Old Films

I love old films. I guess you know that. I generally love everything about them, but mostly I love the glimpse it allows me of times that no longer exist.

I think I was born a sentimental, melancholy soul, right from the beginning. I think I took my first breath and in the very next second regretted all that had been lost in the world.

As a teenager, I used to sit up with my VHS tapes and copy old films from the TV. The VHS tapes have long since gone – actually, that’s not strictly true, I still have a couple tucked away for films I have not got on a different medium. I’m not really sure why, I have some ridiculous idea that one day I will have them digitised when I can’t manage a digital copy, which is sheer nonsense. I still have a VHS player attached to the bedroom TV which, I can’t remember how many years it has been since it was used. It is probably so full of dust now it would never work.

I have replaced just about all of my film collection with digital copies.

My Rod Steiger film The Pawnbroker arrived. I’d bought it from eBay. I have been looking for a copy for some time, but they have all proved too expensive.

When I say they have proved to be too expensive, it is because I will only buy them from eBay if they are $10, or less. (I have to put some kind of limit on this habit)

I can get DVDs for $1 & $2 at opshops. I have practically built my entire movie collection on second hand $1 & $2 DVDs. It is astounding what you can get in an opshop. 

(I was born loving second hand things. Well, perhaps not born. We had a family friend who had sons older than me and when I was between 1 and 10ish, I used to get boxes of their second hand clothes, every now and again. And I am sure that I loved those clothes because they smelt of Mark & his older brother Christian. I can still remember the smell)

You can’t get DVDs that cheap on eBay, but you can get them cheaper if you wait. So, instead of buying a $30, or $40 copy I have hung out for a sub $10 and I find if I wait long enough, the cheaper copy always comes up.

It is also worth noting that eBay isn’t always the cheapest place to buy them. JB HiFi can be cheaper, just with their regular prices, and then they can be cheaper again when they have a sale.

So, The Pawnbroker is a 1964 movie that deals with the aftermath of holocaust. I must have watched it when I was a teenager and it left an impression on me. I think it was one of those occasions when I sat up on my own watching the late movie, although that may not have been the case as my parents, especially my mum, were pretty liberal with what they let me watch on TV. I remember B&W, I remember seediness, for want of a better expression, but I have always been a big fan of seediness, so I say it with a positive slant. I remember a woman exposing her large breasts, I remember very interesting characters.

Then I look it up on Wikipedia and The film was the first produced entirely in the United States to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor.[3] It earned international acclaim for Steiger, launching his career as an A-list actor.[4] It was among the first American films to feature a homosexual character and nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. Although it was publicly announced to be a special exception, the controversy proved to be first of similar major challenges to the Code that ultimately led to its abrogation.

I have always liked sleaze, again for want of a better expression. Not your John Water’s stupid kind of sleaze, which is done primarily for humour, although that has its place too. The only John Waters film I have is A Dirty Shame. Oh yes, and Hairspray, of course I have both of them. No, I have always liked the real kind, the kind that so many of us enjoy in private, but would probably never admit to. I use sleaze in a positive sense, the real thing that effects so many of us.

One of my favourite novels is The Talented Mr Ripley, which has been made into a film something like 4 times. And just recently, I got a copy of Purple Noon, with Alain Delon in the opshop for $2. So, you see, it’s not just Mean Girls 7 and The Fast & the Furious 32. I have just about collected all the Ripley movies, I have one left to get and that is The American Friend (1977) with Denis Hopper. So, I wait for that to come up.

The films I specifically collect are Bette Davis, Hugh Grant, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicolson, who sadly now suffers from dementia, Jude Law, oh just because he is so goddam good looking, Zac Efron, Paul Newman, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Marlin Brando, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Katherine Hepburn.

I collect Nicole Kidman movies. It is funny with Nicole Kidman, I have always said that I don’t like her as an actor, but then whenever I watch anything she has been in I always think she is great, so as a kind of antidote to that conflict I started collecting her films. Of course, there is a cross over with Australian films with her.

I collect any Australian film. It doesn’t matter what it is.

I collect gay films.

I collect short films. I adore short films.

I like collecting evolutions of films, like I have all 4 of the Star is Born films. The Italian Job. The Bourne films. I have both Little Shop of Horror films, as I have both Psycho films.

I collect Alfred Hitchcock movies.

I collect Agatha Christie movies.

Andy Warhol films.

Silent films, even if they are probably my least favourite. I like talking, I like dialogue.

Batman films and Star Wars films.