Rubbly-ubb-duuuubb!
“Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969)”
All-star cast Anthony Newley, Joan Collins, Milton Berle, George Jessel, Stubby Kaye …
This was Anthony Newley’s masterful semi-autobiographical movie of a movie, comparable to Fellini’s “8-1/2”
But it first appeared rated X, to mediocre reviews, was re-cut to become rated R, and got more mediocre reviews.
I’ve read many people have searched for it and it was never on VHS or DVD.
I have this on a dollar store compilation cartoon DVD. Possibly not a legal copy, I guess.
It’s not infamous, but Jonathan Demme’s director’s cut of Swing Shift will probably not see the light of day. The film was recut, apparently because Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell didn’t care for the original storyline where she wasn’t as predominant. Pauline Kael and other critics saw the original and said it was wonderful, whereas the released version, while not awful, was nothing special.
I’d love to see the original, since Demme turned out excellent movies throughout the '70s and '80s. But I’ve heard there’s no way it’ll happen – too much bad blood.
Here ya go. (warning, nudity in link)
Slee
Superstar: the Karen Carpenter Story - Todd Haynes’ student film that got an unexpected (though deserved) cult following via arthouse theaters and video. Karen’s brother (who reportedly does not come off very well in this treatment of the story) sued to have all copies of this project destroyed. He won because Haynes had not gotten the rights to use the Carpenters’ music. (It was never actually supposed to be shown outside of Haynes’ film class anyway).
I saw a bootlegged copy of it back in the early 90s. It was pretty bizarre.
There are a bunch of old racist cartoons in the public domain that end up on compilations such as this. Presumably, this is one of them.
I was under the impression that they have been released, just in exceedingly small quantities (as in, half a dozen or so). And of course, the last segment of Cremaster 3 was widely released; of course, it makes even less sense out of context.
There are some people who think that the original version of the movie I’ll Do Anything is better than the version currently available. It was shot as a musical, but after the previews all the musical numbers were cut out. The original version exists in a film vault, but it hasn’t been seen since those previews.
Well, “released” implies manufactured and sold - Barney has had a few DVD copies made, which were sold as “art objects” to a museum for millions. It was actually the museum’s complaints that kept the Cremaster Cycle boxed set from being released; the whole point of releasing the ending of 3 on DVD was to drum up interest for the boxed set.
In it’s article about the original King Kong,Wikipedia mentions (but doesn’t currently have a separate article for) a movie called Ingagi (1930) and describes it thusly:
“(…) Ingagi was an unabashed black exploitation film, immediately running afoul of the Hollywood code of ethics - it depicted black women having sex with monkeys and baby off-spring that looked more monkey than human, some of the most despicable scenes in American movie history. The movie was an immediate hit, and by some estimates it was one of the highest grossing movies of the 1930s at over $4 million.”
Otto Preminger’s film version of Porgy and Bess is extremely difficult to find, as the Gershwin family snatched it out of distribution at some point (possibly in the late 1970s/early 1980s).
I remember watching this on the Channel 7 late night movie here in NYC some time in the late '70s and watching Sammy Davis Jr.'s hilarious version of “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Though I was a fan of the music, I was waaay too young at the time to understand the storyline. So that song is the only part I’ve retained in my memory, except for a dim recollection of Sidney Poitier as Porgy crawling/pulling himself along somewhere…
Since now I totally crush on Sidney Poitier, and admire Dorothy Dandridge (who played Bess) and Brock Peters (as bastardly Crown), I would love to see this someday.
So, one may well ask, what’s the Gershwins’ issue with the flick? The family allegedly hated the adaptation, and withheld the musical rights; rather oddly, the dramatic rights were not a problem. They might dislike it because Preminger changed it from an opera to a musical, or 'cause almost no one uses his or her own voice (except for Sammy Davis Jr. and Pearl Bailey). But for whatever reason, it’s been almost non-existant until very recently, when apparently the family has allowed one or two film revival/festival showings. Sigh. It’s even listed on Amazon as a DVD, but it’s actually not in production.
Not yet, anyway. Here’s hoping!
The 1951 Joseph Losey remake of M. OK, maybe it wasn’t a great idea to take one of the most darkly German of Fritz Lang’s classics, set it in glaring daylight in working class LA, and cast David Wayne as Peter Lorre’s craven, baby-killing creep. But it’s a damn good film, stands up well to the original, and it ought to be available in some form other than super-grainy nth-generation VHS dub.
Porgy and Bess was last distributed to television in 1972.
Spaceship Zero.
Oh wait, I guess it has to be seen by someone once before it can qualify.
[Checks YouTube…]
Besides seeing how So-white managed to get her life spared from the gangsters at Murder inc, I find it curious that I found the ad in the truck of Murder Inc to be the most shocking item:
WE RUB OUT ANYBODY
$1.00
Midgets – ½ price
Japs - FREE
:eek: 
:eek: (The smile is when I think of the context of the era it was made)
Cool, thanks! But holy crap, this means my bizarrely vivid memory of Sammy Davis Jr.'s rendition and Sidney Poitier’s crawling dates back to when I was six. Dang, now that’s a performance that made an impact.
Untamed Mistress, from about the same time and from (I think) the same outfit, shares the same theme (Gorilla-human miscegenation). Its only redeeming feature is the lead actress, yummy Jacqueline Fontaine.
I doubt we’ll ever see The Gong Show Movie on DVD (legitimately, that is).