Taken for a Ride, and a few more films

NEVERENDING
FILM FESTIVAL
#212  [archive]
NOV. 11, 2023

Taken for a Ride (1996)
Streaming free 

I'm an enthusiast for public transit. As I've often said, everyone buying two tons of steel and glass is simply not a sustainable transportation plan. It's helped bring us to the looming collapse of what's quaintly called 'western civilization'.

The National City Lines scandal is an aspect of this that most people are only peripherally aware of.

If you saw the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, you might remember that old-time Los Angeles had a fabulous streetcar system that went virtually everywhere in the metroplex. The movie's bad guys bought the streetcar company in order to shut it down, so people would need to buy cars and oil and build freeways instead. What Roger Rabbit forgot to say was, it's based on a true story.

In 1936, acting through proxy companies to keep things cloaked, General Motors established a new business called National City Lines (NCL). Also backed by Standard Oil, Mack Trucks, Phillips Petroleum, and Firestone Tire, NCL took control of numerous privately-owned transit systems all across America, simply to shut them down.

Clean, cheap, reliable streetcars were replaced with soot-belching city buses that run far less frequently and more slowly. 

This documentary from PBS delves into the NCL scandal, and if any of the above is news to you, you should watch Taken for a Ride.

The filmmakers talk with old people (doubtless dead now) who were there as all this happened. Workers remember seeing their 'Rolls Royce' transit system obliterated, and an NCL exec admits that shutting the streetcars down was always the only plan.

NCL lost a lawsuit over it, so all this is factual, but there's also the argument that cars were becoming more and more popular anyway, so we would've lost America's streetcar infrastructure with or without GM's nefarious plot. I've been on the fence about that for long enough that the fenceposts are drawing blood out of my butt, but this line from fabulously bald former San Francisco Mayor Joe Alioto resonates:

"I cannot accept the argument that rapid-transit systems broke down because of their complete inefficiency to serve the public, because the experience of western Europe and Japan belies that argument. ...

"If it is true that the streetcar companies were breaking down of their own weight, why was it necessary for General Motors to join with Standard Oil and the [Firestone] tire company to go in and buy the systems and tear up the tracks?"

Other than that succinct quote and a new love for Alioto, I didn't get much from the film, but that's because of my head start — I've always gobbled up info on public transit. Heck, I've been aware of the NCL scandal since before Roger Rabbit.

Only half of the documentary is about NCL. After that, it's an overview of the disaster that followed — freeways and cars everywhere — which is also worth watching, and mourning over.

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦

The Decorator (1965)
Streaming free 

Bette Davis stars as The Decorator, in this unsold pilot for a 1960s TV show that never was. 

She plays a lady known simply as 'Liz', who's perhaps a drunk, certainly sleeps late a lot, insists she's never wrong, and works as an expensive interior decorator. For the 'wacky' element required of any TV sitcom, Liz insists on moving in with her clients, sharing their homes while redesigning them. 

In this one and only episode, the client is a loud-talking big-hatted Oklahoma oil king played by guest star Ed Begley. Dub Taylor plays a cab driver.

I laughed several times — TV-size laughs, yeah, but this is far superior to an average sixties sit-com. No sale, though. No show. Bette Davis was too big for television.

The Designer was co-written by Cy Howard (The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) and Mart Crowley (The Boys in the Band).

Most importantly, though, it was uploaded to YouTube by Tom Yaz, who added his own 'Video posted by Tom Yaz' opening credits and emblazoned his name, Tom Yaz, in the corner all through the show.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

The Making of Reflections of Evil (2002)
Streaming free

This is a slight but enjoyable film, 21 minutes, that never names itself. The title was my idea.

Thad Vassmer, a more ordinary independent filmmaker, tagged along for a few days while gonzo movie artist Damon Packard was creating the awesome and excellent Reflections of Evil. Vassmer tries to comprehend what he sees, and the background footage is fun. 

Best of all, there's an unforgivably brief interview with Packard that provides a glimpse of the master:

Mr Vassmer: "What would you say to filmmakers watching this? What can they learn from you?"

Mr Packard: "Nothing. They can learn that it's a completely monumental waste of time, the making of film. I would say to all the filmmakers out there, who are getting into film, or have been into film for a long time, that you are wasting your time, beyond anything you could imagine. If you want to waste your time and money and go through hell and have it absolutely not result in anything, then make a film, because that's exactly what's going to happen. I can tell you that right now."

Verdict: YES.

11/11/2023   

• • • Coming attractions • • •

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) 
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

... plus occasional schlock and surprises 

    • • • But wait, there's more  • • •

Alexander Nevsky (1938)
The Bat People (1974)
Berkeley in the Sixties (1990)
Brainwaves (1983)
Cellular (2004) 
The Dark Glow of the Mountains (1985)
Dark Star (1974)
The Day My Parents Became Cool (2009)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1980)
Downsizing (2017)
Frankenhooker (1990)
The General (1926)
Get Shorty (1995)
Hugo (2011)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1952)
The Internet's Own Boy (2014)
Line of Duty (debut episode; 2012)
Love Happy (1950)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
The Man Who Thought Life (1969)
The Man with Nine Lives (1940)
Not Wanted (1949)
Nothing But a Man (1964)
Phone Booth (2002)
PickAxe (1999)
Poison (1990)
Revelations (1993)
Ride in the Whirlwind (1966)
Romper Stomper (1992)
Room Service (1938)
Same Kind of Different as Me (2017)
Saved! (2004)
Scared to Death (1947)
Secret Weapons (1985)
The Shooting (1966)
The Soloist (2009)
The Train (1964)
Welcome to New Orleans (2006)
Who Farted? (2019)
Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

There are so many good movies out there — old movies, odd or artsy, foreign or forgotten movies, or do-it-yourself movies made just for the joy of making them — that if you only watch whatever's on Netflix or playing at the twenty-plex, you're missing out.

To get beyond the ordinary, I recommend:

Alter • Cineverse • Criterion • CultCinema Classics • DocsVille • Dust • Fandor • Films for Action • Hoopla • IHaveNoTV • IndieFlix • Internet Archive • Kanopy • KinoCult • Kino Lorber • Korean Classic Film • Christopher R Mihm • Mosfilm • Mubi • National Film Board of Canada • New Yorker Screening Room • Damon Packard • Mark Pirro • PizzaFlix • PopcornFlix • Public Domain Movies • RareFilmm • Scarecrow Video • Shudder • ThoughtMaybe • Timeless Classic Movies • VoleFlix • WatchDocumentaries • or your local library. 

Some people even access films through shady methods, though of course, that would be wrong.

— — —

Illustration by Jeff Meyer. Reviews are spoiler-free, or at least spoiler-warned. Click any image to enlarge. Arguments & recommendations are welcome, but no talking once the lights dim, and only real butter on the popcorn, not that fake yellow stuff. 

 

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