# How do you get a hold of a hard to find movie

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 14, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504 "2006-02-14T18:53:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504/1 "2006-02-14T18:53:45Z")

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My mom wants to see a movie called the dollmaker

> **[The Dollmaker (TV Movie 1984) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087160/)**
>
> The Dollmaker: Directed by Daniel Petrie. With Jane Fonda, Levon Helm, Amanda Plummer, Susan Kingsley. Jane Fonda gives an Emmy-winning performance as Gertie Nevels, a pioneer woman and the mother of five from the Kentucky hills who is forced to...

I have a netflix subscription but netflix doesn’t carry it.

None of the local video stores carry it.

The only place that does carry it is ebay. However an original goes for about $40-50. There are some going for $10-15 but they are foreign copies and I don’t really want those.

So what other options are there to get this movie w/o spending $50 on it? I don’t think my library will do an ILL for a video, they only do books.

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**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504/2 "2006-02-14T18:59:52Z")

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First thing to determine is if it was every commercially released on VHS in the states. Are the eBay copies official, or bootlegs?

If it was commercially released, shop around. There are plenty of stores that specialize in older, hard to find movies. Try google - several of the places have websites.

If not, you may have to get the bootleg.

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**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504/3 "2006-02-14T21:04:51Z")

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Amazon has a used VHS copy for $25.95.

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**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-get-a-hold-of-a-hard-to-find-movie/344504/4 "2006-02-14T21:59:01Z")

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The Dollmaker is in my all-time top ten books list, but the movie was soap opera’d up. Nothing new in that – the books are almost always better.

If you can’t find a reasonably priced copy, let mom know the movie wasn’t very good, and maybe that’ll lessen her disappointment. 🙂