That prompted “Green Switch” to opine:
The flip side of this question – which MST3K film would you want the Library of Congress to deem “culturally significant” and worthy of preservation in the National Film Registry – might be just as interesting, actually.
And prompted “John Hanna” (if that IS your real name) to suggest:
This should be next week’s discussion thread.
And so it shall be!
And I am going to select “I Accuse My Parents,” largely for the closing title card, which essentially says: “Look at all the awful stuff going on at home, while our boys are dying in the mud.”
What’s your pick?
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‘Robot Monster.’ universally recognized as one of if not the worst ever made.
Monster a Go Go is important for educating film makers on how not to end a movie.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Everytime PBS does a pledge drive, we could pull out this abomination and say, “No! You owe us money!”
Future War. There’s no other movie that has mullet guys in makeup, nuns, gang members wearing plaid flannel, AND dinosaurs all together…and not even in an alternate universe or a dystopian world. It must be saved.
Perhaps “Hobgoblins” should also be saved to teach how not to begin a movie. Or keep going for that matter.
As to which movie I really want preserved I choose ” The Brute Man”.
I liked Rondo Hatton’s performance as the “Creeper”. I felt the sadness of his isolation as well as the coldness of his vengeance. The story was cohesive enough to follow and easy to get drawn into.
I’ll say it: Manos. It’s the poster child for how something can be so completely terrible, scorned on release, buried, and forgotten, yet one day it’s rediscovered and given the treatment it deserves (in its case, more ridicule but done in a humorous way that grabs people’s attention), and becomes famous.
Now it’s spawned a sequel, games, music, videos, and on and on. If that isn’t culturally significant, I don’t know what is.
In honor of the death of Robert Vaughn, “Teenage Caveman” which is technically about life in the future considering how it ended.
Also, Rocket Attack USA, which is a perfect Cold War time capsule about our fear of the Russians, compared to Putin and Trump being BFFs
Let’s be honest: Only one movie can be preserved for its cultural significance. And that movie is Space Mutiny; filmed in South Africa during Apartheid, starring the man who was Captain America in the failed forgotten movie, a giant warehouse, and, of course, the nicknames. My God, the nicknames.
Oh, cool, a comment turned into a Weekend Discussion Thread! Thanks, Sampo (and John Hanna, too)!
Anyway, I’d select Space Travelers (aka Marooned) for a few reasons.
For one thing, you have those Oscar-winning special effects.
For another, the film provides something of a snapshot of the American space program, a look at how far things had progressed at that point. According to Wikipedia, “NASA, and its primary contractors such as North American Aviation and Philco-Ford, helped with the design of the film’s hardware.” There’s that and the fact that it came out shortly after the Apollo 11 moon landing.
For yet another, it was somewhat influential. As an example, Alfonso Cuaron, the director of the astronaut thriller Gravity, said that he watched it over and over. If that’s the case, it’s safe to imagine that other important space movies may have been influenced by John Sturges’ film.
Finally, Gene Hackman’s good in anything, really.
I feel that the “Mitchel” episode would provide the viewer with a more personl insight into the dedication, hard work, inspiration of the entire cast and crew. Plus the movie and riffing are excellent.
Obviously, The Crawling Eye. The Crawling Eye is a nicely-done Fifties sci-fi movie of tremendous historical interest, having both opened and provided the coda for the national run of one of the greatest cult television series of all time, Mystery Science Theater 3000.
And, it featured Janet Munro. If you’d like to see more of Ms. Munro’s work, you can watch her star turn in Darby O’Gill and the Little People,a wonderful Disney classic, as a fresh-faced, fifteen-year-old newcomer. Or, you could watch her at age twenty-seven, in another Fifties sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Caught Fire. The Day the Earth Caught Fire was released in England rated Certificate X.
Choose wisely.
One of the highlights of The Crawling Eye occurs around minute 33, in which Janet Munro reads the serial number off a 500-franc banknote, and turns it into something very, very special.
Another highlight comes, starting just before the 42nd minute, in which the delightful Jennifer Jayne, as Ms. Munro’s older sister, makes it abundantly clear to the audience to whom the scene belongs, and it’s not Janet Munro.
And, it’s a Jimmy Sangster script.
I agree with Green Switch about Marooned. It’s a good snapshot of a certain time in history. But I want to put in a vote for the Design for Dreaming short on the same grounds. A super-stylized vision of “the future” including a glimpse of fashion and technology, yet also enshrining the fairy-tale world of the 1950s in proper gender roles (and fantasy), it really was one of the better advertising shorts ever made, and those deserve a place in film history as well as feature-length productions.
A few shorts deserve the honor:
A Date With Your Family – Everything about this short screams “Propaganda”: The perfect house, the compliant kids, the rigid social mores, the overdressed players, the obsession over the centerpiece, the subtle anti-Communist tinge. This is the perfect snapshot of a hyper-idealized post-WWII, and would feel like another world a mere 20 years later.
Last Clear Chance – MST didn’t do a lot of “Scare them Straight” shorts, but this one counts. The cop just stops by the farm, lectures, shows death certificates to kids, and ends with the brother dying in a train accident. Add in the very idyllic rural West feel to the town from the late 50s, and you’ve got something significant.
Design for Dreaming – The 50s/post-WWII world of elaborately produced sponsored films seems to be completely removed from today when they just cobble together some car footage and grab some indie song. Add in the amusing look at the kitchen of the future that never materialized and the amazing “Motorama” at fine hotels, and it’s a wildly optimistic view of the 50s where the future is just a purchase away.
I definitely agree with this. It shows the power of the media and the way different audiences can view a particular movie.
I’ll also go along with “Marooned”, as it shows the “can-do” spirit NASA had in the time around the Moon landing, before political and economic troubles resulted in the massive stall the manned program fell into between Apollo-Soyuz and the shuttle.
‘It Conquered The World’ simply for Peter Graves’ speech at the end. It’s right up there with Chaplin’s speech at the end of ‘The Great Dictator’
‘Hobgoblins’ because it is a perfect time capsule showing everything that was bad from the 1980s. The music, the clothes, the hair, etc. It should be shown to future generations as a reminder “Never again should we allow anyone to make a terrible ‘Gremlins’ ripoff.”
‘Wild World Of Batwoman’ as a piece of dadaist anti-art.
Jack Frost, aka “Morozko”. I have the full movie on DVD, in both Russian and with the English dubbing we all know and love. This is a beautifully filmed movie, great cinematography, and really well acted. (There is a song sung by Ivanushka and three bimbettes, cut out for the MST production, that is very Beauty and the Beast-Gaston-like and riotously funny.) The script and story are WAAAY out there, but they are very faithful renditions of actual Russian fairy tales. In typical Western Europe fairy tales, the protagonist has something good which goes in their favor – beautiful, charming, hard-working, etc. In Russian fairy tales, the protagonist is usually a complete dope who, despite his continually screwing up, is somehow blessed to get through his travails, only to screw up again and need saving. Baba Yaga, aka The Hunchback Fairy, is a common character in Russian fairy tales. And another common theme in Russian tales is the hapless husband who is brow-beaten by his witch-like wife, often times in the evil stepmother role. Morozko truly is a faithful representation of Russian fairy tale mythology.
good analysis of The Crawling Eye (#11), a movie I was also going to suggest. The movie actually works on its own in a way like the original The Thing from Another World, as a sort of scifi film noir.
Thanks you Sampo, Green Switch and everyone for using the idea for this week’s WDT.
“Red Zone Cuba” – for its historically accurate and emotionally wrenching depiction of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and illuminating insights into the complexities of Anglo-Cuban relationships, circa 1961. And, of course, for making Cherokee Jack a national icon beloved to this day.
I’d nominate Manos for – as mentioned earlier – it’s influence on pop culture.
“Chicken of Tomorrow” is a short that could go in there simply because it was an early work by Jack Arnold, a rather talented director in his own right.
But if I had to choose a pic one that no one else has mentioned yet I’d say Horror at Party Beach. As a genre-busting film, it tried its hand at comedy, music, horror, romance, and action all in one package, and delivered a film that is entertaining and watchable, even if for the wrong reasons. Add to that the fact it out-performed the big-budget studio releases that opened that week in theaters where they went head-to-head. (Side note, the director made another movie that played with this one on a double-feature – Night of the Living Corpse – which featured the acting debut of Roy Scheider. )
My choice would be “The Black Scorpion”, because it is a fine sample of stop-action animation. And I am not talking about the repeated close-ups of a drooling scorpion face. The underground world, the attack on the train, the battle in the coliseum. I thought it looked cool when I was eight years old, and I still think it looks cool at 58. In my humble opinion, an artistic process worth preserving.
monkeypretzel, Kenotic, and HauntedHill – I like your mentions of the short features. It never occurred to me to consider the shorts when I came up with that question.
If I had to choose one, Century 21 Calling would come to mind.
The innovative advancements in telecommunication make this short worthy of preservation alone, but there’s more to the cultural/historical significance of the short than the technological angle.
Not only are we looking at Seattle’s World Fair and its various points of interest, but we’re also getting our first looks at Seattle’s Alweg monorail as well as that iconic landmark, the Space Needle.
Daddy-O, just to complete the set of John Williams scores in the National Film Registry. Everyone has to start somewhere, and Williams started out hiking his pants up.
Can’t believe no one has named what I think is the obvious choice…
Mr B Natural.
Great reason for that choice.
It helps that those special effects were made by the great-granddaddy of stop-motion animation himself, Willis O’Brien. He did the special effects for 1925’s The Lost World, King Kong, and Oscar-winning work for Mighty Joe Young.
Those special effects should be reason enough to preserve The Black Scorpion.
I didn’t think of the shorts when I was composing my answer, either. But I definitely agree with you on Century 21 Calling and assure everyone from experience that the phone technology depicted in the short was practically unbelievable to the average person in 1962.
With the mass exodus of US citizens to Canada starting in 2017, it’s vital to have a historical record of pre-Trump Canada. Therefore, we must preserve The Final Sacrifice, eh?
Thanks to Bacon Truck Driver for reminding me of Brute Man. I can’t say it’s a great film, but considering Rondo Hatton’s personal story, I think it is a film worth remembering. Consider that Hatton suffered a terrible disfigurement then used his new appearance to tell the tale of another man’s disfigurement. Whether you see it as tragic,exploitive, inspiring or just poignant, it is a Hollywood tale worth preserving.
I think I’d vote for preserving “The Undead”.
Reason? Allison Hayes
And not just because she is stunningly voluptuous in this film, either. Ms. Hayes carried her role of Livia, the shape-shifting witch, with the perfect balance of menace and sultriness. The movie itself, though certainly not a cinematic masterpiece, was evocatively compelling in its theme of past lives — atmospheric with a palpable sense of foreboding. I captured a haunting feel worthy of preservation as a hallmark of it’s genre…
Ok, scratch that. Arrr-OOOOO-gah!!!!!! :inlove: Allison Hayes and that amazing dress, pure and simple.
Here, kitty kitty kitty. ;-)
I like that. For similar reasons, Operation Double 007 and Diabolik would be natural candidates for preservation because of the scores of the great Ennio Morricone.
When you rewatch Century 21 Calling with that in mind (which I did, in addition to all the great riffs), you can’t help but think, “How completely mindblown those people must have been by those advances!”
The unriffed version of Mitchell is not a bad movie, but it feels very much like a TV movie even though it was released in theaters. It doesn’t feel like Dirty Harry, or Bullitt, or hell, even the John Wayne movie Brannigan, Mitchell is an unofficial “movie of the week”.
“The Wild Wild World of Batwoman” or however many “wilds”, have you. Mostly to have one over on the film registry/the world at large. Also as a cautionary demonstration of just how many wrong things you can do in a film in a row, while still not dipping into “Manos”-levels of antibudget.
I would also have said “Manos” for reasons of sucking its way into stardom, but it’s been said in this thread numerous times already.
I’m going to nominate Alien From LA — not for its (lack of) quality as a movie, but for its role as a social experiment testing the effect of extreme high frequency noise on the male libido.
A Case of Spring Fever –
This bizarre but delightful short deserves to be enshrined so that future generations of social scientists and corporate economists can puzzle out just exactly why the darn thing got made in the first place. Was it truly an homage to the ubiquitous spring or perhaps an educational film for students taking a remedial physical science class? One intriguing theory holds that at the time the film was made General Motors was just so darn rich and pleased with itself that it decided to blow one 2,000,000th of its annual operating budget on… “Woo-Hoo. SPRINGS!”.
Bride of the Monster! It’s an example of the legendary Ed Wood’s special brand of crazy, plus has Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson. It’s worth preserving for the final, mystical words of the film: ‘He tampered in God’s domain.’ Not a day goes by that I don’t think of that lesson :)
As Crow once said to Mike after saving his bacon for “Mike, Mike, Mu-mu-mu- Mike”,
“Nooooooo problem!”
Thanks for the recognition!
Honestly, when I first saw the episode, I had no idea of the circumstances of Hatton’s life. I was just drawn to the performance. When I came to realise what had happened to him and that it wasn’t make up or special effects, I was amazed but also a little ashamed that I laughed a bit at his appearance.
The crotchety shopkeeper with his “Creeper, creeper” rant was unashamedly funny though. So much hate for a poor errand boy!
Rocket Attack USA seems so much more valuable an icon of Cold War propaganda than the generic Invasion USA, just because it was more PAC-committee aimed at a specific political bill about cutting defense funding against giant invisible cardboard Soviet missiles.
(“If the government had spent more on defense than on cheese prices…” “Someone’s a little bitter.”)
Makes it useful as a historical artifact to study for political science.
And yeah, like Albequerque sez, the Russian fairytale movies are considered classics on their home turf.
Managed to find pristine all-region DVD’s at one Russian-film site, along with that 1976 Elizabeth Taylor “Blue Bird” nobody over here ever talks about.
but there was no ending to the film.
should include Johnny at the Fair too.
Good call to several on including “The Brute Man.” About Rondo Hatton, I hope everyone has watched the feature about him that was included on the Shout! Factory DVD release. It’s both fascinating and heartbreaking. How awful it would be to be born normal-looking and be a handsome young adult, then to have your features ravaged by acromegaly, which was untreatable in his day.
Horror of Party Beach. It’s the quintessential 50’s-60’s monster movie.
How about Hamlet, I mean it’s Shakespeare. Sure it is dark, but it was meant to be. Plus it has Maximilian Schell and the voices of Mr. Roarke and Schultz!
What to do on a date – I can’t stress this enough. Required viewing by law.
Hercules Unchained – Steve Reeves needs preserving as a reminder of what you need to look like to avoid getting sand kicked in your face.
The Mole People – When are we going to stop pretending they don’t exist? We have the film evidence. I hope your next Portobella Mushroom goes down real hard.
Teenage Caveman – In like 100 years when The Thing that brings Death with its Touch is once again the last of mankind he will walk into the Library of Congress and find one movie left …Teenage Caveman! He will then scream “Ahhhhh! I’m stuck in a Möbius strip of an apocalypse!”
Manos, This Island Earth, maybe Gamera.
Agent of H.A.R.M. just to show the world that beating the communist menace was simple if you wore a yellow cardigan. That’s all there was to it, apparently.
It’s also of historical importance. Marooned was one influence (among many) that convinced Soviet space officials that NASA was sincere in wanting to develop docking technology so one nation’s ships could link with another. This would lead to the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and hardware that, in a later form, would be brought to Mir and the International Space Station.
(It is likely that mutual docking hardware would have come about even if there were no movie or Apollo-Soyuz project, all else being the same. But there was the movie and it did have this influence.)
Teenage Caveman, as an example of the Corman/AIP movies. Those movie were significant for being the first movies, beginning in the post-World War II era, that were marketed directly at teenagers. Prior to that, there were kids’ movies and adult movies. These were something new.
Girl In Gold Boots along with the fur lined bra.
The Chicken of Tomorrow is a genuinely important film. It was promoting the advances in poultry breeding that led to the chicken now consumed throughout America. As a document chronicling the advent of factory farming and the changes in agriculture over the 20th century, it deserves to be preserved.