Existing movies you would like to see, but which don't seem to be available, or you haven't gotten around to them

NOT movies you’d like to see made, but movies which were made and which presumably still exist. (They either aren’t readily available or you haven’t gotten around to them.) I’ll start with two.

“Trader Horn” (1931). Just to see how it compares to the early Tarzan films.

“Noi Vivi” (We the Living) (1942 - Italian). Yes, it’s from the Ayn Rand novel. I understand that sequences have been cut from available copies because they strayed from Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

The Day the Clown Cried (1972) where Jerry Lewis plays a clown luring Jewish children into the gas chambers. Not that I think I’ll enjoy it but I’d really like to get some clues about what the Hell they were thinking. The Library of Congress has an incomplete copy they are allowed to release for public viewing in 2024.

I saw this title in imdb’s “More Like This” list to some movie I was looking up several years ago. (Right now both Time Lapse and Enter Nowhere show in Parallels’ “More Like This” list; could have been either of those, both of which I enjoyed.)

It has never been available to me (to my knowledge) on any of cable (HBO, Showtime, Starz), streaming (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu) or even Netflix DVD except possibly as a paid rental on Amazon. That’s a step too far for me.

I mainly just want to see it because I like these types of movies and enjoyed Jessica Rothe in the Happy Death Day franchise. Would be fun to see one of her “early” roles. (She was already 28, and had 5 years worth of imdb credits by then, but still.)

That’s what I was going to say.

“What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?”

Starring Mary Tyler Moore, Co-starring George Peppard, and a Toucan.

For many years I would have answered “the original version of 1983’s Twice Upon A Time”, but now I have a copy.

Five off the top of my head:

Rasputin, Demon with Women (1932) – Conrad Veidt as “the Mad Monk” sounds like it can’t miss. Not an easy film to find, let alone with English subtitles.

Beach Casanova (1962) – A friend claims to have seen this decades ago and made it sound like the greatest movie ever. It was on YT briefly, sans English subtitles. It didn’t look that great – or even good – but after so many years of evading being watched, it has acquired legendary status.

Nutty, Naughty Chateau (1963) – Roger Vadim movie that undoubtedly sounds better than it is.

Movie Star, American Style or LSD, I Hate You (1966) – I saw a trailer once that looked awful… but when it comes to obscure cinematic sleaze, sometimes I just can’t help myself. Lack of viewing opportunities in this case may be a sign the universe is trying to spare me.

L’Atlantide (1992) – This is the only version of Pierre Benoit’s novel I haven’t seen. After watching a few minutes of a Russian-overdubbed version, I can say confidently I wouldn’t kill to see it, but I’d still like to watch very much.

The Doberman Gang, from 1972. I’ve loved several Dobes, so I expect I’d like this movie, whatever it is. It may actually be accessible to me, but as the thread title says, I haven’t caught up with it yet.

Heartbeat In The Brain

Joey Mellon thought that LSD and other drugs cause elevated states of consciousness. He thought the cause of this was a rise in the volume of blood in the brain. In order to make this a permanent state, he drilled a hole in his skull. His wife really liked the change in Joey. She decided to also drill a hole in her skull. But, this time they would film it!

This is NOT fiction nor a hoax nor a simulation.

Ok, if we’re talking freak films, then I like to see “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe”. I never really looked it up, but I guess that it’s not easily available.

ETA: and searching for the wiki page, I got a link on dailymotion to the film (hadn’t thought it’d be that easy…)

ETA2: I’m half in, and it’s hilarious. Best Werner Herzog quote so far: “It’s not self-destructive to jump into a cactus” :laughing:

This a great movie; I’ve seen it multiple times.

They finally put “Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” and someone posted it on youtube. Love that movie.

I also caught “Red Sky at Morning,” which I adore as a book, on youtube. The film utterly failed to live up to the novel but oh well.

I saw it because my wife liked dogs, and expected it to be mediocre at best. It turned out to be very entertaining and enjoyable.

You must be the one who brought it to my attention.

They show ‘Trader Horn’ (1931) on TCM frequently. I think I’ve seen other titles mentioned here also shown on TCM (they are now showing ‘newer classics’ which enrages some people, but those movies made in the 70’s and 80’s are almost 50 years old now.)…I’ve been wanting to see a couple of 60’s movies made in England - The Family Way, with Hayley Mills, and I Start Counting - but they were not available on DVD to play in the US, if available at all.

There’s an animated movie from Australia called Abra Cadabra that is a musical retelling of The Pied Piper but goes off tangent in quite a silly way. It stars pop singer John Farnham.

For some reason it is not available to watch anywhere. A dude on YouTube has tried to assemble a version from old VHS recordings but that’s not advanced far yet.

It is available to stream on Amazon for $3.99.

One movie that immediately comes to mind is Killing Time (1998). It has never been released on DVD and is not available on Netflix or Amazon. It sometimes shows up on some other sources, but usually not for on-demand streaming. I own two VHS copies, but I would really like to see a decent DVD-quality version of the film.

Is it a great film? No. But it has some memorable scenes and dialogue…and there are far, far worse films that have been released on DVD/BD.

Also came here to mention The Day the Clown Cried.

There’s an early Dario Argento movie, called The Five Days in Milan, that he made between finishing his “animals trilogy” and returning to the giallo genre with Profondo Rosso. It was a huge flop and even academic analyses of Argento tend to give it short thrift. Word is, it’s awful, but I’m curious.

I wonder if this query can be extended to movies that just haven’t been rereleased as technology changes. I worked in a video store eons ago, and I’d see VHS films that never got a laserdisc release, LDs that never got reissued on DVD and now DVDs that were never upgraded to BluRay. A lot of them were cruddy B-movies (love her though I do, I don’t think many people are dying to see Cyntha Rothrock’s oeuvre in 1040p). Long story longer, my favorite Paul Schrader film is Light Sleeper (starring Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon), and I even got Schrader to sign my poster after a TIFF premiere a few years back (he told me it’s one of his favorites of his own as well). I’m dying to see it again but I have no way of doing so as I’m pretty sure Live Entertainment (defunct) last owned the rights in the laserdisc era. It’s on BluRay in Europe, but as it made next to nothing at the box office here, I guess there’s no rush to get a good remaster of it out.

Another one is Fun, starring Alicia Witt and Renee Humphries. I saw it when it came out in 1995 and have never seen it on any home video medium.

Face to Face - Conrads’ The Secret Sharer and Cranes’ The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky are paired

Gigot - Gleasons’ best effort