Metacritic probably can never turn into IMDB, but that doesn't mean that we forum members don't have opinions on old movies. Now the concept of classic films is so enormous, I hesitated to start this, but here I am typing, so what do you think/feel/know about classic films? I don't want to limit anybody, but I know that "Citizen Kane", "Casablanca" and "GWTW" always show up when classics are discussed, and feel free to discuss them, but I'm more interested in true classics that some might not have been exposed to yet.

I hope that everyone has been exposed to Chaplin, but what about Keaton's "Our Hospitality", "Sherlock, Jr." or "Seven Chances"? Have you experienced the beauty of Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last" or "The Kid Brother"? True, these are all silent movies, so the awesome thing is that you can play your favorite music while watching them. I don't mean to limit this topic to silent movies.

What about the joy of "Pygmalion", the basis for "My Fair Lady"; if you have a problem with movie musicals, it doesn't have any singing, but it does have tons of laughs.

Speaking of laughs, Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" is often cited as the greatest comedy ever made, but have you checked out the equally-hilarious "One, Two, Three", which is a good history of the Cold War with the awesome James Cagney at his most manic.

Finally, one of Stanley Kubrick's greatest and simplest is apropos now, "Paths of Glory." If it doesn't sober you up and leave you limp in its depiction of war is hell and insane, I don't know what to say, and it does it all in 86 minutes. Later, gators.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

Fully agree with Paths of Glory, an amazing movie(like most of Kubrick's work). My personal favorite "classic" movie, would be The Seventh Seal by Ingmarr Bergmann. I can't get enough of this film!

And The Big Sleep! That and The Seventh Seal have some of the best dialogue ever written!

Casablanca, The Apartment, and of course the Chaplin films are my favorites. Humphrey Bogart is the definition of cool and The Apartment is just so fast and witty it's great. And Chaplin movies I think can speak for themselves. Just watching Chaplin walk can crack me up for half an hour.

K-Dog

Im a huge fan of the old Kubrick films like Lolita, the Killing, Dr Strangelove etc. All Kubrick films for that matter. Without a doubt the greatest film maker ever.

I'm pretty much a Cary Grant & Humphrey Bogart junkie


Casablanca
North By Northwest
Notorious
Rear Window
Vertigo
Maltese Falcon
The Apartment
My Favorite Wife
Paths Of Glory
High Noon
The African Queen
The Third Man

"Days of Wine and Roses" is an amazing film you simply don't hear about enough. I'd go as far as to say it's my favorite film on alcoholism, including contemporary films.

"The Night of the Hunter" I can't say enough good things about. It's chocked full of images that deserve to live on forever.

Magnolia, You're right.

The Night Of The Hunter is such a beautiful movie!
It is also really creepy. I remember watching it as a kid and thinking: "why is this priest so awful to those kids??"

Some images are really unforgettable and I just love the scene where the little girl sings on the boat, I get goosebumps every time!

OK, I'll bite on these last two posts. "Days of Wine and Roses" manages to transform from a sweet romantic comedy to a harrowing nightmare pretty quickly. The scene that blows me away is when Jack Lemmon destroys the greenhouse looking for his stash. Someone might think that it's overboard but I really felt for the guy since I liked him so much.

Every time I watch "Night of the Hunter", I'm sad that Charles Laughton didn't direct more films. I'd go so far as to say it's a one-of-a-kind film. I was wondering, wong or anybody else, is Orson Welles really that great a director or did he just surround himself with the best people? Stanley Cortez, who was the cinematographer of "The Magnificent Ambersons", also did this, and I think it's superior. Oh, and that's the great thing about film; all those great images will live on forever (fingers crossed.)

Rather than turn this into a list of films as I usually do, I will say that in general (all though its not determinative), my favorite classic films are the "pre-code" films -- generally up to 19341934 or thereabouts. Films made before Hollywood bowed to the moral demands of the Production Code Administration. During this period basically Hollywood didn't observe any content restrictions on what they could use as the subject matter of film. So you have some really dark and culturally interesting explorations of alcoholism, drugs, sex, criminal activity, etc. that was not found after the code was enforced rigorously.

It's especially interesting to watch and compare pre and post-code films in light of the censorship that is on the rise today based on the same type of moral outrage proponed by the FCC mostly, but probably not long to be followed by the MPAA.

Out of the Past/Jacques Tourneur

To Have and Have Not/Howard Hawke

Body and Soul/Robert Rossen

Big Heat/Fritz Lang

Cat People/Jacques Tourneur

Kiss Me Deadly/Robert Aldrich

The Searchers/John Ford

Consider the resume, mark f: Citizen, Amberson, Lady, Touch, Chimes...for audacity, writing, visual style. As an excercise, 5 best from any director.
Try Hitchcock, Hawke, Houston, Ford, Kazan.... Welles compares favorably.

Or even the new guys: Polanski, Coppola, Scorsese....

quote:

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Originally posted by wong828:

Consider the resume, mark f: Citizen, Amberson, Lady, Touch, Chimes...for audacity, writing, visual style. As an exercise, 5 best from any director.
Try Hitchcock, Hawks, Huston, Ford, Kazan.... Welles compares favorably.

Or even the new guys: Polanski, Coppola, Scorsese....

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From your director choices, I'll make two lists, one "old" and one "new."

Hitchcock: I shouldn't limit Hitchcock to any one time frame since he directed for over 50 years, but I'll choose five from a six-year span (1954-1960.) "Rear Window", "The Trouble With Harry", "Vertigo", "North By Northwest" and "Psycho."

Polanski: I may be leaving off some of his more personal work to concentrate on his strength as a storyteller. "Rosemary's Baby", "Macbeth", "Chinatown", "Tess", and "The Pianist."

I love Casablanca, it's so witty and full of dense-quotable dialogue. I should watch more older films really, especially as I work in a video store...

If you liked Casablanca, I would also recommend Key Largo ... it's a Bogart/Bacall film directed by John Huston. Bogart plays a man who comes to a Key Largo hotel to visit the widow of one of his war buddies. When he gets there, he finds that gangsters have taken over the hotel and of course a hurricane is on its way in as well. Eventually Bogie has to take on the gangsters.

It's a great flick and my brother, who is not a big classic movie watcher, but did like Casablanca, really liked this film as well.

Some of my favorites that have'nt been mentioned are...


To Be or Not TO Be:::Carole Lombard and Jack Benny are great and the movie is interesting considering the time frame that it was made. Another Lombard film that I enjoyed was My Man Godfrey, too bad she could'nt finish a career that was only going up!

The Third Man:::Orson Wells and some really interesting music with the zither if I am correct. Very intersting scenes like when you first meet Lime to the final scene after the funeral.

The General:::Lucky to have seen this movie at the Stanford Theater where they played the original score on an organ. Fun to hear the crowds reaction to some of the scenes; more than I can recall from anything recently for sure.

His Girl Friday:::My first introduction to the picture of cool in Gary Grant. Fun movie that keeps your attention and some funny behind the scenes stories as well.

One of my favorite classic films is Harvey. I just love Jimmy Stewart's character, Elwood P. Dowd. He has a way about him that seems to have been lost over the decades. I know that the music and the cinematography are not the greatest of all time, but the movie just makes me feel good when I pop it in.

Another favorite of mine is a film by Akira Kurosawa called Red Beard. It stars Toshiro Mifune (as usual) and takes place in Feudal Japan (as usual). It is about a medical student who gets stuck in a poor hospital, and the Doctor in charge is Mifune's character. The medical student is unhappy because he has grown up rich and wants to be a rich doctor. After taking care of patients and seeing how much Mifune loves his patients, he soon cares less and less about money and more about taking care of people. The music and the cinematography are stellar. Once again, Kurosawa delivers!

Besides Jimmy Stewart films, which are my all time favorites, one film in particular really sticks with me:

12 Angry Men The 1957 Sidney Lumet version of course. The first time I watched this film, I was so completely engrossed in the characters that it wasn't until after the movie got over that I realized, Hey...that entire movie (except for about 5 minutes) took place in a jury deliberation room...and it was amazing! Henry Fonda is absolutely amazing to watch as is Lee J. Cobb, who you will remember from On The Waterfront (as well as many other great clasics). The dialogue between these two is fantastic. To watch the progression of all the jurors as Henry's character influences them is spellbinding. If you haven't seen this film, do yourself a favor.

I've been asked to put out a list of some more obscure classic films. Most of these aren't really obscure, but if you haven't studied up on or seen lots of older classics, it might be hard to know that you should watch them. If you are interested in knowing what life or film was like in the 1930s, then these are all of major interest. I tried to avoid too many obvious "classics."

M (1931, German)
Topaze (1931)
Jewel Robbery (1932)
Love Me Tonight (1932)
Horse Feathers (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
Arsene Lupin (1932)
Scarface (1932)
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Queen Christina (1933)
Design For Living (1933)
42nd Street (1933)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Crime Without Passion (1934)
Viva Villa! (1934)
Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
Captain Blood (1935)
Come and Get It (1936)
Fury (1936)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
Swing Time (1936)
These Three (1936)
Stage Door (1937)
Nothing Sacred (1937)
They Won't Forget (1937)
The Citadel (1938)
Jezebel (1938)
The Baker's Wife (1938, French)
Gunga Din (1939)
Midnight (1939)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Dodge City (1939)

If anyone wants to know more about specific films, you can check imdb.com or ask me here. I thought about making capsule comments on each but decided that would take up too much space.

Well, I've got more up both my sleeves and both of my pants legs, but how about one decade at a time? I even have lots more from the 30s, but how about we go with shut up, mark?

EDIT- I've added some more, and I will continue to do so, so if you see this message, check back from time to time.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mark f,

I enjoy your lists like these Mark. Since I signed back up for Netflix, I have added about 90 films to the queue, almost all of them classics. There is really so much stuff I haven't seen and I'm trying to get caught up. I think we should all watch a classic and come here to discuss it. It'll probably never happen, but I'll be here! And Jakal better be too, cause he just signed up for Netflix, so he'll be watching some good stuff.

Mark, I have been trying to find a copy of Captain Blood for years now! I rented a copy a couple years ago on vhs and it was unwatchable, I was so disappointed. You have reminded me to keep my eyes out again for the film now that transfers to dvd are happening for so many classics. Thanks!