10 Films That Had An Impact On Me

It was one of those innocuous messages on Facebook challenging me to something.  Typically I ignore these, but since Film is my THING, I decided to participate.

It came from a challenge by my friend Andrew Villone who used to be a co-worker of mine until he spirited his Russian bride to Slovenia and became a tour guide operator.

He was featured on “House Hunters International.”  Season 73, episode 6 to be exact:

https://www.hgtv.com/shows/house-hunters-international/episodes/not-too-fast-not-too-slovenia

Here was his challenge:

I was challenged by Andrew Villone to post just an image - no posters, no title, - from 10 movies that had an impact on me.

Each day I will nominate new people to take the challenge and the nominee can take challenge if he or she wishes so. No pressure. :-) 10 days, 10 movie images, 10 nominations.

I shall nominate "Parasite" for Best Picture.

I dove in as I typically do and tossed the nomination to my son Nick right off the bat and I posted a photo of one of my favorite and often forgotten about films:

“Nickelodeon”

No.  Not the kid network.

“Nickelodeon” had an impact on me as it was a film tribute of how movies were made back in the 1910s.  The fighting between Thomas Edison and his Patents Group who thought, mostly correctly, that people were stealing their technology (as basic as it was back then) to make films.

Burt Reynolds plays a man hired by the Patents Group to scuttle a film that is currently being made by Ryan O’Neal and a handful of actors.  When he doesn’t succeed, he’s pulled into the group as a leading man.  After the film has a modicum of success, the group gets hired by a regular film company and then broken into pieces to make quick and dirty films for money.

Peter Bogdanovich’s film painstakingly recreates the time when these films were made and how.  Certainly there are some liberties here and there but with Bogdanovich always being a student of film – I suspect that he wanted to go with quite a bit of realism to go along with the comedy.

The first film down, I wondered about my next movie and I looked no further than “Ikiru.”

Part of the fun of these challenges is to find those films that other people might not know about and might want to search out.

I watched “Ikiru” as part of a challenge a friend and I did to watch all the movies in a Janus collection.  It was a great find and something that was truly amazing.  Directed by Akira Kurosawa, this was known as his “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

The story is about a longtime government worker who wants to have a park built in his neighborhood but keeps running into red tape after red tape after red tape.  As depressing as that might sound it’s actually pretty hopeful and sweet.

Moving on to my 3^rd film – this movie scared the crap out of me when I was a child – and this scene in particular.

The movie was “War of the Worlds” and a movie I must have watched on TV as it came out in 1953.  I’m sure I’ve seen it in a theatre since then, but when the alien creature puts its hand on the woman’s shoulder?  I about pissed my pants.

Great film, great in color, and great to scare any kid about an alien invasion from Mars.

Now onto film number 4, I would call this my first REAL Western and a movie that came out in 1971 (when I was 7).  It was my older brother’s favorite and it soon became mine and for a film rated “G” it had a bunch of stuff that a young boy would like:  Hangings, chopped off fingers, rattle snake bites, “General Sterling Price,” and John Wayne yelling:  “FILL YOUR HANDS YOU SONOFABITCH!”

It’s also a film with some great casting that included Glen Campbell, John Wayne, Kim Darby, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall.

Now it was day 4 and I decided to pump the brakes a bit.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t come up with more films, that was the easy part it was that I wanted to come up with films that had a DEEPER impact on me.

A deep cut, if you will.

I could certainly trot out “Star Wars,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” “The Big Fix” and probably a dozen others - but I had talked about those in previous challenges such as these and many who knew me already know I’m a fan of those films and how they changed me/influenced me…

…but I had to switch this up, and I did.

The challenge said 10 films.  Not 10 FEATURE length films.  Or 10 OSCAR WINNING films.  Nope.  10 films that had an impact.  Here are the other six and how they had an impact on me.

The fifth film was a movie called “The Doughnuts.”

I saw this movie in elementary school.  Every so often the teacher would take us into the library which had a separate room for showing movies on 16mm film stock.

With a bunch of kids, the films couldn’t be too long or too boring and this one fit the bill.

Based on a Homer Price story by Robert McClosky, “The Doughnuts” was about a young kid working at a donut shop.  Simple enough.

There’s a new donut machine that automatically makes donuts and when the machine goes haywire, it starts making TOO MANY donuts!

What to do, what to do?

Well, you gotta sell those donuts and soon they’re selling like hotcakes (or donut cakes).

When a wealthy woman comes in to buy some her diamond bracelet falls off into the batter and now one of these thousand donuts has her bracelet cooked inside it.

From the book:

From the movie:

This was a fun and silly movie but one that certainly had an impact on me.

Staying in elementary school, we also watched my sixth movie:  “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

This film, as I remember, was shown in a portable just off the playground at my elementary school.  I even want to think it was summer – or getting near there.  We probably saw it on an early video-tape – some giant monstrosity and why I remember all this silly detail, I do not know.

It’s actually a short French film that was incorporated into a Twilight Zone episode.

The story, originally written by Ambrose Bierce, is about a soldier about to be hung off a bridge.  Why?  I don’t remember if we actually know.

When he is released, the rope snaps and he escapes in the water as bullets zoom past him.

He continues his escape finally returning to his home and the warm embrace of his wife…only for the rope to catch and he’s dead.  This entire “fantasy” in his brain from the moment he is released to the moment the rope catches and he’s dead.

This was an AMAZING piece of story-telling in 23 minutes and my 10/11 year-old brain was completely enraptured by it and stunned by the twist at the end.

How, in fleeting moments, you don’t know who this is but you’re rooting for his escape and you’re cheering for his love and happiness and then BOOM! it’s all a dream.  Powerful, powerful stuff and something that has stuck with me obviously forever.

The last of the Elementary school films, I bring you to “The Red Balloon.”  Number 7.

Out of all my films in this 10 film collective – this is probably the second most recognized.

Another French film, it tells a short story about a young boy who gets a red balloon that has a mind of its own.

As much as the child wants the balloon, the balloon wants him.  Even though it’s been DECADES since I’ve seen this short French film Oscar winning (best story/screenplay) film – I remember bits and pieces as if I had just seen it yesterday.

The balloon follows the boy to various activities, including church, shopping and home.  And as people try to send the balloon away, it keeps coming back to the boy.

When the balloon gets popped by some bullies near the end of the film, I remember sobbing my eyes out.  Probably one of the first films that elicited that response from me and those tears are earned.

Switching this up, we get to the next film – number 8.

This is a bit of a cheat as I can’t remember what film this is…

“Bride of Dracula?”

But this Hammer film production isn’t why this film had an impact on me…

In my Jr. High School, since torn down, the cafeteria was split into two.  One large area for tables and eating and another large area with more of an auditorium feel.  In between the two rooms was a large accordion door.  If a teacher wanted to do a large presentation, or if the principal needed to make an announcement on a larger scale – this auditorium like room was used.

Also – if they wanted to show a film to LOTS of students, this auditorium side was used.

At SOME point the school decided to show movies during lunch hour.  With a 50 minute lunch “hour” the thought was you could show half one day and half the next day and, lucky me, I was the projectionist.

As a film maker and film fan there’s really nothing more satisfying than to walk into a classroom to see the 16mm projector set up and there’s also nothing more satisfying than actually being the one to SET UP the projector, stick the reel onto the spindle, feed it through the slot, connect it to the other reel and start watching as it feeds through and around and over and under and you see “5” “4” “3” a couple dozen more frames and the picture start.  A film made up of thousands and thousands of little pictures with slots on one side and a sound strip on the other.  AND I MADE THAT HAPPEN!

When you do this, when you help set this in motion, when you can relax and watch until the reel runs out and you’ve got to rewind the film there’s a sense of satisfaction of a job well done.  I just helped present something to my fellow classmates.  And hopefully they enjoyed it.

I only remember two films they showed.  This Hammer Dracula film and “The Cross and the Switchblade.”

Staying in Jr. High, I recall what I think might have been the first real documentary I had seen – other then things on the Civil War or something (which my brother was a big fan).

This film was entitled “Dead Birds” and, if I was lucky enough, I got to run the projector.

The story, as vague as I can remember, was about a tribe in the jungles of someplace who eventually go to war with a tribe from some other place.

Here are the things I distinctly remember that had an impact on me.

1.  The men all had long wooden tubes attached to their penises.  I have no idea why and what-for.  But men being men, it’s all about size and you can see them above as they run across a field.  (And when you’re 12-13, this can elicit a giggle or two.)

2.  During one of their battles, one of the young men gets hit with an arrow or spear or something and the tribe had to repair his wound and that was quite ghastly.

And, lastly:

3.  In the preparation for a dinner they stick a piglet in the side, and it runs around the camp slowly bleeding out until it was dead.  Good times.

Extended penis sticks?  Check.  War wounds?  Check.  Bleeding out piglets?  Check.  This film had an impact on me.

The final “movie” that had an impact on me, I probably saw BEFORE I was in elementary school.  And that was the classic Warner Brothers Animated film: “Duck Amuck.”

Still, to this day, it is my favorite cartoon.

Instead of telling a traditional story, the cartoon goes out of whack as an unknown animator keeps screwing with Daffy Duck.

The artistry, the humor, the ability to redraw scenes and the absolute absurdity all held in a 7 minute cartoon is what makes this a classic.

It showed me the fun of what animation can truly be and the lengths it can go to push the limits.  Certainly films like “Fantasia” did the same thing but this was Chuck Jones brilliantness in short film form.

There!  10 films that had an impact on me.