Recently Rosemary and I watched Frank Tuttle’s 1942 film This Gun for Hire with Allan Ladd, Veronica Lake and Robert Preston. It may have been the third time that I have seen this vintage film noir with a remarkable performance by Allan Ladd. Ladd was phenomenally underrated for most of his acting life. Having seen this, the next film to see is another Allan Ladd/Veronica Lake film, Stuart Heisler’s, 1942, The Glass Key (a 1932 novel by Dashiell Hammett). From there it might be logical to proceed to the Maltese Falcon (a Hammet novel) or perhaps Rosemary and I could skip four decades to 1982 and watch the very fine Hammett (directed by no less than Wim Wenders and with a superb actor Frederic Forrest.
Very soon (perhaps by the end of this month) this sort of semi illogical viewing schedule will next to impossible to achieve. Let me explain.
For some time I have been regularly going to the remainder/last copy film DVD bin of my closest Real Canadian Superstore on Marine Drive. I have even made friends with the Italian/Canadian woman at the digital camera lab (nearby) Manuela who when she sees me going at the bins (you must transfer one side of the pile to the other without missing one DVD as some are only one copy) she says to me, “There are some good ones today.”
I have recently found in that bin Robert Wise’s, 1963, The Haunting with Claire Bloom and Julie Harris (one of my favourite female actors of all time), Paul Schrader’s 1998 Affliction with Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, James Coburn and Willem Dafoe (!!! are definitely needed here!) and John Sayles’s, 1996, Lonestar with Kris Christopherson, Matthew McConaughey but also with Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Peña who quietly make the movie a real gem.
After seeing Lonestar (very little violence even though it is labeled a Western) and reading a review of a novel in the NY Times by John Sayles (the reviewer) I knew I wanted to see more Sayles films but in particular his 1997 film (all in Spanish and filmed in Mexico) Men With Guns (Los Hombres Armados).
Rebecca is going to review in my blog the forthcoming Vancouver Opera production of Westside Story. I wanted to see with her the film to prepare her. The 7 or 8 copies at the Vancouver Public Library are all out.
My granddaughters and I have been watching the Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan Tarzan movies after Saturday dinner. We have seen three of them and we plan to stop with the sixth one Tarzan’s New York Adventure because that is the last one with O’Sullivan who is half the reason to see this series.
I went to Videomatica (it is still open) and asked for Men with Guns, Tarzan’s New York Adventure ; Tarzan’s Secret Treasure and Westside Story. All three DVDs were put in front of me instantly.
I challenge anybody in Vancouver to get these films in some other way in a short period of time. I am not even sure that all these four films would be available for even illegal downloads.
Once Videomatica is gone the only game in town for any sort of esoteric film choice will be the Vancouver Public Library. They do not have Lonestar but they do have Affliction and The Haunting. They have no This Gun for Hire, no Glass Key and no Hammett. But they do have Beau Geste with Gary Cooper and Laura with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Clifton Webb. Videomatica had Vancouver’s only copy of Carlos Saura’s, 1999, Goya in Bordeaux until their copy “disappeared”.
Perhaps by now you know what I mean. We (according to my friend Paul Leisz there are few of us and more of them who want to download the latest or near latest from Netflix) who treasure old films, (is 1996 Lonestar an old film?). We who enjoy good films (the ones more likely to disappear from availability lists) will have to resort as my friend John Lekich says, to waiting for the off chance that any of the above will be offered by Turner Classics Movie Channel.
Until then I will socialize with Manuela at the Real Canadian Superstore and if I want to share with Lauren Gunga Din (I saw it with Rebecca when she was much younger) I now I can take it out from the Vancouver Public Library. If Rebecca says, “Papi let’s see Sahara (with Humphrey Bogart)” one of her favourite old films, I will have to tell her that Casablanca may be the only viable alternate option. Only Videomatica still has Sahara.
So Mama Don't Take My Videomatica Away
