Forgotten Movies That Made History
As they get more expensive, widely seen and complicatedly filmed, movie milestones are getting hit all the time. Usually, they’re the movies you’d expect: the blockbusters that sweep all the awards and land on top 10 lists for years to come. Sometimes, though, a little nothing movie can show up, make history and leave before anyone notices.
Rock & Rule
1983’s Rock & Rule was notable for two things: 1) somehow snagging voice talents like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Debbie Harry; and 2) having suspiciously good animation for a low-budget Canadian cartoon. In fact, the tale of nuclear rat-like creatures using rock music to summon the forces of evil was the first animated movie to use CGI. Unfortunately, none of that helped it to recoup even a fraction of its budget at the box office.
Able Edwards
By 2004, we had an entire Lord of the Rings series, so it’s surprising that Able Edwards was the first movie to be filmed entirely in front of green screens with no physical sets. It was mostly an experiment on the part of director Graham Robertson, who wanted to see if he could “get a green wall, get some actors, scan some photographs to use as backgrounds (sets) and shoot a ‘big budget’-looking film for no dollars.” The end result was an update on Citizen Kane about the clone of a thinly veiled Walt Disney type of character, but thankfully, that part wasn’t really important.
Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees
Online streaming is the primary method of home viewing today, but it was considered sci-fi nonsense until 1991, when Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees became the first movie streamed over the internet. It was a documentary by artist David Blair that combined “digital animation, found footage and live action” to criticize the Gulf War and “current-day drone warfare” and also featured William S. Burroughs. The internet was an even weirder place back then.
Bound for Glory
Bound for Glory, a bizarrely fictionalized biopic of Woody Guthrie as played by David Carradine, was actually pretty widely seen and acclaimed at the time. It was even nominated for Best Picture at the 1977 Academy Awards, though it only won Best Cinematography, which is unsurprising, as it was the first movie filmed with Steadicam technology. In fact, it was probably the only nominee for Best Picture that year that you haven’t heard of, going up against All the President’s Men, Network, Taxi Driver and the winner, Rocky. The box office was simply too crowded with quality.
Distant Drums
Distant Drums was a 1951 western starring Gary Cooper that earned mixed reviews and passable box office numbers and is mostly remembered today for being horrifically racist and historically inaccurate. Well, that and being the source of the Wilhelm scream, possibly the single most recognizable sound effect in movie history. It just goes to show that even the grossest parts of Hollywood history don’t have to be completely useless as long as we strip the best parts clean of any context whatsoever.