The Netflix Gambit
As most people likely know, Netflix has now officially ended its DVD service – which is a shame to me because I loved the DVDs for several reasons, not the least of which is that there are movies and TV series and TV specials available on DVD that are not available for streaming. But that’s life.
(That's also a problem with streaming being the only outlet for available libraries of this material, but that's for another time.)
All that aside, Netflix announced a couple months ago that whatever DVDs you have out when the service ends, you can keep, they aren’t going to ask for it back. They also announced that they probably would be sending out 10 DVDs to members who had subscribed to the DVD service, though it wasn't clear a) if they would for certain, and b) whether such DVDs would be totally random or from those listed in one's queue, when possible. It was all uncertain -- except for the one thing you could control: whatever DVDs you still had out when it all shut down.
So, that brought up the gambit.
I took a look at my queue and started to think about what final DVD did I want to receive that I’d get to keep? (I only subscribed to the option where you got one DVD at a time.) And so, I organized my final DVD watching so that it would work out to me getting a last-DVD a few days ago, and I’d just keep it.
All well and good – but what DVD should it be??
I thought about classic movies, but figured one can always watch a classic movie on a streaming service. Perhaps a lesser-movie that was not necessarily something to be streamed? Possible, but I thought there wasn’t likely a “lesser-movie” I’d want to keep. So…what to make that last DVD??
After giving it due consideration -- honestly, being me, I put a lot of thought into this -- I decided that what I should go for was something classic that was not likely to be streamed. And that probably meant someone on TV, probably a famous special.
And so, I’ve ended up with the 1967 CBS special -- Hal Holbrook in his one-man Broadway show, Mark Twain Tonight!
I have dearly loved the show for a very long time. I read Holbrook's memoir about it and creating his Twain show when I was in high school. And in college, I went to see the show itself with my college roommate, Jim Backstrom (now an attorney in Philadelphia). We even went backstage and met Holbrook, and I got my program signed, which I still have.
Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for the show. he was 42 at the time -- in fact, he brought to Broadway three times, the last time in 2005 at age 80.) One of my good friends, David Rintels (who won several Emmys of his own and the Broadway play Clarence Darrow with Henry Fonda) wrote on The Senator TV series that Holbrook starred in, and he and Holbrook stayed friends. I wrote about all this and more on Holbrook's career here. And embedded here a wonderful video from the show.
And this is just a small part of that TV special. Which I now happily have as my Last Netflix DVD. I'm very happy with the choice...
Here's another wonderful clip from it.
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