filmlover Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 Hi, all, Wanted to share a link I found to the movie review section of the NY Times. http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=8482 There is a blank box near the top right (NOT the one for showtimes) and you can type in a title there, for example like the one I used to get to this Casablanca page. The first review you see is a short, modern summary, but if you look to the upper right, you often have the option of selecting the original NY Times review. (You will have to register to get a password - it's free and easy to do in a minute - to see the full NY Times reviews of the day when the films were originally released.) I just looked up Birth of a Nation and found the full review for its premiere at the Liberty Theater. Below are a few excerpts (copyright the NY Times): "The Birth of a Nation," an elaborate new motion picture taken on an ambitious scale, was presented for the first time last evening at the Liberty Theatre...of the film as a film, it may be reported simply that it is an impressive new illustration of the scope of the motion picture camera...The "Birth of a Nation," which was prepared for the screen under the direction of D. W. Griffith, takes a full evening for its unfolding and marks the advent of the two dollar movie...It was at this same theatre that the stage version of "The Clansman" had a brief run a little more than nine years ago, as Mr. Dixon himself recalled in his curtain speech last evening in the interval between the two acts. Mr. Dixon also observed that he would have allowed none but the son of a Confederate soldier to direct the film version of "The Clansman."" This is a great way to look at the film reviews of the past in their original context, before time has stamped the films as classics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patful Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 If you don't want to register, just Google "New York Times review "your movie title"", and you can usually see the full review that way also. That Bosley Crowther was pretty vicious, no? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmlover Posted May 4, 2006 Author Share Posted May 4, 2006 I just tried the Google approach but it still only gets you into the modern review of an old film. To get the original NY Times review, I still had to click the indicated area and it does require the registered name and password. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patful Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 That is weird. I also tried it on "Casablanca" and it didn't work. Usually when I do it, two separate NY Times pages come up on the search (try it with "Meet Me in St. Louis"), one that mentions the trailer, the other mentions the review. The latter has the review. I never registered with the Times because of their disclaimer that they may charge in the future. The Washington Post doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patful Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 OK, the one that mentions "a night in Casablanca" is the review. I thought maybe it was a different movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmlover Posted May 4, 2006 Author Share Posted May 4, 2006 As far as charging, I have been using the reviews for awhile now and never been asked for anything, and they never ask for any credit information at the registering. If they did, I wouldn't have bothered. I find it great to look at these original reviews. A number of times, for the really old films, they will also mention the stage acts that play between films for the theaters, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patful Posted May 4, 2006 Share Posted May 4, 2006 I wasn't sure if they would ever charge for the news or not. They do charge for some old news stories from their archives in PDF. Several years ago, I was looking for a good online news source (my local paper is terrible), and shied away from the NY Times because of the disclaimer. Ended up at the Post instead. Might register with the Times now that I know they still don't charge. With my luck, they'll change the rules the day after I register. I love those old reviews also. Been reading them for several months now. Strange that some of them don't list the reviewer, just initials, while most seem to be by Crowther. He definitely wasn't Gene Shalit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmlover Posted May 5, 2006 Author Share Posted May 5, 2006 Possibly for news stories, they might charge but not for film reviews. And it was only recently that they added so MANY MORE of the old NY Times review to the listings. Before now, they only picked a handful of classics to attach the old reviews to. Now it seems to be all films, good and bad. Hooray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patful Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 I just had the brilliant idea of checking the LA Times archives for movie reviews, but they want money for each PDF. I would have liked to see the differences in the reviews between the two. I imagine LA would be a lot kinder to their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markfp2 Posted May 5, 2006 Share Posted May 5, 2006 If yo're looking for actual reviews of "classic" film written at the time of release, try boxoffice,com which is the websight for the theatrical trade magazine "Boxoffice". This is the magazine that just about every theatre manager in the country subscribes too. While you can't get reviews of every film reviewed in their 80+ years of publishing, they do have a selection of a couple of hundred that are very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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