By Bob Ignizio
Way back in the stone age – before streaming, before DVDs,
before VHS, and before cable – if you didn’t see a movie at the theater when it
first came out, you had to hope it would show up on broadcast TV. And when it
did, aside from having to deal with commercial breaks, the chances were good
that the movie would be edited for television.
But that began to change in the seventies. That’s when the
earliest VCRs hit the market, and pay cable channels like Star Channel and HBO
began showing movies uncut. While my memory is fuzzy as to the exact dates, I
know my family got both cable and a VCR around 1978 or early 79. And in
addition to basic cable, we subscribed to Star Channel, which would eventually be
rebranded as The Movie Channel in December of 1979.
Now the main draw for Star Channel and other premium cable
channels like HBO at the time was the chance to see major Hollywood blockbusters
uncut and without commercials. But not all the offerings on Star Channel were
major studio hits. The schedule was padded out with plenty of b-movies,
misfires, and even a few foreign films. And even if I didn’t happen to see
these films in their entirety, Star Channel played the trailers for them so
much that they became permanently ingrained in my psyche.
For those who didn’t see these films during their theatrical
run or grow up with these early pay cable services, many of these films are likely
unknown. Some never had VHS releases, never mind availability on DVD, Blu Ray,
or streaming. In some cases, the only way you can see some of these movies now is
thanks to people who taped them off TV, later digitizing them and posting them
to youtube or various torrent sites.
So before my memory atrophies completely, I thought I’d do
my best to track down the movies I can and write reviews. I’ve got a decent
list of titles I’m planning to cover already, but if you have a personal pay
cable favorite from back in the day that you think I should check out, feel
free to let me know by posting a comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment