Classic TV Shows On YouTube

One advantage to watching YouTube is the opportunity to see, in whole or in part, old 1950s and 1960s  television shows, like the police dramas The Naked City and NYPD, Johnny Staccato, a half-hour drama starring John Cassavetes, and the one-hour social-issues drama East Side/West Side*, starring George C. Scott and a young, Afro-coiffed Cicely Tyson. (Some of the shows included commercials for cigarettes and other products.)

I was also able to see several opening and closing credit sequences (along with the theme music) from Perry Mason, Route 66, 77 Sunset Strip, The Naked City, and The Twilight Zone.

It was obvious that many of these episodes were taped off the TV and posted to YouTube. The logos of the cable channels appeared in the lower right hand corner of the computer screen.


*According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows,1946-Present (Ballantine Books, 1979), the critically acclaimed East Side/West Side's "downbeat subjects proved deadly with viewers and it was dropped after a single season."

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Sarah Jessica Parker, An Actress And A Public Library Fan

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker is a fan of public libraries. (She has also started a book imprint, SJP for Hogarth.) In an interview in the March 30, 2018 issue of Entertainment Weekly, she had this to say about visiting public libraries: "[In] libraries, people have their heads down. Nobody is interested in me. It's such a wonderful place for people to disappear. There's almost no place I can think of, with the exception of a church or a temple or a mosque, that demands that kind of quiet and respect for others." I would like to know where these public library branches she has visited are located. My experience has been the opposite. I have often gotten into arguments with fellow patrons who are conversing with other patrons while I'm reading or writing on one of the library computers.

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Note: Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

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Note: According to one of my wall calendars, this is Senior Citizens's Week.

Movies Are More Important Than Upscale Amenities

Especially since the advent of television, movie theatres have tried all kinds of gimmicks to attract audiences--3-D, CinemaScope, Surround sound, Sensurround, etc. In today's super-saturated media culture, theatres are even more determined to draw audiences away from all of these distractions.

Stephen Field's column in the March 2018 issue of W42ST magazine underscores that fact. "I haven't been in a movie theater in NYC for quite a while," he admits,"and had never been to an upscale cinema before" until he discovered The Landmark at 57 West theatre in Manhattan.

Field describes the concession fare as being "a fair amount of the expected junk," but then points out the more upscale fare available such as "Two Boots pizza slices, Eisenberg Gourmet Beef Franks, and Bronx Pretzels."

He concludes the item by saying how comfortable the leather reclining seats were and that "I can't see myself ever going back to a typical movie theater again after being spoiled like this."

A true cinema buff doesn't go to the movies to be spoiled by any amenities offered by a theatre. It's what's on the big screen that matters. (It's very revealing that nowhere in the item does he mention what movie he saw.)

I've never been to The Landmark at 57 West. It is on my list of theatres to visit one day. But when I do decide to go, it won't be because of the amenities. My main concerns are that the theatre be comfortable but within reason and that it uses the best audio-visual equipment available when films are screened.

 And no amount of luxuries will dissuade me from going to "a typical movie theater." I love movies too much to ever let that happen.

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