Honey of a Horror for Halloween

 

A 1929 Chiller-Diller Finally Got Right

Been since 1967 a good idea to keep eye out for Seven Footprints to Satan (1929), it showing up in Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (page at left), a $6.95 book many boys wanted from Santa that year. I got mine, read, and faced reality of not having seen and probably not ever getting to see, most of films “Illustrated” by Mr. Clarens. Seven Footprints to Satan was among these, The Gorilla (1927) and The Terror (1928) tantalizing on a same display. After enough years, you resign to denial of ones vanished long before, Seven Footprints to Satan  among then-missing, so how is it a private enterprise called Serial Squadron offered a Blu-Ray for which there was a high-quality You Tube preview? Per such proof that here was the genuine article, I ordered. Squadron has added a score with screams and gunshots to emulate Vitaphone discs of long ago. Rediscovered Seven Footprints to Satan, “re” misapplied as when did any of us “discover” it to begin with? --- gives life to imagery Clarens and other monster mavens dangled via stills and/or blurs online even a most patient seeker could not endure, me thankful never to have sat for any such clouded transfer, the better to be swept away now by joy that is this Blu-Ray.

Easy to overlook is early-on readers of An Illustrated History of the Horror Film old enough to look back less than forty years at first-runs of what was lost to ones of us younger at the time. Had I been age of now in 1967 and buying this book, all of what Clarens described would be, if not fresh memories, at least still vivid ones, like what it was seeing Jaws or The Godfather: Part Two when new. Imagine if those crumbled to nitrate dust in such interim. Must have been sad not being able to revisit favorites and having but memory and a few stills to know you saw them once and would not again. Movies in that sense were more live performance, equivalent to “I heard Caruso sing … saw Houdini get out of handcuffs … watched Maude Adams as Peter Pan,” varied you-had-to-be-theres-or-forget-its. Seven Footprints wrested out of Satan grip spins imagination toward grails that are A Blind Bargain with Chaney, or dare we suggest, London After Midnight. Had someone suggested a year ago we’d get The (silent) Bat back, let alone The Bat Whispers on wide and crisp Blu-Ray … well, dreams can come true it seems. Accounts I hear of reels by thousands lacking only time and manpower to identify them … but best not light up over that, might as profitably quest for Yetis or unicorns because after all, there are those who claim to have seen them. How was Seven Footprints to Satan sold, perceived by a public coming to it fresh? Ads tell at least a partial story, one here with promise of “28 Baffling Scenes, 1001 Gripping Thrills” (with all that to advantage, how/why did it lose money for WB?). Having now seen Seven Footprints to Satan, I would sign affidavit to effect that there really are 28 baffling scenes, likely more. It’s fun to be frightened!, bally and barkers used to say, fun the key because who sought to be truly scared by films where living dealt scares enough? Always seemed to me monsters should be arresting, not revolting, side trip I’ll not take today. Enough to say that seeing The Cat and the Canary, or any of the Bats, should prepare you for quasi-chilling and comedy that is reality of Seven Footprints to Satan, so no complaint please over “cop-out” or letdown at its ending. Them was the rules then, and they were inviolate.

Comedy as relief was essential to what was determinably light amusement. No one was for leaving theatres unstrung or depressed. Enough of what waited for them outside saw to that. Seven Footprints to Satan, in its final outcome especially, was ideal fulfillment of what makers and their audience desired from a “mystery thriller.” Our expectations having changed so radically over a succeeding century does not make us right and them wrong. We get pleasure in what they thought would “thrill,” as yes it does satisfy to see devices untried since silents and grotesqueries foreclosed for one reason or other from modern films. Less explicable is supernatural events always rationally explained at that time, as if maintaining Code of its own that no ghosts shall walk among us. Was industry being “responsible” in the face of spiritualism and belief in back-from-dead gripping multitudes after a first World War? Too many it seems were talking to departeds via false mediums, charlatans of all stripes. Famed proponent Arthur Conan Doyle was put under microscope of is he right, or what? I’ve not seen above feature asking that question (see lobby card), film which we assume is missing, but would figure it no way supported Doyle’s notion that the dead could come back and talk with us. Motion pictures as sensible outreach assured such things had no basis in reality. I’m trying to think of a full-on silent spook story and can not so far come up with one, but what if there were several among so-called “lost” features? Are always rational explanations what it took to keep a twenties viewership calm? Difficult to know how vulnerable folks in the twenties would have been to latter-day horror assaults, us not better off now for being numb to them. Seven Footprints to Satan is like Grand Touring a haunted house as conceived by long past era that may itself have been a little haunted. '29 photos and film can convince us so, but then there are those who’d say circumstance of a mere decade ago might have a same unsettling effect on us. Each generation seeks their own level of fear, or level of same they go to for recreation.

Do current haunted houses dwell on dwarves, gorillas, “dog men,” Asian agents of harm? Based on '29 Footprints, I'd say not. Apes loosed seem archaic to us unless they carry a chain saw. Footprints is keyed to thrills outlandish enough to indicate an all-in-fun finish. To be surprised or let down by same is to not know conventions in place when Seven Footprints to Satan was new. 2024 is so determined for chillers to terrify as to be almost unreasonable about it. What if early filmmakers had served them our way? They sort of did with Freaks and Island of Lost Souls and look what happened to those. Seven Footprints to Satan was OK for children to enjoy, and I’ll guess they were sophisticated enough in 1929 for Mom-Dad not to have to explain that it’s all a frolic so don’t get skittish. Too bad Ackerman, Bradbury, other first-run veterans, aren’t around to tell specific what those experiences were like (plenty of anecdotal evidence re Phantom of the Opera, but what of obscure others?). Fact is I'm just guessing at how Foot falls fell. Old Famous Monsters magazines are spotted with imagery and comment about Seven Footprints to Satan, the title thus presence in my life from early on, one of reasons it satisfies to finally see the feature. Director was Benjamin Christensen, who we’d know better if more of his films survived, Christensen rather like Paul Leni, whose films do survive, even if Paul himself did not. Christensen’s House of Horror and The Haunted House, coming before or just after release of Footprints, are gone as footprints on Egyptian sand. We get sense of fun in Satan’s making from cast-crew captures here, appeal-crossing-all-genres Thelma Todd as lead with Creighton Hale, latter not dissimilar from who he was in Cat/Canary, if less simpy and ineffectual. There are favorites Angelo Rossitto and Sojin plus Sheldon Lewis who had done creepy serials and was in Jekyll-Hyde with Barrymore, also Charles Gemora in ape skin. It was Italians and the Danish who preserved Seven Footprints to Satan, prints for years ragged and with foreign subtitles. I much enjoyed Squadron’s presentation. If Halloween has a highlight for 2024, Seven Footprints to Satan is it for me.

Precode Picks #5

 

Precode: Double Harness, Explorers of the World, Jolson Socks Winchell, and "The Five Stages of Love"

DOUBLE HARNESS (1933) --- Double Harness meditates on marriage and how it’s better avoided by men about town like William Powell who are content to keep a mistress (or two) and why spoil all that by taking vows? Sounds glib which I don’t propose to be, as Double Harness certainly is not, being earnest in its exam of what a woman, in this instance Ann Harding, will do to snare a husband, fair play an option but optional where necessity calls for more devious means. Ad here tells the essential story: “She Tricked Him Into Marriage! --- and Learned too Late That Love Cannot be Tied with Bonds of Matrimony!” Had management been to a trade screening before inventing this squib? Harding resorts to sneakery and intervention of Dad to corner Bill and shotgun a marriage, latter’s response to go along, but forget romance and we’ll wait for divorce to loosen wedded knot, “love cannot be tied” and all that. We endorse Bill’s action and it is for Ann to redeem herself. Precode could and did make moral judgments, refreshing one of which upheld sanctity of freedom if not free love where parties enter into pact knowingly, bad cricket then for the woman to break the bargain, entrap the man, and expect him to like it. Bill ghosting Ann once he knows he’s harnessed (hence the title) is remind that convention violated will work except where one or the other party tries changing rules mid-way. Double Harness in siding with Powell promiscuity speaks loudest for precode principles during short epoch it lasted. Not once are we invited to condemn his lifestyle. It is Ann Harding’s “Ann Colby” that invites scorn for arresting free and admirable spirit that is his. Again the ad: “Her one idea was “Get your man. Love will take care of itself,” except no it won’t, at least in this instance. Do male viewers watch this and ponder how they ended up in their own marriage? Double Harness plays TCM in HD, was part of the deal done with Merian C. Cooper’s estate for a handful of RKO features he retained after leaving the company in the mid-thirties.

EXPLORERS OF THE WORLD (1931) --- Don’t let them tell you explorers are not precode. Ones I’ve seen are or at the least tickle edges. Greenbriar explored a notorious one here. Nature stuff drew parallel with Great War documentaries by snaring sensation from real-life topics, idea to take liberties because after all you’re exposing nature or gone-mad mankind in the raw. If we’re to watch animals in the wild, then by all means unleash them to be savage selves, violence the more bracing for not being faked. Some of footage was rigged however, men in ape-skins or cats starved to point of killing anything to venture by. Explorers of the World lends dignity to exploitation enterprise by gathering famous nature names at a banquet to regale us and each other of travels lately made, footage aplenty from far-flung spots. Accounts shared by the half dozen vary nicely, us on ice for a portion, then melt that is Africa or desert climes. This all has historic interest for those who study early exploration, and I wonder if scholars are aware of invaluable resource here. Theatres touted educational value but put chips on sights to shock. “A Noah’s Arkful of Beasts Let Loose in a Whale of a Picture” yelled the Criterion in support of its “Knock-Out Wallop,” and who’s to begrudge sales for a pitch so aggressive? All six explorer names are right up on the marquee, and we’ve got to assume they were known from magazines and/or news coverage. What boy/girl didn’t want to grow up and go uncharted places like Martin and Osa Johnson? Explorers of the World made that seem doable, thrilled too in the bargain. Who knew but what you might be the next Admiral Byrd? The rich enough did go safari route and had stuffed heads to show for them. What were exotic animals if not for killing? Maybe for disapproval of that we see less of these travel folders, but some do disc-exist, Explorers of the World from Grapevine Video and on Blu-Ray besides. I found it a bracing watch but did note discrepancy re running time. Are prints today complete? Who could know … perhaps care, so long as sampling survives to give us at least taste of untamed wilds.

BROADWAY THROUGH A KEYHOLE (1933) --- Consider fate of principals, Texas Guinan gone within a week of November 1933 release, Russ Columbo a casualty the following year, Paul Kelly having served an active sentence for beating a man to death with his fists. Lead lady Constance Cummings led them by living to ninety-five (d. 2005), so imagine workings in her mind if ever she saw Broadway Through a Keyhole revived. Here was early effort for named producer Darryl Zanuck doing business as Twentieth-Century Pictures, this before formation of better known Twentieth-Century Fox. Broadway Through a Keyhole is seen if at all on bootleg discs or renegade uploads, quality generally terrible by my so-far experience. Ad above drew me for cryptic reference to dust-up between Walter Winchell, whose story supplied Broadway basis, and Al Jolson, who said Winchell based his yarn on real-life circumstance of Ruby Keeler, Al’s then wife. Jolson “saw red” at the sight of Winchell during a prizefight both attended, hopping from his spectator seat and landing two (at least) blows on the Gotham gadfly. Incident took place in Los Angeles and was mass-reported by end of July, 1933, just in time for Broadway Through a Keyhole to benefit from press however tawdry. Winchell later said thanks for Jolson’s offer to apologize and be pals again, but let’s wait a while and bask in publicity the quarrel generated. Might this whole thing have been a phony? The boys never admitted one way or other, stayed fast friends in the wake of events, Walter putting together a record album long after Al’s death to salute latter who predeceased him. Hollywood (rather New York), you big hearted town(s). Exhibition got a hypo, ads like Leow’s touting “the picture with a punch” as in why did Jolson throw his at Winchell? --- answer what twenty cents “till 5” might supply. "Glamorous Amorous Girls Girls" (insert four exclamation marks) helped sell what Broadway Through a Keyhole was really about (but how do I know, not having seen it). Art alone lit fuses, chorus dancers largely unsheathed and showing navels, something even AIP beach pics couldn’t do in the sixties, on posters or screens. Ever see Annette’s? Such promoting reminds if nothing else that precode was even more wide open than we thought, at least on newsprint pages if not on screens.

FIVE STAGES MORE OR LESS --- Are there really “Five Stages of Love”? A late silent era evidently taught so as here. We speak of precode as if it came on like a light switch, all before but a Puritan blur. But how could film be bawdy minus talk, specifically talk of suggestive nature? Silents were necessarily subdued but for Fairbanks jumping or clowns slapsticking. Seduction seemed more the stuff of dialogue, as was fast shuffles dealt by precode sharpies. There’s something stately about stills used to accompany this Picture Show Annual page commemorating supposed stages we must pass through enroute to true love. This was Picture Show’s 1931 number, change well afoot even if they didn’t fully realize it, this pictorial well behind times a-rapid-changing. For one thing, the films depicted were well out of circulation, and would remain so. Most now are lost … note I’m assuming that w/o even knowing titles. Players too would evaporate off talking screens. Sole of this lot to survive and prosper was Adolphe Menjou; one could ask where art thou Claire Windsor, Huntley Gordon, and Betty Compson? Precode really was survival of the quickest. Think Cagney characters concerned themselves with five stages of love? Just one and he’d be done and out. These images evoke parlor and manners taught when formalities were observed. Were we better off chucking these so completely? You’d think yes where comparing stolidity of talkless drama and demon speed of precode with pedals pressed down. So is this instructional still relevant? There are presumably same rituals to courtship and love: Introduction, Attraction, First Kiss, Flirtation, and “Wedded.” It’s the order they go in, or are supposed to go in, that had to be sorted out. By the early thirties, movies were for shuffling cards to quick-get past that first kiss, nix the wedded part, hang all of form save consummation. Could you blame an establishment’s disapproval? Dialogue was the Great Unfetter of Films and society watching them. Depression further bent rules and banished proprieties. No wonder a gone silent era came in for such ridicule. We still care less for then-ways except where they make us laugh … who’d sit for Marguerite de la Motte and Cullen Landis exchanging calf looks where alternative is Warren William compromising a co-cast before half a typical seventy minutes is spent?

Category Called Comedy #7

 

CCC: A&C Celebrate Strange Birthday, For Harold's Sake, Ty and Loretta's Second Honeymoon, and Stooge Inflected 3-D

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR THEM --- The cake and cutting and (maybe) eating was genre all its own where selling meant anything to arrest eyes traveling over newspapers, magazines, print media of any sort. You may bet that far more saw these birthday snaps than paid to see Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, consumption of movies by most seldom rising to anything past moment’s glance at silly stills in a morning edition and then off to activities, or recreation, other than filmgoing. Anxiety to draw patronage was profound. Was Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein monster cutting his cake with A&C incentive enough to go? Unless you were predisposed to attend Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, probably not. Posing for publicity in whatever capacity, and there was myriad of capacities, was in ways harder work than performing for the camera. It certainly took as much time, for stills were never caught on a fly. They had to be lit, composed to convey what was needed, specific purpose always to be served. Images here commemorate what is presumably Glenn Strange’s birthday, but we assume more than two were taken. Completists may have a dozen different captures, each closely wed to the other, all bound for print publication in advance of playdates. Bud and Lou might well have asked, Of what use is this?, but being pros they were, there was no need to wonder. Months later glance through a day’s delivery would reacquaint them with the hour or so spent on set to celebrate Glenn’s natal day. Always I ask: Did anyone eat the slices served? Cake ladled with lard click always for me, supermarket baked sections generous with them. All hail this underappreciated treat.

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE (1926) --- A smaller Harold Lloyd feature, like Hot Water more a matter of shorts stitched together, in this case the second half less inspired than the first. Buster Keaton had emphasized from his full-length start that two-reel formats would not work if grafted onto six-reels. His and Lloyd’s tended toward brief as result, especially where stories were slight and narrative was carried by situation alone. For Heaven’s Sake sees wealthy wastrel Harold, that character again, supporting a settlement house so he'll have access to Jobyna Ralston, their mid-way misunderstanding readily resolved and wedding to proceed, so why last-minute race to reach the alter with guests willing to wait however long it takes, Girl Shy minus suspense and better gags that lent urgency to the previous feature. Herding a trolly filled with drunks may have seemed promising to gagman meetings, but outcome doesn’t always fulfill promise, too little at stake to sustain humor hoped for. For Heaven’s Sake plays like Lloyd filling volume’s order, his yield overall good, maybe best of then-popular comedians. Whatever disappointment crowds felt would be forgiven come a next Lloyd feature, in this case The Kid Brother and then Speedy, both improvements upon For Heaven’s Sake. Ask anyone, especially Harold adherents, if For Heaven’s Sake is funny, and they will say yes, moments splendid throughout and there are plenty of them. Maybe that is all to count in a long run, especially where end result lasts below an hour with standards more/less met. For Heaven’s Sake has not surfaced so far on Blu-Ray. Maybe Criterion opted out of further Lloyd releases, their having quit short of everything getting out (none of his talkies so far). TCM uses For Heaven’s Sake enough for it to stay viable, theirs the estate-authorized and preferred, meanwhile PD uploads are spread over You Tube, mute since underlying music is protected, so viewing will require needle-drop to whatever is handy. Good luck with that.

SECOND HONEYMOON (1937) --- Fox makes Code-era argument for adultery and crack-up of marriages that stand in a way of pretty people Tyrone Power and Loretta Young coupling at close. What’s so the matter with Young’s spouse, Lyle Talbot? Nothing to start … just wait for him to commit small wrongs that will make OK renewed union of wife Loretta with playboy rascal, and her ex Ty. Second Honeymoon was further instance of stars mesmerizer stars drawn together like magnets and never mind vow taken to others, obstacle easily overcome despite Code of conduct prevailing then, rules bent to accommodate screen lures whatever the morality of their actions. There’s always the loser, well-intentioned or not … remember Otto Kruger giving up Joan Crawford to Clark Gable in Chained as if he had any other choice to make? Same with Lyle Talbot, however dull or business-obsessed, yet hardly deserving a mate so blithely snatched by Tyrone Power, marriage an elastic bond where Power and Loretta Young are parties predestined to merge. Might male audience members resent Power for husband-be-damned outlook? And Young’s character … did extraordinary looks spare her seeming a slut given this circumstance? Implications were diluted, very much deliberate, by comic support to keep audience eyes off the ball, thus Stuart Erwin, Marjorie Weaver, Ed Bromberg … each unreal as to distract from reality of a marriage playfully dismantled. Pictures like Second Honeymoon were not meant to be delved so deeply, but issues are there for the delving. I’m just surprised the PCA let so much of this go by without objection. Second Honeymoon hasn’t shown up on TCM to my knowledge, though there is a DVD in one of the Tyrone Power box collections, and it looks OK enough.

PARDON MY BACKFIRE (1953) --- May finally comprehend my problem with the Stooges. Their gagging is grotesque. Look at Larry pulling a wire into his ear, through his head, and out his nose as thanks to 3-D we clearly see the paste-on device he’s using to affect the effect. But is this funny or what they nowaday call “cringe”? I always thought Moe had a mean face. It helped to learn later what a nice offscreen guy he was. Did fans really wander into his yard to be greeted warmly when Moe detected them? Pardon My Backfire was watched because of 3-D, being an extra with Twilight Time’s The Mad Magician. Private sellers at Amazon want $55 for a second-hand disc, which many would give for Backfire and Spooks alone (both the 3-D Stooges are there), and never mind Vincent Price. The boys have a garage from which they don’t wander (no exteriors), sixteen minutes of them capturing a trio of robbers plus moll. Countless gags feature objects, eye pokes, etc. thrust forward to the camera, fun when the films were fresh, but how many theatres in benighted days of depth got projection right as in two-print synchronized right? Too few from what reading on the period suggests. I’d guess Pardon My Backfire was a bigger spend than customary for the Stooges, though chances are some patrons went, especially children, just to see what their favorite team would do with the process. If idea is to demonstrate your 3-D for guests, then Pardon My Backfire is undoubted best for what the gimmick could give within short term of time and patience. Being asked to switch off before those sixteen minutes are up may be cue to chuck future runs of 3-D and the Three Stooges. For a meantime however, keep Pardon My Backfire in reserve if screening novelty calls for it.

Features No More?

Movies Are Like, So Yesterday

There was a show called Suits that ran from 2011 to 2019, “was” and “ran” operative words because old episodes still run, rather streams, to a gigantic worldwide audience, it said recently to be the most watched series, most watched anything, on devices including TV, laptops, smartphones, and Dick Tracy wristwatches. Success of Suits is beside point however, of characters quoting movies which meant much to them and sometimes to other characters being addressed. We were expected to recognize dialogue from filmic oysters still yielding pearls. Principals aged twenties to forties being weaned upon features reflected Suits writers raised the same, thus words borrowed from The Godfather(s), Rocky, A Few Good Men, even Fast Times at Ridgemont High, all to remind us there are those who carry memory of features when feature-watching was still meaningful. I follow with interest so-called “culture war” pitting longtime Star War fans against present corporate ownership (Disney) said to disrespect the Force and Jedis and all of rest, intent it seems on dismantling modern American folklore, sacred as odysseys and Iliads passed from Greeks down centuries to now. To be a boy born since sixties-became-seventies is to revere Star Wars and guard same against those who’d profane the brand, the 1977 original and sequels having segued from entertainment to religious expression. You Tube apostles v. pagans seems a daily, no hourly, battle fought without chance, even hope, of a victor emerging.

When did dialogue become inconsequent? “Action” as essential thing has been the thing for generations now, part of outreach, they say, to the worldwide audience said to overwhelm domestic viewing. To be understood is to be necessarily understood in any language, and that means in terms of movement, constant movement. Movies may well have had it best during a silent era when everything could be translated by titles to reach lookers anywhere, though that presupposed a willingness to read pesky titles. Is such willingness lost to all now and for all time? Talk-less films did and for too short a time truly unite a wide world’s viewership. How else could someone like C. Chaplin achieve recognition on awesome scale as no personality could equal today? Action as the universal language seems on one hand a viable way, the best silents after all bent toward that, but what of happy times when talk was the action? Summit I’d aver was Sliver Age we know as the thirties through at least some of sixties when characters spoke much before coming to blows or firing a shot. Instances abound to offer endless pleasure: The Thing where chat and wit make a title monster superfluous and the more effective for most-part absence, Bogart and Sydney Greenstreet verbal sparring in Across the Pacific, shock the greater when latter whacks former with his stick, and behind a scrim so we don’t even see it. Late as the 60’s came James Bond to leisurely investigate Crab Key and gruffly ask “why cahn’t we go there” with Scottish burr. 007 conversing with Robert Shaw is as tense as their later fight on FRWL’s train and look at whole of the golf game in Goldfinger.

Talk as chief led always to a showdown, if verbal, a constant with Bette Davis melodramas and everybody else’s melodramas. Think of swordfights to cap Errol Flynn ventures, Stewart Granger finally having it out with Mel Ferrer, westerns a primary font of kettles boiled to bursting, conflict embodied for most part in talk, and who’d want it otherwise, that last me speaking for myself and aware that others may not see things a same. I often dope on Ride Lonesome at You Tube, cued up not to shooting guns but to word exchange that has more impact, pausing wherever I see Randolph Scott stood still and in conference with Pernell Roberts or Karen Steele, dialogue and how it’s delivered eternal joy of Lonesome and other habitual YT stop, The Tall T. Contrast these with action amounting more to what Gilbert Seldes called “ the emptiness of violence” (Seldes said that in the late forties, so imagine how he’d react to films today). The John Wick series, enjoyable as they are, remind me of Tex Avery’s roach spray commercials. Past action was confrontation with violence as a last resort. Bogart shooting Conrad Veidt in Casablanca is the least memorable of their contra taunts, language to then a more lethal weapon. Sydney Greenstreet seldom raised a hand, him and select others my Action as Talk ideals.

Old-timers today are often those in 30-50’s, longing for lost moments of moviegoing from before folks quit going to movies. These are who Top Gun: Maverick and Beverly Hills Cop 4 are meant to entice, yearners after a past where it can be recaptured. But will youth care about tropes dating far back of their birthdates? And what of nostalgists let down by a latest and hopefully last Indiana Jones, or Star Wars renouncing all that was Star Wars before? Loyalists decry output aimed at what’s ruefully called “modern audiences,” while upholders of latter call an old guard cranky, out of touch, or unkindest cut, plain old, this to fandom far from dotage. Spry in his sixties Eddie Murphy talked in a recent interview of running Beverly Hills 4 to a group including his teenage son, who rather than paying attention to narrative scrolled away on his phone and put it aside only when entreated by Dad. Might Eddie have glimpsed future of features here, let alone Beverly Hills cop features? Significant is this newest made not for theatres, but Netflix, where up-down, in-out subscribers can make hash as they choose of it. Longing too is had for a vanished sitting audience, crowds that laughed at a first Beverly Hills Cop forty years ago when even small town theatres could fill up nightly. But what do “crowds” and an “audience” have to do with most movies today? Remarkable exceptions are the more remarkable for being so few, like recent Deadpool – Wolverine, superheroes back from a seeming dead. Want a full house? Invite enough to fill your den for a Netflix opening. It isn’t movies now but gaming and scrolling that matter. “Movies” mean features as in length, as in too much length for those distracted at best of times. Attention spans aren’t going, they’re gone. Gilbert Seldes complained of films given over entirely to adolescent viewership. When adolescents can’t be bothered with moviegoing, which appears to be the case today, what’s to do but fold theatrical tents?

Are we to a point where feature films are looked upon like literature or classical music? To sit focused upon any one thing for two hours seems like prison minus bars. Doesn’t matter how “good” your feature is, such consume of others' time and patience can make well-intentioned steps a mis-step. This applies not just to civilians unschooled in favorites (distinctly yours, not theirs) but fans, kindred spirits even, who embrace also the life, or formerly did. They had favorites too, happiest times wrapped around once-upon watching, but when will they submit to these again? I had assumed it was age that made us restive, a contemporary who said how much he adored The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly but would not contemplate another three-hour sit. What's to treasure for some is recall of it, as in sentiment's placement at a table long cleared. How many younger people who haven't seen The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly will submit to do so where entertainment is consumed quick or not at all? To be fast-fed information is to reject what isn’t digestible in under fifteen seconds, that now including much of what was once enjoyed at leisure. There is Facebook option of scrolling endless half-a-minute narratives constantly reloaded to algorithm-fed preferences all your own, preferences known and chosen for you. Pleasure in music say some observers has become a matter of opening bars heard at Tik Tok, then abandoned toward next blink-of-ear sampling, to which cue Jerry Lee Lewis shaking our nerves and rattling our brains.

Most are casual consumers of film, if that. I’ve been since 1968 (new films that is). Boy on my hall at college came back from a weekend having seen Stranger on the Third Floor on Channel 8’s Shock Theatre, an event no more important for him than flicking a gnat off a soup bowl. I of course had watched too, asked his reaction to Peter Lorre, my voice impression reminding Jeff it was an actor named Lorre who played the title character. He laughed even as I realized neither Stranger on the Third Floor nor Peter Lorre would ever cross his mind again. Such was a random film watcher, for there were always more compelling amusements than a Shock Theatre, especially where it’s Saturday night and you’re age nineteen. My own priorities at college did not include going to movies, even as I collected them on 16mm, old vs. new the distinction, choice always the old. Shows were more a social outlet than an aesthetic one. It seemed nothing on current screens could challenge what had been done thirty/forty years before. We’d sit through High Plains Drifter, Live and Let Die, the “Reader’s Digest Edition” of Tom Sawyer with Johnny Whitaker (what ennui drove us to that?). Where The Sting or Young Frankenstein were regarded as the best things going, you’d not blame anyone putting movies down a list of recreations. And now fifty years hence we find options expanded past conception of days when movies were at least some folks’ idea of a best entertainment. Hollywood’s goal was always to prolong adolescence. Now adolescence has found better things to do than watch movies, much like Jeff but on mass scale thanks to diversions not to be had in his day.