"Thing That ..." - O.T.

[Philippe Cordier]

"If you lived at Collinwood" and "Primary Prop" -- what fun topics! People have really been busy here over the weekend!

And the "Another View of Trask" and "Changed Joshua" threads had such terrific, intelligent discussions, I only wish I had something to add to them ...

*  *  *  *

Now to the point of my thread. A couple of weeks ago, Luciaphil identified the movie "The Thing That Couldn't  Die" as the source for the Head of Judah Zachary in the 1840 storyline. I was so excited by this news, and also greatful, since I had been trying to track down several legends of talking heads that I thought might have been the inspiration for this aspect of my favorite DS storyline. Reading a description of this movie convinced me that it was indeed the inspiration of the Judah Zachary character.

The chances of ever seeing the movie, though, seemed somewhat slim. It is not available on video.  

Then, late last night I was glancing over my local TV schedule and something caught my eye.  Listed at 4:30 A.M. on AMC were the words:  "Thing That ..."

"Thing That ..." No more information than that. I didn't have a TV guide and I have no computer at home to do any further checking. It was already midnight and I had no resource except my Leonard Maltin movie guide. I flipped through that to see what movies began with the words "Thing That ... ." To my excitement, the only listing was for "The Thing that couldn't Die." I couldn't believe it.  Here, in less than two weeks time, we've had movies that directly inspired DS:  "The Uninvited" and now "The Thing that Couldn't Die." And there was also the Vincent Price version of "The Pit and the Pendulum," and as I mentioned in the Poe thread, "The Tomb of Ligeia" is also scheduled to air soon on AMC.  Is it something in the air?

So I set my VCR for 4:30 A.M., too tired to set my alarm and manually tape the movie.

So what happened when I rewound the tape this morning? I discovered that the movie had already been in progress when my tape began recording.

Checking AMC's website after work today, I see that the movie actually began airing at 4:20 A.M.  I am missing the first 10 minutes of the movie!!! What's more, AMC doesn't have it on their schedule for any upcoming showings. (I have been waiting four years for either AMC or TCM to re-air "The House of the Seven Gables," which I only caught a few minutes of at the time, and they've yet to do so.)

I have spent the entire workday with this nagging at me. It seemed too good to be true that this essential-to-DS movie would happen to air at all, and now that it has, I'm missing the first chunk of it. I know some people wouldn't be as upset by this as I am, but this really has gotten me down. Why does AMC do such a stupid thing as starting a movie at 20 minutes after the hour? And why couldn't my *@&%$#! TV listing have shown the correct starting time? To me, it's almost worthless to tape something if you don't get it all on tape.

At least I'll be able to see most of it, which is more than I had before.

Still, this has really been upsetting.

Maybe the situation is worse because I also missed taping two other programs that I would really have wanted to have over the weekend. And it was frustrating not to have more information that I could access.

Thanks for listening ...

[Patti Feinberg]

Sorry honey
that stinks...I'll ask my father-in-law

Patti

[Birdie]

I understand your frustration.  Please if you should see "The House of the Seven Gables" is going to be on, I would love a heads up.  
Friday I took my daughter, her friend, and my son to Salem.  We took the tour of  the "House".  I had been before a few years back but my younger two didn't remember it.  I once again enjoyed it.  The day had started off over cast but clear in the afternoon.
We missed Trask Peter Bradford.hehe

Birdie

[kuanyin]

They had a non scheduled showing of The Apartment so I decided to make a keeper tape and set the VCR for SP. Couldn't check the time, but figured it wouldn't be over two hours. Right. The tape ended, I'm guessing five minutes from the end. AGHHH!

[Luciaphile]

Vlad, honey, I'm sorry you didn't get the whole thing on tape, but honestly, it's not that good a movie.  It will be on again--this turkey just does not go away.  But never fear, I will try to recap the first ten minutes of it for you. Once seen this can never be forgotten (although God knows, I've tried)

Spoilers for the film











All right, this is what happens in the beginning.  Jessica (I think that's the name--the chick who does the dowsing) is a SYT living on her aunt Flavia's ranch/dude ranch place.  There's a ranch hand as I recall who's pretty greedy and kind of skanky.  Into this poor man's "Oklahoma" (mercifully no one sings) come the stalwart and really boring hero, some scuzzball who paints, and his slightly trampy girlfriend for a fun vacation on the dude ranch.

Jessica and the boring guy kind of exchange sheep's eyes.  He thinks she's backward, but charming.  She thinks he's dreamy    I forget if the scuzzy painter displays an interest in Jessica.

The "Oklahoma" metaphors just keep on coming, which is why the MST3K picked up the ball and ran with it.

The skinflint aunt is too cheap to pay for a surveyor to find water so she has Jessica out there with the forked stick looking for a new well.  The hero is skeptical, but then Jessica's stick starts aquivering.  And presto chango, the ranch hands are digging.  But they don't find water, they find a box, which the boring hero instantly pegs as being from some historically impossible period.  

Aunt Flavia is disappointed at first, IIRC, but when the hero informs her the box could be valuable, her eyes light up with dollar signs and there is talk of gold doubloons.

I think that will take you up to where your tape begins.  

Try and see if it's on the MST3K schedule on the SciFi channel, because their commentary really elevates the film into a class of its own.

Happy viewing!

Luciaphil

[Josette]

Vlad, my sympathies!  I know I would have been furious, too.  I wonder what kind of listing you were using.  If it's one of those grids (it seem local listings are often done that way these days), I've noticed that they have to put it at the closest half hour time, in this case 4:30, but usually within the listing they will put the actual start time in parenthesis.  It can certainly throw one off, but, especially after an incident like this, one learns to watch out for that!!  I hope that helps for any future events.

[Philippe Cordier]

Bless all of you for your kindness.  I feel a lot better reading all of your comments.

I understand your frustration.  Please if you should see "The House of the Seven Gables" is going to be on, I would love a heads up.  

If I should hear of it, I'll post something here, as DS shares some of its themes.  I understand that the movie (with Vincent Price) changes the book drastically, but it makes a good movie and they built an exact replica of the actual House of the Seven Gables for the movie.  I caught only the last few minutes of the movie about four years ago, I think.  I would request it from AMC.com, now that I'm becoming familiar with their website, but they're probably tired of hearing from me after a couple of e-mail contacts I've just made to them.

Friday I took my daughter, her friend, and my son to Salem.  We took the tour of  the "House".  I had been before a few years back but my younger two didn't remember it.  I once again enjoyed it.  The day had started off over cast but clear in the afternoon.
We missed Trask Peter Bradford.hehe

Birdie

That is SO exciting, Birdie!  I'm happy for you!  Did you find out how the secret panel next to the fireplace works???

(Just out of curiousity, Birdie, I'm not sure if I'm remembering you correctly from the old board, did you once have your photo taken in a rose garden in your yard, I think it was.  I'm remembering a photo someone included in an email once to an old address of mine, I think, unless it was posted on the old VN board, and I'm just trying to place if that was you or not!)


Kuanyin wrote:

They had a non scheduled showing of The Apartment so I decided to make a keeper tape and set the VCR for SP. Couldn't check the time, but figured it wouldn't be over two hours. Right. The tape ended, I'm guessing five minutes from the end. AGHHH!

Kuanyin, that has happened to me more times than I can count!

Luciaphil,

Thank you for taking the time to provide a scenario for me.  I'll print it out and read it before I watch the movie.  I realize that the movie probably isn't great, and it would be a greater tragedy if it had been "War and Peace" or something, but still ...  I guess this shows me how important DS is to me ...

Finally, a brief anecdote ... On Saturday night (actually Sunday morning) at about 5:25 a.m. (don't ask me what I was doing up at that time), I happened to turn on the TV, and happened upon Vincent Price giving a dramatic reading from "The Pit and the Pendulum" on AMC. It seemed slightly overwrought, but it was the climax of the narrative, so I would have liked to have seen the entire performance.  He was in costume but it was videotape, not film. After doing a little research on imdb.com, I've concluded that what I caught the tail end of (why am I always catching only the ending of things?) was "An Evening with Edgar Allen Poe."

So I went to amc's website to see if it might be scheduled to air again, and not only is it not scheduled to air again, they have no record of it having just aired!

Just thought I'd mention this "Evening with Edgar Allen Poe" since there seem to be many people interested in Poe on this site, and others who are admirers of Vincent Price.

[Birdie]

Yes, I found out the secret staircase.  In fact I found out that the second party who bought the house,  You would think I would remember the name, didn't know it existed until they had a water problem and they hired a mason to do work on the chimmey.  Anyway it was Harthwornes cousin.  Belive it or not there is a lever in the fireplace upstairs to open it from the bedroom. Did you know that N. Harthorne was related to the Judge in the Salem witch trials?  I should have taken notes.  I know my spelling is off, it is late and I am having a moment.  

Birdie

[CastleBee]

Hey Vlad! I'm not sure if this is the one you're looking for but if you're still interested I did a quick search and found a copy on eBay for $14.95...

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&ht=1&query=the+thing+that+couldn%27t+die

[Luciaphile]

Hey Vlad! I'm not sure if this is the one you're looking for but if you're still interested I did a quick search and found a copy on eBay for $14.95...

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&ht=1&query=the+thing+that+couldn%27t+die

This film is so not worth $14.95.  It's entertaining and all that, but it airs frequently enough and it's godawful enough that you're better off waiting for it to be broadcast again.  

Luciaphil