Lefisc
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I see a movie differently when I see it a second time. I get to see the details and even some plot points that I missed the first time.
I remember when my friends in High School and college thought I was nuts. And the newspapers agreed with them. In the era before VCRs overwhelmed the TV landscape, I would go to the movies to see a picture twice. Movies then lasted in local theatres for four even five months. And revival houses showed movies, such as Casablanca and Citizen Kane uninterrupted by commercials, on a big screen and nothing cut out. Usually though the prints were horrible. And I would go, often alone, because people thought it was nuts to see a movie twice. But Million Dollar Movie in NY showed the same picture 20 a week, we had yearly airings of the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music.
In 1970, Jerry Lewis was on the Tonight show and he held up a small cigar box. He said that science has the technology to put a movie on a cassette that size and you’d be able to see it at home. It would never happen, he said, because everyone would fight over the residuals. Especially the directors. Mel Torme was a guest and he said he had a motion picture theatre in his house! And he had a copy of King Kong. WOW!!!! A Home theatre…who do you have to know to get that.
Years later the Beta VCR came out it was not an instant success and it was failing form many reasons:
BUT the main reason it failed, according to hundreds of articles in the newspapers, magazines and features on TV shows was that PEOPLE DID NOT WANT TO SEE MOVIES TWICE!!!!! Really, critics, media observers, economists all wrote that.
But then:
Smaller stores, in New York, were often arrogant and that hurt them. They had membership fees, then yearly fees, rewinding fees and long waiting times for new tapes. The bigger stores began to dominate and the small ones I saw seem to exist on mostly renting X-rated movies, which they all seem to have in the back room.
But everyone wanted to see movies twice! I was just ahead of the curb.
The Motion Picture Industry and the Movie theatres bitterly fought cable TV at the time. There would be petitions in theatre lobby saying “STOP PAY TV.”
They would ALWAYS have a “pretend” bill that listed your favorite shows (news, sports, and cartoons) with an outrageous price next to it, as if we were going to be billed for everything as Pay for View.” So a DAILY Bill would look like it would cost $20 a day, or $600 or so a month. The made up bills never contained a reference to new movies, which the theater owners didn’t want you to know about. Honestly, though, home video has closed down half the screens there were at this time.
By the end of the 1990s, it looked like DVDs changed everything. But it wasn’t just the DVDs; it was the internet and cable TV. DVDs were sold everywhere, supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, everywhere. The need for an exclusive store to sell them began to fade. Cheap prices at Amazon (which started out selling just books and DVDs) and services like Netflix also hurt these stores. “Pay for View” was the term the industry used when you paid your cable company for showing a new movie or boxing match. We now use the term “Video on Demand” and that is growing by leaps and bounds, along with streaming video.
So when I saw “Star Trek: Into the Darkness” for the second time last night, I got to look for the darkness which I didn’t see the first time. I heard a reference to Harcourt Fenton Mudd which I had missed. In the TV show, The Doctor was the emotional center of the three leads, here I realized that they are using Uhura for that and the doctor’s role is diminished. I also got to see the credits without someone walking in front of me.
So I have that home theatre Mel Torme talked about. And movies are on discs smaller that Jerry Lewis’ cigar box. They don’t cost much more than a cigar today either. My friends today don’t think I am crazy; they want to come over and watch a movie.
For the second time.
I remember when my friends in High School and college thought I was nuts. And the newspapers agreed with them. In the era before VCRs overwhelmed the TV landscape, I would go to the movies to see a picture twice. Movies then lasted in local theatres for four even five months. And revival houses showed movies, such as Casablanca and Citizen Kane uninterrupted by commercials, on a big screen and nothing cut out. Usually though the prints were horrible. And I would go, often alone, because people thought it was nuts to see a movie twice. But Million Dollar Movie in NY showed the same picture 20 a week, we had yearly airings of the Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and The Sound of Music.
In 1970, Jerry Lewis was on the Tonight show and he held up a small cigar box. He said that science has the technology to put a movie on a cassette that size and you’d be able to see it at home. It would never happen, he said, because everyone would fight over the residuals. Especially the directors. Mel Torme was a guest and he said he had a motion picture theatre in his house! And he had a copy of King Kong. WOW!!!! A Home theatre…who do you have to know to get that.
Years later the Beta VCR came out it was not an instant success and it was failing form many reasons:
- In today’s money they’d cost about $2000-2500. And they had no remote control and they were huge machines, with a separate timer, that was hard to use and difficult to set up on your TV.
- There were very few video stores and the ones that sprung up tended to be small with very little product. And the few prerecorded tapes ran about $100, $200 in today’s money. Blank tapes were $50 in today’s money and they were on 2 hours long. (only one speed)
- The industry launched lawsuits to prevent the renting of tapes, so it was buy it or nothing.
- Disney brought a copyright lawsuit wanting the “record” button and function removed. Of course no Disney movies were released on video at this time. But no one wanted to spend that sort of money for a machine that might be illegal and worthless.
- New movies did not quickly come out on home video. It often took years and many big hit took MANY years.
BUT the main reason it failed, according to hundreds of articles in the newspapers, magazines and features on TV shows was that PEOPLE DID NOT WANT TO SEE MOVIES TWICE!!!!! Really, critics, media observers, economists all wrote that.
But then:
- VHS came out with cheaper machines, longer running tapes, stereo and remote control.
- The courts ruled that the machine was legal and so were rentals. Zillions of stores, mostly small ones, opened and immediately did well, mostly on rentals. Of course the small stores were often swallowed by the big ones.
- The movie industry began to put new movies on tape about a year after they were released. Now it’s often about 3 or 4 months.
Smaller stores, in New York, were often arrogant and that hurt them. They had membership fees, then yearly fees, rewinding fees and long waiting times for new tapes. The bigger stores began to dominate and the small ones I saw seem to exist on mostly renting X-rated movies, which they all seem to have in the back room.
But everyone wanted to see movies twice! I was just ahead of the curb.
The Motion Picture Industry and the Movie theatres bitterly fought cable TV at the time. There would be petitions in theatre lobby saying “STOP PAY TV.”
They would ALWAYS have a “pretend” bill that listed your favorite shows (news, sports, and cartoons) with an outrageous price next to it, as if we were going to be billed for everything as Pay for View.” So a DAILY Bill would look like it would cost $20 a day, or $600 or so a month. The made up bills never contained a reference to new movies, which the theater owners didn’t want you to know about. Honestly, though, home video has closed down half the screens there were at this time.
By the end of the 1990s, it looked like DVDs changed everything. But it wasn’t just the DVDs; it was the internet and cable TV. DVDs were sold everywhere, supermarkets, drug stores, convenience stores, everywhere. The need for an exclusive store to sell them began to fade. Cheap prices at Amazon (which started out selling just books and DVDs) and services like Netflix also hurt these stores. “Pay for View” was the term the industry used when you paid your cable company for showing a new movie or boxing match. We now use the term “Video on Demand” and that is growing by leaps and bounds, along with streaming video.
So when I saw “Star Trek: Into the Darkness” for the second time last night, I got to look for the darkness which I didn’t see the first time. I heard a reference to Harcourt Fenton Mudd which I had missed. In the TV show, The Doctor was the emotional center of the three leads, here I realized that they are using Uhura for that and the doctor’s role is diminished. I also got to see the credits without someone walking in front of me.
So I have that home theatre Mel Torme talked about. And movies are on discs smaller that Jerry Lewis’ cigar box. They don’t cost much more than a cigar today either. My friends today don’t think I am crazy; they want to come over and watch a movie.
For the second time.
