George C. Scott in Hardcore (1979)

Jake Van Dorn is a conservative business man and single father living in the midwest. When his only daughter Kristen goes missing on a church trip to California and the local authorities can't find her he takes it upon himself to locate her and in the process gets sucked into the seedy world of pornography.

MoviePosterShop.com

This film takes an unflinching look at a head-on collision between two completely incompatible factions of American society, and like fire and gasoline the results are explosive. Scott's performance in the film is raw and visceral, his frustration and anguish is palpable. This is Paul Schrader's second film as a director after having written Scorsese's Taxi Driver 3 years earlier. The two films share a gritty quality and bleak outlook.

This film is available on DVD. It's remained obscure most likely because of its subject matter which still remains taboo. The television trailer for it is above, uploaded to YouTube by robatsea2009.

Obscurity factor: 8 (largely unknown, available on DVD)

Tammy Grimes in The Tammy Grimes Show (1966)

Obscurity factor: 9

While not exactly Shakespeare, this show which was pulled off the air after only 4 episodes has gained some luster with age. There's no debating that the situations were daft, but Ms. Grime's presence is charming, particularly because of her phoney persona that has been called "so ridiculously artificial that she just has to be for real," and the sight gags are deftly handled, making for some delightful giggles. Tamantha Ward (Grimes) is an heiress who likes nothing more than spending her inheritance. She has a long suffering uncle who does his best to keep her on a short leash and a twin brother (Dick Sargent, billed as Richard Sargent) who, in the episode below goes on reserve duty with the US Navy. There's a lot of irony to be had in the circumstances surrounding the show without even going into the "gays in the military" thing. Grimes and Sargent were the original choices to play Samantha and Darrin Stephens in Bewitched.

Needless to say this show hasn't made it to DVD. It was shot in color, but the only presence it has on the web now is in black and white. The episode above is uploaded to YouTube by dentelTV1.

Obscurity factor: 9 (only really remembered as one of the shortest runs in TV series history)