Sunday Fun: Saturday Night at the Movies Intro (1980) Repeat

What? You wanted to get into film but did not live in Ontario, Canada, or border States that received the magic television signal? You poor, wretched soul. TV Ontario's Saturday Night at the Movies was a film school for those of us lucky enough to have watched it on a regular basis.

Elwy Yost was a Film Professor of the Air. His course? "History of Film", among other classes. The genial host interviewed not just stars, but character actors, cameramen, art directors, editors, writers, directors....you get the idea.

SNATM premiered on then OECA (Ontario Educational Communications Authority) in 1974 and I was there. My dad had pretty eclectic tastes in movies, so much of what was programmed suited him, too. (Pity the poor, wretched "I wanna be a director" soul who limits himself or herself to a certain school.)

Through the video course I was introduced to director Fritz Lang's 1933 supernatural thriller The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, which ended up one of my favourite films. Thank you, Mr Yost!

In addition to the classic and semi-classic "old" films, in the earlier days of SNATM there were the Republic serials, which was, again, my introduction to the form.

In "tonight's episode", illustrated above, Elwy introduces a night of "flying". Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines was the big show that evening. (I first saw the flick at CFB Baden-Soellingen's movie theatre and I loved it.)

We miss Elwy, don't we?

And there's TVO's Magic Shadows....