Justifiably forgotten films

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Here's a thread for all of those bad films that time has seemingly completely forgotten - but for some strange reason you haven't. Feel free to be as obscure as you want. You don't have to be recommending these films. Just tell us what you remember about them.

I'll start with one I inexplicably saw at a drive-in when I was about seven years old:



I don't remember much, except the lead character was a corpse.



It starts off with him getting married in his coffin (if I recall correctly, that was his dying wish). After that he is lying in state and all of the greedy relatives come one by one to try and steal his fortune, but he's rigged traps for all of them. The one that sticks in mind is a shower that essentially turns into a trash compactor (this traumatized me even more than Psycho as a kid).

The movie has Stella Stevens, Elsa Lanchester and Roddy McDowell - and featured a song that sounded a lot like "Goldfinger". All this years later, I can still recall the melody.

[Sneelock]

Ha! believe it or not, that movie had a terrific ad campaign and I was anxious to see it! imagine how I felt when I finally got around to it. at least Stella was still pretty much a babe.

the first film that dropped into my head was a true abomination called "If Ever I See You Again". this guy Joseph Brooks directed a few movies that did okay. well, he directed and wrote a song for a movie called "You Light Up My Life" that did better than okay. somebody stupid decided that what America really wanted was for this guy to write another song, write and direct another movie and STAR in it.

Peeeeee-YOU!
my dad ran it and it was one of those that was so godawful bad you felt like you should wait for the joke. you kept waiting until you realizes that the movie was the joke. let's just say his acting career never took off for a reason.

[Snarfyguy]

This was a good one to see at the drive-in because, honestly, there are a lot of important things to do at the drive-in. They charged by the carload, so first of all you had to figure out how many teenagers can fit in a station wagon. Then there's beer to be drunk, shit to be talked and girls to be agonized over. Oh yeah, they have movies too.

I don't really remember this one, except I guess it had a giant alligator or something.

It does have the great Dean Jagger in it, though. But that was lost on teenage me. I don't like watching great actors in shit movies just for the paycheck when they're old, anyway. I guess it beats no work at all, but he should have been getting huge roles.

So anyway, Alligator, yeah. I can't really recommend it. But even if you haven't seen it, you've seen it anyway, you know?

Next!

[LMG]

I've seen Alligator over a hundred times. That claim sounds bizarre unless you've ever raised kids - my ex's boy had a thing about aquatic creature features from the age of three to about six. I taped Alligator and Jaws on one VHS tape and sometimes he used to watch it three times a day. We told him a fib (well, lied to him, I suppose) that the tape would only play in my special VCR - otherwise he would have insisted it went home with him, where he would presumably still be watching it, providing he could have been convinced to do a few other things like eat and do a bit of sleeping.

His Mum and I could do the dialogue to those movies in our sleep - in fact, much of the dialogue actually seeped into family life - Richard Dreyfus's agonised 'You got any better suggestions?!' was a favourite, as was Alligator's dialogue about baldness and male vanity.

In one scene where the cops are stalking the gator there is a grafitti on the sewer walls 'Harry Lime was here'.

When I was twelve my parents took me to a drive-in and I saw this, which deeply unsettled me:

[king feeb]

This movie was so forgettable, I couldn't even remember the name of it. Drove me nuts for about 30 minutes until I remembered that Klaus Kinski was (maybe?) in it. One Google session later...I'm 90% sure this is the movie:



It was a lame Alien ripoff and the only thing I really remember about it was that the extraterrestial's head resembled a gigantic metal cucumber.

[The Dríver]

Some people seem to like it. I found it totally forgettable.

[Sea Of Tunes]

What is it with you guys? I have an understandable tendency to forget movies that are forgettable.

[sloopjohnc]

What is it with you guys? I have an understandable tendency to forget movies that are forgettable.

Have you looked in Yakety Yak lately?

I'd estimate it at over 50% the reason this forum actually exists.

[Snarfyguy]

Some people seem to like it. I found it totally forgettable.

Movies with Michael Keaton are usually forgettable, aren't they? I'm fully aware of who he is, but I can't name a single movie he's been in.

[sloopjohnc]

Some people seem to like it. I found it totally forgettable.

Movies with Michael Keaton are usually forgettable, aren't they? I'm fully aware of who he is, but I can't name a single movie he's been in.

Good call. He's done some good stuff though: the first Batman, Mr. Mom, Nightshift (with Henry Winkler), Beetle Juice, Clean and Sober, and was decent in Much Ado About Nothing.

[The Midnight Special]

Out of all the films mentioned so far this is the one I'd go out of my way to watch. It looks an interesting plot.

[jimjim]

Out of all the films mentioned so far this is the one I'd go out of my way to watch. It looks an interesting plot.

Ditto. Looks interesting. But FFS, how is the eejit leeping over Arnold supposed to be Roddy McDowell? Looks like a young Tom Baker!!

[Phil T]

'Three In The Attic':



The story of a young guy called Paxton Quigley who is shagging three different girls at the same time, whilst declaring fidelity only to each of them. Eventually they find out about each other and hatch a plot to kidnap him, lock him in the attic of their sorority house and take turns in shagging him to death, basically.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0063693/

Very much a film of it's time (1968, one of the girls is a beautiful hippy chick). It popped up on late night TV in the 70's. I was well jealous of the guy, I can tell you. But the film is totally pants, really.


The cover of the soundtrack album:

[Matty Red Sox]

Yuck.

[Sea Of Tunes]

Yuck.

Did you know that Jimbo bought up all extant copies?

[marios]

This is on TV right now:



I had never heard of it before and a quick look on imdb and a couple more sites makes me think it might actually belong in this category.

It was filmed early on in Voight's career but was only released when he became famous with Deliverance.

I dunno, i'm about 20 minutes in and it doesn't look that bad, just very very slow.