When Nixon Asked Robert Altman for a Copy of "Nashville"

My wife generally works the Netflix account pretty vigorously. Our movie watching patterns were recently affected when our DVD return did not reach Netflix in the usual prompt manner. I wondered if a little inside game would have helped our chances.

I wouldn't know who to contact at Netflix. However, in a different era, it was possible to contact a human being and cut through red tape. Evidence on behalf of this proposition was recently demonstrated by the movie maestros at the Criterion Collection. They posted via Facebook a reproduction of correspondence from the one and only Richard Nixon to Robert Altman. Tricky Dick asked the very liberal film director if he could forward him a copy of Nashville. If you didn't see the request in print, you would have imagined this was a Hollywood barroom gag.

It's not, and you can see the proof above.

Thinking About Black Friday On The Saturday After

When Black Friday's horror was limited to the screen.

My wife and I went to visit friends on Thanksgiving Day. We got home sometime after midnight. Our drive back to casa nostra took us past a large shopping mall parking lot. We were startled to see the lot filled with cars. At first, we thought we were mistaken about the time, and we thought it was really six in the morning. Then we realized it was the dreaded Black Friday. It was the first time we had witnessed the infamous shopping event's Midnight Madness.

Now, I can understand why someone would wait hours for a World Series seat, or a tough ticket to a musical act. I just don't grasp why anyone has to camp out to purchase a popular gadget. The hysteria underpinning American holiday shopping has become genuinely troubling. Has one ever witnessed a time when people have gone so far off the deep end to maintain a "normal" environment?

The poster is from the 1940 film Black Friday, starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The movie's screenwriter, Curt Siodmak, was a Polish Jew who fled Germany during the Nazi era. Before the rise of National Socialism, Siodmak invested money in the 1930 silent movie Menschen am Sonntag (People on Sunday), a pivotal documentary about four ordinary Berliners that Criterion Collection recently re-released. The movie's co-directors were brother Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer; the scriptwriter was Billy Wilder and the photographer was Fred Zinnemann, who later directed High Noon.

Finding a Quality Movie Theater via "Cinema Treasures"

For approximately a century, films were meant to be seen on big screens. To this day, sitting in a movie theater remain far and away the best way to watch movies. However, finding a quality screen in an era of cookie-cutter plexes and indifferently maintained local theaters is a trying exercise. Further, one wonders if the era of HD screens and streaming access will accelerate the trend toward fewer, and lower quality, movie theaters and a parallel degradation of visual taste.

Fortunately, movie going remains a stubborn habit, especially for whom film offers an enriching experience. One can only suppose that was a reason why the Criterion Collection's Facebook site recently posted information about Cinema Treasures.

According to the Cinema Treasures website, it offers access to information about 30,000 theaters in the United States and elsewhere in the world. It provides useful news and interesting photos of movie venues, as well as a blog. The site is a brainchild of Patrick Crowley, whose resume includes A-list production credits (such as the quartet of Bourne movies), and UCLA Cinema and Media Studies Ph.D. Ross Melnick. The latter founder also co-authored a 2004 book titled, well, Cinema Treasures, which explores "the cultural and industrial history of theatrical motion picture exhibition in the United States from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century," according to culturaltreasures.org. (A different, thoughtful perspective on Melnick's work with students is available via UCLA's "Graduate Student Profile.")

Thanks to Criterion for publicizing Cinema Treasures. The above photo shows the interior of New York's Ziegfeld Theatre, housing arguably the city's premier movie screen and viewing venue. The photo originally appeared online in cinematreasures.org.

Criterion Out-of-Print Notice (Buñuel fans take note)

The Criterion Collection sent out a notice to its Facebook followers, informing them that certain catalog items would become "out-of-print" effective June 30th. Among them are a number of Buñuel films from his "French" period (for lack of a better categorization), such as Diary of a Chambermaid.

1972

– Image courtesy mptvimages.com

Directors Group, Nov. 1972. George Cukor Hosts a party for Luis Bunuel. Back Row from left: Robert Mulligan, William Wyler, George Cukor, Robert Wise, Jean-Claude Carriere, and Serge Silverman. Front Row from left: Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Luis Bunuel, Alfred Hitchcock, and Rouben Mamoulin.