To Find the Impossible Find : Searching for an obscure title? These Southern California stores revel in the search. And the discovery.

By Jon Matsumoto

April 28, 1996 12 AM PT

Jon Matsumoto is a frequent contributor to Calendar

‘It’s almost impossible to find a good video store. I mean who’s going to carry ‘Cat Women of the Moon’ except me?” Rob Schaffner, the gregarious owner of Mondo Video A Go Go in Los Angeles, says with a laugh.

Of course there’s a reason why it’s difficult to locate a tape of this 1954 flick about an underground female civilization on the moon. Not many people derive pleasure from such irredeemably cheesy camp.

Somehow, Schaffner has been able to build a profitable business by devoting his rental store to hard-to-find sci-fi, horror, cult and classic videos. A number of other alternative video stores in and around Los Angeles carry titles you won’t find at your local chain outlet.

Vidiots in Santa Monica offers rare and out-of-print foreign, documentary and independent films among its 10,000 titles. Video Journeys in Los Angeles has a similar collection of 15,000 videos ranging from Nikita Mikhalkov’s marvelously poetic 1980 film “Oblomov” to an out-of-print video of 1935’s “Dante’s Inferno” starring Spencer Tracy. Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee in North Hollywood has a wide selection of vintage and popular television shows (“The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,” “The Mod Squad”), as well as rare foreign and classic films.

Some of these stores are so well regarded that patrons routinely travel long distances to rent their hard-to-find videos.

“We get people coming here from as far away as Oceanside,” says Claire Brandt, one of the owners of the family-run Saturday Matinee. “Twice a week we have people who come in from Santa Barbara and Culver City. There was a couple from Beverly Hills who were vacationing in France and saw something [about the store] on CNN and they were here the week after they got back. There’s also a guy from Orange County who comes in twice a week. He’s writing a book on how psychiatry is portrayed in the movies.”

It’s no coincidence that most of these specialty video rental stores are located near film or television studios or TV news stations. Many of the shops receive significant business from researchers working in the entertainment industry.

“A production company might come in and say, ‘We want any video with a steamboat in it,’ ” Vidiots co-owner Patricia Polinger says. “They want to look at certain scenes. Or they might be looking for a certain look or a certain director or actor. There are a million research questions.”

Not only are these shops known for their wide array of videos, but they are often distinguished by their knowledgeable clerks and managers. Unlike at some mainstream video stores, you won’t be greeted with a perplexed stare if you ask if they carry a particular film by English director Mike Leigh or French filmmaker Eric Rohmer. Indeed, stores such as Videoactive have entire sections devoted to such acclaimed filmmakers mixed among the many commercial titles.

“One of our employees just finished his first film, which he wrote and directed,” says Cathy Tauber, another Vidiots co-owner. “His name is Quentin too!” (Director Quentin Tarantino once worked at a video store.)

You’re in luck if you have a penchant for foreign, independent or cult films and you live in the Los Angeles or West Los Angeles areas. At least seven video rental shops cater to esoteric tastes.

But if you reside in suburban areas such as Orange County, the San Gabriel Valley or the South Bay, less well-known video titles are far less accessible.

A few mail-order rental services are available for those who do not live near a suitable specialty video shop. Brandt’s Saturday Matinee has a mail rental service that charges $7, plus shipping, per video. Mail rentals are for one week, and there is a three-tape minimum per order.

Facets Video in Chicago and Home Film Festival in Scranton, Pa., also offer similar video rental services by mail. Facets is nationally known for its extensive catalog of hard-to-find titles for rent or sale.

“I love Facets,” says Hayley Nahmian of Video Journeys. “We give them a lot of business. They’re the type of distribution company that will have stuff that we can’t get from our normal distributor.”

The KCET-operated VideoFinders offers more than 125,000 video titles for sale through a toll-free number; the service has access to many PBS-related video titles. Movies Unlimited in Philadelphia is another service with an impressive catalog of videos for sale.

Many quality films are not available on video for business or legal reasons, Facets director Milos Stehlik says. For example, a number of Wim Wenders’ films such as “The American Friend” and “Kings of the Road” were recently deleted from the video market when the company holding the rights went out of business.

“I remember spending a lot of time trying to track down [Luchino] Visconti’s version of ‘The Stranger,’ which is based on the Albert Camus novel,” Stehlik says. “I tracked it down to Paramount in Europe. A guy wrote a letter back and said Paramount had gone back to renew the rights to the film but Madame Camus, who now had possession of Albert Camus’ estate, hated the film so much that she refused to let anyone see it. I’m told that until she dies and some greedy relative inherits it, we’re without it.”

Finding rare, out-of-print videos can be an exhausting task. New York City-based Norman Scherer is a video detective who spends much of his time scouring the country for rare titles, relying on such avenues as flea markets and video stores that have gone out of business. Scherer recently sold the entire eight-volume set of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s out-of-print “Berlin Alexanderplatz” to a collector for $1,500.

Business is clearly booming for the itinerant sleuth, who also writes about the video market for Video Store and Video Business magazines.

“Oh my god, my phone doesn’t stop ringing,” he says. “I get calls from all around the country and from celebrities I can’t mention. It’s a good thing I don’t have an 800 number.”

Scherer has helped Vidiots replace a number of out-of-print videos that have been damaged or never returned.

“Customers who don’t return stuff like that know it’s not available,” co-owner Polinger says. “We’ll charge their credit card $300, and they’ll pay for it. Most of the time they don’t care. They’ve got the tape, and that’s what they want.”

Some public libraries can be a valuable source for hard-to-find videos that have educational value. The Anaheim Public Library carries about 6,000 videos, including D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” and films based on the works of Shakespeare and Dickens. It also offers videos that teach languages and work-related skills as well as historical and cultural documentaries that are not available in most video stores.

Each department of the Central Los Angeles Public Library in downtown L.A. has its own video collection. For instance, the science and technology department contains hundreds of videos, with topics ranging from pregnancy and computers to a documentary titled “Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers.”

Where to Find Them

Anaheim Public Library

500 W. Broadway; (714) 254-1880

Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee

6310 Colfax Ave., North Hollywood;

(818) 506-4242

Facets Video

(800) 331-6197

Home Film Festival

(800) 258-3456

Jerry’s Video Reruns

1902 N. Hillhurst Ave.; no telephone