# Movies in the fork of a road **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 5, 2008, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083 "2008-04-05T15:04:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/21 "2008-04-09T19:58:32Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] NotLD has another fork – not just the explicit gore but the ending. The monsters won, and they kept on winning, in the Freddy and Friday movies. I suppose the monsters have to win or there’d be no sequels, but it was still a change from horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s, where the monsters were destroyed in the end. [/QUOTE] Actually, the zombies were vanquished (or at least the ones that were besieging the house) but the African-American hero (something else that was also fairly new for a horror movie) ended up being “accidentally” blown away by the rednecks who initially looked like were coming to his aid. Nonetheless, the bleak look and tone of the NotLD was something you’d expect in some downbeat foreign film about existential despair and not a monster movie. It’s also worth noting that the movie was probably the most nihilistic thing that had ever been seen in American movies at that time. I think it’s those factors that made NotLD all the more disturbing. And in the old monster movies of the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s, the fact the monster gets killed at the end of the previous film wasn’t necessarily a bar on bringing it back for the sequel. If the box office receipts justified it, they’d always find some lame loophole to explain how the monster survived. ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/22 "2008-04-09T22:59:19Z")
[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry] Well, I did mean that around the time of Titanic, there was another movie, Amadeus, which re-introduced the long movie. [/QUOTE] Actually, it predates Titanic by 13 years. [Titanic - 1997](http://imdb.com/title/tt0120338/) [Amadeus - 1984](http://imdb.com/title/tt0086879/) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2008, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/23 "2008-04-09T23:02:37Z")
Does anybody know of an earlier movie than _Sunset Boulevard_ where the first person narrator dies? That’s another of those “forks not taken” to any great extent, but the technique has been used in various guises as the “unreliable source” or whatever the official term is for the gimmick. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/24 "2008-04-10T00:02:42Z")
[QUOTE=The Them] **Snow White** Not only the _first_ full-length animated film . . . [/QUOTE] Sorry; it’s only the first \*American \*feature-length animated film. [_The Adventures of Prince Achmed_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Prince_Achmed) premiered in 1926, 11 years before _Snow White_. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/25 "2008-04-10T00:26:12Z")
Forks in the road: _Toy Story_, first fully CGI-animated American production _The Little Mermaid_, revived the Disney animation empire _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_, brought a new dimension into film relationships for American audiences, demonstrated that the Hays code was effectively dead _The Jazz Singer_, talkies ---
**Author:** ![Fourth\_Wall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Fourth\_Wall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fourth_Wall)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/26 "2008-04-10T01:13:56Z")
_Blazing Saddles_ for the various humor taboos it smashed, especially racial stereotypes. I believe it also has the Silver Screen’s first fart. Also the first time I ever saw a man coldcock a horse. Someone earlier mentioned _48 Hours_ as one of the first Black/White buddy films, and I still agree, but I would note that _Blazing Saddles_ has a similar gimmick and came out 12 years earlier, though it’s not really a “buddy movie”. ---
**Author:** ![Fourth\_Wall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Fourth\_Wall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fourth_Wall)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/27 "2008-04-10T01:18:31Z")
Just thought of another. _Fantasia_ - the first music video and forerunner to MTV. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/28 "2008-04-10T01:28:34Z")
[QUOTE=Fourth Wall] Just thought of another. _Fantasia_ - the first music video and forerunner to MTV. [/QUOTE] [Not so much.](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Oskar+Fischinger&search_type=) ---
**Author:** ![gnagtcha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@gnagtcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnagtcha)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/29 "2008-04-10T02:03:23Z")
And I doubt movies are now “typically” between 2 and 2 1/2. How many comedies can you name with that sort of length? It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming Can’t think of any others right now ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/30 "2008-04-10T04:30:09Z")
[QUOTE=Fourth Wall] Someone earlier mentioned _48 Hours_ as one of the first Black/White buddy films, and I still agree, but I would note that _Blazing Saddles_ has a similar gimmick and came out 12 years earlier, though it’s not really a “buddy movie”. [/QUOTE] There were the teamings of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in 1976’s \*\*Silver Streak \*\* and 1980’s **Stir Crazy** before **48 Hrs**. I think both of those would qualify as “buddy movies.” However, I think **48 Hrs** differed in that it was more of an action flick whereas the other films were comedies. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/31 "2008-04-10T04:32:14Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] _The Thomas Crown Affair_ (original) I am given to understand its the first movie with criminal as hero figure.There had been plenty of criminal protagonists before, most of them bad guys (_Little Ceasar_) some of them sympathetic characters (_The League Of Gentlemen_) But it always ended badly for them, with the “crime does not pay” message hammered home. Thomas Crown was the first to show the criminal getting away with it. [/quote] In [_Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060287/), Eli Kotch (James Coburn) gets away with it (sort of)The elaborate robbery/con is successful but if he’d stuck around, the dupe he married to further his scheme (Camilla Sparv) inherited a _lot_ more money.It was released about a year earlier than _The Thomas Crown Affair_ > [@](#): > > I believe it also pioneered the use of split screen to show simultaneous action in different scenes, so loved by _24_. [_Grand Prix_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060472/fullcredits) had multiple image shots, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen it, I don’t remember it they were simply duplicates of the same thing (which I remember) or also had different views of the same moment. > [@The Them](#): > > DAMN YOU, Walt Disney! There BETTER be a Hell, so you can burn in it! I’m not sure what triggers your vitriol, **T T** , unless you’re maybe Ralph Bakshi or something. ---
**Author:** ![Fourth\_Wall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Fourth\_Wall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fourth_Wall)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/32 "2008-04-10T04:38:41Z")
[QUOTE=lissener] [Not so much.](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Oskar+Fischinger&search_type=) [/QUOTE] Another great reason to frequent these boards - I generally learn about something new. I’d never heard of Oskar Fischinger before, but after viewing some his work it doesn’t surprise me to find that he initially worked on _Fantasia_. Technically ya got me on the incorrect chronology of my OP, but it could be argued that Fantasia had a greater influence just because of it’s wider distribution. One “first” I did forget to mention about _Fantasia_, it was the first feature-length movie released with Stereophonic sound, which was pretty important for a movie about music. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/33 "2008-04-10T10:55:42Z")
I think there’s another way **Jaws** was a forerunner. Unless I’m overlooking an earlier film, it’s the first movie in which the monster, so to speak, was not supernatural, or the product of a mad scientist, or radioactive, or anything that can’t occur naturally. The Jaws shark didn’t do anything that a real shark couldn’t do. There was no talk of a curse or anything, either; it was just a shark doing what a shark does. And that was what made it so scary. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/34 "2008-04-10T13:16:49Z")
I’d like to mention some directors who I think three huge influences: DW Griffith for “Birth of a Nation”, Lois Weber for “Hypocrites”, and John Ford for “Searchers”. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083/35 "2008-04-10T21:39:00Z")
**Desert Dog,** I just think Walt Disney was such a creep, it pains me to say anything nice about him. That’s all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-in-the-fork-of-a-road/444083.md?page=1)