Rants & Raves Archive

There’s a thread running over in the DVD Forums to find ‘The Official DVD Forums Top 100 Films,’ so if you’re a member make sure you vote (and if you’re not a member, why not?) You pick just your top five films for the poll, and that got me thinking – how do you select five films out of all the classics that have been made over the years?

Do you try and spread them out across genres? Or decades? Or maybe your favourite stars/directors? It’s an impossible choice really. It’s the kind of thing that will vary depending on your mood, but somehow it had to be done.

So what are did I vote for and why? I’m glad you asked.

In reverse order -

5. Dirty Harry

The late 60′s through the 70′s was the golden era for thrillers for me, and I knew I had to have one in my list. There were several contenders – Bullitt, The French Connection, Marathon Man, Chinatown to name just a few, but in the end it had to be Clint. When I think of Eastwood characters it’s always Harry Callahan that comes to mind first. The sequels may have gone steadily downhill but the original is the perfect, no frills, cop movie. It’s hard to believe Eastwood wasn’t first choice for the role (actually he was fourth after Sinatra, Wayne and Newman all passed) as it’s become such an iconic part that it’s now impossible to imagine anyone else playing it.

This is the first in a planned series about lost classics not yet released on DVD.

I was introduced to Rituals by Stephen King; not personally you understand but via his book Danse Macabre. It’s an excellent read and highly recommended for anyone with a love of horror, be it cinematic or the printed word. One of the many films he referred to was this low budget Canadian shocker and he also included in his top 100 horror films at the back of the book.

Now in the early eighties I was a King fanatic (I’m still a big fan) so if the big guy rated it that highly then I wanted to see it. And I did, on a poor quality video cassette rented from the local video emporium, this was in the pre video nasties era when any Tom, Dick or Harry could set up their own video rental business and Blockbuster had yet to invade these shores.

I was impressed or as impressed as I could be with what I could see on-screen and that wasn’t much. The video had been in a lot of machines before ours and at least a few of them must have found it tasty enough to have a chew on, added to this was the fact that a lot of the film takes place at night and the film was low budget to start with so we’re not talking high production values here.

My love affair with American TV shows began as a child. I remember watching Star Trek, sitting on the sofa with my younger brother, dodging the Enterprise as it flew towards the screen during the opening credits. There were a host of other SF series as well, mainly coming from the fertile mind of Irwin Allen. Luckily my Dad provided something to return my feet to terra firma. He was a huge western fan so other early viewing included The Virginian, The High Chaparral, Lancer, Cheyenne (and spin off Bronco) and the excellent Hondo that sadly only lasted one season. Not to mention Kung Fu that had me attempting to imitate David Carradine’s Kwai Chang Caine resulting in more than a few bruises, some my own!

As the 70′s progressed we saw the decline of the western show and a glut of detective series filled the void – Kojak, Cannon, McCloud, Colombo, Banachek, Starsky & Hutch to name just a few. My personal favourite was The Rockford Files, to the extent that my ambition when I grew up (sadly unachieved) was to be a detective and live in a trailer by the sea. And there were also other lesser known gems like Petrocelli, Manhunter (set during the American depression) and Baretta (starring the ill fated Robert Blake).

Then there were the SF shows trying to fill the gap left by Star Trek and Irwin Allen – The Six Million Dollar Man (and spin off The Bionic Woman),Logan’s Run, The Fantastic Journey, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Battlestar Galactica along and numerous others that are probably best forgotten (The Man From Atlantis anyone?)