10 Movies to Watch After You See Back to the Future Part III ~ Cinenus

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Today is October 21, 2015. You know, the actual date that Doc, Marty, Jennifer and Einstein travel forward to in Back to the Future Part II. And here we are to complete the trilogy of Movies to Watch lists devoted to the trilogy of Back to the Future movies.

By the end of this post, along with the previous two lists you will have a total of 30 recommendations, one for each year since the original installment debuted in theaters. Hopefully it’s enough to keep you distracted from being sad about all of the Back to the Future stories now being set in the past. Well, the movie stories, anyway, because in the animated TV series there’s an episode set in 2091 (see you again then, fans!) and in the comic books Doc and Marty travel to 2585 and then millions of year beyond (I might not make it that far, guys).

As you might expect, this third list is full of Westerns, most of them directly influential on Back to the Future Part III. If you’re one of those people who dislike this sequel because it’s almost entirely set in the Old West, then you may not be interested in a lot of the below picks. I’ve tried to balance the list out a bit with other essentials, though I will note that all the Westerns represented are classics and must be seen whether it’s because of the references in BTTF3 or not. Happy trails…

The Lonedale Operator (1911)

Although not in the filmed version of BTTF3, the original draft of the script and the novelization both feature cinema pioneer D.W. Griffith as a character. At least it’s supposed to be him, even though as described as being seven years old, the kid is too young, and also the real Griffith would have been living in Kentucky at the time. The boy confronts Marty (Michael J. Fox) just after he defeats Mad Dog Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) in their showdown and asks how he thought of using armor under his serape. Marty tells him he saw it in a movie. The boy asks what a movie is (the first official one wouldn’t show up for two more years, after all), and Marty says, “You’ll see.” It would have been reminiscent of his line in the first installment of the trilogy when he tells the kids at the dance that their kids are going to love the kind of music they’ve just heard him play.

Griffith directed many Westerns himself in the first decade of his career and was a major influence on the genre going forward. He’s credited with giving us the first instances of a few Western conventions, such as the Native American siege on a wagon train and the cavalry rescue, both in 1911’s The Last Drop of Water. In fact, most of his Westerns involved Native Americans, usually attacking or being attacked by whites. 1912’s The Massacre is an easily seen example of that bunch. The Lonedale Operator is different, an action-oriented short dealing with a robbery at a train station, similar to Edwin S. Porter‘s much earlier, much more famous The Great Train Robbery. Griffith’s film, though, is notable for its use of crosscutting and close-up for the time. He remade The Lonedale Operator a year later as The Girl and Her Trust, which features a greater train-chase action sequence for those thrilled by the climax of BTTF3. Watch the former in full below, and then watch the latter here.

The General (1926)

Speaking of great 19th century locomotive action set pieces, if there’s ever one better than the BTTF3 climax, it’s the entirety of Buster Keaton’s masterpiece about a boy and his train during the Civil War. I just included this silent comedy back in May on the list of movies to watch after Mad Max: Fury Road, but the BTTF sequel is just as related, if not more so. Keaton is a Southern engineer denied enlistment in the Confederate Army who becomes a hero anyway while trying to save his girl and his locomotive (mostly his locomotive) from Union soldiers. Like in BTTF3, the train in The General winds up very spectacularly (and at least for this film very expensively) crashing to the bottom of a gorge.

The Chicken of Tomorrow (1948)

One character you may not know the story of in BTTF3 is the barbed wire salesman who chats with Doc at the saloon. Although unnamed, he’s supposed to be John W. Gates, a pioneer of the fencing material and later an integral part of the founding of The Texas Company, aka Texaco, a brand that is more prominently represented in the previous two BTTF installments. What does that have to do with this old documentary short? Well, it was produced by The Texas Company and is about the future — of poultry. Also, Universal’s lot, including the Hill Valley set, is all on land that was formerly a huge chicken ranch. The first tours even included a chicken lunch apparently made from the remaining poultry farming on site. It’s no wonder people kept calling Marty chicken. He was basically born from fowl territory. Mystery Science Theater 3000 mocked the short, and you can watch that version here. The original is below.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

While getting to know each other, Doc (Christopher Lloyd) and Clara (Mary Steenburgen) bond over their love for sci-fi and fantasy author Jules Verne. It’s a connection that would lead to them naming their children (Todd Cameron Brown and Dannel Evans) Jules and Verne. The first book of his mentioned in the scene is “From Earth to the Moon,” which Doc quotes. He then says that “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is his absolute favorite, that he wished he could be Captain Nemo. In another scene, when he marks the cave with his initials, a la “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” Doc mentions that “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” was the first he’d read, at age 11, and that was when he knew he wanted to devote his life to science.

Presumably Doc also enjoyed this Disney adaptation of the book as his time-machine locomotive at the end looks like it was inspired by the design of Nemo’s Nautilus. In fact, production designer Rick Carter was inspired by that submarine and labeled the new vehicle the “Jules Verne Train.” It’s unclear if the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was also named for the story, but that would have been perfect since it would mean the Browns and the McFlys each fell in love through something involving Verne.

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Wednesday, 21 October 2015