VHS & Mother Load

I plan to use this blog as a way of sharing my thoughts and feelings on the subject of film. With this first post I thought I would talk about one of the events that helped launch my love of film.

Here goes...

Many of my cherished childhood memories revolve around movies. One such memory that stands out is the night my dad brought home our first VCR. It was purchased at Fred Schmidt, a long defunct electronics/appliance chain that used to be big in Colorado. The VCR was a silver GE top-loader that had two very unique features for the time, it had stereo audio output and a wireless remote, both features would be commonplace in the years to come, but they were almost unheard of back in '83. I remember him taking it out of the box and hooking it up, which now that I think about it, may have been the birth of another one of my obsessions, my love of electronics, but that's another story.

Later that evening we rented our first two movies from a little video store on main street in Longmont. The name of the store escapes me but I know it was next door to one of my favorite childhood resturants, Shorty's BBQ Pit. If my memory serves me the store had really dark wood paneling as far as the eye could see with plain white shelves lined with VHS display boxes. All the tapes were located behind the counter. In order to get your movie you would have bring up the display box to the counter then the clerk would have to find your movie among the endless sea numbered tapes located behind the counter. The movies came those old bulletproof chocolate brown VHS protective cases that had hand typed index cards shoved in the front of the box with all the movie details.

The movies that came home with us that night were Continental Divide, starring John Belushi and Mother Load directed and starting Charlton Heston along with a young Kim Basinger. I've seen Continental Divide a few times since that night and I don't find it that memorable, but I've never been able to track down another copy of Mother Load. It can't possibly be as good as I remember it. The setup has a young couple looking for a lost friend in the Canadian wilderness. Their search leads them to a crotchety old gold miner that looks like like Ben-Hur. They get to know the guy and then end up venturing into one of his mines that dumps them into a life and death battle for the "Mother Load". Sounds pretty awesome doesn't it? You may never know because that movie nearly impossible to find.

That seems like enough for my first post. If you stumble upon this blog let me know by leaving a comment about some of your childhood movie memories. Until next time.

Austin