Cinema Retro celebrated the 50th anniversary of this classic film in issue #50 with Todd Garbarini's exclusive interview with director William Friedkin, actor Tony LoBianco and technical advisor and actor Randy Jurgensen. The film won the Best Picture Oscar, Best Actor for Gene Hackman and Best Director for Friedkin. Time has been kind to the film...in fact it plays as effectively now as it did back in '71.
We admit we're geeks when it comes to old film advertisements such as these New York print ads for "Let It Be" (1969) and a 1970s quadruple feature of all four Fab Four feature films released by United Artists.
Here's another very fine Western from the 1960's: director Henry Hathaway's "5 Card Stud" which offers Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Inger Stevens, Roddy McDowall and Yaphet Kotto. The film is unusual for the genre in that it is primarily a mystery involving the hunt for a serial killer. The film is available on DVD (click here to order from Amazon) but it deserves a Blu-ray release. C'mon, Paramount!
Shout! Factory presents the very first episode of "Danger Man" starring Patrick McGoohan. The show ran between 1960-1962 as a half-hour series before being revived in 1964 as one-hour episodes. It ran until 1968. CBS in America retitled the show "Secret Agent", spawning a smash hit opening theme song sung by Johnny Rivers. However, non-U.S. viewers never got to experience the song because the show had retained the title of "Danger Man" in the UK market and was also known as "Destination Danger" and "John Drake" in certain other territories. The show's popularity endures today. (Trivia note: portions of this episode were filmed in the village of Portmeirion, Wales, which McGoohan would later use as the main filming location for his classic TV series "The Prisoner".)
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It's hard to imagine in this age of digital media and instant gratification for movie lovers, there was a time when viewers would be excited when a favorite film was shown on broadcast television. In America, a top ratings draw was NBC's "Saturday Night at the Movies", which showed popular films including relatively recent titles. As YouTuber Fredflix points out in this entertaining and informative video, audiences had to make due with commercial breaks, edited content and "pan-and-scan" techniques that marginalized the splendor of widescreen film productions. Nevertheless, in the pre-home video age, once a film went to television, it was all but certain you wouldn't see it again in movie theaters unless it was a classic or cult title that might be shown in a big city art house venue. Today, you can get DVD editions for pocket change and very affordable upscale Blu-rays, not to mention the endless options for streaming. We can relish seeing films in their original content without edits or interruptions, which only makes it all the more amazing that there are still movie lovers who indulge in watching deplorable cable TV showings of classic movies on networks that present movies in the manner of days of old.
