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The Thief Of Bagdad (1940) Was Someone's Happiest Memory Name quick a most popular and influential pageant from the 40's, one that set then-youth upon clouds of joy. Ask author Alan Barbour, if he were still here, and the answer would be Korda's The Thief Of Bagdad . Barbour was viewing child of a decade when new s ensations were buttressed by returning hits from the 30's. He saw the m all, repeatedly, and wrote memoir that was A Thousand and One Delights , just one of a brace of books that walked down his memory lane. If you want first-hand recall of what moviegoing was like in a truest Classic Era, here it is. Trouble for us moderns is no one from back then telling their stories on the internet, being too old, or too departed, to participate in online discussion. Eyewitness testimony from later dims by the day as well. How long before we can't find anyone who saw The Day The Earth Stood Still when new, with exit of those who saw NBC's March 1962 broadcast p

Night World (1932) Needs To Come Back Into The Light Sweeping start with a three minute Symphony Of The City as scored by Alfred Newman to quick pace of Gotham, then we're in for less than an hour stay at a cabaret where fates are decided among Universal's notion of an all-star cast. Night World preceded Grand Hotel , so jumped guns on that celebrated ensemble, only with action and dance compressed to just over half the length of Metro's special. Night World swung for the fence and played singly, or at least at top of bills. It went unseen for decades after 1932 until a print showed up from Europe in the early 70's and got revival play. Television didn't bite until the old AMC ran Night World and lit up collector VCR's, their old tapes satisfying need for the title ever since. Thirty years of dubs and re-dubs do work their havoc, but where or how else to see Night World ? Fact of it being zippy precode with meaningful names at a start of long careers should

Scandal Sheet (1931) Feathers Love Nests Tab editor George Bancroft's credo is, if it's news, we print it , and never mind human casualties. Of course, he'll be hoisted upon his petard in a third act, that the fun for waiting an hour and f ifteen minutes for the telegraphed payoff. What's wrong with formula when good enough people play it ? Besides Bancroft, there is Kay Francis ( what's she doing with him? , we, and she, asks), Clive B rook (him the interloper to Bancroft home /hearth/wife). There is noise of final editions shouted by newsboys, presses stopped so new dirt can be shoveled onto front pages --- when did extras fade from real-life sheets? Newspap er yarns couldn't help at least seeming authentic thanks to much of H'wood writing pool migrating from the trade. Scandal gather is shown on merciless terms, t he mother of a suicide auctioning p hotos and poetry of her just-dead son to scribes scrambling for a spiciest headline. Heartlessness is coin

Ads Make Better Satellite War Than Movie This was cut-rate fruit of the Sputnik craze. Roger Corman claimed that he got it together within mere weeks of the Russian satellite launch, but release date vs. Sputnik circling indicate months between the two, and besides, there was plentiful product to hook actual events with sci-fi at least roughly on point. Pics that caught Sputnik tailwind included MGM's The Invisible Boy and Enemy From Space from United Artists, both out during Fall 1957 when headlines were hottest, War Of The Satellites arriving well after Sputnik re-entry and burnout (January 1958), but distributing Allied Artists pinned a ripe second feature to Satellites which was Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman , since an object of cult immortality. I'll bet in fact that auction sales of posters for 50 Foot Woman have well surpassed total receipts AA collected back in 1958. Sci-fi combos, nearly always black-and-white, did a grab-and-run with whatever could be scooped over

Larry, Moe, and Joe Out West for The Outlaws Is Coming! (1965) Fellow fifth graders were surprisingly indifferent to this --- in fact, I don't think any of us caught the Liberty 's three-day run. I had borne brunt of earlier Stooge features from Columbia , having been dragged to them by cousins or neighbors, but '65 was a new day, and I considered myself inoculated from further Stooging. This recent view was therefore my first, and hanged if the thing di dn't play better than grim anticipation over interceding half-century. The boys had spoofed westerns before, primarily in shorts, th ough there was a teaming with George O'Brien at feature length. Outlaws at times has an almost hipster spin on genre clichés, future Laugh-In's Henry G ibson applying layers of irony to his Indian support part. The thing looks hardly more lavish than a late Stooge short; kids in theatres must have thought they were looking at a great big TV set for economies observed, but the trio

Metro Does Good Citizenship With The Magnificent Yankee (1950) You'll thank us for making it, even if you don't come see it , was seeming Metro message to a public they wished would support The Magnificent Yankee , but hang those gum-poppers who wanted comedies and melodramas and westerns. Still, The Magnificent Yankee could go far arguing that movies had more to offer than empty genre calories. MGM had punted before for prestige sake. Occasionally that had value even over profit. Let The Magnificent Yankee lose $465K so long as Leo's patriotism was burnished, 1950 a time when never enough of that could be had. "A credit to the industry" said Metro marketers to showmen who'd immediately smell fish. They'd seen this dodge before and suffered for taking the bait. "It is just about one of the best, and in playing it and promoting it, you will win for your theatre the gratitude and respect of your community." Such high-minded talk translated quick

Record Crowds Go Boom For Boom Town (1940) I just adore holdover ads like this. They so reflect the joy of success at exhibiting. You've got a hit --- crow it out! Human impulse is always to go and look at what everyone else is looking at. Why be the wallflower who hasn't seen Boom Town ? "Oh Boy!" says the Wilkes-Barre crowd with a rope around an all-star cast. This could be seen coming. The Comerford knew way ahead that Boom Town would be held over --- and over. MGM set terms on that assumption, and they were high. Boom Town was notorious that year for what Leo demanded. Well, take Gable, Tracy, Colbert, and Lamarr or leave them, said the Lion. Boom Town theme was close to distribution philosophy, being of corporate meat-eaters on never-ending prowl for profits. Who says movies were the voice of directors? This one was shout of parent company Leow's Inc. Their rope was around all of showgoers in lush year that was 1940.

The Great War Drama We Forgot Atlanta Gets The Live Journey's End Experience What a downer to know a thing is good, but you can't see it. Journey's End is owned by who-I-don't-know, produced by a company that folded before Prohibition quit. Anyone interested in The Great War should see it, but most won't, and likely never will based on phantom status. There's also issue of length, a long version intended, plus cut ones that misrepresent Journey's End where it has too seldom resurfaced. I was slipped a bootleg that was  thankfully  intact, but search me as to whether anyone could care enough to fix Journey's End and put it on Blu-ray. Bigger gorilla that was All Quiet On The Western Front took bulk of   1930 laurels, few of even harder core buffs having seen both. I needed two looks at Journey's End to get full into trench-set eyeball of a Lost Generation in the making, and admit to wanting to watch firstly because James Whale directed and Colin