Weekends lost to the allure of binge viewing T

HE idea of binge watching started in the 1920s when films were silent and French director Abel Gance produced historical epic Napoleon that ran for more than five hours.

In the US, Erich von Stroheim offered Greed at four hours and D W Griffiths produced Intolerance and Birth of a Nation at three hours plus.

But the epic took a grip on the public imagination in technicolour and sound in the 1950s and 1960s when people flocked to the cinema to see spectacular films such as The 10 Commandments, Ben Hur and Spartacus, that were so long they had an interval for comfort breaks and ice cream.

This was a period when most major feature films hit the 90-minute formula mark, which allowed for a B feature of shorter duration plus newsreel, adverts and maybe a cartoon. A bit like watching Dixon of Dock Green, Take Your Pick and Charlie Drake on TV at home.

“Turn the big light off, our Marjorie, and stop rustling that box of Quality Street.”

These days we binge-watch in the comfort of pyjamas in our front rooms with a pause button that allows a comfort break at any time.

I wondered what film-goers of 50 years ago would think.

We have an almost endless choice of TV drama and comedy box sets to indulge continuity viewing but we still need epics from movie makers as well.

Immerse yourself in The Lord of the Rings trilogy that runs for 11 hours 21 minutes. Or try The Hobbit two-parter at only eight hours 52 minutes.

That’s a boring Wednesday night taken care of.

There’s even a binge blog website to help plan viewing that suggests Game of Thrones might take two days, 15 hours and 30 minutes. The really perverse would need almost five days to watch every episode of Spongebob Squarepants. And wait, there’s more. Discerning viewers can fight the Force for 13 hours straight watching the complete Star Wars franchise or settle back with Harry Potter for more than 19 hours of Hogwarts entertainment.

Now that’s magic. As long as you have a spare weekend.