Welcome to a new category here on THEI. Every Saturday we will be presenting a tribute to the number 1 entertainment media in America “back in the day” – The Drive-In Theater. In the late 1940’s and throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s the growing popularity of the family car led to a new American pastime, watching movies from your car. So, on every Saturday, especially in the summer, we would grab a dollar out of the cookie jar (a buck a carload) and head out to the outskirts of almost any American town or city and enjoy the movies.
Unfortunately with the popularity of Television beginning in the 1960’s and the greater profits from the land that the drive-ins were built on being so good from the tract homes being built for the growing number of young baby boomers families it became unprofitable to own a Drive-In Theater. The Drive-In Theater was history and the sprawling suburbs swallowed them up.
With the passing of the Drive-In Movie we also lost the venue for the mostly Grade-B movies that was their staple. (be they good, bad or indifferent)
THEI is proud to bring some of those lost and forgotten films and Selected Short subjects back in this series of postings. I hope you enjoy this ongoing tribute. . . Your Editor Dennis Crenshaw
MORE ENTERTAINING IF WATCHED IN FULL SCREEN MODE
Frank Sinatra in SUDDENLY (1954) Rare WIDESCREEN version FULL MOVIE
YouTube ~
Published on Jan 9, 2011
In a town called Suddenly, a team of gangsters with the contract to assassinate the President take over a small hilltop house, holding a widow and her son hostage. Frank Sinatra gives one of his best performances as the lead gunman. Also stars Sterling Hayden, James Gleason, and Nancy Gates. Written by Richard Sale. Music by David Raksin. Produced by Richard Bassler. Directed by Lewis Allen. Original film 1954 (Public Domain). Print from The Video Cellar Collection 16:9 widescreen transfer and remaster © 2010 The Video Cellar. All Rights Reserved.Variety clock Drive-in theater Intermission
YouTube ~ driveinfilm Published on Jun 16, 2017
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Movie reviews, ‘Robot & Frank,’ (Trailer w/ commentary from Director)
This sounds like a movie that I’ll actually pay money to go to a blacked out building full of strangers and set in the dark and watch. Those movies are few and far between. . . EDITOR
from Los Angeles Times
By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
August 23, 2012, 3:05 p.m.
Frank Langella is masterful as a lonely curmudgeon who rediscovers his purpose in life with some high-tech help.
Everything about “Robot & Frank” is as unlikely as it is irresistible. Charming, playful and sly, it makes us believe that a serene automaton and a snappish human being can be best friends forever.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this Sundance prize winner is the easy way it blends the impeccable old-school acting of Frank Langella with the youthful independent sensibility of a pair of first-time filmmakers, writer Christopher D. Ford and director Jake Schreier.
Though most indie filmmakers gravitate toward stories about the agonies of being under 30, old souls Schreier and Ford have made a film that deals, in the most good-humored way, with age, vulnerability and the need to always be of use in your own life. . . . Read Complete Review
from IFC
Posted August 16th, 2012, 2:08 PM by Brian Jacks
It’s surprising to think that one of the most humanistic films of the year co-stars a machine, but that’s what you get with Jake Schreier’s new movie “Robot & Frank.” Legendary actor Frank Langella plays Frank, an elderly grump in the near-future whose children (Liv Tyler and James Marsden) worry constantly about him as he schlubs his way through his twilight years. Hoping to get his dad’s life back in order, his son orders him a robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard), a digitally-powered unit designed to function as a butler and caretaker in one. Initially resistant to his new addition, Frank — a “retired” jewel thief — quickly realizes that his robot may be good for more than just fetching glasses of milk.
Call-In Commentary: Watch the “Robot & Frank” trailer with director Jake Schreier