Some months back, a whim sparked me to try listing old movies that I saw for the first time on television. It didn't matter if I caught the flick on broadcast TV or on cable, but I deliberately excluded anything I saw on home video, or on pay stations like HBO. And, obviously, my chosen parameters prohibited listing anything I saw in any kind of movie theater before seeing it on a cathode-ray screen at home.
(I also wasn't absolutely sure what I wanted to consider as old. I arbitrarily excluded network TV broadcasts of then-recent movies like True Grit and The Poseidon Adventure.)
Why would the restrictions matter? Because this list is a specific recognition of discovering old movies on TV. Man, there was something magic about discovering old movies on TV.
And discover I did. Sure, four-year-old me saw the Beatles in A Hard Day's Night at the drive-in in 1964, and that was seismic; but it also meant a lot to me to finally see their 1965 follow-up Help! on Channel 3's afternoon movie matinee when I was a teen in the '70s. Remember: home video did not exist in any sort of everyday way in the '60s and '70s. Local broadcast platforms like Films At Four, Saturday Action Theater, and Dialing For Dollars provided opportunities to see so, so many movies I'd never seen. Network and cable offerings expanded all of that even more.
This was huge. I first saw the Marx Brothers on a weekend late show on Syracuse's Channel 9. What was the weekly showcase called? Old-Time Movie Classics? No, that wasn't it. But whatever it was, on one Saturday evening into Sunday morning in the early '70s, it showed me Groucho, Chico, and Harpo in Room Service (maybe not the best possible introduction for my Marx Brothers 101), and then completed the double feature with Groucho, Chico, Harpo, AND ZEPPO in Duck Soup.
Awright. I was hooked.
I remember calling our local CBS affiliate in the mid '70s to complain that they weren't carrying that evening's CBS Late Movie, which was the Monkees in Head. Bastards! I caught it the next time around a few months later. And when you see the end in sight, the beginning may arrive.
This list is far--VERY far--from complete. I couldn't remember which Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road pictures I saw on TV, nor which Godzilla and Starman and other cheesy Japanese sci-fi flicks, nor if I saw The Born Losers on TV or at our (still open!) budget movie house The Hollywood Theatre. There should be more Tarzan movies than the three that I listed. There should be some Three Stooges. Abbott and Costello. And Matt Helm! I know I saw at least some of Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies, probably on Films At Four or somesuch. Maybe all four of them? But I don't remember for sure.
Still, consider this list a snapshot of a time when I was (theoretically) growing up, and watching a lot of movies on TV. I rarely do that nowadays. I go out to the movies when something interests me (generally to the above-mentioned Hollywood), but the in-home movie experience doesn't hold much interest for me anymore.
So here's a toast to the days when it did.
Casino Royale [1967]
Duck Soup
Loving You
The Maltese Falcon
My Friend Irma
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!! https://rarebirdlit.com/gabba-gabba-hey-a-conversation-with-the-ramones-by-carl-cafarelli/
If it's true that one book leads to another, my next book will be The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Stay tuned. Your turn is coming.
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