff, then yes, they aren't going to see it. Truth to tell, my parents didn't necessarily expose me to the old movies I watched. They happened to be on TV, so that's what I saw. If I was 10 now instead of 1980, I probably wouldn't have seen all those old movies because they wouldn't be on.

On the flip side, think of it this way. If the trend continues, in 40 years there will be 20 year olds who haven't watched Star Wars and cranky old people writing articles wondering what was wrong with them. Now that's something to think about.

3-D Thursday: The Stewardesses (1969)

The Stewardesses is a historically important 3-D movie. That's not the same thing as saying it's a good movie, however.  Point in fact, when I first saw it in 2006 I stood up at the end of the movie and loudly declared "Somebody owes me 90 minutes of my life". Eleven years later, I still haven't got that 90 minutes back.

Made in 1969 for around $100,000, The Stewardesses went on to make an improbable $26 million at the box office. Part of this surely had to be a novelty factor. After all, this was one of the first pornos as we've come to know them today. Softcore, sure, but nobody had really seen anything like it. Add to that the fact it was in 3-D and of course it became one of the most profitable movies ever.

It's fairly pointless to talk about plot with a movie like this. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't seen a porno before, that's because there is no plot. Just a series of vignettes about the sexual escapades of a group of stewardesses in L.A. one night. A lesbian tries seducing her best friend, one stewardess drops acid and makes love to a lamp (you did not misread that), one takes a soldier headed for Vietnam out for the time of his life, etc. The closest the movie comes to a plot involves a stewardess named Samantha (Christina Hart) dating an ad executive (Michael Garret) in an effort to get him to cast her in a commercial. I would never ruin the end of a good movie, so let me spare you some pain and time: he eventually agrees but tells her she'll only ever be a mouth. After essentially raping her, she's mortified so she murders him and commits suicide. The End.

It's worth noting that Hart went on to play Patricia Krenwinkle in the 1976 version of Helter Skelter. She was also at a screening of The Stewardesses in 2006 at the World 3-D Film Expo II. She walked out of the theater during the acid trip scene. I can't imagine why.

There's two major problems with this movie. The first is the tone. What starts off as a stupid sex comedy slowly turns ugly culminating in the suicide mentioned above. The beginning jokes of the movie are at odds with the final scenes. Mind you, there's plenty of sleazy things in the movie. For instance, the acid trip is a whole new level of "what did I just watch?".  But there's different levels of sleaze: this should be sleaze that's fun, not that makes you feel bad for watching it. And yes, by the time The Stewardesses is over, you'll hate yourself for watching it.

The other major problem is the cinematography. It may sound like a weird complaint to make against a porn film, but one would think that a director who created his own 3-D camera would at least have some basic knowledge of how to frame a shot. But the framing in this thing is absolutely abominable.  Heads are cut off constantly. There's an occasional decent 3-D shot, but then there's shots where the effect is pretty much ruined by poor framing. I'm not even talking about close ups of breasts or anything like that. I'm talking about full body shots where the top half of the actor's heads are chopped off and yet they're having a conversation! I admit to being astounded at just how poorly done this movie is. It's not merely a bad 3-D movie, it's a badly shot bad 3-D movie.

Despite the story and the incompetent filming, The Stewardesses became the most profitable 3-D movie ever. Unfortunately, it also inspired a decade of trashy 3-D porn films. Films like this one gave 3-D the black eye it had in the public eye for decades. To not put too fine a point on it, The Stewardesses is arguably the worst thing to ever happen to 3-D.

Now Kino has blessed(?) us with a fully restored 3D Blu Ray. I can't say anything bad about the Blu Ray in particular. The image is sharp and no doubt the best the movie has ever looked. Frankly, it's a shame a movie this bad looks so good. The highlight of the disc isn't the movie, but the bonus short included. 1976's Experiments in Love is also pornographic but is more fun, better shot, and has plenty of pop outs. Whether or not the short is reason enough to get the disc is up to you. As for me, I'd still like that 90 minutes back.

1776 (1972)

In May 1776 the Second Continental Congress is meeting in Philadelphia but, much to the frustration of thee delegate from Massachusetts John Adams (William Daniels), aren't doing much of anything. Adams is pushing for the Colonies to declare their independence from the oppression of Great Britain but is met with opposition from John Dickinson of Pennsylvania. Dickinson is still hoping for reconciliation with England. Not helping matters are the dispatches from General George Washington, all of which paint a bleak picture. The debate is so intense that it is decided that a declaration of independence must be unanimous, something that seems doubtful at best.

Originally a Broadway musical, 1776 was brought to the big screen in 1972 by Jack Warner and Columbia Pictures. It was the last movie Warner produced. It's also one of the few musicals to import virtually the entire Broadway cast into the movie.

As a movie, 1776 is a mixed bag. As a musical, it's a bit of a failure to be honest. It's not that the tunes are particularly bad as much as they are just there. None of them are particularly memorable. I finished the movie a little over an hour ago and already I can't particularly recall the lyrics. As a side note, I feel La La Land suffers from the same problem. He Plays the Fiddle and Cool, Cool Considerate Men might be the most memorable and even they aren't something you're going to be singing afterward.

On the other hand, the overall story of the debate and indeed the scenes of the debate itself is fascinating stuff. Truth to tell, I feel this would have been as good or even better a movie had it not been a musical but just a straight telling of the writing of the Declaration of Independence. There's not too many movies about this time period in American History to begin with. Most of those movies deal with the battles of the Revolutionary War. So to actually get a movie that gets into the politics of the period is a rare treat indeed.

The cast is pretty engaging if occasionally hammy. Ken Howard acquits himself nicely enough as Thomas Jefferson. Daniels goes a little too far as Adams to prove his oft-quoted line of being obnoxious and disliked. Donald Madden's John Dickinson is a little more restrained. But for pure unadulterated ham so thick you can feed a family of 12 a holiday dinner with it, look no further than Ron Holgate as Richard Henry Lee. Perhaps the best member of the cast is Howard Da Silva as Benjamin Franklin. He's a delight to watch and steals the majority of the scenes he's in.

Of course, there's historical inaccuracies all over the place, but you find that in any historical fiction. Even Titanic (1997) got some things hilariously if not offensively wrong. Then again, perhaps the mere fact that it is a musical makes the mistakes more forgivable than in a straight out drama.

Sadly for Jack L. Warner, 1776 was produced in a time when movie musicals were hopelessly out of vogue. As a result of that fact and the fact that the songs themselves are nothing to write home about, the movie was a legendary flop. 45 years later it is a little better appreciated by cinema buffs I doubt it will make anybody's list of top ten musicals. On the other hand, if you're a history buff, this is a movie well worth watching.

Goodnight, 007: Roger Moore (1927-2017)

"But James, I need you." "So does England."--The Spy Who Loved Me

The world is a sadder place this week. We lost the first of the series James Bond actors with the passing of Roger Moore at the age of 89 after a short battle with cancer.

Roger Moore was my first James Bond. I was seven when I first saw The Spy Who Loved Me on HBO in the summer of 1978. I didn't fully understand it at that age--and the guy with the metal teeth absolutely terrified me--but I couldn't stop watching it. I loved it. Almost forty years later, it's still an all-time favorite.
Of course, it's an argument that's gone on for decades: who is the best Bond? Sadly, in some ways, Roger Moore has gotten the most abuse of any of them. And yet, I will argue that Roger was the best.

"Oh, come on!" you are no doubt saying. "Everyone knows that Sean Connery was the best Bond ever. Daniel Craig is a close second."

Really? While I will admit that Connery's first three films are pretty great, let's be totally honest. Thunderball runs a bit too long and the underwater fight is pretty dull. Connery is outright bored and putting forward very little effort in You Only Live Twice. Diamonds are Forever is as silly as anything Moore ever did. And if Thunderball runs too long, it's remake, Never Say Never Again is just plain bottom five Bond. As for Craig, while Casino Royale and Skyfall are pretty terrific, Quantum of Solace joins NSNA on the bottom five and Spectre is a pretty good Roger Moore film. By the way, you wouldn't have Daniel Craig's films today without Roger Moore.

"That's crazy talk!" you shout defensively. "We wouldn't have Daniel Craig without Sean Connery."

Nope. After Connery left and George Lazenby did his one shot at Bond, the entire future of the series was hanging in the balance. To the point that the producers begged Connery back. He came back for Diamonds are Forever, of course, but that was it. If Roger Moore hadn't taken over the role and been accepted by audiences, we wouldn't have had Skyfall. That's right. If Live and Let Die had flopped, we wouldn't still be watching James Bond movies today. It didn't. And while his second film is a bit shaky, his third--like Connery's third entry--is his best and helped secure James Bond straight to the 21st Century.

"But his movies are so bad!"

Are they? I admit Live and Let Die is a pure product of 1973, riding the coattails of Blaxploitation, but it's actually a pretty good movie all the same. The Man With The Golden Gun leaves something to be desired but is somehow not as bad as Die Another Day or Quantum of Solace. The Spy Who Loved Me is where Roger Moore became the character of James Bond for sure and it's as good an entry as Goldfinger or Skyfall. Moonraker is kinda silly but fun. For Your Eyes Only showed that Moore could easily have done From Russia With Love style Bond. Octopussy is loads of fun. As for A View to a Kill, I think it's an under appreciated film. .

A View to a Kill was the first Bond I saw in the theaters. Does Roger look a little old in it? Maybe, though he certainly doesn't look as ridiculous as William Shatner in Star Trek V or--God help me--Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. First close up of him in that movie and all I could think was "He looks OLD". Besides, A View to a Kill has some great set pieces, including the fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. In 1985, on the big screen, that scene was a real nail biter. I was literally on the edge of my seat watching it.

By the way, in 1983 when there was the great 007 shootout between Moore's Octopussy and Connery's Never Say Never Again, not only was Octopussy the better movie, it did better at the box office.

"Yeah but he didn't have a career post-Bond," you snicker, thinking you finally have me.

Please. Outside of Connery, have any of them really had a career post-Bond? George Lazenby's career turned south so fast, he was a joke in Kentucky Fried Movie just five years after On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The last movie I actively remember seeing Timothy Dalton in was Looney Tunes Back In Action, where he played a joke on Bond. He also managed to pop up in an episode of Doctor Who, but wasn't asked back to reprise the character apparently. Pierce Brosnan has done a little better, but even he's not really a headliner anymore. As for Craig, we'll just have to see but it does seem notable that two of his higher profile non-Bond movies--The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Golden Compass--didn't exactly set the box office on fire.

Anyhow, his post-Bond career was dedicated to making the world a better place through UNICEF, so who needs a film career when you have that going on? He left Bond behind to become a different type of hero. It's also worth noting that he's the only Bond actor to not badmouth the role afterwards and to actually appreciate not only what Bond did for him, but what it meant for others.

"Oh, you're just being nostalgic for your childhood", you finally scoff.

You could be right. But then again, how many people aren't? I have found with Bond over the years that people's favorites are whoever they are exposed to first. I have a friend whose first Bond was Goldfinger in 1964, so naturally, to him there's only Sean Connery. On the other end of the scale, my nephew's first Bond was Pierce Brosnan and to this day he's the only one my nephew likes. My brother's first one was Live and Let Die, so that's his favorite. But that's okay, too. Bond is Bond. It's like Doctor Who. Everyone has a favorite Doctor and the argument will spin forever whose Doctor was best. But just like Doctor Who managed to continue on thanks to Patrick Troughton, James Bond continues to this day thanks to Roger Moore.

I make no apologies for liking Roger best. I grew up with him. I still have the Moonraker View Master reels. I may still have my well read copy of the Marvel tie in to For Your Eyes Only. Nobody Does It Better is still my favorite Bond tune. His Bond movies have provided me many hours of fun.

Roger Moore remains the longest running Bond with the most in-series movies (NSNA is outside of the series like the 1954 and 1967 versions of Casino Royale). He had a grace and a charm. He might have seemed to stroll through the films with a smirk and a raised eyebrow, but that was part of the fun. He might have turned Bond into Superman, but he did it with class. He was exactly the Bond we needed at the time he came along and what he ultimately did was prove that the series could survive.

So long, Roger. Thank you for being my 007.

"Bond, what do you think you're doing?" "Keeping the British end up, sir."

3-D Thursday: It Came From Outer Space (1953)

Fueled by the terrors of Godless Communism, Nuclear War, and the mysterious happenings at Roswell, the 1950s were a Golden Age of Science Fiction movies like no other decade before or since. One of the best of the decade, 1953's It Came From Outer Space is making a long awaited 3D Blu Ray debut courtesy of Universal Studios and the 3-D Film Archive.

The film opens memorably with a meteor crashing into a mine in the desert outside a sleepy town in Arizona. Amateur astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) and girlfriend Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) witness the crash and go to investigate. Putnam gets a good enough look at the meteor to realize it's actually a spaceship with something alive roaming around inside. The problem arises when the ship is covered over by an avalanche. Putnam tries enlisting help digging the ship out, but the town mocks him. Then weird things start happening and certain members of town begin to wonder if there's something to Putnam's story after all.

Incidentally, Carlson isn't the only cult figure in the movie. Playing the part of George is none other than The Professor himself, Russell Johnson. No, he doesn't get billed as "And the rest". But he does get one of the movie's creepiest scenes, staring blankly into the sun without blinking as one of the Xenomorphs. Joe Sawyer is Johnson's partner. Fans of the Marx Brothers will recognize Charles Drake (A Night in Casablanca) as the sheriff. On the feminine side, we have Barbara Rush in the first of her two 3-D movies and 50s starlet Kathleen Hughes as George's girlfriend. Hughes made a big enough impression that she got a larger role in Arnold's next 3-D movie, The Glass Web. She also amusingly gets a title card at the end despite having less than five minutes of screen time!

One of the best things about 50s sci-fi movies is how intelligent they often are. It Came From Outer Space stands alongside The Day the Earth Stood Still (the 1951 version) as being one of the most intelligent of the lot. Part of that comes from Ray Bradbury. A lot of the dialogue in the movie is his and it absolutely sings in that way that only Bradbury could. It touches on themes common to movies of the era--the unending terror of the Red Under The Bed in particular. The fact that the Xenomorphs could look like and therefore be anyone in town was somewhat unsettling. And yet, there is a special irony in the fact that the aliens actually do come in peace. But as the movie itself points out, we tend to destroy that which we fear and don't understand.

It Came From Outer Space was Universal's first 3-D film. It was also the first of four 3-D movies made by Jack Arnold. Originally projected in dual strip polarized 3-D, the movie was converted to a single strip anaglyphic form in 1972 for re-issue. Since then, that's the way most people have seen the film if they've seen it in 3-D. While I won't go so far as to say that the anaglyphic version is purely awful, it's not as good as the original dual strip version. And surprisingly, the original dual strip version isn't as good as this 3-D Blu Ray.

That's largely due to the efforts of the 3-D Film Archive. Universal gave them access to the materials to do a full scale restoration of the movie. While they didn't have to quite jump through the hoops they did on Gog earlier this year, they still pulled off a mini-miracle. All dirt, scratches, and splices have been fixed along with all alignment issues. All reverse 3-D shots have been fixed. In short, the movie looks better now than any other time in it's history. And yet even that is only the tip of the laser. The soundtrack is where the movie really pops to life.

It Came From Outer Space was one of the early stereophonic releases, shown in a 3 track stereo sound in 1953.That soundtrack has not been heard since then. That's right. Not one single prior home video release of the movie--not the anaglyphic VHS released in 1980 nor the 2D version put out by Goodtimes in the late 1980s nor the DVD from 2003--has had the stereo soundtrack. And guess what? That anaglyphic 35mm and 16mm re-issue from 1972 didn't have it either. In short, not only have people been watching the movie in a fairly sub-par manner for the past nearly 45 years, they've been hearing it in a sub-par manner! This soundtrack rocks.The explosions are Loud. It's a soundtrack as 3-Dimensional as the movie is.

As a postscript, it's worth noting that in 1996, the Sci-Fi channel released a "sequel" called It Came From Outer Space II. Don't feel sad if you've never seen it. It wasn't so much a sequel as a really poor remake that replaced the astronomer with a photographer (why?) and made the aliens a little more malevolent, thereby completely missing the point of the original movie. You can, of course, seek it out if you're in a sadomasochistic mood, but I wouldn't recommend it.

If you've never seen It Came From Outer Space in 3-D, then you've never properly seen the movie. Like so many of the 50s 3-D films, the added dimension adds layers to the story the 2-D version never could. This is one of those 3-D movies that takes place in the desert, and boy does that desert go on forever. The vastness of the desert only adds to the menace.

This new Blu Ray is really the only way to see It Came From Outer Space. And considering the price (under $10!), it's a better bargain than most new 3-D movies.  If you're a 3-D fan, consider this one a must-own release.