Films that didn't really cross the Atlantic

[ursus arctos]

I’m pretty sure The Benny Hill Show wasn’t aired by PBS, at least not initially. Various independent networks in New York, LA and Philadelphia, is how I recall it. Could be mistaken, though.

Sort of.

Thames bought time on stations then owned by RKO General in both New York (WOR) and LA (KHJ). Benny Hill was the "breakout star" of that effort and the rest was history.

[Jah Womble]

I thought it was on PBS. Maybe it was on WPIX.

I doubt it’d have met PBS’s stringent standards, tbh.

I thought it might’ve been WPIX (Channel 11, right?) as well, but apparently it was on WWOR (Channel 9).

(Edit: As ursus confirms.)

[Amor de Cosmos]

We did a thread on IAWL and other Christmas movies a couple years ago. It was my opinion then, and now, that besides the release date (New Years Day when people are utterly sick of Christmas) it was very dated film (1946) for an audience which had just survived a war. Capra was essentially a 1930s film-maker. He pictured the qualities American people needed, or felt they needed, to survive the Depression. But that time was gone, and so was his. Now we don't have the same temporal reading of it and, in a different context, can more easily accept it on its own terms.

[ursus arctos]

There were edits made to Benny Hill even for the "Thames Week" presentations. It was a time when stations were very afraid of challenges to their licenses.

[Bored Of Education]

I am the same with "It's a Wonderful Life". Saw it for the first time only a couple of years ago in the cinema (fortunately) which is odd when you consider how many different channels show the same films over Christmas nowadays and there being DVDs and whatnot now. Miracle on 34th Street is another like that over here - certainly the original.

I mentioned on the "Stranger Things" thread that I thought one of the episodes was shot to look like "American Werewolf in London" but then realised that, despite the title and lead actors, it was, of course, a British film. Did that do anything over in the US?

[Sporting]

How about gritty early 60s films such as Room At The Top?

[ursus arctos]

Another art house favourite (or favorite)

[Hot Pepsi]

I doubt it’d have met PBS’s stringent standards, tbh.

I thought it might’ve been WPIX (Channel 11, right?) as well, but apparently it was on WWOR (Channel 9).

(Edit: As ursus confirms.)

Monty Python were on PBS. Was Benny Hill any more scandalous?

We also got WOR (Channel 9) and channel 5 (can’t recall its call letters). Those were the channels that had the most cartoons and syndicated stuff like Gilligan’s Island, Happy Days, etc. But they also had the local news, NY sports, and some other local show that provided a window on life in the big city.

[Hot Pepsi]

I am the same with "It's a Wonderful Life". Saw it for the first time only a couple of years ago in the cinema (fortunately) which is odd when you consider how many different channels show the same films over Christmas nowadays and there being DVDs and whatnot now. Miracle on 34th Street is another like that over here - certainly the original.

I mentioned on the "Stranger Things" thread that I thought one of the episodes was shot to look like "American Werewolf in London" but then realised that, despite the title and lead actors, it was, of course, a British film. Did that do anything over in the US?

AWIL did well here, I think. It’s certainlu well known. I haven’t seen it, however.

[Lang Spoon]

It’s a US film, directed by John Landis, and with a US lead.

[ursus arctos]

Channel 5 was WNEW, then a Metromedia station. Channel 11 was WPIX, and originally owned by the New York Daily News, aka "New York"s Picture Newspaper", thus giving rise to the call letters.

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s right. I didn’t know that’s why it was called WPIX.

IIRC, 5 had the Rangers. 11 had the Yankees. 9 had the Mets and the Islanders. I think. Maybe the Islanders were on 11? I don’t recall the Knicks ever being on but the Nets May have been on 9 sometimes.

WPIX has the Christmas fireplace thing.

WPIX is now a CW affiliate. I don’t know if independent channels really exist any more.

[ursus arctos]

Before the world started going to pot with expansion teams, 11 had the Yankees, while 9 had the Mets, Rangers and Knicks (more rarely). 5 sometimes had pre-season NFL games. 11 had the Norte Dame (and later Penn State) highlights shows that featured what would now be called "condensed games" the day after they were played. 11 also had a high school game of the week on Saturday mornings (the then-traditional time for high school football around here).

And yes, 11 had the Yule Log.

[tee rex]

The original (Spencer Tracey) version of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a pretty useful measure of the Atlantic gap. I assumed dozens of faces/names would have been familiar to the American audience, while the British sat patiently waiting for Terry-Thomas.

[Sam]

I can't offer any suggestions right now (5:30am, I'm still up an hour and a half later than normal due to Reasons), but I'm interested to hear that IAWL wasn't heard of much in the UK. When I was about 12, I read the Red Dwarf novels, and the second one, where the main characters all start off stuck in virtual reality computer games which they think are real life, involves Lister living in IAWL. I've still never seen the film itself, but as a result of reading that novel at such a young age, I've grown up thinking – right up until about three minutes ago – that it was a well-known enough film in the UK for Grant and Naylor to have based a massive part of a novel aimed entirely at a UK audience on it. This belief might well have been nipped in the bud early on if I'd actually asked my parents about the film. I've no idea. Maybe they're aware of it, maybe they're not.

[Ginger Yellow]

I'm guessing the Thin Man series of films didn't make it across to the UK, given that I had no idea of their existence until last year. Despite my favourite podcast featuring a pastiche of them. But maybe it did and just fell out of favour.

[Kevin S]

Did Trainspotting make much of a splash in the US?

[Snake Plissken]

IAWL is one of those vague shared memory things though. I think that it is more well-known in the UK for the sort of condensed plot idea of someone wanting to commit suicide but being talked out of it by some stranger, which has been done a million times. I know that when Smith and Jones did a series of short films, they had one based on the idea.

Googling, it was Smith and Jones in Small Doses and the IAWL knockoff was "Second Thoughts", written by Anthony Minghella.

[pebblethefish]

I can't offer any suggestions right now (5:30am, I'm still up an hour and a half later than normal due to Reasons), but I'm interested to hear that IAWL wasn't heard of much in the UK. When I was about 12, I read the Red Dwarf novels, and the second one, where the main characters all start off stuck in virtual reality computer games which they think are real life, involves Lister living in IAWL. I've still never seen the film itself, but as a result of reading that novel at such a young age, I've grown up thinking – right up until about three minutes ago – that it was a well-known enough film in the UK for Grant and Naylor to have based a massive part of a novel aimed entirely at a UK audience on it. This belief might well have been nipped in the bud early on if I'd actually asked my parents about the film. I've no idea. Maybe they're aware of it, maybe they're not.

I first heard of IAWL via exactly the same route of the Red Dwarf books. I never found out it was a real film until about five years later - I thought they'd made it up. And I've still never seen it either.

[Jah Womble]

Monty Python were on PBS. Was Benny Hill any more scandalous?

We also got WOR (Channel 9) and channel 5 (can’t recall its call letters). Those were the channels that had the most cartoons and syndicated stuff like Gilligan’s Island, Happy Days, etc. But they also had the local news, NY sports, and some other local show that provided a window on life in the big city.

Monty Python was probably considered by PBS to be more 'culturally advanced' than The Benny Hill Show. But that's just me guessing.

Channel 5 in New York was - I think - WNEW? (The Flintstones at 8am summer weekdays was a must.)

[Gangster Octopus]

I first saw It's A Wonderful Life when I was still in Rotherham in the late seventies/early eighties. It resonated with me as a fillum about being stuck in a small town...

[Simon G]

I first heard of IAWL when sitting my GCSEs in 2000. Our English Literature teacher was a big fan and insisted on us watching it.

He was at pains to point out how big a film it was in the US compared to the UK, and since then I've only really seen it mentioned in US sitcoms like Friends (it's referred to in Series 2 when Phoebe finds out about Old Yeller).

[ad hoc]

Old Yeller is another one, actually. I've never seen it and I bet that;s true of most people in the UK. But it's a fully ingrained cultural reference point in the States

[ursus arctos]

Well, it was last century. I think you would get a lot of blank stares from millennials now.

Trainspotting did decently for a British film whose dialogue a lot of people struggled to understand. It made something like USD 17 million in the year of its release, which was more than any other British film (and good for an "independent" film in limited release no matter where it was made).

But it certainly wasn't a cultural touchpoint the way it was in Britain.

[ursus arctos]

Monty Python was probably considered by PBS to be more 'culturally advanced' than The Benny Hill Show. But that's just me guessing.

Monty Python didn't have breasts