Ava Gardner & Gregory Peck in On The Beach (1959)

Obscurity factor: 3

Now to be honest, this film is borderline for this blog. It was a very big film at the time of its release, and Ava Gardner's first film after her contract ended with MGM. It was also directed by Stanley Kramer, who is no slouch, so students of film have known and studied this film in depth. If you weren't around when it was released and you're not a film student, then you might not have heard of it before.

American Captain Dwight Lional Towers (Gregory Peck) and his crew pilot their submarine into Melbourne harbor after a nuclear conflict that has wiped out the rest of the world. All that's left of the world population is in Australia. The Australian citizens are getting on as best they can and the government is trying to calculate if and when the nuclear fallout will reach them.  Captain Towers, his crew and a scientist (Fred Astaire) are charged with testing a theory about the radiation abating at the north pole, but not until Dwight is introduced to Moira (Gardner) by a new Australian crew member (Anthony Perkins) Moira, an Australian native, tries to help Dwight come to terms with his family's death. As they set out on their voyage disappointments await them at the north pole, down the west coast of the United States and upon returning to Melbourne.


In the scene above, uploaded to YouTube by slaxor, Julian explains to the crew his thoughts on how the conflict started. This film is available on DVD and can be seen frequently on TCM. The poster above is available at MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 3 (known to film buffs, somewhat forgotten otherwise)

Peter O'Toole & Barbara Hershey in The Stunt Man (1980)

A conundrum wrapped in an enigma. That's what The Stunt Man is like. Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police. He's able to elude them, only to find himself caught up in the middle of a World War I film shoot. Due to a misunderstanding he causes the death of one of the film's stunt men and stumbles away unnoticed, only to encounter the shoot at a different location. The director, Eli Cross (O'Toole) notices him and is able to put two and two together, discovering that he's on the lamb, and he was the cause of the accident earlier. He offers Cameron a job as stuntman to replace the man who has just died, then proceeds to torment and toy with his new protege mercilessly.

This film is a strange mix of high minded ideals, superb acting, raunchy, base visuals and effects and strange homosexual overtones. It's obvious that Eli is very accomplished. He's able to marshal the forces of his crew, the local police and just about anyone else within hearing distance of him and he uses any and every dirty, inappropriate and unsavory trick he can devise to get the performance he wants from his actors. At the same time, they're shooting the picture at the Hotel Del in San Diego and trying to make it look like Europe. The whole effect is skewed - is Eli a brilliant director or is he a hack? Hollywood loves to see itself satirized, and this film definitely aims at that, however, the choreography of the action sequences is so far removed from how they would actually be done that it comes off as somewhat clueless. It's entirely possible that these discordant elements are fully intentional and they do support the surreal quality of the film. Peter O'Toole gives a magnificent performance as the director and was nominated for an academy award for it. Steve Railsback is also very powerful in the part of the fugitive/stuntman.

This film is available on DVD, though it seems to be out of print, so copies are a bit pricey. The trailer for it is above, uploaded to YouTube by FanOfMovies123. The poster above is featured at  The Imp Awards.

Mel Blanc in Martian Through Georgia (1962)

Obscurity factor: 6

Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1960's (and those of other studio's, for that matter) tend to be more obscure for some reason. I guess they weren't given as heavy air play as the earlier ones were on Saturday mornings. This one is one that I had never seen, but find quite charming. Somewhere way out in space there is a world where the beings are very advanced - so advanced that they've eliminated all conflicts and are a divinely happy race. In that culture, however, is one martian who is bored with it all. His doctor recommends travel to alleviate his boredom, so he head out into space and happens upon earth. He decides to bestow upon the earthlings the gifts his advanced society has to give, however once he's landed he's branded as an alien monster.

The voices in this short are by the talented Mel Blanc and the short is directed by the equally talented Chuck Jones. It's available on DVD in the Looney Toons Golden Collection, volume 6. It can also be watched on YouTube thanks to an upload by Sanek1994.

Obscurity factor: 6 (available on DVD, not well known)

Pamela Tiffen & Karl Malden in Come Fly with Me (1963)

Obscurity factor: 5

Fly high with the fun girls of Polar Atlantic Airways! These three girls (Pamela Tiffen, Lois Nettleton and Dolores Hart) are foot loose and fancy free on the New York, Paris, Vienna route. They each meet a special someone and each go through turbulence with them in the high flying world of being an airline stewardess. Carol (Tiffen) falls in love with a co-pilot (Hugh O'Brian), Donna (Hart) with an Austrian baron who turns out to be a smuggler and Hilda (Nettleton) with a shy, unassuming millionaire who flies coach (Malden). Will these girls be able to make their romances work when the wheels are on the ground?

This film is beautifully shot in New York and Europe and though the story is stock and soapy (sort of a high flying The Best of Everything without the suicide) the performances are charming and the characters are enjoyable. For those of you who know New York's Kennedy Airport, look for it in its architectural hey day during the opening credits.

This was the first of the films to glamorize the lives of stewardesses in the 1960's. It's somewhat known for that distinction. It's not available on DVD yet, and somewhat hard to find. You can, however, watch the whole film on YouTube. Part one is above, uploaded by heapsoflovenozomi. The poster above is available at MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 5 (known for being a "first", not on DVD, otherwise obscure, available on YouTube)

Bob Cummings & Julie Newmar in My Living Doll (1964)

Obscurity factor: 7

When it comes to silly 1960's sit-coms, this one is notorious, though few people have seen it. Bob Cummings plays Dr. Bob McDonald, a psychologist working with NASA who takes over custody of Rhoda (Julie Newmar) the ultra glamorous robot invented by his friend, when said friend is reassigned to Pakistan. Dr. McDonald is charged with educating Rhoda in how to blend into society. The catch is that no one, not even the higher-ups at NASA know that Rhoda exists. In the episode below Dr. Bob must keep Rhoda from spilling the beans to his boss when he unexpectedly shows up at his apartment. This is complicated by the fact that Rhoda has been malfunctioning because of a dose of the mathematical rhymes in Alice in Wonderland.


The series, which was created by the same team as My Favorite Martian, ran for 26 episodes, but failed to perform as expected and was canceled after one season. The first of two parts of episode #3 is above, uploaded to Daily Motion by wwevideo007. The series is not available on DVD, and is difficult to find online. An interesting bit of trivia - The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang notes that the slang phrase "does not compute" originated with this series.

Obscurity factor: 7 (Known to fans of classic TV, but rarely screened and difficult to find)

Katherine Hepburn in Olly Olly Oxen Free (1978)

This charming film features the great Katherine Hepburn late in her career. She plays Miss Pudd, a junk dealer in a northern California town. Alby and Chris live in the same town. Alby lost his grandfather a year earlier. Alby's grandfather was quite a man in his day. He was a barnstormer, and used to sail a hot air balloon over carnivals and county fairs while performing feats of daring do. The boys have a plan to memorialize Alby's grandfather. On his birthday, they plan to launch his old hot air balloon. In order to do that they patronize Miss Pudd's junk yard. At first she's having none of it and tells them to leave, but when she finds out what they want to do, she's enchanted.

They become a team. Miss Pudd provides the boys with what they need to make the balloon work and the boys include her in their plans. One of the more delightful elements of the movie is the independence of the children. Parents are almost never seen. The film centers on the world of the kids. Below is Kate's monologue after the balloon runs away with them and she wonders if they'll ever get home.

This film is available on DVD (I rented it from Netflix), though very little video of it exists online. The above clip, uploaded by CardboardShoreline was all I could find aside from an interview with the prop master on the film, which is wonderful as well. It was also called The Great Balloon Adventure, as the poster above advertises it. The poster is available from MoviePosterShop.com. I think I was one of the few kids to see this on its first release. It was shown in the midwest briefly in '78, then released in New York in 1981 but pulled rather quickly.

Obscurity factor: 8 (Rarely screened, even on first release, available on DVD, hard to find online)

Jack Lemmon in Avanti (1972)

In this Billy Wilder comedy we find Wendell Armbruster Jr. (Jack Lemmon) heading to the Amalfi coast to claim the remains of his father who died in an automobile accident. When he arrives he discovers that his father wasn't alone in the car - he was with his British mistress of 10 years and her daughter (Juliet Mills) is also there to claim her remains. Through a series of mishaps and bureaucratic snafus in claiming their relatives, the couple is thrown together for several days and they begin to fall in love. However, Wendell's puritanical personality is a major obstacle they must overcome if anything is to come of it.

Though not one of Wilder's great films, there's a good deal of charm to be had in Avanti! The chemistry between Lemmon and Mills is delightful and the setting is magnificent.

Avanti! is not a well known film in its own right, but its being a Wilder film gives it some notoriety. It's available on DVD and can be watched in its entirety on YouTube. Part one is above, uploaded by vaFFamBuco. The poster above is available at MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 4 (known to Wilder fans, available on DVD)