There are some who insist that the studios must surrender—or make otherwise available—the entirety of their libraries. Whether by streaming or manufactured-on-demand discs, there are completists who want every Tim Holt western, the whole Mexican Spitfire series, all the Harman-Ising cartoons, a box set of Fox’s first season of Cinemascope releases, and anything that could be half-seriously classified film noir. Everyone has predilections and bless those with the patience and enthusiasm to husk through what even partisans must admit is a lot of chafe. They make the discoveries for the rest of us.
Hardcore auteurists function in the same way, talking up an unseen Joseph M. Newman or Allan Dwan as if every 64-minute excavation is a revelation. Mention of an extraordinary tracking shot in an otherwise undistinguished programmer or a faint echo of a situation from an earlier film is usually enough. Strictly speaking, this is all true and valid, but one cannot help but feel that the bar for revelation is sometimes set awfully low.
