Classic Movies on CBS All Access

We picked up CBS All Access to watch the new Star Trek shows, which are worth the price of the service by themselves, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the classic movie offerings in their library. Streaming services have not generally been interested in the classic film audience, and those that specifically catered to us met premature ends for not raking in as much money as the owners wanted (Alas, Warner Archive and Filmstruck, our time together was too brief). CBS All Access might avoid the fates of those services since it offers exclusive new shows like Star Trek: Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks and other more recent feature films, but it has the ability to give classic movie fans some great content as it launches its new Paramount Plus name in 2021 with a massive expansion of the available titles. Right now, though, you can get a taste of the pleasures that might be on the horizon by sampling the classic movies CBS All Access already has in its catalog.

Now owned by ViacomCBS, Paramount Pictures goes way back to the silent era, with a full century of movies in its vaults. That means that classic movie fans could get easy access to a lot of lesser gems from the golden age of Hollywood, including the Bulldog Drummond series of the 30s, the Hopalong Cassidy films, and the Hope and Crosby road pictures, not to mention big hits from director Preston Sturges, the classic noir genre, and dozens of great comedies, Westerns, and dramas. A quick perusal of the movies made by Paramount over the decades shows the depth and breadth of the titles that could be made available as the service seeks to increase subscribers by opening the treasure chest of offerings.

Early signs indicate that Paramount Plus WILL open that chest, even if classic movies aren't its core content. In the first place, it has too much good material not to use it, and, in the second place, some of those goodies are already on its current CBS All Access service. You can watch the 1927 silent hit, Wings, which won the First Oscar for Best Picture, or catch Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March in The Desperate Hours (1955). Sunset Blvd (1950), Sabrina (1954), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943), That Touch of Mink (1962), Father Goose (1964), and Teacher's Pet (1958) are also in the current library. With many of Hollywood's most iconic classic stars in its pictures, Paramount Plus can be sure that its older movies will appeal to casual viewers of the classics as well as diehard fans. You don't have to live and breath classic movies to appreciate Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn!

While Netflix continues to dominate the streaming market, it has zero interest in satisfying the tastes of our niche of viewers, and Amazon Prime can be very difficult to navigate when it has multiple bad prints of public domain films dumped into its catalog and a smattering of quality classics mixed in without a grouped category to make them easy to find. (I can spend HOURS hunting through Amazon in the hope of finding a decent print of a movie on Prime, and most of the time I don't have much luck.) Lately I've stopped trying to find something on the other services because CBS All Access has been more than happy to offer me a nice collection of classic movies that I can enjoy. I am hopeful that the relaunch in 2021 will bring me lots of options and make Paramount Plus the streaming service I know it has the library to become.

(PS - If you already have CBS All Access, go watch That Touch of Mink immediately! It's a delightful comedy with an absolutely adorable performance from Doris Day.)

The End of FilmStruck

For the last six months my movie watching and review writing have been severely curtailed due to pressing work on other efforts, but I always comforted myself with the thought that FilmStruck would be there waiting for me after November 6 passed. Now, alas, the cruel corporate gods at AT&T have declared that FilmStruck is to end this month, and my comforting hope has evaporated. I only have two weeks left to enjoy the best movie streaming service ever to grace my television with its presence, and I can't seem to get through my long watchlist fast enough.

Originally I had doubts about FilmStruck because they seemed more interested in being an art house service than one with a robust catalog of classics, but once they teamed up with TCM they really took off as a platform for serious classic film fans. It was an especially welcome pairing to me because I love TCM but don't watch it at home, where we don't have cable. I was also annoyed by their lack of availability on Roku during their early rollout, but I signed up as soon as that became an option. Once I started using FilmStruck, I fell in love with its ever expanding catalog and delightful curation of spotlight collections.

When FilmStruck leaves us, we'll be stuck with the lame offerings of Hulu and Netflix once again, and many of the movies I enjoy won't be available except as expensive made-to-order DVDs. I don't know where Criterion will go with its films, given that it ended its partnership with Hulu to move over to FilmStruck (and thus made Hulu practically useless except for watching Saturday Night Live without the commercials). Many actors and film directors are joining with fans to call for FilmStruck to be saved, but I doubt AT&T cares, which means that this holiday season is one that the Grinch is stealing from classic movie lovers. It's going to be a blue Christmas for all of us when we watch our last Lon Chaney silent or Ernst Lubitsch comedy at the end of November, and I'm thinking of telling my in-laws that I'm sick just so I can stay home on Thanksgiving and watch movies all day instead of putting up with small talk over the turkey.

With so many movies and only two weeks left, I'm trying to concentrate my viewing time on the hardest to find films, things I haven't seen before and am unlikely to be able to see another way. For me that means digging into the silents, especially the Chaney offerings like HE Who Gets Slapped (1924) and Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928). I'm not going to bet on any future platform being willing to give so much space to silents. Warner is reportedly going to roll out some kind of new streaming service at the end of 2019, but given the way things have gone since the end of 2016 we could all be living in a Mad Max post-apocalyptic hellscape by then.

So, fellow FilmStruck fans, what movies are on your list for the last two weeks of streaming? Offer your suggestions in the comments below!

UPDATE: Later on the same day that I made this post, Criterion announced that they will launch their own streaming platform starting in Spring 2019. This is good news for folks who particularly value the Criterion titles, although we'll have to wait to see if the now also promised upcoming Warner service will cater to the classic movie fans who were more drawn to the Warner and TCM offerings. The standalone Criterion Channel will be $11 a month, and you can sign up now to become a charter member on their website.

Movie Log for June 2018

I've been unusually busy this summer, which means that my movie viewing has been fairly limited. In spite of that, I've been enjoying the summer blockbuster fare and classics on FilmStruck, which has a wonderfully robust collection that changes frequently (the subscription is definitely worth it, so check out FilmStruck if you don't already use it!).

Because my new, unpaid "day job" is pretty stressful, I'm gravitating toward comedies more than ever, especially English ones that provide me with an escape from the concerns of the day. Filmstruck has been happy to provide exactly what I'm looking for, with Ealing comedies, Margaret Rutherford's Miss Marple films, and other light romps.

My spouse, ever eager to suggest movies that appeal more to his own tastes, has introduced some horror into the mix, which explains the presence of Found Footage 3D (although I have to say it was quite funny and worth your time if you enjoy horror comedies). Shudder continues to be our go-to streaming service for horror, although I would still like to see more silent, classic, and B horror selections there. The "Foundations of Horror" category needs more entries to live up to its name, and I'd love to have access to more Hammer and drive-in sci-fi horror.

Here's the movie log for May and June of 2018 -

May

After the Thin Man (1936)
Found Footage 3D (2016)
Another Thin Man (1939)
All This And Heaven, Too (1940)
Black Panther (2018)
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Merry Andrew (1958)
The Wicker Man (1973)

June

Julia Misbehaves (1948)
Oceans 8 (2018)
Incredibles 2 (2018)
Queen Christina (1933)
Murder, She Said (1961)
The Ladykillers (1955)
Game Night (2018)
Murder at the Gallop (1963)

What are you watching this summer? Let me know in the comments!

FilmStruck! Finally!

I'm delighted to announce that FilmStruck has finally arrived at our house. While I have been watching the development of this new streaming service since its early days, I had to wait for it to be available for Roku devices to enjoy it myself. Travel and commitment schedules made the first few months of 2018 too busy to take full advantage of the free trial period, but now that I'm finally signed up I look forward to watching lots of TCM Selects and Criterion Channel films through the long, hot summer.

I hope that FilmStruck will fill a gap that mainstream services have left yawning of late. I haven't been able to get my classic movie fix from Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. (Prime is the worst in some ways; it tantalizes and then disappoints with its muddy, unwatchable copies of public domain fare.) The spouse will also be able to watch his fill of Godzilla movies and cult horror, which ought to make him happy to pay for me to indulge in my own favorite genres.

Now that we've joined the FilmStruck family, let me know what you've been watching there and what you think I ought to add to my watchlist. It's already bursting, but there's room for more!