Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix?

October 16, 2007 8:49 AM

Why can't I get the movie "Quiet man" from Netflix? For a while now it has shown availability "Unknown" and just shows up in the "Saved" section. A couple of months ago, it was in my queue but it always had "Very Long Wait".
posted by fx3000 to media & arts (14 comments total)

The Artisan release of The Quiet Man is currently out of print and they may have no copies in inventory through attrition.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 8:56 AM on October 16, 2007

They probably don't have very many copies of that movie in stock. I've noticed the same thing happening with some older titles I have on my queue; I always figured that the few copies they had all went lost or got broken, and that it was taking Netflix a while to get more of those discs.
posted by phatkitten at 8:58 AM on October 16, 2007

Ask here.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:59 AM on October 16, 2007

Have you tried your local library? 12 libraries near me have the DVD, and about 20 have the VHS. Some libraries have better selection and Interlibrary Loan capabilities than others though.
posted by ALongDecember at 9:17 AM on October 16, 2007

re: ask here
I did contact Netflix with this question and they never replied to me.
posted by fx3000 at 9:25 AM on October 16, 2007

Netflix isn't going to give you any info on this -- don't waste your time. You'll be lucky if you get a form letter explaining that they provide a zillion titles and add new ones all the time kthanksbye! (Their customer service appears to be woefully understaffed.)

There are a few weird gaps in their collection. They don't have "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, Her Lover" and they don't even register that "M Butterfly" exists.

Is "The Quiet Man" up for the Criterion treatment? Those get yanked until they are re-debuted.
posted by desuetude at 9:34 AM on October 16, 2007

I had the same problem with the Horatio Hornblower series. According to customer service, sometimes the company decides to put them out of print and requires Netflix and other rental outfits to return all their copies. The fact that it's now in the Saved Movies section with a release date of Unknown is actually a good thing, as it indicates the company is most likely planning to re-release it.
posted by Soliloquy at 9:35 AM on October 16, 2007

Maybe the same thing happens to them as to libraries: rare items are ripped off because the replacement penalty to the borrower is less than the value of the item.
posted by smackfu at 9:50 AM on October 16, 2007

If you can get however many movies you get at a time into the top of your queue to be long wait, short wait, etc. it forces them to bump you up in the queue for the individual titles to honor their end of the netflix bargain. Its worked like a charm for me every time.
posted by zennoshinjou at 9:50 AM on October 16, 2007

The discs break, and new pressings need to be made. Don't blame Netflix, they still have more copies of any one movie in stock than brick-and-mortar alternatives.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:57 AM on October 16, 2007

But Netflix also has many more customers drawing from a single pool. In a brick-and-mortar, you may benefit from being in a low demand area, since only local customers rent movies there.
posted by smackfu at 10:28 AM on October 16, 2007

The same thing happened with Farscape S1, which makes them having the other seasons of Farscape a little annoying. :)
posted by WCityMike at 11:08 AM on October 16, 2007

One netflix trick I know (and I think it still works), is to remove everything else from your queue. With only one movie (and return one or two), you're given higher priority in the queue, because they *need* to send you something.
posted by filmgeek at 4:04 PM on October 16, 2007

You can't get it because you asked the people of Mefi to get the answer. The people of Mefi looked up Quiet Man and the people of Mefi who are also the people of Netflix added it to their queue.
posted by aetg at 5:30 PM on October 16, 2007