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Reviews
Red Tails (2012)
This film is NOT a tribute!
It's a pity that a weak, ignorant, make-believe bit of film got attached to a band of real-life warriors. It's a pity that the true stories of how the Tuskegee Airmen and the 332nd Fighter Group fought and died for this country were so often distorted or ignored, and replaced by 2 hours of slack-jawed Hollywood stupidity. As if the reality wasn't important enough, interesting enough, or dramatic enough for a movie.
"Red Tails" does not honor the men of the 332nd. The movie constantly has it's pilots flying and fighting stupidly, irrationally, and sometimes impossibly, then awards them victories when in reality they would have been either shot down or grounded. The REAL Tuskegee Airmen EARNED their victories by being both smart and good! If the filmmakers had really wanted to preserve the their good memory they would have invented a fictitious group of black pilots for their movie instead of playing with the reputations of the real men who accomplished so much.
The only reason why I rated this film as high as a 6 and not lower is that other than the historical slurs it otherwise fits my definition of "sub-standard Hollywood schlock". It's a film that you can spend two hours laughing at, or simply staring at in stunned amazement by its seemingly endless sequences of the stupidly impossible, the stupidly improbable, and the stupidly pointless. A great film to keep you constantly amused by playing 'Spot What's Wrong Here'. A film that should only be seen for free, and even then only when you've nothing else better to do.
Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona: Sobaka Baskerviley (1981)
My first Russian Holmes
Hard to find in the US, my DVD was a gift from my sister -- a Slavic Languages professor -- who knows how to find such things. Faithful to the original novel, this probably isn't the best introduction to the series, as Holmes is absent through much of it while Watson investigates alone. With so little Holmes/Watson interaction, some of the appeal must certainly be missing.
That said, I very much like how Watson seriously, diligently, and intelligently carries out his investigation, not unlike numerous other successful fictional detectives. Except when tipsy, he is rarely the stereotypically foolish Watson. If I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes I might even have expected Watson himself to solve the mystery. However, because he is so serious it makes his character a bit too dry through much of film; though that in turn makes his actual flashes of foolishness and his reunion with Holmes more effective illustrations of Watson's true character.
What was interesting about the supporting characters is that they definitely seem to have more than a little Russian in them, from the humorously extroverted Sir Henry Baskerville to the arch-slavic-tragedian portrayal of Beryl Stapleton. I found it a bit jarring at first, expecting more British reserve in the characters, but eventually just let them be themselves and let myself be entertained. Much of Dartmoor also looks far more Russian than English, but that's only to be expected and easily overlooked.
Overall, this is a well done 'Hound', true to the story and true to the characters of Holmes and Watson. I got some hint of Vasili Livanov and Vitali Solomin's vast appeal, but not enough for me to become a wildly enthusiastic myself. At least, not yet. Because that hint is more than enough for me to nag my sister into getting me the rest of the Livanov/Solomin Holmes series. And then we'll see....
Chappaqua (1966)
Substantially better than I expected
Unlike most movies which try to illustrate drug and hallucinogenic experiences by using a bunch of jarringly bizarre and heavily symbolic images randomly strung together, Chappaqua struck me as having a strange emotional continuity throughout -- that is, every odd new scene and image that appears somehow feels perfectly appropriate when it occurs. It's as if Rooks not only put together visions and sounds that evoked his actual emotions and experiences, but also managed to assemble them in the order they happened, one flowing seamlessly into the next even though there is no obvious connection between them. In fact, the film strikes me as being not so much hallucinogenic as dreamlike, another state rarely captured well on film. So this is definitely not a film for those who insist that movies should explain, clearly and completely, exactly what they're all about. But if you want a chance to ride on the meandering currents of another person's mind, then you might give this film a try.
Vanishing Point (1997)
Utterly forgettable, utterly pointless, utterly insipid, utterly dull
What made the original Vanishing Point a classic was that everyone was free to read their own meaning into it... or read no meaning at all and just watch the Challenger roar through the desert. What motivates Kowalski? Decipher it from his actions and flashbacks, or just ignore the question entirely. The film is still magnificent either way.
But the studio thought this uncertainty made it too esoteric back in 1971, so it was cut and given a limited release in the expectation of a quick death. But far from vanishing, the original Vanishing Point became recognized as one the GREAT road movies of all time.
This remake shows that Hollywood hasn't changed much. They love remaking a classic (hopefully guaranteeing an audience), but they still think that everything needs to be made both very obvious and very very simple. So they get rid of all the classic elements and turn it into a generic chase movie. They give Kowalski a really REALLY simple, obvious reason for his drive, making his flashbacks and encounters purely superfluous. And being superfluous they are populated with trite two dimensional caricatures... boring fluff that could be disposed of without diminishing this movie at all, slight though it is. This is entirely unlike the original which had interesting, unusual people that added to the story and gave context to the nature and character of Kowalski.
And that clunky, mass market mysticism thrown into the remake? ANY film is better off without that!!!
They also decided to make a federal case out of Kowalski's run... literally. It's not enough that state cops will naturally chase people who run from them (as in the original, and assign a symbolic meaning - or not - to that if you wish). In the remake they pound you again and again with a clumsy blunt-object polemic about the government and militias, with the FBI, ATF etc ultimately all ganging up on Kowalski.
The people who spawned this remake obviously read their own meanings into the original... that's the quality it has that makes it great. But instead of opening up any meanings we might find in their new version for us to discover ourselves, they forced on us that single reading of theirs alone. Unfortunately, that one narrow focus vastly shrank the appeal of the remake to something less than a vanishing point. The end result wasn't worth the wasting of either the Charger or the Challenger, let alone the both of them.
Westworld (1973)
A story adequate to illustrate some innovative ideas.
To dispose of it quickly, I'll simply say that the plot and acting in Westworld was good enough to hold my attention. If you've seen any Star Trek episode where a holodeck fantasy world suddenly becomes very real and very deadly, then Westworld will seem completely familiar to you, though the movie is better done. For, in typical Crichton fashion, Westworld is more solidly grounded on extrapolations of real science and real technology, with computers and robots instead of the vague and wholly imaginary "holo-technology".
Having just this moment seen my Norton anti-virus program nag me for an update, I'm reminded that it no longer seems silly and improbable that a computer "illness" might exist and that it could spread, infecting machine after machine. However, because Crichton's "illness" doesnt' appear to be deliberate and man-made, it seems he drew his inspiration from questions raised by a 1949 paper by Dr. John von Neumann, and that Westworld's computer software disease spontaneously evolved from the complexity of the system. He returned to this theme later with Jurassic Park, after Chaos and Complexity theories had arisen to give some rigor to earlier speculations on the nature of complex systems.
A bit of a first in real technology was Crichton's use of computers to digitize the viewpoint of the Gunslinger, using false-color imaging and pixelation of film images. Every previous use of computer images in feature films merely involved showing computer monitors displaying simple graphics. Pixelation and wrong colors might now be just defects in digital imaging, something that simply happens when things go wrong. But in 1973 it was entirely new in feature films and it took an incredible amount of processing time to deliberately create them.
All in all, Westworld is a good entertaining film, but more deserving of attention these days for appreciating Crichton's thoughtful forward-looking innovations than as a masterwork of cinematic storytelling.
Tank Girl (1995)
Even comics characters need at least two dimensions
The main problem I had with this otherwise appealing movie is that Lori Petty's Tank Girl has exactly the same attitude toward virtually every incident in the movie... good, bad, otherwise. And while it's a really sharp and cool attitude, the movie might have soared if instead of merely being an attitude it had been a personality. Then, arising from this Tank Girl personality, a whole range of interesting emotions could have been emerged, adding variety and a chance for excitement to build instead of plateauing in the first few minutes. Because even in a romp of a pic, you still need to care about the characters. And it's a whole bunch easier to care about a person than it is to care about an attitude.
Still, I had good fun watching this movie. The "Feeling a little inadequate?" scene is a minor classic. And by chance I happened to watch this movie the same day I saw "Mulholland Dr." and I still have a very difficult time recognizing that Naomi Watts is the same person in both films. She's excellent in both, but so very different. Ice-T, Jeff Kober, and Reg E. Cathey do a surprisingly effective job of creating characters from underneath their Ripper make-up... they're so good that one of the best parts of Tank Girl is just watching and listening to them.
This isn't a movie to go into with high expectations. Read all the negative comments, take them to heart, and then watch the movie anyway. It will make Tank Girl a pleasant surprise.
Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
Amongst endless cliches, a profound revelation!
As near as I can tell this is the first monster movie to make explicit what has been implicit in monster movies from at least as far back as King Kong in 1933... that monsters just want to have sex with human women. Since this has only been suggested at before, nobody has ever bothered explaining this rather inexplicable behavior, beyond something like "beauty killed the beast". But Humanoids from the Deep explains all (at least for Roger Corman's man-fish critters) and gives a reason for their unusual mating habits... that "these creatures are driven to mate with man now in order further develop their incredible evolution." Alas, if only the 'scientist' who came up with this theory had just pronounced "coelacanth" correctly she would have had a great deal more credibility in my books. Still, on the plus side, it is a fine example of it's genre, where lots of nicely done rubber-suit-monsters tear the men up into bloody shreds so they can strip and ravish the women. If you watch this film expecting anything more... well, why were you?
Flesh Gordon (1974)
An unusual and surprisingly successful blending of low budget genres
The filmmakers of Flesh Gordon spent so much effort lovingly recreating the look and feel of the original Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s that they actually created a soft porn movie with real (if very modest) cinematic worth. In fact, it's in some ways superior to the original Gordon flicks - particularly its special effects - with an extensive and surprisingly good use of stop-action animation.
Fortunately, sub-par acting is common in both porn and the old serials and this adds to the authentic feel of this parody. But there is also some genuine acting going on too. The best actors in the movie deliberately over-play their roles to wonderful effect. Emperor Wang and Dr. Flexi Jerkoff brilliantly recreate the essence of Emperor Ming and Dr. Zarkov. Craig T. Nelson gives the voice of the monster a kind of laid back (yet lewd) sophistication. It's a voice that reminds me of Bing Crosby, which makes the scene just plain weird.
What makes this film work is that instead following the usual porn formula of using the plot as a mere device to show sex, Flesh Gordon uses sex as the fundamental source its humor, enthusiastically blending the rather banal soft-core porn of the seventies with the hackneyed storylines of the thirties. The sex takes the hackney out of the story, and the story takes the banality out of the sex scenes.
Is this movie a masterpiece? Clearly... OBVIOUSLY... not. But it is distinctive and original. Flesh Gordon is an unusual case where the quite good and the very bad somehow manage to complement each other and average out to make a very entertaining movie.
The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
Pure atmospheric horror
If I were to pick the single element that makes this movie work it would have to be its rare mood of authenticity. It's characters and environment convey a sense of people actually living in a remote rural region of 17th Century England. Credit goes to the filmmakers for trying to populate the story not with Hollywood's stale stock characters but with people recognizable as real, albeit living in a culture of a different time and place.
And in this time and place - where beliefs would figure more prominently than knowledge even in normal times - frightening inexplicable events become even more dreadful.
This isn't a strongly plot driven movie. For the first half of it we see more the consequences of the evil, without explanation of what it means or even exactly what it is that's happening. But because of that we are put into the same helpless position as the innocent and good characters in the movie. And people who turn to evil? A nice touch is that that the actors don't go over the top trying to be the most utterly evil of all possible screen characters. Rather, they are evil enough, but appropriately for who and when and where they are. And in a sense that is the REAL evil that happens in the movie, the people who become so.
And that's why the movie survives the murkiness of its presentation of the more overt evil. Since even after seeing the movie it may be unclear, here it is, with a mild ***SPOILER*** warning because the confusion actually creates some of the atmosphere in the early part of the film:
Various body parts of an evil being (called "The Devil" by the locals, though we needn't take that too literally) begin turning up, occasionally found in places like a plow furrow, but most often through the transformation of body parts of the local people. These parts are then cut off either voluntarily (by those who become this "devil's" followers) or involuntarily (from those who don't). The aim is to re-assemble them and actually create the body of this being.
But in truth this is only the motivation and background to the main focus of the movie, which is to produce an excellent period piece where the people act and react to a horror in character with their times and culture. And it's a pure pleasure that they succeeded in that. But as a movie and as a story would have been helped by running somewhat longer, so they could linger over some events and add more depth to the characters and their interactions. For as it is, sometimes a brief scene, or even just a few lines, are used to set up situations where a more extended treatment would have enhanced all the scenes that followed. That the story still held together using so little glue to stick the scenes into place shows commendable efficiency in the writing, but perhaps it was excessive efficiency. The ending is particularly hurt. A resolution should flow from the main body of the story and not from a relatively minor side-stream. Their ending came very close to being merely tacked on. Not quite, but they could have used more storytelling glue when they put it in place.
And I do have to mention the wonderful score. The melody of main theme sounds like it's based on an old English folk song, but it's arranged in a very 20th Century horror manner. The result is superb. Not only is it haunting, creepy and effective, where a mere switch in key can make it sweet or spooky, but the basic tune is also appealing and memorable.
From what I've written here, pointing out flaws and weakness, you probably won't pick up on just how extraordinarily fond I am of this movie. It's the kind that can stick in my mind for decades between viewings and I wish people would make more like it.
About the version I rented (under the title "Blood of Satan's Claw", distributed by the Cannon Group)... though less edited than the TV version I saw some 30 years ago, still this video shows signs of being cut. Though by todays standards this movie's virtually sole scene of sex and violence would be exceptionally mild, evidently it was considered too much at some time in the past. I dislike this kind of editing in general and I find the choppy cuts and jumps in the music during this one scene to be irritating. If an original version exists on video, possibly under a different one of its several names, that would be the one to own, though feel free to rent any version... the edits are minor and shouldn't be cause for you to pass on this movie.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
If they had been smart, would they have seen Battlefield Earth?
Since a previous comment believes that low SAT scores of IMDb voters are what put Battlefield Earth in the Bottom 100, truth in commenting forces me to disclose that my combined score was only 1540.
In truth, a weird view of intelligence underlies many of the major flaws in this film. Unless you are making a comedy, the villain should be the smartest person in a movie. The greatest dramatic tension is created when the hero is facing the greatest odds. And having a villain who can consistently out-think the hero makes the hero's ultimate victory all the more satisfying. Yet the Psychlos in general and the John Travolta character, Terl, in particular are especially dimwitted... always pompously posturing while being thoroughly deceived and defeated.
It doesn't make them any smarter to say that the Earth was conquered in mere minutes by these people. That is simply violating a basic rule of storytelling, which is "Don't say it, SHOW it!" SAYING that the Psychlos flash-conquered the Earth carries no weight, and we just refuse to believe it, when we are SHOWN what incompetents they are all through the movie.
And the way that our hero, Jonnie, prevails? He is hooked up to a learning machine through the stupidity of his foes and suddenly he is capable of outwitting the entire Psychlo empire. This is deus ex machina at it's worst. Not through any particular virtue of his own, he is suddenly master of the situation.
This all adds up to a strange taste in storytelling. A style that evidently some people like (though not most, the evidence shows). If I can judge by the comments written here, these people require villains to be nasty evil posturing boastful... and stupid. Especially stupid. Somehow giving them intelligence would be giving them a virtue, which you can't have in nasty evil posturing boastful villains. Well, if that's your taste... but it makes for poor storytelling. And if that isn't enough, the hero doesn't so much grow and change because of his travails as he is zap-transformed through the generosity of his foes. This makes for something less than interesting character development. In Storytelling 101 this formula would earn you a grade of D... for Dull.
For those who admire this movie, perhaps Battlefield Earth is simply their style of wish fulfillment, where their foes are always stupid, and a simple trick will suddenly guarantee them absolute victory. The lazy man's path to being an epic hero.
Nell (1994)
Clearly Foster put more effort into this movie than the writers.
I haven't seen or read the play 'Idioglossia' on which this movie was based, but its title indicates where the emphasis was probably placed... on the attempt to communicate and understand this woman who was raised under extraordinary conditions. Movies don't usually thrive when done in the same tight, focused manner of a stage play, so it's customary to expand adaptations with additional locations, events, and subplots. Unfortunately for 'Nell' these are utterly conventional, filled with stereotypes and a sampling of the usual cliches. This takes time and attention away from the fascinating core story and the superb performance by Jodie Foster.
The story begins with the discovery that a reclusive old woman has died and has left a grown daughter alone in their remote cabin. Originally she is thought to be a "wild child" since she doesn't understand English and only utters what sounds like gibberish. Besides that, her behaviour is very peculiar and everyone's first impression is that she is also somewhat retarded, if not mentally ill.
But the movie and Foster display an understanding of their subject matter almost unique in a Hollywood movie. A true "wild child" (that is, a child who grows up isolated from human contact without learning a language) pretty much never can learn to speak normally or function independently in society. But this isn't the case for Nell. She lived with her loving mother all her life and did indeed learn to speak as any child would. It's just that the language we hear her speak is unique to herself (the definition of 'idioglossia') which was caused by a couple of different circumstances.
Her mother had suffered a stroke (if I recall correctly) which drastically affected her own ability to speak clearly, and this was the model for Nell's own speech, never having heard any other. Nell also had a twin sister who died when they were children. Typically twins develop their own language ("twin speech") to talk to each other when they are very young. Also typically they tend to outgrow and forget this language as they grow older. The movie postulates that Nell and her sister never discarded their language, not implausible considering their circumstances, and that Nell retained into adulthood much of that language even after the death of her sister.
The final elements of Nell's seemingly odd behaviour is simply a matter of a clash of cultures. Nell and her family were essentially a people unto themselves, living in isolation and out of contact with the rest of society. Some of their customs and beliefs were generated from the traumas suffered by the mother, others spontaneously arose from simply living the life they were leading. These seem peculiar to outsiders from our own, very different, culture; though it's just ordinary life to Nell. Even more peculiar is the outside world to Nell. The shock and recoil that she often undergoes comes from being suddenly confronted by inexplicable, unimagined, and overwhelming events totally beyond a lifetime's experience and coming directly on the heels of the death of her mother.
When the movie centers on these elements it is entirely engrossing. Foster is fully convincing in her role, and clearly understands the complex nature and history of Nell. Despite everyone's first impressions, Nell is never anything but an intelligent adult woman confronting a strange and often hostile world, and attempting to adapt to it as best she can. Her interactions with Neeson's and Richardson's characters are often complex and traumatic enough to keep the film moving in the absence of the other, extraneous, elements.
Had the movie concentrated more intently on this interaction and devoted more time to it, which is really the whole point of the film, or had it done a better and more original job of expanding it's vision during it's adaptation to film (those parts involving the sheriff's wife showed unexploited potential), 'Nell' could have been a great film. Certainly the superb cinematography shows one of the great advantages of film over the stage. But there was too much time spent on weak scenes for the movie to ever fully blossom.
So overall, despite its flaws, 'Nell' is a good film with many fascinating elements and an excellent performance by Jodie Foster. And that makes it well worth watching.
V.I.P. (1998)
God knows, I'm bored enough... I should be able to enjoy it.
But I can't. I'm not asking for much. There are a countless number of people able to produce mindless TV entertainment, and I'm only asking that a single hour be killed. But V.I.P. isn't able to do even that. It's just too painfully dull. It's taken my boredom and made it pure agony. Since I'm not a masochist that doesn't count as entertainment. The thought of watching the whole hour of the show is beyond comprehension. I've just switched my TV to an unused channel. The "white noise" seems to be doing a better job of relieving my boredom than V.I.P.
Macbeth (1998)
A Macbeth that does a lot with a little.
I saw this version of Macbeth in an interesting format. Someone took this movie and broke it up into chunks of about 15 or 20 minutes for use in the classroom. And I couldn't think of a better version for that purpose.
Though clearly of modest budget, it is not cheap. Rather it skillfully uses available resources to create a stark, clear (and trimmed down) production. It does this by being strangely, yet coherently, anachronistic. The nature of the characters and the scenes determine the prevailing time period of the props, costumes and setting; so they are more than mere set dressing and non-verbally communicate information about who the characters are. Usurper Macbeth never rises above his castle in an abandoned factory, which contrasts with the elegance of the rightful heir Malcolm's pristine English manor.
The delineations aren't strict... the witches' Mad Max post-apocalyptic world sits in the midst of contemporary warfare. The banquet shows Macbeth's futile attempt at legitimacy in a clash of period and style. But rather than creating chaos, this mixing keeps the characters visually consistent throughout the production.
The performances are excellent, but not outstanding, and fall into the standard British Shakespearean rhythms which can take some acclimatization for people not accustomed to it. But the acting fits the context of the setting while staying true to Shakespeare. Though not a definitive Macbeth, it is one I can watch with pleasure whenever the local public broadcasting channel broadcasts it as a teacher's resource. And I wouldn't mind having the complete version without the breaks.
Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
Not enough gratuitous content.
A great title leads you to great expectations. "Surf Nazis Must Die" is a title that DEMANDS a movie overflowing with needless sex and unnecessary violence. Characters should be killing and dying and stripping and screwing ceaselessly and pointlessly from beginning to end. It should be filled with bizarreness, crammed with oddities that were included not because they make sense, but because somebody in the cast or crew thought it was a good idea at the time. "Surf Nazis Must Die" should have been the cinematic equivalent of 'found art.' Alas, it isn't. Rather the filmmakers told a largely conventional story of revenge in a largely conventional manner. And when there wasn't enough content to fill out the movie, instead of throwing in some irrelevant bits of sex, violence or weirdness, they fluffed up the scenes carrying the main storyline, making them slow and dull, instead of quick and sharp. Even the sex and violence that IS in the movie is dull and forgettable. But this is common enough in the low budget world - and not a sin - where high quality is expected to be beyond the means and talent of the filmmakers. But they should remember that quantity is also a quality and that a pile of low-grade industrial diamonds can be worth more than a few gemstones.
Friday the 13th (1980)
Did I mention it was dull?
I saw this movie when it was first released and I thought it was DULL! Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull. Actually, the ending was good; but then again it seemed much better than it actually was. You see, the rest of the movie was so dull, dull, dull, dull, dull that the few good seconds of concluding cool stuff looked absolutely brilliant in comparison. It wasn't a horror flick, it wasn't a scary movie, it was their idiot in-bred stepchild... a slasher flick. Unfortunately, it was popular -- which says nothing about how good it was. Instead it highlighted an untapped mass market for mindless, plotless gore. So resources that could have gone into making horror/scary movies went instead into slasher flicks. And since the studios then realized that it didn't take much to attract this audience, only gore, an endless stream of dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull clones and sequels resulted, at small cost and for great profit. And so the true horror film was driven out and only slowly did it return. It took many long and dull, dull, dull, dull, dull years after Friday the 13th for it too happen.
Das Boot (1981)
Literally memorable.
You know, I can hardly remember Private Ryan, but it's going on twenty years since I've seen Das Boot and I can still call up a multitude of scenes in my mind. And not only the scenes but the emotions of the characters. This is a rare and superlative film.
De Düva: The Dove (1968)
One of the great shorts.
Assuming you can find a copy, this is one of the greatest ambush films of all time. Have a few of your movie fanatic friends over for some serious film viewing, and sometime that evening, without warning, start playing "The Dove". It is so well done that when I first saw it I took it seriously... that is until I realized that the word "water" in the subtitles was translating a "Swedish" word pronounced "H2Oska". If you play it right, you can wait and see how long it takes for your friends to catch on.
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
When Battlefield Earth is released on video, watch it back to back with this film.
I really enjoy these types of films. When they work it's because of their sheer flamboyance. They aren't afraid to steal from any source, EVERYTHING goes into the pot as long as it's got sparkle, splash, and action. This particular film works real well and I absolutely fell for it when I heard a phrase of music lifted directly from "Alexander Nevsky". It's pure, simple (repeat, simple) fun. The producers of "Battlefield Earth" could have learned something about making entertaining SF movies from repeated viewings of "Battle Beyond the Stars."
Gulliver's Travels (1939)
Oh, what it might have been.
When I was a kid, back in the early sixties, cartoons on television consisted of old high quality studio cartoons and the earliest, simplified, made-for-television cartoons. And I really liked a lot of them from both styles. But it was a special occasion when "Gulliver's Travels" was shown. I even preferred it to Disney's animated movies. Watching it again as an adult I can now see it's many weakness including it's primary flaw: that Fleischer Studios tried to make a Walt Disney movie instead of a Fleischer brothers movie. It is too clearly a reaction to "Snow White". And that's a pity. Both as a child and even now, my favorite cartoons of all are the Fleischer productions of the thirties... Betty Boop and especially Popeye. Disney's short cartoons generally just don't compare; too shallow, too insipid. I didn't use those words 40 years ago, but I felt the same then. And although Gulliver reproduced these Disney deficiencies, enough of the Fleischer style was present for me to really like it. If only they had followed their own hearts instead of Uncle Walt's I might be enjoying it as much now as I did back then.
Sky King (1951)
Cowboys and Airplanes
Sometime in the early sixties, when I was very young, I used to devour this show every Saturday morning. Cowboys and airplanes... that's what I called QUALITY!!!
Then the inevitable. Maybe about midway between now and then I saw it again. Just one episode, but it was painfully evident that this was NOT a good show. Fortunately, I am under no obligation to remember that fact, and I will sit here for a while dreaming about cowboys and airplanes again.
The Friendly Giant (1958)
It was exactly right.
You know, it's been so long since I've seen The Friendly Giant, probably going on 40 years, that I can't remember what actually happened during the show. But I'll always remember how the show began, it was my favorite part. The music, the chairs, the narration, just the whole look. Somehow it was all exactly right.
Men Into Space (1959)
Just about the earliest memory I have of television... maybe.
Can I comment on a show which may or may not be the show that I barely remember? Although I seem to have definitely misremembered it's title for all these many years, this isn't too surprising... I was pre-literate when it originally aired. After all this time I don't really remember the show itself, rather I remember that I remember the show. Judging by the comments here though, it's most probably the one I'm looking for; it has the ring of the show that enthralled me each week. However, not since I first saw it have I EVER heard even a hint that the show ever existed, nor met ANYONE who remembered it... and believe me, I've hunted. If anyone can confirm that this is my show or can tell me if I'm wrong, email me please. Prove to me I didn't imagine it all. Here is all I can remember:
I remember quonset huts on the Moon, and one episode where a singing, guitar-playing member of the Moon crew dies (how, I don't remember). This was the same episode where they detect radio signals from deep space which spent (quite properly) years in transit. They briefly debate what their response will be, but one of them decides to transmit a recording of their dead comrade singing a song which, after years in transit, will be mankinds first reply.
Now I saw my show in the San Francisco area, and just on the chance that my memory wasn't wrong and that there was some freak name change, I've always thought it was called "Journey to the Moon." Whatever it was called, it was THE television show I HAD to see every week and one of the earliest bits of television memory I have. I've almost haven't forgotten it.
The Millionaire (1955)
One of the better concepts for a television show.
In the days before lotteries, back when having a million dollars meant you were FABULOUSLY wealthy, this show had an interesting and effective premise. An unseen and mysterious multi-millionaire has his servant give a million dollars tax-free to a complete stranger, apparently picked at random. The only conditions were that he couldn't reveal to anyone how he got the money and how much money it was. The rest of the show would follow this person and show how his life was changed by the sudden wealth. The show worked so well because it's writers were able to create an interesting cross section of recipients and consequences. I actually haven't seen this show since it's syndication days in the sixties but it was interesting at the time and I remember it fondly.
Hogan's Heroes (1965)
More than just a funny show.
Over the years I've heard how offensive or impossible Hogan's Heros was. Usually, in the first case, it was people confusing POW camps with concentration camps. In the second case, those who think that prisoners having the run of the camp, with a maze of secret tunnels and factories, is so ridiculous that it makes them angry, I'd like to refer them to Castle Colditz. This was Germany's ultimate "escape-proof" POW facility. This is also the place where, amongst other things, British prisoners built a full sized aircraft (a 2 man glider) right under the German's noses. Only the end of the war kept them from using it. Read any of the several books about the place, like Reid's "Escape from Colditz" and "Men of Colditz", and you'll discover that Hogan's Heros was not such an exaggeration. One of the other virtues of the show was to attack the Aryan superman myth. Nazi Germany is easily an ultimate villain, but there's still a lingering perception that, though villainous, they were all somehow bigger, better, and a bit larger than life, a nation of Rommels. But Nazi Germany, like everywhere else, had its fair share of cowards and incompetents (the Nazi party tended to attract them), as well as just ordinary people. And in Hogan's Heros we have a rare chance to meet these Klinks, Burkhalters, and Schultzes, presented with satirical exaggeration. So besides being a funny show, it was a virtuous show... for if there is one thing Evil cannot tolerate, it's mockery.
The Munsters (1964)
I liked the OTHER show.
On the playground of my elementary school, back in the sixties, there were two types of people, those who liked the Munsters and those who liked the Addams Family, the two shows being exact contemporaries. I've often wondered since whether this early divergence in tastes continued on through adulthood. If you read enough of these IMDb commentaries you'll notice a split in people's reactions: Masterpiece/BORING!!!, Shallow/KICKASS!!!, Greatest/WORST!!!, Worst/GREATEST!!! Though I didn't mind the Munsters, I loved the Addams Family. It had character, depth, and atmosphere. The Munsters were overt, slapstick, and (eventually) colorful. It wasn't a bad show in my view and often good fun, but it wasn't the type of show that could really hold my affections. Still, just by existing it started a train of thought which still nags me till this day. And that, I suppose, is the Munsters' revenge.