I apologize for being so very late to this particular party… not that you guys would have particularly missed my contributions or anything (I know you guys like me fine, but I also am the first to admit that I’m never to be taken all that seriously), but more that I’m responding to months-old posts.
Huh? I think you give cable TV and VHS a bit too much credit. Not for cult movies in general, where you’re absolutely spot-on, but for Casablanca in particular. That movie was never hard to find. You didn’t have to go to Harvard to see it at the screenings they’ve held annually during finals for the past sixty years. It was on regular, broadcast TV, like, all the time. I peeked at the movie’s Wikipedia page to make sure.
By 1977, Casablanca was the most frequently broadcast film on American television.
Cable and VHS (and Betamax, for that matter) didn’t have much market penetration in ‘77. I am not convinced that something that’s been so widely popular for so very long (and never endured a period of obscurity or particular unfashionableness) can really qualify as a cult film. Casablanca was, by 1955, the third most financially successful of Warner Bros’ wartime movies. I do believe it mainstreamed itself.
Next I’ll defend Fury Road, after I put the kids to bed.
This is the tale of the strange adventures of young Allan Gray, who immersed himself in the study of devil worship and vampires. Preoccupied with superstitions of centuries past, he became a dreamer for whom the line between the real and the supernatural became blurred.
His aimless wanderings led him late one evening to a secluded inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre…
Vampyr (1932) is one of the classics of the early horror film, although it’s probably a little more explicable through the lens of Dreyer’s other work than its Universal contemporaries. Despite being loosely based on (or at least inspired by) a couple of Sheridan Le Fanu’s works, including the much adapted vampire tale Carmilla, Vampyr doesn’t easily fit into the horror (or any) genre, except that it does undeniably feature the appropriate generic trappings. But these trappings, a vampire preying on a young woman, disembodied shadows doing mischief, a man buried alive, are not so much played for shock but instead a pronounced feeling of disquiet (and related confusion). If anything, the film seems to sidle into horror in the same way that Lynch’s Eraserhead does.
Not very well regarded by the critics of the day, it seems to me a perfect film to have been embraced by the Surrealists. The opening titles make the hero seem quite the flâneur, but perhaps Breton was too smitten with Nosferatu to notice.
Well, I admit I didn’t do any particular research into Casablanca’s history and the pre-cable/pre-VHS days are before my time. It was listed in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies (which I don’t have to hand to reference) and I took his word for it.
I don’t know what his thinking was. To my mind, a cult following does not just imply a small hardcore group of admirers, but also implies a certain “undervalued” quality among larger general audiences, and I don’t believe Casablanca ever suffered that latter quality. If anything, it’s a bit too much of a crowd-pleaser.
Your post struck me because so many of that movie’s iconic and quotable moments (“I’m shocked… Shocked!” “We’ll always have Paris.” “This might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” “Here’s looking at you, kid.” And the line eternally misquoted as “Play it again, Sam” which is also eternally misremembered as Bogey’s line.) have inhabited the pop culture landscape since long before I was born, long before TV was even a cultural influence. I’d be hard pressed to think of a movie whose success and fame could be less attributed to Ted Turner and Blockbuster Video.
Well, you two have different definitions then. (I think I shall be neutral since I really don’t care that much.) As I recall, I think he felt that a hardcore group of admirers was sufficient, provided that their adoration was more fervent than the general audience’s. Considering the regular Harvard screenings you referenced, I would think that Casablanca would qualify by his standards.
Along those lines, I have always been rather fond of Klushantsev’s Road to the Stars. It’s a product of a much earlier era. So early that Sputnik had to be added after its launch during production.
When I got a chance to see it on a big screen in the 80s I think where I gave it proper attention I was surprised at how much of that movie was cemented into popular culture.
While not exactly safe for work, definitely not hardcore. Warhol did make one film that slipped into hardcore territory, blue movie aka Fuck. That’s available online as well (on a porn site or two). Unfortunately, the bloody thing’s been dubbed into German, and yes, I do want to know what they’re saying.
Long before Michael Jackson’s Thriller and David Bowie’s Jazzin’ for Blue Jean, Duke Ellington had his proto-extended music video Black and Tan. Remarkably accomplished visually for a 1929 sound film, writer/director Dudley Murphy had worked uncredited on the Dadaist short Ballet Mécanique, Black and Tan features several striking uses of POV and great dancing, not to mention the music. One of the handful of films starring actress, dancer, and civil rights activist Fredi Washington, probably best remembered for her work in the original Imitation of Life and The Emperor Jones.
I’m wondering if that was the actual Cotton Club. Or maybe another dance hall. That see-thru dance floor was unexpected. Love that era, though I confess I usually think of Duke starting with A Train. A long way from Money Jungle!
The Emperor Jones is another interesting movie. They play it a lot on TV, presumably because the copyright has lapsed. That’s Paul Robeson, right? He doesn’t sing in it but it sounds like his voice.
According to the IMDb, it was filmed in RCA’s studios in Astoria, Queens. I’ve always pictured the actual Cotton Club being larger and grander and junglier. (Incidentally, the Marx Brothers’ earliest features The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers were also shot in a studio in Astoria, and Fredi Washington is supposedly in AC somewhere as a party guest.)
Yeah, The Emperor Jones stars Paul Robeson and was directed by Dudley Murphy again. I could swear that Robeson does sing in the film, but maybe I’m misremembering, it’s been a while since I saw it. I’m surprised that they show it a lot on TV these days. On what channel(s)?
Heh. In first grade (I think) I was runner-up in the spelling bee for the entire elementary school. These days, thanks to spell check, I probably spell worse.
