Movies Unlimited, April 2020

Today = an actual spring day. Even when a little wind blew and the sun was behind clouds, it was still pleasantly warm. Lunch again on the deck. Breakfast, too.

The April 2020 edition of Movies Unlimited came in the mail not long ago. I will assume for now that the dread coronavirus doesn’t last long on paper and handle my mail. (That’s what it should be called, the dread coronavirus. It was good enough for the pirate Roberts.)

Sounds like a magazine, but it’s really a catalog produced by a company of that name in Itasca, Illinois, only a short drive from where I live. I don’t remember the last time I got one. They come now and then, not monthly. But MU seems optimistic that someday, in a freak of geezer inspiration, I’ll order one of its DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Maybe I will.

“The book you’re holding is NOT the complete Movies Unlimited Catalog,” the company proclaims on the inside cover. “This Is!” it says, with an arrow pointing to a picture of a 432-page catalog available for $8.95. Order it now, it says, “and get ready to be movied like you’ve never been movied before!”

Well, no. But the free smaller catalog has its interests. In fact, MU offers a decent selection — old and new, famed and obscure, color and black-and-white, movies and TV shows, domestic and foreign, in a variety of genres. Much of it for an older audience, such as the wide selection of 20th-century TV series, but not entirely geared to geezers, with a sizable selection of 21st-century output.

There are near-full pages devoted to Studio Ghibli, Disney, the Three Stooges, Ray Harryhausen, film noir, John Wayne, Dick Tracy, Hammer, Little House on the Prairie, Audie Murphy and more, and one full page each devoted to Martin & Lewis and Dark Shadows.

That last one struck me as an oddity, but I guess they know their market. Mostly women roughly my age, I think. Maybe more men than I’d expect, those who watched it in secret during its initial run. That didn’t include me. I think I saw an episode and decided that was enough.

Anyway, someone interested in owning the complete original series on DVD will have to pay $479.99 for 131 discs totaling 470 hours, “packaged in a coffin-shaped, collector’s set and including a 100-page booklet.” If that’s too much, 26 separate collections are for sale for $31.99 each, or you can buy Dark Shadows Bloopers & Treasures.

2 thoughts on “Movies Unlimited, April 2020

Comments are closed.