Lost Movies

[nearwildheaven]

@Exapno_Mapcase

And don’t forget, although everyone has, the only movie Joan Rivers directed: Rabbit Test, in which Billy Crystal gets pregnant.

I have never seen the movie, but I do remember it because I was in junior high when it came out, and there was one teacher who had a rather big gut and he got nicknamed “Rabbit Test” as a result of this movie.

[CalMeacham]

@RealityChuck

I actually have a blog that covers a lot of films like these. Some that would fit include:

Picking Up the Pieces (very big name cast, including Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Keifer Sutherland, David Schwimmer, Elliot Gould, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones is magnificent)
Putney Swope
Cry Uncle(too bawdy for TV)
Movie Movie
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T (written by Dr. Seuss!)
Brute Force Hume Cronin as one of Hollywood’s most sadistic villains.
Best Boy
The Onion Field (Made James Woods a star, and helped Ted Danson, too)
Targets (Boris Karloff’s last major film, and one of his best)
Mother Night (great adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut novel)

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T was just on cable TV this past month. When I was in college, painting schools as a summer job, I watched them show this as part of the Summer Movies series for kids.

One of the janitors, also watching the show, tapped another during a dance number featuring a bunch of beefy and pudgy guys in Seuss-esque costumes.

“Can you believe they got paid for doing this?” he asked.
Stills from the film used to show up in Forrey Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland. From the 1950s onward, there’s been a bit of a tremor from this film (I’ve wondered if the title of the 2000 film Dr. T and the Women was inspired by this flick. In any case, the two belong on a double bill in Hell, or someplace.)

[JohnT]

Americathon, a 1980 film that was heavily promoted on Atlanta radio stations about a future America where we ran out of oil, people lived in their cars, and US President John Ritter decides to hold a telethon as to avoid bankruptcy. Also starring Harvey Korman, Meat Loaf, Elvis Costello (!), Jay Leno, George Carlin, and Tommy Lasorda.

[Voyager]

@CalMeacham

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T was just on cable TV this past month. When I was in college, painting schools as a summer job, I watched them show this as part of the Summer Movies series for kids.

I actually saw that one on TV as a kid. All I remember is that it scared the crap out of me.
Anyone remember Zachariah, partially written by The Firesign Theatre?
I’m not sure if A Boy and His Dog would count as lost - maybe it shows up at Cons.
And speaking of Alvy Moore, he was in an Ozzie and Harriet movie - he came to their door, did his bit, then left. Only thing I remember about it.

I remember reading about, but did not see, lots of the movies mentioned. Maybe when they go out of copyright they’ll show up in one of those 50 movie DVD sets.

[JohnT]

A Boy and His Dog was on TCM sometime in the past couple of months.

[NDP]

@CalMeacham

I"Fitzwilly – another van Dyke film, but not from Disney this time (1967). Van Dyke plays a butler who goes to great lengths to keep from his employer that she’s ac tually virtually broke. The household staff robs Gimbels on Christmas Eve to raise money. A lot of the cast was appearing on various TV shows at the time, including “Get Smart”'s Barbara Feldon (for whom this was a first movie role). Score by a very young John Williams.

I came across Fitzwilly while channel surfing a couple weeks ago. It might’ve been on TCM (which is about the only cable movie network that shows old movies on a regular basis). It also featured Sam Waterston in what was his first role.

[Dale_Sams]

@CalMeacham

I remember when it first came out and was showing in nearby theaters, but I agree – I don’t recall it showing up on later on TV or on video.
This is the kind of movie I meant in the OP. As a fan of really bad movies and fantasy/sf/horror, I can tell you about a LOT of forgotten monster flicks and the like (The Cosmic Monsters, The Magnetic Monster, Gog, Curcucu – Beast of the Amazon, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam). But these were never big movies, heavily promoted, meant for mainstream audiences. Whereas Disney’s 1962 movies bon Voyage or in Search of the Castaways were supposed to be. Or 1981’s Condorman, which starred a pre-Phantom Michael Crawford and Oliver Reed. It’s one of the few films actually based on a Robert Sheckley novel, rather than being stolen from one. In recent years a cult has grown up around the film, including inside Disney – the Toy Story short Small Fry features a “Condorman” action figure from a Happy Meal or suchlike (something that never actually happened).

Condorman Toy Story - Yahoo Search Results

I see Sheckley edited one of my “end of the world short story books”…After The Fall.

[joebuck20]

@MrAtoz

It strikes me that there are a lot of Disney live-action films from that time period–the late 60s into the 70s–that Disney doesn’t really do much with these days. It was kind of a fallow period for them, to my mind. I have vague memories of a lot of terribly bland comedies from that era, often starring the likes of Dean Jones, with someone like Tim Conway or Joe Flynn in a supporting role, and Keenan Wynn playing the villain, that qualify as the sort of “lost movies” you’re talking about.

Titles that come to mind include things like Snowball Express, The Million Dollar Duck, The North Avenue Irregulars, The Shaggy D.A., and Unidentified Flying Oddball. It wasn’t really a very good time for Disney, creatively. Only rarely among the dross would you get a relative standout like The Love Bug and its sequels.

I am fairly sure that I saw most, maybe all, of those movies. But I remember almost nothing about any of them. Probably in an attempt to appeal to the widest common denominator, they were almost aggressively bland and uninteresting. These days, Disney seems somewhat embarrassed by them and doesn’t do a whole lot to exploit them, so they rarely turn up on TV or as DVDs.

I seem to recall a lot of those movies showing up on TV afterschool in the 80s. In addition to the ones you mention, there was also the original version of Flubber, The Computer Who Were Tennis Shoes, and one about a guy who invents an invisibility formula (the title of which I don’t recall).
I remember really liking those movies at the time, but haven’t seen them since I was about 9 or 10, so I have no idea how they would hold up.

[silenus]

@joebuck20

I seem to recall a lot of those movies showing up on TV afterschool in the 80s. In addition to the ones you mention, there was also the original version of Flubber, The Computer Who Were Tennis Shoes, and **one about a guy who invents an invisibility formula (the title of which I don’t recall). **I remember really liking those movies at the time, but haven’t seen them since I was about 9 or 10, so I have no idea how they would hold up.

Now You see Him, Now You Don’t - Starring Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero and Joe Flynn.

[Dale_Sams]

@silenus

Now You see Him, Now You Don’t - Starring Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero and Joe Flynn.

Speaking of which…I’m shocked every time I remember that an Invisible Man film with Chevy Chase directed by John Carpenter exists.

[madsircool]

Who is Killing The Great Chefs of Europe
The Blackbird
The Groove Tube
SPY*S
The 5 Man Army
The Big Bus

[Push_You_Down]

@JohnT

A Boy and His Dog was on TCM sometime in the past couple of months.

It was on Netflix up until pretty recently. I can’t imagine anyone thinking it’s a “lost” movie.

Oh and a Blu-Ray release… I have to track that down.

[dwyr]

@CalMeacham

…Dick Van Dyke had a bunch of generally forgotten and rarely seen films, a couple of them from Disney:

Never a Dull Moment – This one is available through various places, apparently. I still can’t recall it ever showing up on TV in any form, and never saw it in a video store. 1968 film stars Dick Van Dyke, along with Dorothy Provine, Edward G. Robinson (!!), Slim Pickens (!), and other familiar faces.

Lieutenant Robin Crusoe, USN – Van Dyke is a castaway on a South Pacific Island with a chimp. Later he meets Nancy Kwan, whom he names Wednesday. Akim Tamiroff (a Armenian actor) plays her Polynesian father. This film has apparently come out on VHS and DVD, but I suspect more modern sensibilities to native people have encouraged this one to keep a low profile. Disney himself contributed to ther screenplay, and is credited as “Retlaw Yensid”

Fitzwilly – another van Dyke film, but not from Disney this time (1967). Van Dyke plays a butler who goes to great lengths to keep from his employer that she’s ac tually virtually broke. The household staff robs Gimbels on Christmas Eve to raise money. A lot of the cast was appearing on various TV shows at the time, including “Get Smart”'s Barbara Feldon (for whom this was a first movie role). Score by a very young John Williams. …

All three of these are on Amazon streaming video (and my watch list) as is a fourth obscure Dick Van Dyke vehicle, anyone remember Cold Turkey?

[silenus]

Isn’t that the one where an entire town stops smoking all at once? I remember the premise at least.

[nearwildheaven]

@silenus

Isn’t that the one where an entire town stops smoking all at once? I remember the premise at least.

Are you referring to “Cold Turkey”? I grew up in the area where that movie was made, so it always got a lot of publicity.

There’s a movie that’s supposed to be really good that does not appear to be on any other media; it’s called “Jonah, Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000”. Anyone else familiar with it?

[Wendell_Wagner]

I’ve seen Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. It’s O.K., but it wasn’t anything special. From a quick search it appears to me that it’s possible to find it online in used DVD and video copies, but there are no new copies available. I don’t think it’s anything like the films mentioned in the OP. It’s not “cheap movie-theater fodder” at all. It’s a typical film in French (set actually in Switzerland) from 1976. It’s supposed to be a somewhat highbrow film trying to make a political point.

[from_a_to_z]

@Wendell_Wagner

I’ve seen Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000. It’s O.K., but it wasn’t anything special.

Finally, one less competitor for the 26 year old Miou-Miou. And one vote for a fun movie. Besides the films already mentioned, various of the other lost films are also available. Here is list with linked, hopefully useful, DVD/Blu-ray reviews…
[ul]
[li]The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T[/li][li]Best Boy[/li][li]The Big Bus[/li][li]The Big Cube[/li][li]A Boy and His Dog[/li][li]Brute Force[/li][li]Cobb[/li][li]Cry Uncle[/li][li]The Five Man Army[/li][li]Lsaserblast[/li][li]Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N.[/li][li]Mother Night[/li][li]Never a Dull Moment[/li][li]The Onion Field[/li][li]Picking Up the Pieces[/li][li]Putney Swope[/li][li]Skidoo[/li][li]SPY*S[/li][li]Targets[/li][li]What A Way To Go![/li][li][Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?](http://www.dvdfr.com/dvd/c63376-grande-cuisine-ou-l-art-et-la-maniere-d-assaisonner-les-chefs-le-test-complet-du-dv[/li]
d.html) (Region 2 with original soundtrack)
[li]Zachariah[/li][/ul]

[CalMeacham]

@dwyr

All three of these are on Amazon streaming video (and my watch list) as is a fourth obscure Dick Van Dyke vehicle, anyone remember Cold Turkey?

Love it – it was made by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin just before they did All in the Family.

It’s also memorable as Edward Everett Horton’s last film. It’s got Bob Newhart in it, too.

Randy Newman did the music.

I never thought of Cold Turkey as obscure, but I have to admit that I haven’t seen it on TV in ages, and I’ve never seen it for sale or rental in VHS or DVD form.

[Crafter_Man]

I recall The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was very popular when it hit theaters in 1974. (My parents took me to see it.) But I can’t find it on DVD. You can get a (used) VHS version for about $30.

[Defensive_Indifference]

Just chiming in to say that “Mother Night” is one of my favorite books, and the film version mentioned upthread is quite good. I’m surprised it’s hard to find.