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IMDB Goofs? Let's fix 'em!

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millionairewaltz	IMDB Goofs? Let's fix 'em!	Lead	[-]
Mar 2 08 3:30 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Especially with older films and obscure films, IMDB tends to have a lot of misinformation, and that misinformation gets repeated again and again across the Internet and in major publications. I hear people complain about this time and time again, but it seems to me that faced with accurate information, IMDB is more than willing to edit its database to reflect correct information. Why don't we start a crusade to fix all those bugs and update that site for once and all? A lot of dates and casting information can be found through research databases and newspaper archives -- more and more of which are available free online. I know a lot of people on the boards are interested in research, so maybe if we combine efforts we can do a great deal. tom graeff: his life and works www.myspace.com/theboyfilm
TServo4		#1	[-]
Mar 3 08 12:25 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The problem is that: a) The staff at IMDb ISN'T willing to edit its information. Trying to get information in is easy. Trying to get it removed or altered is next to impossible. b) And that being said, there are a number of people who are ignorant or mischief-makers that will turn around and undo your correction for one reason or another. And that being said, the core problem is that ANY one can edit the IMDb. It's not a guide put together by professionals based on documentation. So it is entirely inaccurate, even more so than the inaccuracies of a published guide. Wikipedia is a step above, but not by much, as for every solution there are two setbacks. You may be able to immediately edit, but then you have contradictory rules and policies, moderated by a member voted rather than company staffed set of moderators who take it as a personal job rather than a professional one. So if you're on the bad side of a mod, your side of the argument is overlooked. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
Bill Warren		#2	[-]
Mar 3 08 1:11 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	So it is entirely inaccurate, even more so than the inaccuracies of a published guide. I think it's more accurate to say the IMDb has inaccuracies throughout rather than that it is entirely inaccurate, since it actually is accurate more often than it is not. The trouble is there's no way for a casual user to tell when it is right and when it isn't. I continue to offer information and corrections; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Recently, for instance, I tried to correct an error in the trivia for the MAS*H TV series. There was a note claiming the woman in the photo on Col. Potter's (Harry Morgan's) desk was Verna Felton, his costar from the DECEMBER BRIDE and PETE AND GLADYS series. I don't know who it is--maybe Morgan's real-life wife--but it's definitely not Verna Felton. The change >may< have gone through.
Joe Karlosi		#3	[-]
Mar 3 08 6:34 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've been trying to get them to correct the year of Charlton Heston's birth forever (it's 1923, not 1924).
TServo4		#4	[-]
Mar 3 08 10:14 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I don't know Bill. Quite often the release dates, technical specs, trivia sections and even cast listings are rife with mistakes. But like I said, the problem is people putting them back. I finally got IMDb to get rid of Morey Amsterdam from the cast listing of IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, and you know what? Two weeks later, it was back up there. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
Bob Furmanek		#5	[-]
Mar 3 08 10:46 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	We tried multiple times to get the 1953 3-D short STARDUST IN YOUR EYES listed on IMDB. Despite it playing at both World 3-D Expo's, they would not accept the information because they claimed they could find no confirmation of the films existence!
TomWeaver999		#6	[-]
Mar 3 08 11:43 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I use IMDb a lot, but ALWAYS with a grain of salt -- I'd never think of taking a piece of info from IMDb and incorporating it into something I'm writing for a book or mag without first trying to confirm it somehow. Any movie or TV show I watch, I have a printout of the IMDb cast-credits in hand, because if I see a familiar face and can't put a name to it, I'm distracted from what I'm watching the whole time he/she is on-screen (and beyond!), so I appreciate that very often, the IMDb castlist will give me the answer at a glance. And as a show of gratitude, I always try and correct any mistakes in that cast-crew list, or add to it; the IMDb being so rife with mistakes and omissions, especially TV-episode-wise, that's made me one of their top 50 or 100 contributors for five or six years now. (For instance, I had a mini-BATMAN marathon about a year ago, because I wanted to get rid of 40 or 50 VHS tapes, and Adam West, Burt Ward and most of the other regulars were missing from 9/10ths of the episode castlists, and none of 'em had ANY crew credits.) But, yes, as TServo says, fairly often you'll fix-up a cast-crew list so that it perfectly matches the on-screen credits -- and then for some reason you look at that cast-crew list again down the line, and some clown has monkeyed with it and it's all half-assed again. The masses ARE asses in a lot of ways, and trying to make a "Come one, come all, contribute to our site!" site more accurate is often an exercise in futility. Last Edited By: TomWeaver999 Mar 3 08 11:46 AM. Edited 1 times.
TomWeaver999		#7	[-]
Mar 3 08 11:54 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Oh, another IMDb pet peeve -- the submitters who'll give away a surprise ending, or the identity of the mystery killer, etc., in the cast list. You look up a movie you're about to watch, just to find out who-all is in it, and there's the climactic twist on the cast list. IMDb frowns on this too, but can't "lock" individual character names so that nobody can change 'em again. tom << NIGHT MONSTER Ralph Morgan ............ Kurt Ingston a.k.a. The Marsh Murderer <<
Bill Warren		#8	[-]
Mar 3 08 2:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	On the other hand, I was able to add Mark Kausler's short IT'S THE CAT to IMDb without any problem. If that soldier in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE isn't Morey Amsterdam, he sure the hell LOOKS like Morey Amsterdam. Tim Murphy did a frame grab for me, and he >still< looks like Amsterdam. I do include him in the cast list in KWTS, but I add (?--unproven).
blackbiped		#9	[-]
Mar 3 08 3:24 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	TomWeaver999 wrote: Oh, another IMDb pet peeve -- the submitters who'll give away a surprise ending, or the identity of the mystery killer, etc., in the cast list. You look up a movie you're about to watch, just to find out who-all is in it, and there's the climactic twist on the cast list. IMDb frowns on this too, but can't "lock" individual character names so that nobody can change 'em again. tom << NIGHT MONSTER Ralph Morgan ............ Kurt Ingston a.k.a. The Marsh Murderer << I noticed this when I was looking at the cast list for a movie called GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN with Brooke Shields and Scott Glenn. The final twist for the whole story was given away right there, simply because a character was identified by both her initial name and her secret surprise identity. (Speaking of spoilers, do not watch the trailer for AWAKE before watching the movie. It's as bad as a trailer for CITIZEN KANE giving away the meaning of "Rosebud.") Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way. Porfle's Secret Blog HK and Cult Film News Andersonvision.com
TServo4		#10	[-]
Mar 3 08 6:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	If that soldier in IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE isn't Morey Amsterdam, he sure the hell LOOKS like Morey Amsterdam. Tim Murphy did a frame grab for me, and he >still< looks like Amsterdam. I do include him in the cast list in KWTS, but I add (?--unproven). I've got the production reports for the entire shooting of IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. Morey Amsterdam is NOT listed in any of the call sheets, which included all of the bit players and some extras. Morey Amsterdam was a respected comedian at the time, commanding good money for his performances. I doubt he would have just been on the Universal lot and been in a production without billing (or his manager having a say). In fact, if you check out the day they filmed that shot (February or March something, as I recall), I'll bet it's pretty easy to track down Amsterdam's touring show at the time. I'll lay money on it he was in was on the other side of the country that week. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
Bill Warren		#11	[-]
Mar 3 08 7:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I presume the soldier wasn't Amsterdam, but as I say, he looks >very< much like him. I have no problem including him in the cast with the (?) disclaimer; likewise, I have no problem deleting him from the cast list. But I think I should post a small note about it. It's not impossible for this kind of thing to happen. Buddy Hackett has a wordless, uncredited, one-shot cameo in THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS, probably because he was a pal of someone connected with the production. Peter Finch has an uncredited walk-on in FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. Both were fairly big stars at the time(s). Maybe Amsterdam just wanted to be in a 3D movie and did one day's worth of work free fer nothin'. I agree it's very unlikely, but it isn't impossible.
TServo4		#12	[-]
Mar 3 08 7:43 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Of course, Maltin's guide has Abbott and Costello listed as being in the long shots in FIREMAN, SAVE MY CHILD (it's their stunt doubles, which were taken as second unit footage). So who knows. Like I said, if it turns out that he was on the other side of the country at the time, it would be impossible. So this is a matter that needs closer examination. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY Last Edited By: TServo4 Mar 3 08 7:57 PM. Edited 1 times.
Jacque Lecotier		#13	[-]
Mar 3 08 10:39 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	IMDb's big problem is that few or none of the staff who process the data are movie experts of any sort. They're hired mostly for their computer programming knowledge. They also number a whopping 17, for all the millions of bits of data that come in, and their movie tastes tend to run to modern stuff. Col Needham has also stated that he views IMDb as primarily a "technological site, not a people site", so he isn't planning on expanding staff and the ones he has are developing more and more programming to do the data "screening". There's absolutely no way, therefore, that IMDb will ever get settled on, say, the Morey Amsterdam question for IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, because there is nobody who has a clue on the staff to settle the problem once and for all. They just take stuff that is submitted by the users, mostly a couple of hundred people submitting in any volume, and they aren't being coordinated to work together by IMDb either. So I saw Morey in ICFOS's cast and took him out and somebody put him back in and I took him out again, or submitted it, but they never processed it, so I put (unconfirmed) rather than (uncredited) after his name, which is like Bill's (?-unproven), but now Tservo4 has submitted a removal altogether, and you just watch, Morey Amsterdam (uncredited) will be back in the cast list in a few weeks. And no one on the IMDb staff will even notice, because they a) don't care about a film that "old", and b) don't have any way programmed in of being alerted to the deletions and reinsertions, and c) all the processing is done by bots. It's like Wikipedia, only slower, with regards to reversion wars. And if anyone would raise a question, there are numerous books which include Amsterdam that can be sited as "evidence", and numerous which don't, and IMDb staff wouldn't even know where to find a copy of any of them, so they'd just take the latest submitter's word for it, yea or nay, in any event. Pointing out to them how vulnerable they are to misinformation clogging the pipes doesn't go anywhere, either.
TomWeaver999		#14	[-]
Mar 3 08 11:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I get a lot more "satisfaction" (if that's the word) adding stuff to IMDb -- technical credits, actors, etc. -- than I do trying to address things like "the Morey Amsterdam situation." Because, as Jacque etc. say above, IMDb is guided by the last voice it hears. Trivia geek that I am, I once wrote to Amsterdam to ask if he had a bit in the movie, and he either didn't get the letter, or he DID get it and he laughed, "What a geek!"
TomWeaver999		#15	[-]
Mar 4 08 8:36 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, I just fixed Wikipedia and IMDb but now that the idea that the British director Don Sharp produced LATITUDE ZERO has taken root, it's only a matter of time before someone changes it back. The Internet -- the un-correctable resource. Who was the iconic TV talent that Don SharpE discovered?
TomWeaver999		#16	[-]
Mar 4 08 8:52 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I first read that Morey Amsterdam cameos in IT CAME FROM O.S.was a brochure that was produced by some sci-fi con of the 1970s. I scratched my head then, even as a teenager, but the next time I watched the movie, I saw the soldier supposedly played by M.A. and, yeah, it looks about as much like Morey A. as any guy walking past the camera wearing a hat, at a distance of about 20 feet, could look. But if I was on WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE and the million dollar question was, "Was it REALLY Morey Amsterdam?," my final answer would be no. Supposedly James Cagney is an extra in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and Errol Flynn in THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. Oh, and according to Cynthia Lindsay (I think), Karloff was an extra in lots of famous films. That last claim always struck me as kooky too.
TomWeaver999		#17	[-]
Mar 4 08 8:58 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wasting a little more time on the ridiculous Wikipedia this morning, I find that, according to them, the reporter at the IT CAME FROM O.S. meteor crash site was played by "Robert Carson (April 7, 1918 - March 24, 2006), a British numismatist. He was a leading expert on Roman coins, and was employed as Keeper of Coins and Medals at the British Museum from 1978 to 1983." Maybe he and Amsterdam were pals and they did their cameos together on the same day, as a lark. Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.
Bill Warren		#18	[-]
Mar 4 08 1:30 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I have a frame grab of "Morey Amsterdam" from IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. I don't have a clue as to how to post a photo on these boards, but if someone who does and will post that frame, I can eMail it to them. It's a clear shot, and he definitely does look like Morey Amsterdam. As I said above, it probably >isn't< Morey Amsterdam, but the photo will show why so many people have thought it is.
Cinema Bill		#19	[-]
Mar 4 08 1:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Somebody hurry and send the info to Bill W. Then we can keep the Morey myth alive for another 50 years. Or is it a myth? Can't wait for the post to "see for myself".
blackbiped		#20	[-]
Mar 4 08 4:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bill, if no one else has beaten me to it, I'll post the pic if you email it to porfle@yahoo.com. Legend, oh legend, the third wheel legend...always in the way. Porfle's Secret Blog HK and Cult Film News Andersonvision.com

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IMDB Goofs? Let's fix 'em!

IMDB Goofs? Let's fix 'em!