DID YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF ON A GREY, WINTERY DAY -- the kind of day that's slightly rainy and mostly misty -- the kind of day which found the world's greatest consulting detective reaching for his persian slipper filled with tobacco while his faithful chronicler Dr. Watson peered out the window of 221B Baker Street at the roiling fog -- the kind of day where the raindrops hang from the bare tree branches with no sign of falling away?

Yesterday I found myself with an entire day stretching before me. I wanted to watch something but I was just not in the mood to watch movies. Can you believe it?!? No, I didn't think you would. So, what's a film nut to do? Something really weird, apparently. Because this is what I did and I found it oddly satisfying and something which I actually recommend. I simply went to the vault -- to the shelf of DVDs starting with "A" -- and I went right down the line grabbing each DVD which contained halfway decent special features and watched all the documentaries about the movie -- without watching the movie itself. Now, I don't know about you but I usually watch the movie and then the special features on the dvd at the same time -- or else, I watch the movie and don't watch the documentaries. But this time I reversed that. Now, I was particularly choosy with which documentaries I watched; I didn't watch any of the delected scenes or any of that other rot. I only watched things that could really be called documentaries. Some were feature length while others could last only 10-15 minutes. However, it had to be something which actually counted as a documentary. And it was quite nice for the day. I enjoy a nice documentary. And this way I got a whole lot of movie talk by a lot of movie people. Not a bad way to spend the day.

There was the episode of AMC's Backstory on the ALL ABOUT EVE dvd detailing all the fun involved with the making of that Academy Awards blockbuster. Remember AMC's documentary series Backstory? Remember when AMC was worth watching at all? There was the enthralling tale of how Claudette Colbert was set to star when she injured her back and the role went to Bette Davis. I mean, seriously . . . who else could have played Margo Channing?!? Then there was the tale of Bette Davis falling in love with her leading man Gary Merrill and marrying him. Or the frosty feud between Davis and Celeste Holm which started when Holm said "Good morning" as Davis walked by. "Oh shit!", sneered Davis, "Good manners!"

Next there was the ASYLUM disc which featured a documentary all about Amicus called "Inside the Fear Factory" in which we're given a run-through of all those horror omnibus films from DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS on out. If nothing else, you've got to admit that studio boss Max J. Rosenberg was a character; given no other evidence than his on-screen interview. THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL dvd sports a feature-length TCM documentary entitled "Lana Turner: A Daughter's Memoir" which takes up the entire second side of the disc. The most startling facet of this doc is that it is hosted by Turner's daughter; yes, the one who knifed her gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato. That fact almost escapes you as you see her sitting there perfectly poised and coiffed discussing her mother's career. Classic MGM musical THE BAND WAGON features a nice doc on it's DVD which not only interviews those surviving cast and crew members but also features Fred Astaire's daughter (whom you don't see every day). Particularly nice is Nanette Fabares' recounting of the trouble she had with co-star Oscar Levant who would blame her for every mistake HE made. After new kid Fabares had enough and told Levant to go to hell, she never had another moment's trouble with him.

Then, of course, next on the shelf was the documentary which was the whole DVD itself: BETTIE PAGE: THE GIRL IN THE LEOPARD PRINT BIKINI. Any excuse to see Bettie Page shaking her moneymaker is OK with me! Another doc was the "pseudo-documentary" which appeared on TV during the theatrical release of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT purporting to tell the real legend of "The Curse of the Blair Witch". I still get a kick outta that whole Blair Witch scam which burned up the internet at the time. THE BEAST MUST DIE dvd features a short but interesting doc called "Directing the Beast" in which director Peter Arnett gives a nice reminiscence of his first meeting with the great Peter Cushing. The actor was finishing up on the film MADHOUSE down the road before he was scheduled to start on THE BEAST MUST DIE so Arnett went down to introduce himself. He knocked on the door and who should swing the door open but Vincent Price; heavily slathered in make-up with his face taped up to make him appear younger. Arnett then glanced over and saw Cushing made up the same way. "My God," he thought, "is this what they look like?" But Cushing, seeing Arnett's consternation assured the "dear boy" that they were shooting a flashback sequence taking place 30 years before. No, they didn't go around looking like Norma Desmond, thankfully!

Feature length TCM documentary "Cary Grant: A Class Apart" can be found on the excellent 2-disc BRINGING UP BABY dvd which naturally is a biography of the great actor. I think my favourite moment of this doc has always been Grant's former wife Betsy Drake addressing the "gay" rumours about Grant and Randolph Scott. Drake insists that she would have no reason to think about such things while she and Cary Grant were "busy fucking". The short but entertaining doc "Cole Porter: Begin the Beguine" appears on the BROADWAY MELODY OF 1940 dvd focusing mainly on the epochal final dance teaming of Fred Astaire with Eleanor Powell during the showstopping Begin the Beguine finale. It's charming to hear reminiscences about Astaire's nervousness about the prospect of dancing alongside the phenomenol Powell. The BULLITT dvd contains a second disc of two excellent docs: "Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool" which is a feature length bio of the star and "Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie Editing" which is a monumental study of the entire history of film editing. This extremely welcome bonus does a great job demonstrating the different techniques of film editing by the film editors themselves.

The DVD for A CHRISTMAS STORY features a rather fluffy documentary of the film itself (which sadly features director Bob Clark only a couple years before his fatal car crash) as well as a short documentary on the actual Daisy Red Ryder air rifle. The CITIZEN KANE disc includes a second dvd featuring the PBS series American Masters documentary THE BATTLE OVER CITIZEN KANE which is extremely well-done. The film parallels the lives and mistakes of publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst (whom Kane was transparently based upon) and Orson Welles -- and the two giants' inevitable clash in which neither one won. A second disc on the CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND also features a rather good feature-length doc on the making of that film. It is particularly fun to see little 3 year old Cary Guffey grown up in his thirties but still able to recall much of the shooting of the film. The strategy used by director Steven Spielberg to get the quality performance from the three year old is remarkable and obviously effective -- since the little boy quickly earned the nickname "One Take Cary".

The second box set of the Humphrey Bogart Collection features short documentaries on each of the disc included; all of which are worth a look. "Hollywood Helps the Cause" appears on the ACROSS THE PACIFIC disc and looks at the propagandistic stance Hollywood took during World War II. ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC features a doc called "Credit Where Credit Is Due" which looks at several little-known directors such as Vincent Sherman while the ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT disc sports "Call the Usual Suspects: The Craft of the Character Actor" which looks at everyone from Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet to Franklin Pangborne and Walter Brennan. A much longer documentary entitled "The Maltese Falcon: One Magnificent Bird" looks at the three tries Warner Bros. took filming the classic Dashiell Hammett book before they got it right with John Huston's Bogart version. Finally, the PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES disc includes another short doc examining "The Free French: Unsung Victors" which looks at Charles DeGaulle and the French resistance movement.

A DAY AT THE RACES includes a short doc entitled "On Your Marx, Get Set, Go!" which does a nice job going over the classic Marx Brothers comedy. "Making the Earth Stand Still" is a servicable doc appearing on the old DVD of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (there's a new one coming out almost immediately) which features the late director Robert Wise. Then there's where I ended up: the 2 disc Special Edition of THE GREAT ESCAPE which features an extensive documentary of the film which is disconcertingly split up into multiple parts which each includes an "end credit" roll which you have to sit through between the sections. God knows why they're split up like that because it makes for viewer annoyance. But the docs themselves are quite good. Then there is the real historical version of the escape entitled "The Great Escape: The Untold Story" which relates the real events that were "Hollywoodized" for the movie.

As I say, that's where I left off since today was jam-packed with things to get done and I had no chance to watch any more. However, this evening I suspect I'll continue where I left off because I'm finding this daffy idea very entertaining. Don't worry, I'll be getting back to the movie watching eventually. But for right now, it's all about the docs.