When Oscar-nominated director John Hancock made the film “Prancer” in the winter of 1988, he didn’t realize that his tale of a small-town girl (Rebecca Harrell) who believes that one of Santa’s magical reindeer has landed in her hardscrabble Indiana town would stand the test of time. He had made one outright classic with 1973’s “Bang the Drum Slowly,” in which he gave Robert DeNiro his first major starring role (the film also stars Big Hollywood’s own Michael Moriarty) and which Roger Ebert considers the best baseball film ever made, followed it up with the cult-favorite horror film “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” and had an underrated gem with Nick Nolte called “Weeds” get lost in the shuffle of its distributor’s bankruptcy in 1987, but neither had broken through to become a television or video staple.

In fact, due to legal hassles, “Jessica” wasn’t available on video until many years later, and “Weeds” has never made it to DVD because the negatives suffered the rare indignity of being completely lost by its producer. Meanwhile, “Prancer” – in which John brought a healthy dose of reality rather than schmaltz in portraying the girl’s struggling parents – has held up so strongly that it was recently named #19 on BH Editor-in-Chief John Nolte’s list of the 25 greatest Christmas movies of all time, with Nolte calling it a “lovely, low-key, tender family film with a rich spiritual theme.”

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March 16 will mark the 40th anniversary of the Broadway opening of “1776.”  Written by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, it went on to run for 1,217 performances.  It’s hard to believe that forty years ago it was still popular to write an unabashedly patriotic musical that openly celebrated American Exceptionalism and painted the founding fathers not just as humans but as the intellectual and moral giants that they were.  Because the 1972 film version is tantamount to a filmed version of the play rather than a Hollywood re-interpretation, its original intent and form is easily accessible to today’s audience.  It deserves a good look and therefore, is this week’s Sunday Matineé.  (more…)