The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) – The summer of 1981 was a very bad time to be a movie not titled Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, Indy can’t really bear much of the blame for this movie’s dismal flop; it’s a bad movie.
- There’s a long, almost interminable backstory that goes all the way back to the Lone Ranger’s childhood blood-brotherhood with Tonto.
- The “lone ranger” is never a Texas ranger at all; John Reid accompanies his brother, who is a Ranger, on a single raid and ends up being the last man breathing.
- After taking over an hour to get us to to circumstances that make the Lone Ranger, we introduce with the silver bullets (and Reid’s suddenly perfect marksmanship), the horse Silver, the mask, and every other recognizable bit in under ten minutes.
- There’s the beginnings of a love interest given plenty of weight in the first half that completely disappears in the second half, as if someone at the typewriter had either forgotten or lost interest.
- John Barry’s score (which sounds like every other non-007 Jon Barry score, i.e., like Dances With Wolves without the kettle drums) really clashes with the sudden inclusion of the “William Tell Overture.”
- It’s a good thing this movie didn’t spawn a sequel, because the Lone Ranger’s very first adventure has him rescuing the President of the frickin’ United States from an insane former officer; where could they have gone for a follow-up?
Diary of a Madman (1963) – Vincent Price stars in an adaptation of several of Guy de Maupassant’s short stories (mostly “The Diary of a Madman” mixed with “The Horla”). Because really, if you’re going to have a movie about an educated man who gradually anguishes about possible going insane, who else are you going to cast?
Gone With the Wind (1939) – I showed this to Michele and the girls for purposes of cultural literacy — mainly so they’d know what I was talking about when I would holler, “Miz Scarlett, I don’t know nothing about birthing no babies!” (I actually did this a few weeks ago, on a break from our TNG binge-watch; I had no idea I’d become a GWTW Controversy Hipster.) It had been so long since I’d seen this, I may have last seen it in black-and-white. I had definitely forgotten how long it was; when, after two hours, we got to the “I’ll never go hungry again!” scene, I horrified them all when I said, “AND THAT’S THE HALFWAY MARK!” (We watched the second half on a different night.)
It’s florid and sumptuous and larger-than-life, and possibly unparalleled in making an audience want to sit through four hours watching characters they can’t stand.
Abandoned movies:
CIA II: Target Alexa (1993) – Lorenzo Lamas directs and stars in proof that Lorenzo Lamas should never direct anything.
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974) – “Vampires” that can be out in daylight and don’t drink blood? Why even bother?
“What? You’ve watched Titanic, haven’t you?”
Ironically, something a lot of the people hating on Gone With The Wind these days are forgetting is that neither the book nor the movie were actually all that flattering to the Old South. As you say, the characters were thoroughly despicable (especially the relentlessly amoral and opportunistic Rhett Butler and the quite-possibly-a-sociopath Scarlett O’Hara, and they’re the protagonists!), and yet the arrogant and decadent society in which they were raised is shown to be even worse; which is one reason watching Rhett and Scarlett ruthlessly trampling its social mores to get their way throughout the story is so compelling. The Old Southerners around them are such grandstanding self-righteous douche bags that you kinda want to see Rhett and Scarlett exploit them.
In fact, speaking of Titanic, wasn’t that kind of the appeal of that movie as well? “Want to watch a bunch of astoundingly arrogant twits who think their wealth and power makes them invincible find out the hard way that it doesn’t? Well, then, this is the movie for you!”