Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Special Offer for 20th Century Fox: First Clue Free

Special Offer for 20th Century Fox: First Clue Free

As I settled down to watch The Keys of the Kingdom, 20th Century Fox presented me with this particular guitar-driven, almost-a-music-video reminder that I should not pillage:

As a matter of fact, 20th Century Fox sees fit to entertain me with this little bit of nagging every time I put the disc in or start the DVD player. Since I stop and start these old timey movies often, that means I see the PSA over and over and over again.

But here's a little clueflash for you, 20th Century Fox: The people who buy black and white movies from 1944 for $7 from Sam's Club are not the people who download the latest Vin Diesel flick from BitTorrent. We're the committed consumers, right? We're shelling out cash for your deep catalog stuff. So punishing us by hectoring us not to do something we don't do annoys us.

Annoyed people don't make impulse purchases of old, forgotten Academy Award Winners just so they can sound smart or to stock up on trivia.

And, since you asked, the movie was okay. I got a little aggravated when I got halfway through and suspected that the movie was presenting Chicom revolutionaries as heroes and the target of assistance of the Roman Catholic priest (since they were freeing the peasants from the imperialists). In 1944, Hollywood was rooting for the other side there, too. But then I calmed down and remembered that the film, made in 1944, was set some decades prior (during the Taiping Rebellion?). So I suspended my politics and got back into the story. Then Anne Revere made a brief appearance, and I realized the Chinese revolutionaries were probably actually supposed to represent the communists.

Oh, and Gregory Peck is heavily made up as an old man in the framing of the story, and they warbled his voice somehow on the audiotrack. That must have been something in 1944.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:18 PM