Drake on VHS decay, brain waves and Russian Jet Fighters for $3.59

Clint Eastwood as Maj. Gant takes off in a stolen Russian Jet Fighter in Firefox.

“Yeah, I can fly it. I'm the best there is.”

Second-Hand Entertainment

In this third episode: Jim Drake goes shopping. Not for essentials like Food and Toilet Paper, but for items that only a collector of All Things Media can appreciate. For the next few weeks, he is reviewing his books, movies, CDs, even some games that have been rescued from the Shelves of Obscurity. Come along, if you dare, and let’s find out exactly how far $10.30 goes in today’s high-tech world. All items were purchased in second-hand shops in The Dalles. Senior Discounts and Color Tag Sales were applied. 

This Week’s Purchase:

Firefox; starring Clint Eastwood. 1982, 136 min., Rated PG

Format: DVD

Price: $3.59

Last 2 Weeks:

LaserDisc: Star Trek Original Television Series Episodes 2 and 7, CD-John Coltrane: Juan Les Pins Jazz Festival, Antibes, July 26-27, 1965

Spent: $3.37

Total Thus Far $6.96

By Jim Drake 

I’ve got a few favorite channels to watch on YouTube and one of them happens to be a gentleman who repairs everything from VCRs and CD players to cassette decks and stereo receivers. 

Most of these items he repairs seem to be from the 1980s, but it’s not unusual to see electronics from only a few years ago on his bench - which is perhaps a testament to the fact that perhaps there were some better quality electronic standards back in the day.

Anyway, his latest video was a CD player repair (it turned out to be a broken solder joint at the audio output jack). But the interesting way he made the video was actually more important, he said than the actual repair.

Time is running out on Drakes’ collection of movies on VHS tape as the media is very prone to degradation. You might want to put that wedding video or footage of your double gainer off the top of your neighbor’s roof and into a swimming pool after several tequila shots on a flash drive or DVD. Better yet, create your own YouTube channel.

You see, he decided to demonstrate how his video would look when it was recorded on an old videotape camera that he had. He usually records on a direct-to-digital device, and he was convinced that the old camera system, and especially the old tapes, were pretty much at the end of their life expectancy.

And he was right.

The playback of the tape and the “quality” of the video on the tape was poor - the tape kept cutting out, interrupting the sound, and making a not-so-enjoyable experience out of watching the finished product.

 Let’s just say that he was adamant in saying that he thought all tapes, like the one he used, and the ones that everybody had hanging around, were bad, that they were going to fail, just like his did, and he highly recommended that all of the material found on these tapes, like the thousands of events like graduations or concerts or home movies of your kids and what have you - needed to be transferred over to a digital form, before it was too late.

Luckily, I’ve kind of been following that mantra for a few years when it comes to my movie collection. And although I’ve still got a shelf devoted to the VHS tapes (sometimes you just can’t beat the vintage artwork found on a lot of the old movie tapes) I’ve finally reached a milestone of sorts when it comes to my Clint Eastwood Movie Collection: I found a DVD copy of 1982’s Firefox in The Dalles, and I finally ordered the last five films I needed on DVD - which came in last week.

The VHS tape of Clint Eastwood’s Firefox. In it, Eastwood runs a jet fighter on brain waves.

 After several years of searching around the Northwest, I finally decided that the titles I needed to replace my VHS tapes of Absolute Power, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Any Which Way But Loose, True Crime, and The Rookie (with co-star Charlie Sheen) were never going to appear in a Thrift Store in Oregon, and it was time to tell Amazon.com to “Go Ahead, and Make My Day.”

It’s hard to believe that Mr. Eastwood is 90 years old, and according to internet sources, another movie from him is in the works for 2021. The first time I saw a Clint Eastwood movie was on TV, in the late ’70s, when they ran (probably edited versions of) his “Dirty Harry” series. And for me, it’s just been so interesting being able to re-watch these movies, after all this time, and study the psychology of police detective work back then compared to now.

And now that I have 61 (I hope I counted that right) movies that either star or are directed by Mr. Eastwood, on a format that will hopefully play for years to come without video or audio issues, I’m fortunate to have access to his wide range of roles from “The Man with No Name,” in the iconic spaghetti westerns to his director role in movies like “Sully” and “Richard Jewell.”

I honestly don’t remember seeing the Firefox movie in theaters, but something does stick in my mind about a friend telling me about it around the time of 1982. I also can’t really pinpoint when I first saw the movie, but I’m thinking about 5 or 6 years ago. (My tape says it was made in 2000). 

 But I do remember one thing: when I watched it, I wasn’t enthralled by it.

 Maybe I was just in a grumpy mood when I watched it, but I just wasn’t buying the premise of the United States needing to steal a supersonic Russian jet fighter plane in order to “balance world power.”

I mean, even if someone did steal the jet, couldn’t the Russians “Just Build Another One?” Or, just build another one that’s bigger and better than that one which would result in the Americans needing to steal that one, too. 

(Big sigh and Eye Roll Here)

But, If you’re gonna have a guy transform and disguise himself as a Russian pilot who needs to be smuggled in to steal a secret jet fighter plane right under the noses of officials in Red Square, it might as well be Clint. Oh, and by the way, the plane and all of its firepower can be controlled with brain wave thoughts. Did I mention those brain wave thoughts have to actually be in the Russian language?

Surprisingly, my recent viewing of the movie last week did not trigger the exact same opinions that placed this movie towards the bottom of my most favorites list. I guess I had one of those “It wasn’t as bad as I thought” kind of moments. That’s because a lot of the movie plot was based on all of the people behind the Iron Curtain that were actually involved in smuggling the hero in. And that was interesting. But, on the other hand, some of those interactions were confusing - and a lot of times I was wondering who was actually working for what government. I also felt sorry for the scientific folks who were trapped working under a dictatorship for the project, while they were secretly on America’s side, and then paid the ultimate price with their lives in trying to help.

Movies about Russia intrigue me. Part of the reason for my fascination is that Russia has been so closed off. Anytime you say “this is a movie about Russia” it means I think I’m actually going to see real footage of what the country looks like. Sadly, this is not the case for Firefox, as the closest we get to filming in Russia is in Austria or Greenland. 

As a side note, I was really mad when I found out that Dr. Zhivago was mainly shot in Spain, Finland and Canada.

Watching Firefox certainly made me think of the movie Top Gun, with all of the special effect flying acrobatics of high-tech aircraft. But, interestingly, Firefox actually preceded Top Gun by four years.

My, oh My, How the 80s blur together sometimes.

Need more Clint on your screen: Try “The Beguiled,” “Trouble with the Curve,” “The Mule,” and “Paint Your Wagon,” a title that I actually found two VHS copies of before ordering the Elusive DVD. Parts of that one, by the way, were filmed in Oregon.