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The Bootleg Files: The Lauren Bacall High Point Coffee Commercials

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BOOTLEG FILES 814: “The Lauren Bacall High Point Coffee Commercials” (a series of television advertisements from the early 1980s).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No commercial reissue value.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

Forty years ago, American television viewers were bombarded with a series of commercials for the High Point brand of instant decaffeinated coffee starring Lauren Bacall. While it was hardly unusual to have recognizable stars pitching coffee in 30- and 60-second spots – Bacall and her then-husband Jason Robards co-starred in a Maxwell House ad during the mid-1960s – the High Point commercials represent a somewhat bizarre realm where marketing and camp overlap. These commercials generated giggles back in the day, and today they are treasured by many as small gems of unintentional humor.
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BAD MOVIE MONDAY: TWIXT (2011)

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I think one of the biggest problems with TWIXT is the title. It makes the movie sound like it’s the live action adaptation of a children’s cartoon about plucky ghosts going to school at night and getting taught English by Edgar Alan Poe. A title like TWIXT makes it sound like it should have its own section at the toy aisle in Wal-Mart. In fact, that’s the actual reason I never paid attention to the film when it came out. I thought it was a kid’s movie. It was only more than a decade later that I realized my mistake, and that it was a horror movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola that starred Val Kilmer and Bruce Dern. THEN it got my attention.
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