Man's 4,000-Tape VHS Archive Preserves a Lost Era of Cinema
To the editor: Wow, talk about nostalgia! This article stimulated my brain protoplasm into memories of how I created my collection of more than 4,000 VHS video cassettes ("In a digital world, VHS tapes are cool again. Meet the crazy faithful, including my roommate," April 23). It all began in the 1970s, when video-recording technology was first introduced. I began to think about what I would do when I became an old, retired buzzard with all those great movies and TV shows vanished into the vault of eternity. I decided to record my favorites and ran out to buy one of those thousand-dollar JVC VHS recorders. The plan was to try to simulate those old 1940s and 1950s movie experiences, where for 25 or 50 cents, you could watch a double feature, maybe some Warner Bros. cartoons, a newsreel and perhaps an excerpt from a Republic Pictures serial. So I recorded movies or TV shows, added shorts and sometimes there was room for a cartoon - all without any commercials. My system had 20 categories of films, including family/classics ("The Wizard of Oz"), musicals ("Easter Parade" and "42nd Street"), war ("The Longest Day"), sci-fi ("The Day the Earth Stood Still"), horror ("Dracula" and "The Birds") and westerns ("Shane" and "High Noon"). It's still fun to watch those old short westerns with John Wayne, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Back in the olden days, you could walk into a movie theater with all the family and not worry about cringing over the sex, violence and vulgarity of modern movies. Let's all support the VHS revolution! Dick Owen, Huntington Beach
