This series was made so long ago that it is often given more importance than it deserves. Maybe as I'm long in the tooth enough to remember when it was new, it affords me a certain perspective. Then, I saw it as fascinating, and hung on every word, taking it in as important material, committing the information to memory. I also wondered why it was so unimportant to the people I knew who lived through those earlier eras of film.
Having a chance to view these again after a span of forty-odd years(they had a syndication afterlife for a while) makes me realize a few things that went past me originally. For one thing, the overall tone reflects what those mature people in the 1960s had-the subject was a trivial one. Old movies were very important to me, but in 1963, movies were all just yesterday's already done trifles. The point of the series was for middle aged folks to have an undemanding dose of nostalgia. It definitely was not a serious, scholarly effort. It's embarrassing how much careless misinformation and errors back up the various topics. Thye were leaving out and making up stuff.
Only seeing these again caused me to realize why I had so many confused ideas when I started doing serious film research- I retained the sloppy stories from this series! It would take much more sincere documentarians later to make something worthy of it's subject.
Having a chance to view these again after a span of forty-odd years(they had a syndication afterlife for a while) makes me realize a few things that went past me originally. For one thing, the overall tone reflects what those mature people in the 1960s had-the subject was a trivial one. Old movies were very important to me, but in 1963, movies were all just yesterday's already done trifles. The point of the series was for middle aged folks to have an undemanding dose of nostalgia. It definitely was not a serious, scholarly effort. It's embarrassing how much careless misinformation and errors back up the various topics. Thye were leaving out and making up stuff.
Only seeing these again caused me to realize why I had so many confused ideas when I started doing serious film research- I retained the sloppy stories from this series! It would take much more sincere documentarians later to make something worthy of it's subject.