Most people associate YouTube with the latest, viral short videos that include (but not limited to) bizarre music acts and “how-to” videos on anything to do with home repair. Knowing this, I suspect there are many who aren’t aware of one particular category that is somewhat of a hidden gem when it comes to YouTube… old movies.
Just like home repair videos, there are a ton of old movies on YouTube—especially old movies you’ve never heard of with actors, directors, and producers of the same status. After I watched my first old movie one night, the next night I returned to YouTube—almost the same time—another new old movie suggestion was waiting for me at the top of my list. Now, after two weeks of this kind of viewing, one of these movie types is always ready to be queued up no matter how long I’ve been away from YouTube or what device I might be watching from.
In the last month, I’ve turned to some of these offerings as a way of putting myself to sleep—in much the same way as the gazillion YouTube offerings of ASMR videos. These films typically lead to the same end except I fall to sleep because the movie is boring rather than soothing. Additionally, I put the sleep timer on the TV to one hour so I don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night just to turn the television off as most of these movies are barely over an hour.
So, what kind of movies might I be talking about here? Ideally (for me) they are sci-fi movies produced between 1955 to 1970. Some movie critics refer to these as “schlock sci-fi.” They come in a variety of sub-genres when it comes to sci-fi: first trips to another planet, encounters with aliens from other planets, or something to do with saving the planet. Further, there’s always plenty of government b-roll and miniature model sets getting blown up.
The promo posters for these movies are always done much better than the actual films. I suppose that was simply to pull the audience in. But, when the poster is a beautifully-painted and colorful futuristic image and the movie (i.e., reality) is a shoddy, blurry (thanks to being duplicated multiple times over the-years) black and white… well, it’s understandable how one can lose interest in less than an hour.
Typically these movies were made employing actors who were never household names like Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, or Kirk Douglas. Rather, the actors that starred in this era/genre of moviemaking were mostly unknown. I mean, after all, who’s ever heard of Tony Dexter and Michi Kobi (12 to the Moon), Brian Donlevy (Quartermass Xperiment), or Paul Hubschmid and Madeleine Fischer (The Day the Sky Exploded)?
Almost everyone of these movies qualifies as a “sleeper”—even for the most severe insomniacs—yet, there are those occasions where the movie is so bad, or the plot is so twisted that I end up staying awake and watching the entire film—the same film that was suppose to put me to sleep. I’m unsure how that makes me feel, but I should at least be a little bit grateful.
So, thank you YouTube for all of these crappy movies that keep on showing up in my queue.
Want to go to sleep fast via schlock sci-fi movies from over 50 years ago? Check out some of these on YouTube:
The Quartermass Experiment (1953)
The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)
Destination Moon (1950)
First Spaceship on Venus (1960)
Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957)
Trapped by Television (1936)
12 to the Moon (1960)
mdt1960 