Return home Return to previous page May 1977: PBS Movie Theater Is this the main title as it appeared on screen? I don’t know. I wish I could remember. If it’s different, it certainly has the same flavor, though. P.S. See below for the actual logo. My reconstruction is WILDLY wrong and does not have the same flavor at all.

Broadcasting: The Newsweekly of Broadcasting and Allied Arts, 22 December 1975, p. 31: The above two articles, of course, announced the forthcoming series called “PBS Movie Theater.” How much I wish I could find the opening to that “PBS Movie Theater” series. It was magnificent. Each episode of “PBS Movie Theater” opened with a title stating that the following program is made possible in part by a grant from the Exxon Corporation. That was Arial font, white on black, generated on a Chiron. Then there was a cut to stunning clips from various Janus films. I remember that there was the mother carrying her injured child up the steps from Battleship Potemkin, I remember that there was that glorious shot of the camera dollying in to a traumatized Gelsomina banging on the drum from La strada. I no longer remember the other clips. The music accompanying those clips was the opening of Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, maybe 30 seconds. Fade out and fade in to the name of the series, which you can see if you keep scrolling down. I just learned that the series intro was designed by Philip Gips. A ha!!!!! I need to find him. But... he passed away in 2019. Darn! Fade out image and sound. Then the movie started. When the movie ended, that was it; there was no “PBS Movie Theater” closing. By the way, a preview for an episode of “PBS Movie Theater” is available for viewing at the Paley Center Museum of Television and Radio. In Albuquerque, this series premièred on Saturday, 3 April 1976, with Lord of the Flies. It continued through Saturday, 31 December 1977, and then briefly sputtered back to life later on. So we can see that 15 of these movies were also licensed for inclusion in “Festival ’76.”

One hundred movies were announced, but the list was not final. I don’t think that Annapurna, Aku Aku, Kon-Tiki, or Kriemhild’s Revenge were offered to any market as part of this series. Different markets received different movies. KBGL/10 in Pocatello received Ballad of a Soldier and The Cranes Are Flying. KLRN/9 in San António received The Passion of Joan of Arc and My Uncle Antoine. KHET/11 in Honolulu included The Silence in the series. KENW/3 in Portales received Black Orpheus, which is nowhere mentioned on this list. As for Through a Glass Darkly, only a few stations booked it: KDIN/11 in Des Moines, WGBY/57 in Springfield, KCET/9 in Saint Louis, and KBIN/32 in Council Bluffs, and maybe a few others, too. To my surprise, The Demi-Paradise, which was occasionally shown on commercial stations at the time and which I have never seen listed in a Janus catalogue, was aired as part of the “PBS Movie Theater” series on KAET/8 in Phoenix, but in January 1979. It also popped up on WOSU/34 in Columbus in July 1979, but maybe not as part of the series. I can find no other listings. Another film shown on commercial television, even on the CBS network in January 1976, was Great Expectations from 1947. I know of only several educational stations that included it in the “PBS Movie Theater” series: in March 1978 in Springfield on WGBY/12, in Pittsburgh on WQED/13 and in Miami on WPBT/2; in May 1978 in Topeka on KTWU/11; and in June 1978 in Portland, Maine, on WENH/11. There must have been numerous variations from station to station. So, there were 102 episodes in all, and the final result did not match the original announcement.

Annapurna? I never knew that was in the Janus catalogue. What were the other three documentaries? Surely Aku Aku, Kon-Tiki, and Man of Aran. Of those four, only Man of Aran was included in the series.

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Lord of the Flies Sat, 03 Apr 1976	Nicholas Nickelby Sat, 10 Apr 1976	Trio Sat, 17 Apr 1976	The Most Dangerous Game Sat, 24 Apr 1976
Hobson’s Choice Sat, 01 May 1976	The Browning Version Sat, 15 May 1976	Kind Hearts and Coronets Sat, 05 Jun 1976	A Run for Your Money Sat, 12 Jun 1976
The Ladykillers Sat, 19 Jun 1976	The Lavender Hill Mob Sat, 26 Jun 1976	The Last Holiday Sat, 03 Jul 1976	To Paris with Love Sat, 10 Jul 1976
The Devil’s Eye Sat, 24 Jul 1976	Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler Sat, 31 Jul 1976	Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime Sat, 07 Aug 1976	Spies Sat, 21 Aug 1976
Secrets of Women Sat, 04 Sep 1976	Grand Illusion Sat, 11 Sep 1976 Sat, 13 Aug 1977	M Sat, 02 Oct 1976	The Blue Angel Sat, 09 Oct 1976
Sawdust and Tinsel Tue, 26 oct 1976	A Lesson in Love Tue, 02 Nov 1976	Dreams Tue, 09 Nov 1976	Smiles of a Summer Night Tue, 16 Nov 1976
The Importance of Being Earnest Tue, 30 Nov 1976	My Uncle Antoine (not shown in Albuquerque)	Waltz of the Toreadors Tue, 14 Dec 1976	Richard III Tue, 28 Dec 1976
October (Ten Days That Shook the World) Tue, 11 Jan 1977 (not shown in Albuquerque)	Mother Tue, 18 Jan 1977 (not shown in Albuquerque)	Storm over Asia Sat, 29 Jan 1977	Alexander Nevsky Sat, 12 Feb 1977
Ivan the Terrible, Part I Sat, 19 Feb 1977 (not shown in Albuquerque)	Ivan the Terrible, Part II Sat, 26 Feb 1977 (not shown in Albuquerque)	The Cranes Are Flying (not shown in Albuquerque)	Ballad of a Soldier (not shown in Albuquerque)
Pygmalion Sat, 12 Mar 1977	La strada Sat, 02 Apr 1977	L’avventura Sat, 16 Apr 1977	Shoeshine Sat, 23 Apr 1977
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Sat, 14 May 1977	Metropolis Sat, 21 May 1977	Queen of Spades Sat, 04 Jun 1977	Rules of the Game Sat, 02 Jul 1977
The Soft Skin Sat, 09 Jul 1977	Beauty and the Beast Sat, 23 Jul 1977	Casque d’ or Sat, 06 Aug 1977	The 400 Blows Sat, 20 Aug 1977
Black Orpheus (not shown in Albuquerque)	Fame Is the Spur Sat, 01 Oct 1977	The Maggie Sat, 15 Oct 1977	The Servant Sat, 22 Oct 1977
Kanal Sat, 29 Oct 1977	Knife in the Water Sat, 05 Nov 1977	Forbidden Games Sat, 10 Dec 1977	Great Expectations (not shown in Albuquerque)
Pandora’s Box Sat, 24 Dec 1977	The Last Laugh Sat, 31 Dec 1977	As You Like It Sat, 29 Jul 1978	Hamlet Sat, 05 Aug 1978
Torment Sat, 23 Sep 1978

“PBS MOVIE THEATER” IN ALBUQUERQUE
Pre-emptions and gaps in the record can be filled in with Atlanta, Georgia, WGTV listings, which almost exactly paralleled KNME’s schedule, as well as by listings in Santa Fé and Carlsbad, which received KNME’s signal. The majority of stations that licensed this series presented the movies in the same order as appears in the chart below. Very few stations broadcast: • My Uncle Antoine • The Cranes Are Flying • Ballad of a Soldier • Black Orpheus • The Silence • Through a Glass Darkly • The Passion of Joan of Arc • The Demi-Paradise • Great Expectations and so my best guess is that those were premium episodes available only at a premium cost. That’s 9 premium episodes, and, interestingly, 9 episodes were repeated almost everywhere: • The Ladykillers (19 Jun 1976 repeated 07 Dec 1976) • The Man in the White Suit (17 Jul 1976 repeated 18 Jun 1977) • Grand Illusion (11 Sep 1976 repeated 13 Aug 1977) • Kind Hearts and Coronets (05 Jun 1976 repeated 27 Aug 1977) • Last Holiday (03 Jul 1976 repeated 03 Sep 1977) • Hobson’s Choice (01 May 1976 repeated 17 Sep 1977) • The Browning Version (15 May 1976 repeated 24 Sep 1977) • The Blue Angel (09 Oct 1976 repeated 03 Dec 1977) • M (02 Oct 1976 repeated 17 Dec 1977) So, quite obviously, the repeated episodes filled in the gaps left by the exclusion of the 9 premium episodes. It was not a one-to-one substitution, since episodes were gleefully scrambled and shunted around. What I suppose happened was that for the stations that opted not to broadcast the premium episodes, PBS supplied a list of suggested repeats to fill out the schedule. Chronologically, there is no match whatsoever. This list of repeats does not take into account other repeats that KNME Channel 5 employed to fill in empty time slots, nor does it take into account repeats in the 1978 supplementary seasons. Also, it appears to me that the extra 9 episodes were not offered as a package, but individually, since different educational stations licensed different episodes. Stations licensed the basic package of 93 episodes, and a few stations licensed maybe one or two more on top of that. I do not know of any station that licensed all 102 episodes.
01.	Sat 03 Apr 1976 9:00pm	Lord of the Flies
02.	Sat 10 Apr 1976 9:00pm	Nicholas Nickleby
03.	Sat 17 Apr 1976 9:00pm	Trio
04.	Sat 24 Apr 1976 9:00pm	The Most Dangerous Game
05.	Sat 01 May 1976 9:00pm	Hobson’s Choice
06.	Sat 08 May 1976 9:00pm	Encore
07.	Sat 15 May 1976 9:00pm	The Browning Version
08.	Sat 22 May 1976 9:00pm	Quartet
09.	Sat 29 May 1976 9:00pm	Man of Aran
10.	Sat 05 Jun 1976 9:00pm	Kind Hearts and Coronets
11.	Sat 12 Jun 1976 9:00pm	A Run for Your Money
12.	Sat 19 Jun 1976 9:00pm	The Ladykillers ✓
13.	Sat 26 Jun 1976 9:00pm	The Lavender Hill Mob ✓
14.	Sat 03 Jul 1976 9:00pm	The Last Holiday
15.	Sat 10 Jul 1976 9:00pm	To Paris with Love
16.	Sat 17 Jul 1976 9:00pm	The Man in the White Suit
17.	Sat 24 Jul 1976 9:00pm	The Devil’s Eye
18.	Sat 31 Jul 1976 9:00pm	Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (The shortened 1964 reissue with a score by Konrad Elfers. I’m pretty sure this was the Albuquerque première of Dr. Mabuse in any form.)

19.	Sat 07 Aug 1976 9:00pm	Dr. Mabuse, King of Crime (The shortened 1964 reissue with a score by Konrad Elfers.)
20.	Sat 14 Aug 1976 9:00pm	The Astonished Heart
21.	Sat 21 Aug 1976 9:00pm	Spies
22.	Sat 28 Aug 1976 9:00pm	Winter Light
23.	Sat 04 Sep 1976 9:00pm	Secrets of Women
24.	Sat 11 Sep 1976	[Grand Illusion (pre-empted for Canada Cup Hockey)]
25.	Sat 18 Sep 1976 9:00pm	The League of Gentlemen
26.	Sat 25 Sep 1976 9:00pm	The Overlanders
27.	Sat 02 Oct 1976 9:00pm	M
28.	Sat 09 Oct 1976 9:00pm	The Blue Angel
29.	Tue 12 Oct 1976 9:30pm	Summer Interlude
30.	Tue 19 Oct 1976 9:30pm	Monika
30.	Sat 23 Oct 1976 10:30pm	Monika (repeat)
31.	Tue 26 Oct 1976 9:30pm	Sawdust and Tinsel (Naked Night)
32.	Tue 02 Nov 1976 9:30pm	A Lesson in Love
32.	Sat 06 Nov 1976 10:30pm	A Lesson in Love (repeat) ✓
33.	Tue 09 Nov 1976 9:30pm	Dreams
33.	Sat 13 Nov 1976 10:30pm	Dreams (repeat) ✓
34.	Tue 16 Nov 1976 9:30pm	Smiles of a Summer Night
34.	Sat 20 Nov 1976 10:30pm	Smiles of a Summer Night (repeat) ✓
35.	Tue 23 Nov 1976 10:00pm	The Seventh Seal
36.	Tue 30 Nov 1976 9:30pm	The Importance of Being Earnest
37.	—	Through a Glass Darkly (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KDIN/11 in Des Moines on 06 Feb 1977, on KBIN/32 in Council Bluffs on 10 Feb 1977, on KCET/9 in Saint Louis on 21 Sep 1977, on WGBY/57 in Springfield on 31 Dec 1977)
12.	Tue 07 Dec 1976 9:30pm	The Ladykillers (repeat to fill in for Through a Glass Darkly)
12.	Sat 11 Dec 1976 10:30pm	The Ladykillers (repeat to fill in for Through a Glass Darkly)
38.	Tue 14 Dec 1976 9:30pm	Waltz of the Toreadors
39.	Tue 21 Dec 1976 9:30pm	The Red Shoes
39.	Sat 26 Dec 1976 10:300pm	The Red Shoes (repeat)
40.	Tue 28 Dec 1976 9:30pm	Richard III
40.	Sat 01 Jan 1977 10:30pm	Richard III (repeat)
Excerpted from New Jersey Nightly News; 12/12/1978 at American Archive. Is my memory really that bad? I don’t remember that font. My memory, surely faulty, is that the title of the individual movie was not included in the credits, but was inserted just afterwards, in plain Arial on a neutral black background. But I know why. My VHS copy of Pandora’s Box omitted the series intro and substituted its own Chiron title as a placeholder/cue for the PBS video operators. That’s what distorted my memory. Now that I see this preview, yes, it comes back to me. The title was indeed included in the series’ opening credits. I don’t remember those animated sprocket holes, though now that I look at them they seem rather familiar. My memory distorted them into chaser lights. That’s not exactly the way I remember the music, but, predictably, now that I hear it and now that I’ve listened to it several times, it seems more familiar than my own faulty memory. Oh heavens to Betsy! Had I been subpoenaed to provide testimony on the series’ opening visuals, I would have been convicted of perjury and I would have ended up in the slammer.
41.	Tue 04 Jan 1977 9:30pm	Battleship Potemkin (piano score) ✓
41.	Sat 08 Jan 1977 10:30pm	Battleship Potemkin (piano score) (repeat)
42.	Tue 11 Jan 1977	[October (pre-empted for American Indian Artists)]
42.	Sat 15 Jan 1977	[October (pre-empted for college basketball)]
43.	Tue 18 Jan 1977	[Mother (pre-empted for college basketball)]
43.	Sat 22 Jan 1977	[Mother (pre-empted for college basketball)]
44.	Sat 29 Jan 1977 10:00pm	Storm over Asia
45.	Sat 05 Feb 1977 10:00pm	Earth (stretch printed) ✓ (I seem to recall that it had Russian opening and closing titles rather than Ukrainian titles. I wish I could remember the music and who composed it. I don’t think it was the standard-issue Soviet track. The caption above, which I hope was not in the PBS original press photo, was dead wrong. This was most definitely NOT a Russian film. It was a Ukrainian film. Below is a review that touches my heart, despite repeating that same dreadful error:)
46.	Sat 12 Feb 1977 10:00pm	Alexander Nevsky
47.	Sat 19 Feb 1977	[Ivan the Terrible, Part I (pre-empted for basketball)]
48.	Sat 26 Feb 1977	[Ivan the Terrible, Part II (pre-empted for basketball)]
49.	Sat 05 Mar 1977 10:00pm	Caesar and Cleopatra
50.	Sat 12 Mar 1977 10:00pm	Pygmalion
51.	Sat 19 Mar 1977 10:30pm	Major Barbara
52.	Sat 26 Mar 1977 10:00pm	Androcles and the Lion
53.	Sat 02 Apr 1977 10:00pm	La strada
54.	Sat 09 Apr 1977 10:00pm	Miracle in Milan
55.	Sat 16 Apr 1977 10:00pm	L’avventura
Excerpted from New Jersey Nightly News 04/05/1979 at American Archive. Yes, that’s exactly what the captions looked like on the foreign-language films in the series...
56.	Sat 23 Apr 1977 10:00pm	Shoeshine
Excerpted from New Jersey Nightly News Episode from 04/03/1979 at American Archive. ...Except for this one. My oh my. These captions were not made on a Chiron. They were printed directly onto the film. I guess that Sarson and his team let this go because the captions were so large and so high on the frame that they didn’t feel a need to do them all over again.
57.	Sat 30 Apr 1977 10:00pm	L’eclisse
58.	Sat 07 May 1977 10:00pm	Umberto D.
59.	Sat 14 May 1977 10:00pm	The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
60.	Sat 21 May 1977 10:00pm	Metropolis ✓
61.	Sat 28 May 1977 10:30pm	Nosferatu ✓
62.	Sat 04 Jun 1977 10:00pm	Queen of Spades
63.	Sat 11 Jun 1977 10:30pm	The Rocking Horse Winner
64.	—	My Uncle Antoine (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KLRN/9 in San António on 19 Sep 1977)
16.	Sat 18 Jun 1977 10:00pm	The Man in the White Suit (repeat, presumably to fill in for My Uncle Antoine)
65.	Sat 25 Jun 1977 10:00pm	Lust for Evil (Purple Noon)
66.	Sat 02 Jul 1977 10:00pm	Rules of the Game
67.	Sat 09 Jul 1977 10:30pm	The Soft Skin
68.	Sat 16 Jul 1977 10:00pm	Jules and Jim
69.	Sat 23 Jul 1977 10:00pm	Beauty and the Beast ✓
70.	Sat 30 Jul 1977 10:00pm	Orpheus
71.	Sat 06 Aug 1977 10:00pm	Casque d’ or
72.	—	The Cranes Are Flying (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KBGL/10 in Pocatello on 01 Mar 1976)
24.	Sat 13 Aug 1977 10:00pm	Grand Illusion ✓ (presumably scheduled to fill in for The Cranes Are Flying)
73.	Sat 20 Aug 1977 10:00pm	The 400 Blows
74.	—	Ballad of a Soldier (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KBGL/10 in Pocatello on 08 Mar 1976)
10.	Sat 27 Aug 1977 10:00pm	Kind Hearts and Coronets (repeat, presumably to fill in for Ballad of a Soldier)
75.	—	Black Orpheus (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KENW/3 in Portales on 19 Mar 1976)
14.	Sat 03 Sep 1977 10:00pm	Last Holiday (repeat, presumably to fill in for Black Orpheus)
76.	Sat 10 Sep 1977 10:00pm	Brief Encounter
77.	—	The Passion of Joan of Arc (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KLRN/9 in San António on 28 Dec 1977))
05.	Sat 17 Sep 1977 10:00pm	Hobson’s Choice (repeat, presumably to fill in for The Passion of Joan of Arc)
78.	—	The Silence (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KHET/11 in Honolulu on 24 Feb 1978)
07.	Sat 24 Sep 1977 10:30pm	The Browning Version (repeat, presumably to fill in for The Silence)
79.	Sat 01 Oct 1977 10:00pm	Fame Is the Spur
80.	Sat 08 Oct 1977 10:00pm	Our Daily Bread ✓
81.	Sat 15 Oct 1977 10:00pm	The Maggie
82.	Sat 22 Oct 1977 10:00pm	The Servant
83.	Sat 29 Oct 1977 11:00pm	Kanal ✓
84.	Sat 05 Nov 1977 10:30pm	Knife in the Water
85.	Sat 12 Nov 1977 10:00pm	Barrier
86.	Sat 19 Nov 1977 10:00pm	Miss Julie
87.	Sat 26 Nov 1977 10:00pm	Kameradschaft ✓
88.	—	The Demi-Paradise (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on KAET/8 in Phoenix on 13 Jan 1979, on WOSU/34 in Columbus on 04 Jul 1979)
28.	Sat 03 Dec 1977 10:00pm	The Blue Angel (repeat, presumably to fill in for The Demi-Paradise) ✓
89.	Sat 10 Dec 1977 10:00pm	Forbidden Games (dubbed, at least on WGBY/57 in Springfield)
90.	—	Great Expectations (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on WGBY/12 in Springfield on 11 Mar 1978, on WPBT/2 in Miami on 11 Mar 1978, on WQED/13 in Pittsburgh on 13 Mar 1978, on KTWU/11 in Topeka on 29 May 1978, on WENH/11 in Portland ME on 17 Jun 1978. This seems to have been licensed both for “PBS Movie Theater” and for “Festival ’78.”)
27.	Sat 17 Dec 1977 10:00pm	M (repeat, presumably to fill in for Great Expectations)
91.	Sat 24 Dec 1977 10:00pm	Pandora’s Box ✓
92.	Sat 31 Dec 1977 10:00pm	The Last Laugh ✓

“PBS Movie Theater” went on hiatus at the end of 1977, but then, in the summer, the leftovers arrived.

93.	Sat 22 Jul 1978 10:00pm	The Plough and the Stars
94.	Sat 29 Jul 1978 10:00pm	As You Like It
95.	Sat 05 Aug 1978 10:00pm	Hamlet
40.	Sat 12 Aug 1978 10:00pm	Richard III (repeat)
96.	Sat 26 Aug 1978 11:00pm	Rashomon
97.	Sat 02 Sep 1978 10:00pm	Fires on the Plain
98.	Sat 09 Sep 1978 10:00pm	The Magician ✓ (I’m pretty sure this was dubbed)
99.	Sat 16 Sep 1978 10:00pm	Port of Call
“Designed to accompany 13 classic European films,” huh? Actually, there were more. Cinematic Eye was a local program in which Benjamin Dunlap offered half-hour commentaries on numerous episodes of PBS Movie Theater. Another episode, shown only in the Carolinas, concerned My Uncle Antoine!!!!! Yup. Tue 25 Apr 1978, WNTV/29, Greenville SC; Thu 20 Jul 1978, WNCS/30, Rock Hill SC;
100.	Sat 23 Sep 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Torment (dubbed) ✓
101.	Sat 23 Sep 1978 10:00pm	The Virgin Spring ✓
59.	Sat 30 Sep 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (repeat) ✓
102.	Sat 30 Sep 1978 10:00pm	Wild Strawberries ✓
41.	Sat 07 Oct 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Battleship Potemkin (piano score) (repeat) ✓
27.	Sat 14 Oct 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: M (repeat) ✓
09.	Sat 21 Oct 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Man of Aran (repeat) ✓
66.	Sat 28 Oct 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Rules of the Game (repeat)
56.	Sat 04 Nov 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Shoeshine (repeat) ✓
69.	Sat 11 Nov 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Beauty and the Beast (repeat) ✓
05.	Sat 18 Nov 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Hobson’s Choice (repeat) ✓
53.	Sat 25 Nov 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: La strada (repeat)
34.	Sat 02 Dec 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Smiles of a Summer Night (repeat)
55.	Sat 09 Dec 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: L’avventura (repeat)
68.	Sat 16 Dec 1978 10:00am	CINEMATIC EYE: Jules and Jim (repeat)
64.	—	CINEMATIC EYE: My Uncle Antoine (not shown in Albuquerque; shown on WNTV/29 in Greenville SC on 25 Apr 1978, on WNCS/30 in Rock Hill SC on 10 Jul 1978)

I wanted to see the whole series, but I saw only a few episodes, the ones I checked above. Why do I check them? Not for you. For me. As part of a memory test. I missed all the others, sometimes because daddy had other ideas, but most often because something called homework got in the way. Then there was a new series of which I have no memory, “Alan Enterprises Feature,” which replaced “PBS Movie Theater” and which, surprisingly, contained a single movie from the Janus catalogue: Sat 15 Apr 1978, Front Page Story Sat 22 Apr 1978, Cry the Beloved Country Sat 29 Apr 1978, David & Lisa Sat 06 May 1978, The Mark Sat 13 May 1978, Crazy Quilt Sat 20 May 1978, Wee Geordie Sat 27 May 1978, The Belles of St. Trinian’s Sat 03 Jun 1978, Pure Hell at St. Trinian’s Sat 10 Jun 1978, Battle of the Sexes Sat 17 Jun 1978, The Wrong Arm of the Law Sat 24 Jun 1978, Billy Liar Sat 01 Jul 1978, Shameless Old Lady Sat 08 Jul 1978, The Winslow Boy Sat 15 Jul 1978, (NOT ANNOUNCED) Fri 21 Jul 1978, The Balcony Fri 28 Jul 1978, Shoot the Piano Player (JANUS FILMS) The Janus films were not normally available to television, but yet a few had been shown in years past, notably on a series called “Film Odyssey,” which began in January 1972 and ran for several years. (More info here and here.) A highlight of the “Film Odyssey” series was Battleship Potemkin, or just plain old Potemkin as it was then called. It premièred on Friday, 24 March 1972, with Arthur Kleiner’s reconstruction of the recently rediscovered Edmund Meisel score. The music was played by the Los Ángeles Chamber Orchestra, down to being 15-piece for that performance, at the KCET studio, and was heard only on “Film Odyssey” twice in the US and later on BBC2 in the UK in December 1974 and then ZDF in Germany in January 1978. The music was played to MoMA’s 16mm print. Four broadcasts and then it vanished. That music would scare anybody half to death. I did not care for the movie, and I still don’t care for that movie. Cold, harsh, entirely impersonal, brash, lies lies lies lies and propaganda and more lies. The Tsarists were a bunch of murderous maniacs, yes, but the Commies were even worse. And no, in reality, there was no massacre on the steps. Please. I have zero affection for Bolshevism or Leninism or any of that other stuff, but I liked the editing. (Not much of a fan of capitalism either, I must confess.) Oh yes, I really liked the editing. Fantastic editing. And that MUSIC, oh my heavens, that was MUSIC!!!!!! That was one of the greatest accompaniments in the history of the universe. I missed the first broadcast but I caught the repeat on Thursday, 28 February 1974, and, though I’m not certain, I’m pretty sure that it opened with a Janus logo. Oh what a great score. (There is an indication that the Kleiner/LACO edition was issued on 16mm in 1972. There is also an indication that Kleiner’s recording was used in the 16mm prints offered by Charles Cooper’s Contemporary Films, 8 Dickenson Road, London N8 9EN. Here is a tiny snippet, not enough to give you even the slightest idea of what the effect of the full performance was like. And LC and Harvard both have the written score. You can read a little more info here.) When Battleship Potemkin returned, this time to “PBS Movie Theater,” I was a bit wary about tuning in, because the announcement ahead of time was that the Meisel score was lost(?????), but no need to fear, because another composer, who remembered having heard it way way way back in 1926, replicated it on a piano, from memory. It wasn’t anything special. My favorite segment of the Meisel score was entirely missing from this piano version. Nonetheless, PBS tried to pass this off as the “original score.” As if. I wish I could remember the details, but, alas, I cannot, and I cannot find anything about this in the old newspapers either. I was so excited when Meisel’s score was finally issued on DVD. I raced out to get it, plopped in the disc and watched the movie, and it fell totally flat. The rendition on the Kino video is a pale, soft, lame interpretation, not rousing at all, not scary at all. Toned down, toned down to nothingness. Give me Kleiner’s performance anytime. Wow. I wish it would be properly released someday. Then, oh yes, how could I have forgotten? Beginning in April 1973 there was a 13-episode (I only count 12) series called “Humanities Film Forum” featuring a film followed by a panel and then maybe an audience Q&A? What’s more, there was a booklet. I entirely missed this series. It included the 1969 edition of Hamlet, followed by Richard III, Oliver Twist, Ballad of a Soldier, Alexander Nevsky, The Battle of Culloden, The Rise of Louis XIV, The Andersonville Trial, Umberto D., The Cranes Are Flying, Potemkin, Grand Illusion. Some of those, of course, were Janus Films releases. Mostly, what we saw on “PBS Movie Theater” were simply the standard 35mm prints that would have been booked to cinemas. There was a difference, though. At cinemas they were cropped to utter senselessness, as heads, feet, and subtitles were all lopped off to fit onto the wide screens, and the prints were pretty hammered, too. What PBS showed were fine telecine transfers of brand-new 35mm prints, fresh from the lab. Local stations were given the choice of capturing and broadcasting either the subtitled editions or the dubbed editions. For this “PBS Movie Theater” series, some of the Bergman films were given English dubs for the first time. (I don’t remember where I read that, and now I cannot locate that reference. Darn!) Channel 5, thank heaven, chose the subtitled editions — well, usually. Though Janus put its subtitles right down at the bottom, scraping the frameline, the subtitles were always visible even on the worst overscanning TV sets. How? The article below reveals that PBS obtained prints without subtitles and added their own with a Chiron. Ahhh. I assume, also, that some of the prints were windowboxed, but that’s just my assumption. I do remember being surprised every time by how much of the image came through on our awful overscanning TV sets. Ooooo. I just now remembered something. The English Chiron subtitles for Kameradschaft were placed onto a dupe of a French-subtitled print. The English Chiron subtitles fit the TV screen easily. The earlier French subtitles were largely lost off the bottom of the screen, since they scraped the bottom of the .6796"×.825" frame, which was taller than what TV rules permitted. Christopher Sarson, huh? He seems still to be amongst us. How can I reach him? Help? PBS must have shot out the entire two-year package of movies over a satellite in a marathon run at the beginning of 1976, blasting them out for local stations to capture the whole batch in one swell foop. Some local stations began to show these movies prior to the start of the “PBS Movie Theater” series. Prior to the launch of the “PBS Movie Theater” series, there was a local public-TV broadcast of Metropolis in Boston in July 1976. Ditto over at WGBY Channel 57 in Springfield, Massachusetts, at about the same time. Ditto with WTIU Channel 30 in Indianapolis in August 1976. In NYC, WNET Channel 13 rolled the “PBS Movie Theater” offerings into an ongoing local series called “Cinema 13,” and so “Cinema 13” broadcast the BBC2/PBS/Jahnke/Fitzwater/Davies Metropolis on Saturday, 10 July 1976, at 9:00pm; on Sunday, 11 July 1976, at 4:30pm; on Tuesday, 20 July 1976, at 1:00pm; on Saturday, 4 September 1976, at 9:30pm; on Wednesday, 15 December 1976, at 11:00pm; and on Tuesday, 28 June 1977, at 2:00pm. Now it’s time for a personal anecdote. In middle school and high school, probably everybody who knew me even a little bit knew that I was the sole lunatic who actually liked silent films. That made me, effectively, the village idiot. The other kids mocked silents as overacted, exaggerated, childish, speeded-motion antiques that only retards could possibly enjoy. When they said such things, I realized they had never seen a silent movie, except for maybe the occasional clip on a TV show. The silent movies I knew were not overacted or exaggerated or childish at all, and the speeded motion, I knew, was in many cases the fault of modern projection. When I would try to set the others right, they would shoot me down in an instant. Then, when I was in eleventh grade, a bunch of my classmates decided to get an easy A by taking an easy-peasy course on film history. I didn’t bother. The idea of watching mature movies with a bunch of immature teens did not set right with me, especially if the movies would be spread over three days, interspersed with lectures and pop quizzes and finals and whatnot. The idea sounded too repulsive to consider. Movies do not belong in a classroom any more than calculus instruction belongs in a cinema. Then, to my surprise, the kids were really impressed by what their teacher was showing them, 30 or 40 minutes at a time, over three days. It was something called Metropolis. They were totally wowed by it, and now the tables were turned, for they were all raving to me about what a great silent movie it was. I had not seen it. I wanted to see it. I finally would see it a few months later — on PBS, and when I saw it, I was speechless. You see, these teens who mocked the overacting and exaggeration and childishness of silents had been mesmerized by the most overacted, exaggerated, childish silent movie I had yet seen. Different educational stations ran “PBS Movie Theater” on different nights, but Albuquerque and Atlanta, Georgia, were almost exactly in sync. On KNME Channel 5 in Albuquerque, we got Metropolis only once, at 10:00 on Saturday night, 21 May 1977. It was a bizarre broadcast, and I am only just now learning what it was I saw that night. Before proceeding, you need to know what a quad is. It was an early videotape, quadruplex, put on the market in 1956, largely phased out by the early 1980’s. Here is a quad: Click to play. Getting a 2" Quad Videotape to Play Dave Sieg, https://youtu.be/rYOvM8l3nMY If YouTube disappears this video, download it. It’s pretty amazing that Larry Oldham got this reel to play. Quads are notorious for degrading oh so quickly and oh so hopelessly. Only if you’re curious: Here’s a dream job. So, do you still think the factory scenes in Metropolis are really that far off base? Okay, you watched that video, yes? All the way through? Good! Now, you’re wondering about something. A reel of tape holds only an hour of video. So, what happens when the program is longer than an hour? Easy! You need multiple machines. When one reel of videotape comes to an end, the next machine automatically starts the next reel and takes over. The transition, though, was not seamless. I got a kick out of watching those change-overs: Note how the image and sound pause in mid-action in the change-over from tape 1 to tape 2. Then, in the mid-action change-over from tape 2 to tape 3, there is not only a pause, but the image breaks up as well. Nobody ever noticed. Except for me, of course. But, apart from me, nobody ever noticed. Once again, though the edition that PBS had on offer was far superior to any other available edition, significantly more complete than any print available to cinemas or to film societies or even to film archives or museums, there was not a peep about it in the publicity. Why not? Well, you know how it is when you have no evidence at all, zero evidence, a whole lotta nada, and you puzzle over events and you get headaches and you toss and turn at night and get irritable and can’t concentrate on anything else? You know how that is, yes? And then, like a bolt of lightning, the explanation just hits you? Even though you have zero physical evidence, zero testimony, zero rumors, zero documentation, it just dawns on you exactly what happened? Yeah? That just happened to me. The situation in the US was different from the situation in the UK. In the UK, the publicists were at a loss when supplied with truthful information, and so they ignored it. In the US, nobody knew that there was a difference. Nobody knew that there was any news to report. All that the bureaucrats knew was that there was a contractual stipulation (engineered by Christopher Sarson?) that required a showing of the tape supplied by BBC2, a stipulation that forbade any other source from being used. Nobody thought to ask why. Nobody cared. And so nobody knew. What the accountants understood was that this was the one movie in the series that did not require a new print, because the BBC had already done all the work for them. Phew. One less expense; one less thing to worry about. After all, these were suit-and-tie executive bureaucrats with salaries twelve times higher than yours or mine and with pension plans that would ensure a century of upkeep on their mansions in the Hamptons. They couldn’t care a fig about anything artistic or technical or historical, and they would NEVER want to be bothered with details. Details are for peasants. The BBC2 converted its three-reel PAL tape master to NTSC and airmailed the result to PBS in early 1976. PBS immediately shot it out by satellite to educational stations that had paid for a license, and the local stations captured the transmission on quad tapes and held those tapes for later broadcast. After the final broadcasts, they wiped the tapes for reuse or discarded the tapes, and that was that, and nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody at PBS realized what they had all just done. And nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody at Janus Films realized what they had all just agreed to. The two or three people at Janus who had any dealings with this transmission just put their signatures at the bottom of a triplicate form that was notarized and countersigned and initialed by some lawyers, and then they received a payment, which is all they cared about, and nobody realized what act they had all just committed. Nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody at PBS and nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody at Janus realized that they had all just shot out a superior edition of the film, a superior edition that was 1,000 film feet longer than Janus’s own edition, a superior edition that made more sense, a superior edition that had a more thoughtful soundtrack. Nobody thought to check the BBC2 tape against Janus’s 35mm film version. Never crossed anybody’s mind. Never crossed anybody’s mind to check the running time against Janus’s running time. If you had phoned PBS or Janus to quiz the folks there on why the broadcast edition was so monumentally different from the 35mm Janus print showing at your neighborhood mom-and-pop cinema, chances are that the PBS staff and/or Janus staff at the other end of the line would have thought you were on drugs and would have hung up on you. Nobody knew. Nobody knew, and nobody cared. Totally maddening but oh so typical. Now that I’m collecting more vintage Janus catalogues, though, I see something. Somebody whispered something to somebody who whispered it to somebody who whispered it to somebody, and so the copy-editor made a “correction” in the 1977 catalogue: The running time for Metropolis was changed from “94 Minutes“ to “120 Minutes.“ Then, for the 1978 catalogue, it was changed back to 94. So, some tiny bit of corrupted and misunderstood info seeped in to HQ but was quickly routed out, minus an investigation. Did you happen to record this PBS broadcast of Metropolis? Do you still have the tape? Is it complete, from the opening Exxon credit and the “PBS Movie Theater” series intro and titles through to the final fade-out? Are the image and sound good? If so, let’s talk. I’ll pay you $200 for the tape or for a good .MOV or .MP4 file of it.

When I watched the films in this “PBS Movie Theater” series, I recognized that they were the same as the editions that Janus released to cinemas. So, when I saw Metropolis, I assumed it was the same as the prints that Janus shipped out to cinemas. My assumption was wrong, for there were two exceptions to the rule, namely, Metropolis and Pandora’s Box. Actually, there were three exceptions, for Nosferatu was a special expanded reconstruction unavailable anywhere else. It was slowed down a bit, I think, and it lasted nearly 90 minutes. I would love to see that again, but where in the heck is it? Where did it come from and where did it go? Metropolis and Pandora’s Box drove me batty for years, because when I later saw them at cinemas and on home video, they were radically different from what I had seen on Channel 5. It took me eight years to trace down that peculiar edition of Pandora’s Box and it took me 36 years to trace down that peculiar edition of Metropolis. I now have defective copies of both. One of the most immediately noticeable differences is the speed. There has been too much guesswork about the speed. You can download the two clips I have on this web page and run them frame by frame. If you do that, you will see something. For the PBS transmission, the 50Hz PAL video was converted to 60Hz NTSC by means of yet more frame blending. No video frame (raster) equals exactly one film frame. Everything is a blend. Nonetheless, we can detect enough to discern 20 distinct film frames over the course of 30 rasters, and that, I think, is definitive: 20fps. Local stations that purchased the “PBS Movie Theater” series also obtained an automatic license to repeat these programs “until September 1979.” So, even after the “PBS Movie Theater” series came to an end, KERA Channel 13 in Dallas, TX, and KCPQ Channel 13 in Tacoma, WA, repeated Metropolis on Sunday, 15 January 1978. WDCN Channel 8 in Nashville, TN: Saturday, 25 March 1978. WRLK Channel 35 in Columbia, SC: Saturday, 9 September 1978. KCET Channel 28 in Los Ángeles broadcast it twice more, on the midnight of Friday/Saturday, 1/2 September 1978 and then again on Sunday night, 10 December 1978. It was the 10 December 1978 broadcast that Ted Obrien recorded on his VHS machine. In early 2013, in exchange for another video, he kindly sent me a DVD-R of the PBS Fitzwater/Davies edition of the movie, together with a DVD-R of the “Harry Davidson print,” which he understandably but wrongly thought was an American print that was found in Australia. ted obrien 1212 Tullibee Rd Rodeo, CA 94572-1621 Dear Ranjit, A bit about the discs. The BBC I recorded myself off KCET using a dish powered UHF roof antenna & brand new VCR. I held onto the tape for 35 years. Remember the last 3 minutes are the Janus bastardized version. BBC was made from a German print translated into English. Australian was an original American negative. They are completely different movies. BBC sound is a little low by today’s standards. Please use an amplifier & big speakers & play loud! Both are natural speed. The Australian version was the basis of the Moroder version.    I would ask that you please do not copy these discs. If anybody shows any interest, kindly refer them to me. I will offer the same easy terms. I ask this as a gentleman so I can get a few movies in return. Thx do as I do; run both movies side by side on 2 TVs. You’ll be amazed. Best. Ted 2/13 The disc has now rotted. Ted has now passed away. Well, I learned about Wondershare, which was only partly successful and would still not play the file. Fortunately, courtesy of VLC’s “Always fix damaged or incomplete AVI file” function, I was at last able to repair the file sufficiently to play, though with very messy picture and sound for four minutes, and later with a one-minute gap in the audio. Always sumpn. A fellow collector, though, came to the rescue and sent me a replacement file. Yay! Also, Ted did not record the last three minutes of the movie! Why? The TV log announced it as a two-hour movie, and so I’m sure Ted simply plopped a T-120 into his VCR, not realizing that he really needed a T-130. For those of you who might not remember, VHS tapes held about three minutes extra, just in case. So, a T-120 tape would really last about 123 minutes, and that exactly matches the problem we have at hand. I remember back in those days when the VCR was the spiteful king, nay, even the pitiless king. I would notice that the timer on the front of my machine was already past the 2:00 mark but the movie was nowhere close to wrapping up. Oh that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Ted surely recorded the 10 December 1978 broadcast, which was the very last repeat in Southern California. Oh how I wish someone would reissue this BBC2/PBS edition of the movie. Yes, it’s outdated and obsolete, but a whole bunch of us really like it and would pay good money for it. Oh my heavens. I got curious again. How many reels is Eckart Jahnke’s edition, and where are the reel changes placed? Everything surprised me. Now, I have run a few prints imported from Europe, and this is what I learned from them. Unlike the practice in North America, Europeans ship films on 1000' cores, and, with probably the sole exception of Italian prints, each core ends with lab cues, which have almost no slop factor. The first cue tells the projectionist to start the motor of the next machine, and the second cue tells the projectionist to kill the old machine and go live with the new one. In North America, the second cue comes about one second before the last frame of the reel. Europeans have no such luxury. European projectionists need to have reflexes as fast as lightning, because the second cue comes a third of a second or less before the last frame of the core. With me so far? Okay, good. Because now it gets confusing. Silent movies did not have cue marks. Through about 1923, each reel of a silent film ended with a title that filled the screen, and the following reel opened with a different title that filled the screen: “END OF PART ONE,” “PART TWO,” “END OF PART TWO,” “PART THREE,” and so on and so on and so on. That practice mostly stopped in 1924, when films began to arrive with cue sheets: “When Myrtle picks up the dog, start the motor,” “When the dog jumps out of her arms, change over.” A rival method was to have each reel change occur in the middle of a title. So the instruction would be that when you see a title that reads, “MYRTLE REACHES THE END OF THE ROAD,” it was time to change to the next reel. Yet another method, which I just learned about, and which is the method that Buster Keaton seems to have used, was simply to expect the projectionists to draw dots on the upper right corner with a grease pencil. Got it? Simple? Good. Now we get complicated. This is Psychology 101. These are projectionists. I have been a projectionist. I have worked with projectionists. It is safe to say that most projectionists are not towering intellectual giants. Projectionists could not be bothered to follow cue sheets. They could not be bothered to rely on grease pencils, which show up as dark blotches that they might not see. So that is not what projectionists did. Projectionists would get out knives and razor blades and slash diagonal marks clear across the frame. Or they would purchase those infernal cue markers, which would deface the film by scratching circles into the emulsion. Or they would actually punch holes right through the film. Since many projectionists distrust the previous projectionist’s work, they do not even check to see if it was done properly, and so they would just scratch more circles in themselves, or more slash marks, or more holes, and then they would add in grease pencils just to make sure. Got it? Good. So, Eckart Jahnke did not put lab cues on Metropolis. It was a silent film and he was optimistic enough to think that projectionists knew what they were doing. Bad mistake. By the time BBC2 received the film, it had been scratched and slashed and punched and scribbled upon a multitude of times. These defacements are invaluable, because they teach us things. We can see that, even though Eckart’s edition of the movie was a full reel longer than the standard 9-reel edition, he kept it at 9 reels by the simple expedient of cramming more than 1000' into each of the cans. Also, some projectionists got confused. They combined the 1000' cores onto larger reels, 2000' or perhaps even larger, and when they cut the film apart again to wind it back onto cores to ship it back out, they didn’t bother to find the original joins, but cut the reels apart in different places. Do you begin to understand why, after some years, I despaired of projection work? I am ultramellow, unflappable — until I have to clean up after other people’s slipshod work. That’s pretty much the only thing in the world that makes me lose my temper. It makes me scream at people, people who literally do not have the intellectual capacity to understand what set me off and who conclude that I belong in a straightjacket. It makes me hyperventilate. It makes me grind my teeth in my sleep. It’s not good for my health. Anyway, back to projection. Shall we examine the reel changes? Yes? All timings and footages below are approximate. Note that nearly every core/reel is a bit above 1000', which is okay, because 1000' cans all have a little extra breathing space, just in case. You will notice that most of the reel changes occur just where they do in the MoMA, BFI, and Nordwestdeutscher editions. You will notice that a projectionist cut the end of Reel 2 short, which is why there is no second cue. You will notice that a projectionist split Reel 3 from Reel 4 in the wrong place and that the next projectionist then wrongly cued it, which is why there are two sets of cues and two joins rather than one. You will notice that a projectionist wrongly split Reel 5 from Reel 6 in mid-shot rather than between shots. Click on each link to bear witness. REEL @ 20FPS FOOTAGE CHANGE-OVER 1 14:33 1091' End 1, Start 2 2 13:36 1020' End 2, Start 3 3 13:36 1020' End 3, Start 4 4 15:18 1148' End 4, Start 5 5 14:31 1089' End 5, Start 6 6 14:07 1059' End 6, Start 7 7 14:31 1089' End 7, Start 8 8 14:23 1079' End 8, Start 9 9 11:31 864' – Continue to Chapter 34, July 1977: The Janus Edition Comes to Albuquerque