Recently, the Library of Congress announced their latest additions to the National Film Registry, where films are set aside for special preservation. Now, in addition to artistic merit, one of the criteria considered for inclusion on the Registry is cultural impact It seems to me that even bad movies (even really bad movies) can fit that second criteria.
Kenneth then asks if “‘Manos’ The Hands of Fate” should receive that designation, but I — with the “Film Anti-Preservation Society” host segment having just been discussed in the episode guide — want to open up the question.
What “bad” or B movie (MSTed or otherwise) deserves preservation based on that “cultural impact” clause?
MSTed: I would have to go with “Robot Monster.” It’s a bad movie icon.
Non-MSTed: Well, the first thing that comes to mind is “Rocky Horror Picture Show” — and based on some of the HORRIBLE prints I have seen circulating in the last couple of decades, preservation is sorely overdue.
Your thoughts?
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Everything by Ed Wood.
I would have to go with MONSTER A GO-GO…
Thanks for using another question of mine!
I’d say “Manos” should be preserved. While it is a very bad movie, it certainly has a cultural impact. After all, here’s a movie that was made as a bet between a Texas businessman and a Hollywood screenwriter. It was made for almost no money, briefly ended up in theaters, and was laughed off the screen.
And, nearly 50 years later, thanks to a cow town puppet show and word of mouth, people are paying over $10 a shot to see it in theaters. And original prints of the movie are collector’s items. Yes, it’s something of a backhanded fame, but the impact is there.
As for non-MSTed, I’ll go along with “Glen or Glenda”.
Oh, and I’m actually planning on suggesting to the Library that “Manos” be added to the National Film Registry, along with “You Nazty Spy” and “The Blues Brothers”, two very good movies.
Roger Corman was an absolute visionary when it comes to recycling, a very big cultural issue these days. Sets, costumes, actors, actors in the same film (Beach Dickison(?) had several roles in Teenage Caveman), scripts, special effects etc. Remember this is every film he made and most made money.
Right now I’m watching Allison Hayes and Yvette Vickers in ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN so I’ll go with that for a specific recommendation.
The entire Coleman Francis trilogy. Fittingly, they should be kept at the Yucca Flats nuclear storage site.
I would add John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ and ‘Big Trouble In Little China’.
From the perspective of 50 years into the future, James Cameron’s AVATAR.
The Coleman Francis Trilogy. There is more there than just bad dialogue, incomprehensible plots and light planes.
Also Road House.
I agree with john, the Coleman Francis trilogy is a must for preservation.
As for Monster A Go Go, it is not necessary for preservation. There was no movie. :-D
Non-Mst movie I would add Logan’s Run.
Blood Freak. I have no explanation for you why theaters across the country don’t have annual Blood Freak Festival showings every Thanksgiving. And STEVE HAWKES IS STILL WITH US. He should be working conventions. He should receive Kennedy Center honors for Blood Freak and the Presidential Medal of Freedom both for his animal shelter amd for surviving Brad Grinter.
It’s possible that you’ve never encountered Blood Freak, or that you’ve heard of it but haven’t crossed the line into actually watching it. All that should be needed here is to go to imdb and read the comments. “Cultural impact”? It sure had “cultural impact” on every one of the commenters on imdb. The Library of Congress should have a special little kiosk in the lobby with a digitally restored version of Blood Freak on an endless loop. A Gutenberg Bible and the world’s finest Christian mutant turkey anti-drug film on perpetual display.
“Manos” definitely fits the bill as far as affecting culture. And Ed Wood movies would, too.
Even if the Library of Congress isn’t the right home for the rest of our favorite terrible movies, art is art and it deserves to be preserved for its own sake.
Most of the B-movies from the 50s and 60s should be in there. Bad movies are either reflections of pop culture or created out of the popular fears of the times. Movies like Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and It Conquered the World, were the poor man’s attempt at exposing America’s fears of radiation, Communism, and cultural changes. They were made specifically for the common American with common American sensibilities. And let’s not forget that some movies, now considered our finest, started out as schlock films, like The Blob, King Kong and The Most Dangerous Game (both directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack), and pretty much everything directed by Samuel Fuller. Art films are a product of emotion and philosophy, but B-movies are a product of culture. American B-movies of the 50s-60s are a perfect expression of what it was like to be American at that time.
I think I may have taken this question a little too seriously.
“Birdemic: Shock and Terror” should be preserved and shown to every single person who has any aspirations whatsoever in the movie industry, with the warning, “See this movie? Don’t do that.”
I would agree with #12dan about the B-movies from the ’50s and ’60s being reflections of the fears and culture of the times, so I’d nominate any of the “giant mutant creatures” movies that MST3K riffed — The Giant Gila Monster, The Deadly Mantis, The Beginning of the End, etc. At the risk of also sounding a little too serious, decades ago I worked in the radiology department of a hospital and met many older people who were terrified of getting an X-ray. I blame those B movies from the 1950s.
Invasion of the Neptune Men, namely due to the Hitler building…
Anything involving Shatner.
Because they are great MST3K episodes, and because they are snapshots of cultural cliches when they were released (music, fashion, hairstyles, slang etc.), I would choose the following:
1940s: Episode 507, “I Accuse My Parents”
1950s: Ep. 809, “I Was A Teenage Werewolf”
1960s: Ep. 204, “Catalina Caper”
1970s: Well, here it gets difficult for me to pick just one. So the heck with it: Ep. 512, “Mitchell”; Ep. 814, “Riding With Death”; Ep. 706: “Laserblast”; and Ep. 622, “Angels’ Revenge”.
1980s: Ep. 322, “Master Ninja I”; Ep. 907: “Hobgoblins”; Ep. 604, “Zombie Nightmare”; and Ep. 820, “Space Mutiny”.
1990s: Ep. 1001, “Soultaker”; Ep. 1004, “Future War”; and Ep. 904, “Werewolf”.
For a movie that had great cultural impact, and is a well-made film that should be preserved for future generations, I would pick “Monty Python and The Holy Grail”.
Since I just watched The Skydivers last night, this is perfect, because I was just thinking how The Skydivers should be preserved for its accurate depiction of how unattractive a woman can look in a mechanics’ jumpsuit. (Although I don’t think you can blame the jumpsuit too much in this case). The Coleman Francis trilogy shows how boring America was in the sixties, even when random racist songs played and people were dancing before a skydiving jump.
For Non-MSTed, probably I Married a Monster from Outer Space because it shows cold war paranoia at its height
I would think MANOS fits the bill, and not because of how bad it is but how much attention it’s gotten over the years. When it was first made and it was in theaters and drive-ins how much did it make? And you would have paired it up at the drive-in with something more popular, so people didn’t choose to watch it they had to sit through it or make out to it to see the main feature. But with all the versions of it out now and a remake on the way it’s badness becomes its drawing power. People choose to watch it and for that matter choose to buy it / own it. I for one have 3 MST3K versions of it and I will get the RIFFTRAX version someday. So how much money has it earned over the years, with DVDS and live shows in today’s money? If it drew in that much cash back when it was first out it would’ve ended up like the ROCKY movies with a ton of sequels. Yes #3 I agree with you about not only MANOS but “Glen or Glenda ” as well. I would also include Polyester by John Waters– The scratch and sniff version. When it came out my wife and I were in a theater that started out with about 35 people and ended with us and maybe 8 other people. It must have been the fart or the moldy sneakers that drove people away. I had 4 extra unscratched un-sniffed cards that I sold to a comic book store for $20.00. I only wish I kept 2 and put them in a frame showing both sides of the card. OH WELL……
The complete anthology of Coleman Francis certainly deserves recognition, as well as ‘Manos,’ of course. Further up on the time scale, ‘Future War,’ and ‘Space Mutiny,’ will demonstrate to coming generations that they can make movies in a warehouse or a barn and still convince audiences that it’s TEH FUTURES!!!!11
Non-MST’d: I dunno, ‘Independence Day,’ maybe? It was technically a blockbuster, but is widely regarded as a B-movie due to the plot revolving around explosions. ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ is pretty decent. Anything by Lucio Fulci, and let us not forget some of those “forgotten” Disney classics, such as ‘Song of the South.’
Well, besides “Manos,” at least 2 Ed Wood films, Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space, kind of kickstarted the whole appreciation for “bad movies” as least as far back as the 1970s, when I first got to know them.
Is “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” already on the list? If not, it should be – it encapsulates the fears and tensions of the mid-1950s better than almost any other cultural artifact.
I agree with Capn Ross Hagen about John Waters, but would put Pink Flamingos in there as his best known and most notorious movie.
Reefer Madness as the ultimate “road show” movie and another that was revived beginning in the 1970s for a very different audience.
Of more recent vintage, “The Cheerleaders” is maybe the epitome of 1970s softcore and actually quite daring in its own way — even its sequels didn’t dare set their stories in high school, like the original, but bumped them up to college, to be more “acceptable” to audiences.
I’d love to add an Arch Hall, Jr. picture, but if I’m taking the question seriously, I can’t — I love all his movies but Library of Congress preservation? Um, no.
Carnival of Souls and/or Night of the Living Dead both epitomized the atmospheric low-budget b&w horror of the 1960s and have become iconic.
Wow, I could go on all day! Great topic.
With a wonderful early performance of Richard Kiel, Eegah! would be a good candidate for preservation. The hypnovision weirdness of The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies would be another.
For a non-MSTed movie I would choose the 1979 John Frankenheimer horror classic Prophesy, a supposed favorite of Stephen King himself.
The shorts themselves could use some preserving as well. They’re so darn informative! :-)
Master Ninja I and II
Mitchell
Santa Claus
Plan 9
Bride of the Monster
Birdemic
MSTed: “Red Zone Cuba”
Non-MSTed: “Undefeatable”
In terms of preservation, read as “I never want the world to be without…”, I choose EEGAH! as my MSTied movie. I feel like Manos has a fighting chance with its recent high definition transfer, but Eegah could be overlooked and lost to time.
NonMSTie Nominee: The Thing With Two Heads
This thread seems at odds with cinema buff Crow T. Robot’s
campaign for F.A.P.S.:
In the episode The Beast of Yucca Flats:
“Segment Four: Crow offers a plea for film anti-preservation to help godawful films deteriorate more quickly. Mike disapproves, but Crow doesn’t care.”
To supprt Crow just dial 1-800-LETROT
MSTed: “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!”
Non-MSTed: “Flash Gordon,” from the early-80’s with the soundtrack by Queen!!
For duscussion purposes, here’s the Wiki of the Registry list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Film_Registry
Both Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Incredible Shrinking Man are on the list.
I can’t believe no on has mentioned this movie: “Night of the Living Dead” The film that started the entire zombie film explosion including my fav show “The Walking Dead.” That film that everyone in my generation had to see at the drive-in. How could that not be included?
I could add to that the two really BAD films that influenced George Romero in the first place: “Carnival of the Dead” and “Invisible Invaders.”
Invisible Invaders! How on EARTH could MST3K have missed that film? Foot dragging invisible alien zombies! It’s the Gone With the Wind of really BAD movies!
Wow, NOTLD IS on the National Film Registry! Didn’t know that! Should have read your link, KidFlash25 before I made my post! Thanks for the link, anyhow.
As a cultural snapshot:
“A Touch of Satan” and “Riding With Death” are iconic examples of 70’s made for TV movies.
Because of his contribution, at least one Bert I. Gordon movie needs to be there. He had 8 riffed by the Crew. Perhaps “Beginning of the End”, with Peter Graves, is the best of the bad.
“Gorgo” deserves mention because of it being and English take on Godzilla. And I’m one of those that enjoyed it when I was a boy.
First up, I agree wholeheartedly on those who suggested saving the Coleman Francis and Ed Wood movies are a must. Those movies are prime examples of personal visions being put on film for all to see. This doesn’t necessarily make them good visions, though. :-)
Now, for my own personal opinions, the MiSTed movies that should be preserved are:
1) Angels’ Revenge – a ripe example of 70s cheesy badness, it excels in its unparallelled combination of female empowerment and female exploitation.
2) Beginning of the End – one of the best of the 50s giant monster movies, and it’s fun watching Peter Graves acting all sciency.
For unMiSTed movies, I’d suggest The Beast Must Die!
If any MSTed movie would be placed on the National Film Registry, I think the best one would be Roger Corman’s It Conquered the World. Leaving aside the fact Corman proably filmed it for a dollar ninety eight, it’s still an interesting twist on the Invasion of the Body Snatchers motif (McCarthyism), Lee Van Cleef almost makes it work (and worth seeing unMSTed), and you gotta admit the monster is at least interesting even if it serves no other purpose but to be a monster.
And It Conquered doesn’t go back on its premise like Invasion does (oh, the government is on top of it now, we’re all so impressed). Okay, we had a little more respect for the government back then, but still, you can’t look at the end of the original Invasion without thinking, “Yeah, the government guys are going to save the day. Big deal. They’re going to be taken over by the end of the week…” At least, Van Cleef took care of his own monster, which is more than you can say for Invasion.
As a cultural icon, therefore, It Conquered the World certainly deserves consideration purely as a symbol of its time in the same vein as Invasion.
Hey, how about that Mystery Science Theater 3000 : The Movie…movie? This film is an excellent example of the riffing style of humor that was made popular back in the 1990’s!! :laugh: :laugh:
…or This Island Earth ,by itself, would also be a fine choice! :-)
@32 – Actually, Conquered set out to be a better McCarthyist metaphor than Body Snatchers: Body Snatchers just had the “People acting different…” idea, but Roger wanted to show Lee Van Cleef as “The naively willing fifth-columnist dupe–maybe one of your own friends and neighbors!–swayed into traitorous acts by false promises of world peace and enlightenment, and what happens once YOUR small town is first on the list!” That makes it more of a product of its time.
While Robot Monster, OTOH, symbolizes most of the things we THINK a 50’s sci-fi movie is about without ever having seen one. For some reason, we always think there’s a gorilla in them, too.
$28 – If you mean “Carnival of Souls”, it isn’t on there yet, but it’s got the Criterion street-credit, it’ll show up there soon.
@4 – Off the subject, I second the vote for You Nazty Spy for the real Registry. If anything symbolized lowbrow wartime lampooning, and it’s said even Hitler wanted to personally kick the Stooges’ hinder for it. :) (South Park once asked, why did we never get anything like that for the Gulf War, but then we also have Hot Shots Part Deux.)
(Also, maybe I’m misreading the link, but think Rocky Horror Picture Show already is on the Registry?
I remember seeing the documentary on how films get selected, and the interview with the one member who’d said “Well…Why NOT? :) “)
@34 (EricJ)
Even beyond that, “You Nazty Spy” was the first movie to make fun of and satirize the Nazis, as it was released months after the more well-known “The Great Dictator”. And while Chaplin’s film had more pathos and a serious anti-facism message, the Stooges just basically said, “Let’s get that paper-hanging S.O.B.” and ended up with a funnier movie with a harder edge.
And I’ll go along with “Carnival of Souls” for the Registry. It’s another low-budget, shot-on-the-fly movie, yet it has the sort of creepy, macabre mood that a lot of big-time horror movies only dream of achieving.
Oh yeah–“cultural impact.”
Personally, I (formally) got into bad movies because of the Golden Turkey Awards, and pre-DVD, pre-VHS, pre-imdb had to find out everything I could about the winner, Plan 9.
I hate the Medveds, I clearly recognize that Plan 9 is about ten thousand miles away from being the worst movie ever made, and that, in the Bay Area and New York, at least, bad movies were being shown on little screens late at night for years before the Golden Turkey Awards.
But I’d have to argue that that stupid book and that lame award really did start something.
I will start with non-MSTied movies
Roger Corman’s first “Not of this Earth.” Another take on the “alien invasion, but they look just like us” films, this actually was shown on TV quite often in the sixties, but was awfully hard to find until a few years ago when Shout! Factory released it with “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and “War of the Satellites.” I also think that it was the best of Roger’s early films and eclipsed many of his later ones.
Also on the Corman list is “Little Shop of Horrors.” A classic tongue in cheek monster comedy.
Another one not mentioned is Sid Pink’s “The Angry Red Planet.” For anyone who collected monster cards in the 60’s this was a must have. Watching the movie, though, it was just cheese, but we like to think of it as good cheese.
For MSTied movies, I’d say all of them. As cultural icons, they all made MST3000 great and watchable decades after they went off the air.
I’d have to second Robot Monster! Just the scenes of Ro-Man walking should be preserved. Also, any movie with lizards dressed as dinosaurs. It shows us just how far we’ve come.
Manos CAN’T NOT be archived. It is just that culturally important. That and the Coleman Francis Trilogy should be used in classrooms around the world to teach the movie makers of tomorrow how not to unleash such horrors.
In addition, TISTWSLABMUZ should be preserved for future generations to experience. Not only does it’s title alone earn it a place in the archives, but it goes down in history as perhaps one of the oiliest, greasiest, grimiest films ever made. That should earn it something, right?
And one other thing… why can’t MST3K itself be archived in the Registry?! It’s culturally significant and aesthetically important to our nation and it’s rich history!!!! That would be so awesome, especially if they got their hands on the KTMA episodes for preservation! :)
Oh, and for non-MSTed movies, I’d have to say Forbidden Planet! It’s one of the pivotal science fiction films of all time, one of the best ever in my opinion. Plus, it’s Robby the Robot’s debut film! That alone demands that it be preserved!
Wait, there’s more! I have an idea for a discussion for next weekend! As we all know, March 26 is a hallowed day, the day we have all been waiting for for months… yes, the day the names of the next four episodes of MST3K for the following set are released by Shout! Factory and reported here on Satilite News! Oh, and the next volume comes out too! :) My question is this: based on Shout’s recent deals with MGM and Universal, their releasing patterns, and your own hopes, what episodes do you think will/want to be on Volume XXVII? Remember that there is a difference between the episodes that you WANT to be released, and the episodes that are LIKELY to be released! :)
Well, obviously some of the shorts have to be preserved, especially the ‘How To Be A Good Citizen And Stop Annoying Everyone By Thinking For Yourself’ stuff from the 1950’s. GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS and KITTEN WITH A WHIP also deserve some recognition as artifacts of their time.
Non-MST, I’d go with one or two of the nudist and/or nudie-cuties. Doris Wishman’s undisguised contempt for her audience must be immortalized. And, of course, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.
@ Dan # 12….. I am reposting your entire post with exception of your last line, as it represents my own thoughts exactly. Your response nails this topic directly dead center……………………..”Most of the B-movies from the 50s and 60s should be in there. Bad movies are either reflections of pop culture or created out of the popular fears of the times. Movies like Them!, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and It Conquered the World, were the poor man’s attempt at exposing America’s fears of radiation, Communism, and cultural changes. They were made specifically for the common American with common American sensibilities. And let’s not forget that some movies, now considered our finest, started out as schlock films, like The Blob, King Kong and The Most Dangerous Game (both directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack), and pretty much everything directed by Samuel Fuller. Art films are a product of emotion and philosophy, but B-movies are a product of culture. American B-movies of the 50s-60s are a perfect expression of what it was like to be American at that time.”
I am a firm believer that these films, bad as they were have more merit than some of the films being made today.
After reading the list, how can “The Blob” not be on it??? A very watchable movie, very iconic, has foreign knockoffs (think “Caltiki, the Immortal Monster) and a kick-ass title song that made the hit parade. Cultural icon??? of course!
Along the lines of those 1950s B movie classics, I’d go along with the creepy “Invaders from Mars” of 1953. If it’s not on the list already, it should be.
I’d put in 2003’s “The Room” as well because I am a nasty little thing and I want to die knowing that people will be quoting its absurd non sequitur dialogue many many years from now.
Mitchell and Final Justice just to make Joe Don Baker mad.
none mst3k (and references in Alien From LA) Abel Gance Napoleon.
For MST’d: The Coleman Francis Trilogy, the Gamera Pentilogy (sp?), Manos, Mitchell, and Parts. Come to think of it, movies like The Deadly Bees and Projected Man have a remote feeling to them, even though they’re Universal releases (Deadly Bees screenwriter Robert Bloch also wrote the novel of the original Psycho and has continued to work steadily, right into the new Psycho TV series). So those two too!
For non-MST’d: THEM!
After that, my mind’s a blank.
Um, ALL the movies sent by the Foresters to the captives on the Satellite of Love should be preserved. The question should be “which should be first?” Or next.
One word. Birdemic. Three more words. Shock and Terror. That is all.
#12 Am I the only who doesn’t see the connection between giants ants and a Venusian cucumber and Commies? Seriously, seeking obsessively political subtext everywhere is a bit tiresome and pretentious.
I would say: all of them, not only riffed movies. Conserve all the schlock, from Maniac to Birdemic, from Plan 9 to Deep Red, from I drink Your Blood to The Room. I said it, and I would sya it again if I had to.