Many movies can be watched free on Internet

There's no such thing as a free lunch. But there are free movies.

OK, not completely free — you need a computer, preferably with high-speed Internet access, and you may have to sit through 30- or 60-second commercials here and there.

But there are indeed free movies on the Wild Wild West — er, that is, the World Wide Web.

A lot of movies. Many of the same titles you scan through while browsing in your local video-rental store or on NetFlix or the list of on-demand movies offered by your cable or satellite company.

True, these on-the-Web movies are not as new as many of those offerings. But there are some good films available, including vintage titles that have never been on home video.

Consider this Part 3 in a trilogy of columns about hard-to-find older movies that are suddenly becoming more accessible. (After columns about a bevy of DVD releases scheduled over the next couple of months, and on-demand DVDs/downloads from Warner Home Video).

These online freebies are not bootlegs, they aren't clips or condensed TV episodes, they aren't trailers. They're licensed, full-length feature films, a wide variety on a number of Internet sites.

True, included among these titles are a lot of stupid and sleazy movies, but if you ignore those and look for films worth watching you may be surprised at what you find — perhaps even titles you've been looking for.

For example, a movie I was surprised to see is "Harry in Your Pocket," a crime picture that was filmed in Salt Lake City in the early 1970s, starring James Coburn and Walter Pidgeon as veteran pickpockets who reluctantly train young up-and-comers Michael Sarrazin and Trish Van Devere.

OK, "Harry in Your Pocket" may not be a classic or even a major movie but it's a clever, well-performed character piece that gets three stars from Leonard Maltin in his annual "Movie Guide" — and it features a lot of downtown Salt Lake scenery, circa 1973, which may explain why so many locals ask me about it. And it's never been on home video.

You can find it and watch it for free on Fancast at www.fancast.com, along with many other feature-length movies.

Fancast also features such never-on-home-video or out-of-print baby-boomer flicks as:

 The Dick Van Dyke caper comedy "Fitzwilly" (1967).

 Sam Fuller's 1951 wartime drama "Fixed Bayonets" (which features James Dean as one of the soldiers).

 The 1963 Mayan drama "Kings of the Sun," starring Yul Brynner. (This is another film I'm frequently asked about.)