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Friday, May 08, 2009

More Tales of Tivo

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One of the things with Tivo is that you get to take a little time to see a lot of old films you might never have taken the time to see before. In so doing, you begin to notice things that are missing. There are a lot of old "crime" movies (detective stories, bank robberies, police investigations, etc.), and a lot of stuff that, to me, is pure drek (love stories, morality plays, sports stories, etc.). This is not to say that there are not aspects of the latter category in most of the others (a "love interest" for a main character is quite common, and often there is a moral lesson as part of a film even if it is not really a "morality play"). There are of course other types of films (comedies can be about any of the above, although I am less likely to see a comedy that is not about something I am already pre-disposed to take some interest in).

So what is missing?

Science Fiction.

There is (on TCM) hours and hours of programming of old films, including some that could be classed as "Spiritual", e.g., The Green Pastures, but there is very little science fiction. Most of what there is is more appropriately classified as "horror", but while Doctor Frankenstein was a "doctor" and "built" his monster, Frankenstein is always going to be horror, and not science fiction in my book.

Still, Tivo has given me the ability to record a great many things for later viewing. Such as Seven Days to Sunrise, Flame Over England, Richard III, Henry V, Count of Monte Cristo, The Fuller Brush Man, Suicide Fleet, Modern Times, Shane, Knight Without Armour, and various other old films.

But notice that the only one of those that is even remotely "science fiction" is "Seven Days to Sunrise", the tale of a scientist with a nuclear weapon that he intends to detonate in London unless Parliament passes a law banning the manufacture of such weapons.