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Feature
There’s Gold in Them Thar Hollywood Hills
Just let me see some of those old black-and-white movies…
(Page 2 of 2)
Old films on TV are full of such nice little “aha!” moments, like catching Oliver Hardy on a day off from Stan Laurel in a dramatic role as a loving father; or discovering a witty Jeanette MacDonald in an old Ernst Lubitsch film with Maurice Chevalier before she turned into Nelson Eddy’s flowery, starchy co-star; or coming upon Fred Astaire’s tentative screen debut in Dancing Lady, giving a perky Joan Crawford dance lessons. Joan Crawford perky? Yep, once upon a time.
When I first encountered Crawford in the ’50s, she was in her hard-edged, scowling, heavily painted middle-aged phase, with those scary caterpillar eyebrows and waxy red lips, but if you see her in a ’30s film you realize she was once soft, appealing, even girlish. The young Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis, likewise, were once willowy. Dick Powell negotiated the most unlikely male star turnabout, from prissy male ingénue in ’30s Busby Berkeley musicals to wise guy ’40s private eye Philip Marlowe.
In one peculiar 1942 oldie, The Big Street, Lucille Ball plays a mean, spoiled rich girl who orders around a simpering fan who becomes her sycophantic assistant, played by (huh?) Henry Fonda. In that same odd film, Agnes Moorehead, always a meanie in movies we know her best from, is a winsome young flirt.
EVEN CREAKY OLD comedies (which creak more than most genres) reveal what people considered funny in 1932 or 1947, and sometimes how the language has changed. Characters in old romantic comedies are always talking about “making love,” by which they mean wooing, which gradually became “making time,” and then “making out.” In 1936, “making love” in movies had nothing to do with a roll in the hay. Maybe best of all, old movies are totally devoid of gratuitous sex, not to mention random violence and casual gross-out scenes (urinal conversations, obligatory vomit shots, wall-to-wall “f-bombs”), desperate efforts now to seem with-it.
Almost any old movie is a virtual thesaurus of colorful slang, especially gangster films like A Slight Case of Murder with Edward G. Robinson, rife with pungent lingo of the era we ought to revive: “Keep yer nose clean,” “When do we put on the feed bag?,” “In a pig’s eye,” “Ya got a bug in yer nut?” “He took a powder,” “Not on yer tintype,” “Hiya, toots!” “Hey, ya big lug!” “He’s crackers!” “It’s a swell burg.” (“Swell” gets a real workout in old movies; it’s the ’30s “cool.”). The ancient language in old movies is part of a recaptured lost world, just a computer click away.
Old flicks give you a chance to catch up on actors you knew nothing about except their names, so be prepared for major surprises. In a TCM week of her films, I finally realized what a clever comedian Marion Davies was—as funny as anybody then, or today, not just the spoiled mistress of William Randolph Hearst. I was amazed how good she was, how inventive, witty, and adorable. No wonder Hearst was smitten; me, too.
I finally saw a movie with Fay Wray that did not involve a giant ape and was surprised at her sophistication. One famous movie role can mark an actor unfairly for life, burying an entire career leading up to it. Frances Faye, Miriam Hopkins, and Mae Busch (who once only existed for me as a Jackie Gleason punch line—“…and the ever-popular Mae Busch!”)—all were actresses I’d never noticed. They weren’t household names for nothing. I now appreciate Carole Lombard, whom I hadn’t seen much of until a recent comedy on Turner Classics displayed her subtle humor and smart self-effacing charm. Others, caricatures like Mae West and Betty Hutton, don’t hold up so well.
If you watch enough old movies, you’ll be impressed by the versatility of supposedly one-trick stars like Edward G. Robinson, who embodied the definitive screen mobster so often that most people only recall his growl, when, in fact, he turns up in all sorts of films that stretched his endlessly elastic talent. In Double Indemnity, as a wily insurance investigator, Robinson brings a comic touch to the role, indeed to the rest of the otherwise dark movie. Despite his much-mimicked style, squat shape, and squashed-in mug, Robinson could play almost anything, from a kindly Norwegian father (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes) to a timid henpecked husband (Scarlet Street).
Famous old films I thought I’d seen I find I never actually watched all the way through, like The Bad and the Beautiful. What I’d seen over the years were clips but never the entire movie. Or I’ll watch an old movie and, halfway through, realize I’ve seen it—or have I? (old moviegoer’s Alzheimer’s). I’ve stopped worrying about it and just let myself enjoy the film again, if it is indeed again (Memento or Inception, anyone?).
Maybe the best thing about old movies is how efficient and compact they are—many run 90 minutes and some clock in at 80 minutes. Few two-and-a-half hour slogs. They were plot driven, like the best low-budget noir films, which didn’t need to be arty to be great. No flashy directorial shenanigans, no digitalized special effects, no needless sub-sub-sub-plots, no extraneous characters, meandering themes, rambling dialogue, or intrusive musical scores.
Everything carries the story forward. In even ordinary old films, every scene, every line, counts. They were tightly crafted stories—succinct, efficient, well-constructed tales, with no tricky tropes (is this thing a fantasy? A flashback? A dream?). One great time-saving device is old movie credits, which take a minute, not 10 minutes, like today’s interminable crawls, where everybody on the payroll gets mentioned, from the star’s driver to the location caterer.
THERE IS, however, a frequent drawback to shorter films. Plots tend to be simplistic and melodramatic, studded with clichés and easy stereotypes to make a point quickly, with few nuanced characters. Very often you can guess the outcome early—even if the movie was original in its day, because so many films since have similar plots, themes, or characters. A kid coughs and you know he’s a goner. A woman faints and you know she’s pregnant. A sweet young boy goes off to war and you know he won’t be back. A neighbor is so nice that you know he’s a scoundrel—or as Edward G. Robinson snarls in A Slight Case of Murder, a real crumb-bum.
The kick in old movies starts with the opening logos, many long gone, like RKO’s jagged radio signals flashing from a transmitter accompanied by staccato beeps; Republic Pictures’ eagle perched on a mountain peak; Columbia’s lady in a toga holding a torch aloft with an American flag draped about her; MGM’s reassuring lion’s roar, less regal and shaggy now, framed with its proud art for art’s sake motto, “Ars Gratia Artis.”
As the “players’” names appear, suddenly you’re no longer in your living room watching an old film on an HD wall screen. You’re 15 again, sitting in a busted lopsided seat in your old neighborhood movie house, Jujubes in hand, waiting to be transported back to a lush world where Lana Turner, John Garfield, and Ann Sheridan reside in a gilded black-and-white past.
About the Author
Gerald Nachman is a writer in San Francisco and most recently the author of Right Here on Our Stage Tonight!: Ed Sullivan’s America (University of California Press).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (125) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Gerald Nachman
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Brian Mc| 8.3.11 @ 7:36AM
Thanks, Gerald. What a great way to start the day. My first cup of joe hasn't tasted this good in so long and when I'm done here I'm going straight to Netflix and clicking on "classics" to see what I've been overlooking there, though it's my favorite genre by far.
Tom| 8.3.11 @ 8:45AM
Only faggots like to watch old black and white movies. Faggots and old women in assisted living facilities.
Nina| 8.3.11 @ 9:10AM
Tom, you're another toxic old man--an old goat--a loser-- mad at the world, stewing in your misery, incapable of seeing beauty anywhere.
I am especially fond of the old silent movies; I find them wonderfully entertaining and even enchanting, and I enjoyed reading this piece.
Thanks, Nachman.
dsayne| 8.3.11 @ 9:14AM
I love old movies for the strong characters; stereotypes, to be sure, but strong examples nontheless. What we take in affects who we are, and I choose to reinforce strength and goodness rather than simpering dis-illusionment and bad manners. I do enjoy many new movies, but at least half of my watching is pre-1970. Let your kids watch Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Spencer Tracy instead of Johnny Depp and see how it affects their behaviour. You will observe more respect and responsibility from them. Don't shelter them or yourself from today, but let them know that there is more than just selfish behaviour, senseless violence and endless bad language.
TrueBlue| 8.3.11 @ 4:01PM
Sadly most of those stereotypes (strong men for instance) are no longer "politically correct." Now men (used loosely) are expected to be touchy-feely and act like the girls in those old movies, while women are expected to act headstrong and take the lead. It's this recent reversal of roles that is helping to screw up society. I don't have anything against strong women, but expecting (and demanding) men act like little girls is ridiculous.
Tough Nuts in New Jersey| 8.3.11 @ 5:43PM
Mr. TrueBlue, why doncha do us all a favor and do the ernest hemingway macho thing by sticking a shotgun in your mouth and blowing your head off. Cinematic!
Play Misty for Me in Minn| 8.3.11 @ 5:45PM
TrueBloo rhymes with doodoo.
TrueBlue| 8.3.11 @ 6:53PM
I feel nothing but pity for the fact that you were obviously brought up in an area where the ability to think and discuss a topic without resorting to violent speech, actions, or insults was never taught to you.
Seek| 8.3.11 @ 12:14PM
I've noticed the same thing. Old movies, on the whole, simply were not nearly as entertaining or interesting as recent ones. The acting was wooden and taken at a machine-gun cadence; the plotting was obvious; the music was cheesy; and cinematography, color or not, wasn't remotely as vivid as today. Metrosexual gays do have an unuusal fondness for this stuff, thus giving me yet another reason to avoid them.
By the way, the smug Mr. Nachman seems to think we've all forgotten the Oscar winner for the Best Picture of 2009, "The Hurt Locker." This is one of the most brutal and honest portraits of men under pressure of war ever put to celluloid, all the more remarkable that it was directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow ("Point Break," "Blue Steel," "Strange Days").
Who cares what a bunch of pompous antiquarians think anyway?
bookworm| 8.7.11 @ 4:04PM
"Who care what a bunch of pompous antiquarians think"? That takes the cake, as they say in the old movies. People like you, who have no use for wisdom, experience, or history, are the ones who saddled us with "cool" Obama. Did you ever have a conversation with your grandparents?
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 12:33PM
I trust Tom's posting was intended as a joke. If I'm wrong, chalk me up as another faggot. I started watching these 30s, 40s, and 50s movies in the early 1960s when they were commonly shown late at night on local broadcast stations.
I first saw my all-time favorite "film noir" movie that way. In my opinion, "Out of the Past" is the best movie of that genre. When I saw its cast included Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas, I expected the movie would be interesting. What an underestimate!
One of my favorite black and white movies is 1956's "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" with Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine. I won't give the plot away to anyone who hasn't seen the movie, but this is a murder trial courtroom drama with a great twist at its conclusion. I saw this one in a D.C. theater when I was 12, so I was too young to really appreciate the story. I remembered it, though, and enjoyed the movie again when I rented it on Netflix.
Nick| 8.3.11 @ 1:20PM
MOS was 71331,
Speaking of the late, great Robert Mitchum. If you haven't seen The Night of the Hunter (1955), you are missing an excellent movie in b&w.
Most of the great WWII flicks were also in b&w.
Those who think that if a movie isn't in color it can't be entertaining, are the same sheeple who think [c]rap is music, Lady Googoo can sing, Angelina Jolie is pretty and talented, and lemming-like go to see the latest comic-book-made-into-a-computer-generated-cartoon summer blockbuster.
In other words, they have no taste. Not even in their mouths.
I felt the same as these twits do about b&w, when I was five. Then, I grew up.
KyMouse| 8.3.11 @ 7:20PM
I disagree with you, Tom, and I do so without resorting with slurs.
My favorite black-and-white movies include "Casablanca," of course, but also "Tiger Bay" (with a very young Haley Mills and her dad, John) and the always-engrossing "To Kill a Mockingbird."
Alan Brooks| 8.3.11 @ 8:05PM
"Only faggots like to watch old black and white movies. Faggots and old women in assisted living facilities."
Then I must be a faggot, because I like them. However 'A Man For All Seasons' is color, and it is the best ever, IMO. Acting, script, costumes, music, historical interest. But you are not educated.
You probably think AMFAS is a faggot film.
Alan Brooks| 8.3.11 @ 8:08PM
imo, A Man For All Seasons is better than 'Citizen Kane'.
Topper| 8.4.11 @ 3:33AM
Great article and great comments...
Thanks
Fernando Santiago| 8.3.11 @ 7:46AM
What a wonderful article. I wish I could have written it.
JimH| 8.3.11 @ 8:07AM
I love older movies too. But as someone once said: The past ain't what it used to be.
Duke A. Darrigo| 8.3.11 @ 9:40AM
Heh.... sounds like Yogi Berra!
MikeBee| 8.3.11 @ 8:40AM
Gerald,
There are two big differences between classic movies and today's rot that Hollywood produces. First, better writing. I was raised in the Los Angeles area. They cover the entertainment industry pretty well, out there. In the 1980s, Hollywood was decrying the lack of writing talent available, almost predicting the future. Today's writers can't hold a candle to the writers of the past. The verbage that actors and actresses memorized for the old movies was clean, crisp, witty. Today, the only thing clean and crisp is the pronunciation of swear words. Today's bad writing is the reason that older films are being remade instead of new ones written.
Second, and this is the reason that actors and actresses used to look far more mature than actors today, is that actor and actresses in older movies were older. Today, Hollywierd seems to think that, if one is over 25, s/he is too old to film. There is a huge difference in acting talent because of this. Younger actors/actresses simply don't have the life experience that more mature actors do. (One finds oneself thinking, when watching a modern film, "What does that little snot know about hardship? or love? or death?")
Thanks for the memories.....
donserge| 8.3.11 @ 9:08AM
During the silent era many if not most of the leading ladies were in their teens or barely out of them. Clara Bow (who retired from all filmwork at age 26 after making 58 movies), Margueritte DeLaMotte (Fairbanks movies), Mary Astor and many, many others. Most studios employed so many underage women (and used and abused them) they would be charged under today's child labor laws. Also remember in the 1920's a woman's life span was 56 years.
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 11:51AM
I am much in agreement about the maturity factor. Clark Gable was 38 when he played Rhett Butler, Spencer Tracy was 37 when he played Manuel Fidello in "Captains Courageous" and John Wayne was 32 when he played the Ringo Kid in "Stagecoach." It would be laughable to have Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Sean Penn or Johnny Depp play any of those parts. None are plausible as real men.
JimP| 8.3.11 @ 12:09PM
But it has nothing to do with their age, IMHO. Those current era guys were raised in the metro-sexual era of bratty adolescent fratboy zeitgeist. The classic era actors you named had actually known struggle and difficult times while coming of age and had genuine male roles models to observe and emulate.
Seek| 8.3.11 @ 12:15PM
You are the one with no imagination. The Coen Brothers alone have more verve in their plotting and dialogue than all the crap from the 30s and 40s put together.
Marty| 8.3.11 @ 2:18PM
The Coens, as good as they are, would be the first to admit that they are walking in the footsteps of writers and directors like Billy Wilder, Ben Hecht, etc. Their films are often filled with direct quotes from films of the past. Their films are often derivative of other films and filmmakers. While every era of filmmaking has its talent, with few exceptions it's painfully apparent to me that what passes for writing and directing today is done mostly by a post-literate generation who have no real knowledge of life outside of videogames. How else could you explain such tripe as TRANSFORMERS or endless remakes of TV shows?
Seek| 8.4.11 @ 2:26PM
The Coens may have been inspired in part by old films, but it is far from blasphemy to assert that they have improved upon them. Take the best Coen efforts -- "Miller's Crossing," "Fargo," "The Big Lebowski," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," "No Country for Old Men," "A Serious Man," and the remake of "True Grit." I defy anyone to tell me that there were directors/writers from the black-and-white era who could made films, consistently, so filled with witty, sophisticated, well-crafted fun.
One of the Coens' close friends, Sam Raimi, himself is a great filmmaker, and not just for the "Spider-Man" trilogy. His 1998 movie, "A Simple Plan," was heavily influenced by "Fargo," something he readily acknowledges.
Marty| 8.4.11 @ 3:48PM
Don't be ridiculous. Of course there were writer/directors of the black-and-white era who made films for decades of consistently of high quality. How 'bout Orson Welles? His string of classics from CITIZEN KANE thru CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT (made in the 60's but still b&w) are truly stunning. He didn't direct a color film until F FOR FAKE in the 70's. How 'bout Howard Hawks? He directed an unbroken string of b&w classics from the 30's into the 50's that heavily influenced everyone from Steven Spielberg to John Carpenter to yes, even The Coens. His enormous stylistic mastery of genres ranging from sophisticated comedies (BRINGING UP BABY) to rip-roaring westerns (RED RIVER), war films (AIR FORCE), mysteries (THE BIG SLEEP), dramas (TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT) and sci-fi (THE THING) is without equal in American cinema. How 'bout Hitchcock who directed marvellous b&w thrillers for twenty years (39 STEPS, LADY VANISHES, REBECCA, NOTORIOUS, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, among just a few that are all certified classics), before ever making his first color film ROPE in the late 40's. I could go on and on and we haven't even touched the geniuses of the silent era. I like the Coens, they are probably the sharpest filmmakers we have right now. But there is no need to disparage the past to praise them. Every artist stands on the shoulders of those who have gone before them. I suggest you broaden your viewing.
Seek| 8.4.11 @ 7:12PM
I've been a fan of Welles and Hitchcock for decades. But they, remember, were heads above almost all filmmakers back then, the exception rather than the rule. And as much as I enjoy their work (particularly that of Hitchcock), that shouldn't cast a shadow of dispersion over the people who make films today.
Every era has its giants -- I don't see a critical shortage today. Sorry. Scorsese, Allen, Eastwood, among others, have done their best (or at least some it) work in the last decade. Newcomers like Christopher Nolan and Peter Berg show how it's done, too.
bookworm| 8.7.11 @ 3:39PM
NO ONE you've mentioned, excepting of course Welles and Hitchcock, can hold a candle to Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, John Ford, Elia Kazan, Charles Chaplin, Henry Hathaway, Clarence Brown, Frank Borzage ... Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chan or The East Side Kids, for that matter!
OhioGuy| 8.4.11 @ 10:13AM
Unfortunately, Seek, you accuse others of no imagination but you apparently have no knowledge of how good directors work. The good modern directors like the Coens, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, et al have studied the classic films scrupulously and possess more knowledge of them than you will ever have due to your inability to appreciate the past. Those directors and other good ones can quote scene and line from the classics. George Lucas admitted that Star Wars was nothing if not an homage to adventure and sci-fi movies of the past. For one simple example, check the intro crawler from "Star Wars: A New Hope" vis a vis the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s or "Union Pacific" from the same decade.
Dennis Bergendorf| 8.3.11 @ 8:51AM
I personally thought "The Hurt Locker" was a tremendous film. But then again, I'm a military vet (Vietnam War) and can appreciate its nuances. To me, "The Social Network" was lame. But then again, I'm not a techie who lives to text and tell-all on the internet. These theme films tend to resonate with people who share lives with the characters. In many of the B&W classics, all we share is life.
POST American| 8.3.11 @ 8:51AM
---Theo Adorno, the arch perp of culture programming
for degradation, somewhere once confessed movies were , intrinsically, regardless of content, subversive.
Of course we're human and as susceptible as
anyone else.
But again, Adorno's remark is virally provocative.
Movies, and in perhaps an even more insidious
way, Tell--A--Vision, lodge in the mind by a sort
of visual, cunning EYE-conning card trick.
The connections to Mesmer, hypnotism, and
the Freemasonic CON ops of the 18th century
are telling.
A few years ago we stumbled across something
form Catholic history. The 'Syllabus of Errors'
from around 1860. It was some kind of papal
encyclical of the time that condemned a number
of 'errors' of that time.
Among them was the aesthetic of naturalism, or
'realism' that was swamping all the arts.
The Pope roundly condemns 'realism' --which,
I guess would have to include, on some profound
level, ALLLL modern visual media. Movies,
even 'fantasy', are contrived from REAL images.
Consider too, most of the images we take in are
NOT live, even CCTV, but have split second differentials.
In short, to be truly honest, its
ALLLL some grade, some degree of pre-necromancy.
Anyway , the Pope condemned 'realism', 'naturalism', what you will,
as such because it --'denies the reality of the invisible'.
--------------Let that sink in for a while---------------
While we're not, and never have been, Catholic
---we DO take our truth wherever we find it.
We hurled our TV shortly after, and have pretty much stopped watching movies.
In other words, WE PUT OUT THE EYE
and have NEVER regretted it.
As you all seem spellbound in helplessness before
the unfolding reality of the Globalist police state
and RED China sellout and TREASON op
-----you'd better take 'quality' HEED.
REALLY
TRULY
dsayne| 8.3.11 @ 9:04AM
So TV and Movies are lying to you and leading you astray, but the internet isn't? C'mon!
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 9:18AM
Don't forget the Tavistock Institute!
Dai Alanye | 8.3.11 @ 10:55AM
I recommend clozapine, which works well for many in POST American's apparent condition.
WRTolkas| 8.3.11 @ 9:11AM
We have a local station that broadcasts, from time to time, old, and I mean old, B&W movies. Gems in the rough. I had the joy of viewing "A Man's Castle" (1933) with a young and dapper Spencer Tracy (33) and a younger and most beautiful Loretta Young (20). I'll take an old B&W over most of the modern offerings. If you can't act, use special effects.
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 9:17AM
For me, faggot and old woman (at the same time!) living in assisted living that I am, what I love about the old movies from the B & W era is that, simplistic though they might have been, they were about adults doing adult things. The great screenwriters haven't been matched, either.
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 9:20AM
Although when it comes to being simplistic, I'd stand Dodsworth up against anything that's been made about the same subject since the 1960s.
Nina| 8.3.11 @ 10:55AM
Bill, I too am living in a retirement home.
If you read this blog regularly, you will see many commentors using rancid, hateful language, so Tom couldn't do any better than choose"faggot and old women" to dismiss old movie buffs.
Typical AmSpec mindset.
bookworm| 8.7.11 @ 3:43PM
Not at all. I've been devoted to AmSpec since my sophomore year in college, and Tom is someone I would avoid sitting next to on the subway. You'd never see a wonderful article like Nachmann's in a liberal magazine.
JimP| 8.3.11 @ 9:17AM
I haven't seen the remake of 'Mildred Pierce' but it is one of those movies in which the cast makes the movie rise to the level it attained: and that cast cannot be duplicated. Can anyone imagine a remake of 'Casablanca' being even close to equal to the original? Who could replace Bogart, Bergman, Rains, Henreid, Lore and the others? 'True Grit' without John Wayne was just another movie. The original was not a great movie per se, but no one can play John Wayne like the Duke like himself and it was he that made the movie. How about a remake of 'The Caine Mutiny' without Bogart? Doubtful, IMO.
I enjoy the old movies that show how much LA has changed since the silent era. Especially Bunker Hill. It evolved from a well to do Victorian neighborhood to a seedy film noir backdrop to the present soulless, sterile-antisceptic, glass box incongruity that repels the eye. America being "wiped clean" and rebuilt. Thanks for nothin' "urban renewal".
MOS was 71331| 8.4.11 @ 12:27AM
There was a 1988 TV version of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" with Brad Davis playing Queeg. The cast of the TV show was more realistic than the cast of the movie, as most of the movie's actors were way too old for the shipboard positions they held.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie's cast was that Bogart actually served on destroyers in World War I. He was perhaps 15 years too old for his part, but he certainly knew his way around small warships.
Another actor who played Queeg on stage in LA in the 1980s was Charlton Heston, also too old for the part, but I wish I'd seen his performance.
POST American| 8.3.11 @ 9:18AM
------They are ----and certainly it does.
The old Mesmeric art of flicker rates and
mind control lurks behind it all.
(CHECK OUT ALAN WATT)
Hence ---BE EVER AWARE.
Fact is, we're all, to varying degrees,
ever and always, spellbound.
'The Big Boys' of course know this,
and always have, and USE it on you.
Crowns and jewels and gold are essentially
ALLL about this.
--------------------BOTTOM LINE----------------------
"Beware sorcerers (--and sorcery)
and friendly spirits."
-Scripture
-AMEN-
Riley| 8.3.11 @ 3:28PM
Thank you, POST American, for your beautiful and thought-provoking poetry.
Keep the poetry flowing . . .
Dan Mathewson| 8.21.11 @ 3:30PM
Yeah, ain't it a hoot to read this shtuff?
crookedwren| 8.3.11 @ 9:19AM
Love the older films, too. Old b&w classics & non-classics -- some great performances even in lesss-than-brilliant films. Watch Claude Rains in "Deception." He manages to steal the film from Bette Davis and Paul Henreid.
The dialogue then had more depth, snap, vivacity.
Jean Arthur was terrific, wasn't she?
Thanks for sharing some specific films.
PCC| 8.3.11 @ 9:35AM
Thank you, Mr. Nachman, for an enjoyable and thought-provoking article, even if it's basically one long love letter to your own generation's filmmakers.
As a tail-end baby boomer, I have not seen a single film mentioned in your article, and I doubt that I ever will.
donserge| 8.3.11 @ 9:54AM
Late one night I was recently watching "Sunset Boulevard" in a hospital waiting area. The orderly asked me about the film and I said it was one of the top movies ever made. He looked at the B+W TV screen and then looked back at me with a weird look on his face as if to say: "what a waste of time!" PCC...was that you?
PCC| 8.4.11 @ 1:47AM
It wasn't me, but I suppose it could have been, minus the snideness.
I note the follow-on comments here are kind of nasty regarding my remark. That's disappointing, as I did aver that Mr. Nachman's article was "enjoyable and thought provoking".
Nevertheless, I feel confident in saying people of my generation would rather watch or re-watch The Godfather, Josey Wales, Full Metal Jacket, or Once Upon a Time in the West than the films cited by Mr. Nachman.
bookworm| 8.7.11 @ 3:49PM
"It wasn't I," would be the correct reply. Thought you might be interested, since you can spell "numbskull."
Jim Woodward| 8.3.11 @ 10:01AM
PCC,
Sadly, you will be the poorer for it.
Dai Alanye | 8.3.11 @ 10:58AM
Where ignorance is bliss...
Dan Hirsch| 8.3.11 @ 1:09PM
Probably hasn't ever read a book, either. Bet he's very well-informed, though. What was that saying about knowing history so you don't have to repeat it?
Anyone notice how about half of the movies made today are either sequels or re-makes? These days, what Hollywood lacks in talent, they make up in risk aversion...what a loss.
And to you children fearing or allergic to black and white, I say skip those old movies, you wouldn't understand the behavior of adults, anyway...
Fie on you...especially so quick with the name calling because someone else appreciates something you are incapable of appreciating. Numskulls.
PCC| 8.4.11 @ 10:03AM
It's spelled "numbskull".
henry| 8.3.11 @ 9:51AM
Old movies were made by grownups for grownups. That's why they're generally memorable. Who remembers today's efforts? Saw "the Citadel" the other night. A movie to remember and think about. As far as relatively current movies, how about "Idiocracy"? Carries a relevant message.
Seek| 8.3.11 @ 12:18PM
Ah, Real Movies for Real Grownups! Every September or so, we get hit this schtick by this commentary by film critics in their 50s and over. Nothing like talking down to the younger folks, is there? You, sir, have the makings of a real film snob. Not a compliment.
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 12:46PM
Just a reminder that you can still go to the theater and catch the Pooh movie, Super 8, Captain America, and Kung Fu Panda 2 if you hurry. But even if you miss them, don't worry; The Avengers will be released in summer 2012, and the new version of the origin of Spiderman is coming from Columbia soon. But perhaps I'm talking down to you; you might be the kind of movie watcher who is interested in such mature fare as Friends With Benefits or Hall Pass.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 2:16PM
You forgot Cowboys and Aliens and I suspect there's yet another Batman movie in the works as well.
There is nothing--absolutely nothing--playing in the theatres right now that I have any interest at all in seeing. (I did see the Tree of Life, though. Very thought-provoking.)
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 3:43PM
Not to mention Cars 2, Transformers (whatever its tagline is), Bad Teacher, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Seek| 8.4.11 @ 7:07PM
"Super 8" really was super -- see it while it lasts.
Michelle| 8.3.11 @ 10:57AM
Mr Nachman-
What a great article. A nice distraction to the debt debacle.
I have forsaken current movies and prefer TCM to HBO and have not visited a movie theater for almost 10yrs.
Edward G Robinson-agree- is totally superb- "Double Indemnity" and especially "All My Sons".
William Holden the prinicpled engineer in "Executive Suite" or the lawyer/pilot called back to duty in "The Bridges at Toko Ri".
Van Heflin--who could EVER forget Van Heflin in "3:10 to Yuma" up against Glenn Ford ?
The handsome, loving, honest Gregory Peck in "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" and my personal favorite "Valley of Decision".
Frederic March in my all time favorite movie "The Best Years of Our Lives"... The most notable scene where Frederic March confronts Dana Andrews about seeing his daughter. I love that scene. Straight faced, in your eye honesty.
Some of the leading ladies, like Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Claudette Colbert, Greer Garson, Barbara Stanwyck, absolutely great actresses and all in some of the movies I have mentioned above, but also Bette Davis in the touching and sweet movie "The Catered Affair".
In older movies, there is right and wrong, there is a sense of duty, honesty. And getting the girl, is not getting her in bed. No blood , gore, shock value theatrics. Just nice stories, great actors, and good entertainment.
My regards,
Michelle
JimP| 8.3.11 @ 11:16AM
Great list Michelle and I agree with your feelings about these films. Plenty of good role modeling in them too, IMO.
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 11:43AM
Consider "It Happened One Night" with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert or "The Philadelphia Story" with Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. Nothing today matches either movie when it comes to humor for mature adults.
Notice that today the top films are either geared to the juvenile mind(ie. all the extravaganzas dependent on special effects rather than plot) or morally subversive films like "American Beauty" or "Brokeback Mountain." Antonio Gramsci must smile from his resting place in Hell.
Nick| 8.3.11 @ 1:49PM
Mr. Leaberry,
Speaking of the great American, Jimmy Stewart.
Picture the scene between George Bailey and Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) both listening to Sam on the telephone, from It's a Wonderful Life.
Better yet, watch it. (Sorry, it doesn't have the fight they had before.)
Can anyone think of an actor and actress working today who could create such movie magic? I think not!
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 2:30PM
You are correct. It would be done only as a parody.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 2:23PM
ONe of my favorite scenes in the Philadelphia Story is the day following the big party. Uncle Willy (Roland Young) is in his top hat and is about as hungover as a man can be. The look on his face when Dinah starts piping away is absolutely priceless.
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 2:29PM
Uncle Willie: "I know a formula that is said to pop pennies off the eyelids of dead Irishmen."
Of course, this couldn't be said today because it belittles Irish-Americans.
RWinks| 8.3.11 @ 12:00PM
Great article, especially the part about film length. Considering the cost of today's films, why are so many made by apparently incompetent directors and writers? So many forgettable films which have some interest for 90 minutes then drag on for another 30 minutes as though no one knew how to end it. They could have taken lessons from Ernst Lubitsch.
The Shop Around The Corner is one of the most perfectly made films ever. Not only are the actors perfectly cast, there is not one wasted scene or line. Sometime watch the first five minutes. All of the characters are introduced, their relative positions and motivations are shown and the scene is set. This is done without any narration but through dialogue and ACTING.
In less than 90 enjoyable minutes it tells a heart warming, funny story about adults of both good and bad character and leaves the audience feeling good.
There are some good films being made but most are celebrations of irrational violence and/or stupidity. Why can't they try telling a story?
Seek| 8.3.11 @ 12:20PM
Give some examples of offenders you've seen. Even nonserious stuff like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films are highly engaging, with tremendous color palette and editing.
MikeBee| 8.3.11 @ 4:45PM
Seek,
There is no doubt that the technology today is far better than yesteryear. But, what is seriously lacking is writing ability. Some movies are all climax, and, as such, become boring. Others, as someone noted above, don't know how to create a denouement. Very simple writing concepts like character introduction and development, creating and building tension to a climax, proper length of climax, and denouement completion are very evidently missing in much of what is produced today. For years, we have been told by students, "We don't need no stinkin' standards!", so writing standards are not taught in schools anymore. This is evident in today's movies, which rely too much on technological development, and not at all on story development and good writing.
Look at almost every movie today which was created to "teach" its viewers a lesson (usually a liberal lesson), such as that Global Warming is bad, or that Big Business is bad, or that Gays are good people, for example. These movies are incredibly boring, and only incite resentment in those who regret wasting their money to pay to see such tripe.
GeneD| 8.3.11 @ 8:07PM
Seeing all your huzzahs for modern movie extrusions throughout the comments I have three questions:
1. What newspaper or magazine do you rave-review movies for?
2. And if you are a movie ad-blurbist, what's your real name? Peter Travers? Richard Corliss? Roger Ebert? They certainly rave enough. But no, you can't be Roger Ebert. What would he be doing on a conservative Web site? He hates conservatives.
3. If you're not a movie ad-blurbist, do you work for Time Warner, Sony, Viacom, News Corp., Disney or MGM? Or one of the smaller movie companies? Or are you actively seeking work in Hollywood? If the former, remember, toadying has its limits; if the latter, I'm not sure you do your job prospects a favor.
GeneD| 8.3.11 @ 8:22PM
How could I have forgotten Comcast?
Seek| 8.4.11 @ 2:13PM
Actaully, I don't work in any capacity for the film industry. But I am an honest consumer. Which, I suppose, is preferable to a dishonest one.
GeneD| 8.4.11 @ 9:11PM
I do accept your explanation, although you don't say whether or not you're an ad-blurbist -- or somebody like Harry Knowles, who'd blurt the same things; but in another of your comments you honestly say the music of old movies was "cheesy" -- and I presume you mean music written by, among others, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Miklós Rósza, Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, David Raksin, Dimitri Tiomkin, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Aaron Copland, Hugo Friedhofer -- oh, and Leonard Bernstein wrote the score for On the Waterfront. He must be cheesy too. Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian wrote for the movies -- not American ones, though. Are they cheesy by default? I want to see you call Carl Stalling cheesy. Not to mention I guess all those cheesy songs by the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, Cole Porter, Harry Warren (with Al Dubin and Mack Gordon), Harold Arlen (with E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and Johnny Mercer), Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin, Johnny Burke and James Van Heusen, Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, Frank Loesser, Hoagy Carmichael, Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane -- that's a lot of cheesy songs, don'tya think?
It's perfectly fine to be honest; but sometimes it's a little better to be sensible.
GeneD| 8.5.11 @ 10:25AM
I have inexcusably omitted Sir William Walton, the Bard's musical bard; and many will agree Elmer Bernstein wrote one of the all-time cheesiest scores for The Magnificent Seven. Nor should I have neglected Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, they of "Singin' in the Rain"; Johnny Green, who wrote the title tune for I Cover the Waterfront; Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who penned the songs for the second State Fair; and Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, authors of Gigi. Nor can I forget the MGM orchestrator Conrad Salinger. Velveeta cheesy!
John II| 8.3.11 @ 12:38PM
Nice piece. But I must take exception to the jujubes. Back in the 50's, at the weekly Saturday kiddie-day matinee (for a quarter, you got four straight hours of movies, from 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. including at least one Warner Bros. cartoon and one episode of a Don Winslow or Flash Gordon serial which ran continuously through the 12 weeks of the summer, usually followed by a headache produced by the blazing late-afternoon sun after all those hours in a darkened movie house), those of us with taste preferred to get sick on Junior Mints, which cost a nickel a box.
And now back to "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), a magnificent film version of the Richard Connell story featuring a gorgeously nervous Fay Wray (the requisite if irrelevant love interest), a scary Leslie Banks, and a truly he-man Joel McCrea.
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 12:52PM
The difference was that for every "Most Dangerous Game," there was a "Only Angels Have Wings" or "The Razor's Edge" (the Tyrone Power version, of course).
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 2:33PM
Are you saying "The Razor's Edge" is a poor movie. I would have to disagree.
Bill| 8.3.11 @ 3:50PM
No; I'm saying that for every juvenile adventure movie like "Most Dangerous Game" (which I happen to like -and respect- a lot), there at one time was a good movie dealing with more nuanced issues, like the Tyrone Power version of "The Razor's Edge" or "Only Angels Have Wings."
Nick| 8.3.11 @ 1:31PM
John II,
Yes, your generation, which was my parents', was definitely spoiled at the movie theater. I couldn't even get a box of Milk Duds (sorry, they were the best!) for a quarter, let alone a cartoon.
Today, most movies are C.G. generated cartoons.
Nick| 8.3.11 @ 2:24PM
Oops! Bad editing!
A little redundant with the "C.G. generated" phrase.
Should read: Today, most movies are just C.G. cartoons.
John II| 8.3.11 @ 6:32PM
Hey Nick. That's right. I forgot about the Milk Duds. They were a nickel too. Ah, those were the good ol' days, when men were men, and an 89-cent box of Junior Mints (or Milk Duds) cost a nickel.
And by the way, a large bag of popcorn cost a dime--fifteen cents if you wanted butter. The Saturday matinees forced me to finish my chores before noon, after which I'd get my weekly allowance of 75 cents: one Lady Liberty or Franklin half-dollar piece and one Standing Liberty or Washington quarter ( both designs of both coins were in circulation at the time). Honest-to-God silver coins, so that if you dropped one, it didn't go clunk; it rang.
Of course, Gresham's Law kicked in with a vengeance when the inflationary policies of the Democrats' budding welfare state compelled the mints to debase the coinage in 1964--but I was in college then, so I didn't have enough sense to start hoarding the silver when it was still in circulation.
Oh, if only I knew then what I know now. For one thing, my movie collection would be much bigger.
Nick| 8.4.11 @ 10:01AM
John II,
And the popcorn had real butter on it!
Not butter flavor who-knows-what-it-is.
If I had the money to invest, I would build an old-time movie theater, with modern digital projectors and surround sound; and I would show nothing but old classic movies. I'd call it The Hippodrome or The Palace, or some such name.
Michelle| 8.3.11 @ 12:43PM
Had to add- another favorite actor- Van Johnson- from "The Wasington Story", "Last Time I Saw paris" and a great line of his from "Miracle in the Rain" is
"..its a day made of diamonds!"-- who says that?
And one of the absolute classic line of all time by Burl Ives in "The Big Country" --
"I've wanted alot of things in my life, most of which I never got..."
luv it, and I feel his pain... sounds like the Tea Party in the last debt deal..
Michelle
JimP| 8.3.11 @ 1:23PM
So true about the pain etc, and I agree with 'The Big Country'. That was a terrific film and Ives got an Oscar for that role didn't he?
Now I can look forwarding to viewing the others ou named since I don't recall ever seeing them. Thanks, Michelle.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 12:54PM
Although many people disagree with me, I always felt that Eleanor Parker, the blonde beauty and Christopher Plummer's initial love interest in The Sound of Music, was a sympathetic character. Beyond that, though, I never thought of her that much.
Recently, though, I watched Scaramouche, and re-discovered her as the fiery redhead. What a performance! What a beauty! Who'd a thunk it?
By the way, today is Bette Davis day on TCM. You're not going to see a bad movie on this channel all day.
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 1:19PM
If you want to see Eleanor Parker as an evil woman, watch 1955's "The Man with the Golden Arm." If you want to see Eleanor Parker as a good woman, watch 1951's "Detective Story." Both movies are black-and-white, and both are worth watching.
Perhaps her strangest movie was 1966's "An American Dream." This one was in color, and the other two big names in it were Janet Leigh and Stuart Whitman. The scene I best remember was the police interrogation of Rojack, Whitman's character, who's their prime suspect for having thrown somebody off the 20th-story balcony of Eleanor Parker's character's apartment. Two or three cops are firing questions at Rojack and interrupting his answers, until one cop silences everyone with "Rojack, procrastination is the thief of time." Stuart Whitman looks at that cop dumbfounded, and I broke out laughing in the theater!
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 1:25PM
I've been wanting to watch "Golden Arm" for some time. I'll order it today. I do remember Detective Story--it was a great movie--but didn't realize at the time that the woman was Eleanor Parker. I'll watch that again, too.
Thanks for the info!
John II| 8.3.11 @ 2:05PM
If you liked Eleanor Parker in "Scaramouche" (1952), try "The Naked Jungle" (1954), a George Pal thriller in which she plays a mail-order bride to Charleton Heston, a South American plantation owner up against an invasion of soldier ants. Both the passion of her role in "Scaramouche" and the statuesque elegance of her role as the Baroness in "Sound of Music" (1965) are on display in "The Naked Jungle," in which she has first billing.
But I think her best performance may have been in the somewhat understated role as Paul Henreid's young wife in "Between Two Worlds" (1944), an early John Garfield vehicle. She had quite a range for a film star, but was already on her way out in "Sound of Music," when she was in her early forties. Can't figure why. I think she's still alive--maybe someone can ask her.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 12:55PM
By the way, Gerald, I remember you from the Chronicle way back in the eighties and early nineties. Nice to see your byline again.
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 12:58PM
One of the biggest movies of recent years was 1997's "Titanic" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The best known shipwreck of the century was so unexciting that the movie had to invent leading characters to interest a modern audience!
A far better movie about the Titanic is 1958's "A Night to Remember." This black and white movie didn't have the expensive special effects of the 1997 movie. Instead it had a great script by Eric Ambler and Walter Lord, the author of the book which was the basis of the movie. Rent this one from Netflix if you want to be caught up in the 1912 tragedy. It stars my favorite British actor, Kenneth More, and fans of NCIS can see what David McCallum looked like fifty-odd years ago.
Derek Leaberry| 8.3.11 @ 2:39PM
You are absolutely right. The '58 "A Night to Remember" is superior to "Titanic" unless seeing Kate Winslet in the nude is such a thrill. I still find the final scene haunting when a steward come across a 5 year old boy, tells the boy he will help him find his parents, and the ship goes down.
Purple Lips| 8.3.11 @ 1:31PM
Most B&W films sucked, just as most modern films suck. To this day, I thought Olivier in Hamlet was downright awful. However, John Ford's Ft Apache was a classic, as was his How Green Was My Valley. But, Hollywood put out a ton of B-Movies that were nothing but kitsch - and bad kitsch at that.
But I do have to hand it to the movie directors and producers of the B&W era -at least they tried to put to film many literary classics (too bad most failed). But that is what happens when one has a well-read audience. Even the uneducated could identify with Ronnie Coleman's Tale of Two Cities. Today's audience would think the movie is about LA and New York.
And let's face it. Today's movies are just a means for married men to look at soft porn and not get into trouble with missus. Even PG movies today have skin.
JR| 8.3.11 @ 1:33PM
My wife and I joined an intimate party of several thousand at Wolf Trap (The National Park for the Performing Arts in Vienna, VA) one evening last week to see "Casablanca" on the big screen with soundtrack played live by the National Symphony Orchestra and introduced on stage by TCM's Ben Mankiewicz. What a grand movie and a novel way to enjoy the background music--of course Sam's piano and singing parts (as critical to the qualities of the movie as the scripts and fine acting of Bogart, Bergman, Henreid, and Raines) were original. Surprisingly, many adults were accompanied by their children and grandchildren who seemed to enjoy this classic as much as the older adults. They don't call them classic films for nothing!
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 1:34PM
By the way, if anyone is interested in an example of Mr. Nachman's comment: " braless women slinking about in diaphanous dresses that look more like nightgowns," try the film, A Free Soul, with Norma Shearer, Clark Gable, and Lionel Barrymore. There is a scene with Norma Shearer wearing, well, the "diaphanous dress," and she was obviously--patently obviously--braless. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This movie was made in 1931! (I suspect a lot of fourteen year old boys at the time watched this movie a lot. Like, every day.)
It's also a great movie. Lionel Barrymore plays an alcoholic attorney and is remarkable. Gable, still somewhat early in his career, plays a dangerous gangster more convincingly than anyone I've ever seen, and I include Cagney, Robinson and Humphrey Bogart. He is downright scary.
Terrific movie, and Norma Shearer is HOT.
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 2:38PM
Thanks for the tip, Paul. I've never heard of "A Free Soul." I'll see if I can get it from Netflix.
And Eleanor Parker played the wife of detective Kirk Douglas in "Detective Story."
JeMeRappelle| 8.3.11 @ 2:47PM
The American public's taste must have been simpler before the late 1960s, because many old films are just stories about human nature. Their characters are often ordinary people in everyday situations.
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 3:00PM
Another value of old movies is they can give a good idea of people's values when those movies were made. In the 1951 "Detective Story", Kirk Douglas played a New York City cop, James McLeod, who despised abortionists. He arrests "doctor" Karl Schneider, played by George Macready, and handles him roughly while bringing him into the precinct house. Schneider's lawyer believes his client's treatment was personal, because Macready had aborted Mrs McLeod's pregnancy before she had met and married detective McLeod. When this comes out as McLeod's supervisor investigates the lawyer's complaint, McLeod (obviously a catholic) is devastated by the discovery that his wife had had an abortion.
"Detective Story" was true to its time, and its principal component, the McLeod component, would make little sense if remade in the present day.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 3:33PM
You beat me to the punch. The fascinating thing about older movies is that as time goes by, they become not only entertainment, but historical documents. Young people don't realize that people thought and acted differently fifty years ago. Men emulated--they wanted to be--Cary Grant: polite, urbane, witty, sophisticated. Hollywood occasionally poked fun at this persona, but never did they ridicule it.
As Mr. Nachmann pointed out, men didn't go out of the house without a coat and tie. I mean, if you went to someone's house for dinner, you wore your coat and tie and you kept in on while you ate.
(I am not arguing necessarily that we should go back to this--although some slight improvement over untucked t-shirt and shorts might be a welcome change--I am instead stating that times were different, and worthy of our study.)
Your "Detective Story" comment is an excellent example of the way mores and values have changed as well. Sex certainly existed in a polite society, and it was certainly acknowledged in these early films. But never, EVER, was sex depicted in the vulgar, coarse way that it is now. What are we teaching our children?
Obviously, we are no longer a polite society. We once were. I remember it and I am not even that old. We've sunk a long way in a very short time.
MOS was 71331| 8.3.11 @ 3:58PM
I'm 66, so I remember most of the 1950s fairly well. I don't recall my father wearing a coat and tie whenever he went to a restaurant. He was in the USAF, and on active duty, from 1942 until he retired in 1964. He wore his uniform at work (and going to and from), but off duty he normally wore slacks and a shirt without a tie. Other than his uniform, I don't recall ever seeing him with a tie.
I'm afraid your recollections of normal clothing during the period from, say, 1950 to 1970 just don't match mine. However, I share your recollections of attitudes during that period.
Petronius| 8.3.11 @ 4:24PM
One need only look at who is producing films these days and the demographic they choose as their audience to understand why the medium is bereft of real playwrights and actors. And it goes no farther than the trailer which moves the movie goer into buying his ticket. There is almost no substance. We get computermation, glib dialogue with innuendo and epithets thrown in, and a predictable ending. Film making as a craft has thrown it's human side out the Windows 7.
Black and white cinema is more than an industrial period. Monochrome and color do not have the same impact. I.E. WWII was seen by the public in 35mm black and white. Not just features, but the newsreels were of a Type. It therefor stands to reason why Otto Preminger shot Stalag 17 as he did. Would anybody want to see a colorized remastered Casablanca? A first experience usually matters most. And we do need some constants in this world of discarded values.
Tonight's feature is The Great Garrick, (1938).
Pass the popcorn.
Perusha| 8.3.11 @ 5:49PM
The local library has DVD'S of a bunch of movies, mostly newer ones, but some oldies.
I've been revisiting movies I THOUGHT were so great, at the time, and rating them, NOW.
Not very many make the grade. Indeed, most of the time I can't force myself to watch until the end!
Last night, "Gigi", from 1958, was the latest to bite the dust. I remember oh so well, the Academy Awards for that year, when I was 16, and my 13 year old sister was rooting for "Gigi" and I was all for "Bridge On the River Kwai".
A few years later, I overdid it with "Fanny", totally smitten with Leslie Caron.
A lot of the flicks I've been watching are complete surprises. A couple of nights ago I tried to watch an early Russell Crowe movie, made in Australia, in which he played a homosxual son of a straight dad, living at home! I couldn't stand it!
Ah, but you're MOSTLY right about the older black and white flicks, especially the ones from before my time---say prior to 1955.
It's more of an historical "dig", rather than "entertainment", though, to observe all the sights and sounds of that long gone time.
And, as you write, seeing actors before they became famous is a real trip---excuse my hippie jargon.
A TV aside---from nowhere, less than a year ago, I began watching reruns of Perry Mason, which are on each week day.
This was my mother's favorite show, way back then, but I didn't particularly like it, THEN.
But, NOW---it's amazing to observe how tight and informative EVERY sentence is, even though the programs all followed the same "rigid" format/
And, it's the regular character actors FACES that really bring back memories---there must have been hundreds of these "no-name" people!
Ah, the past.
Tina B| 8.3.11 @ 6:24PM
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the final scene, it's midnight and maybe New Years Eve, Betty Davis and Paul Heinred, cigarettes in hand, sitting on that window sill, he touches the tip of her unlit cig with the tip of his lit cig, and. . . and. . . they affirm the morality of their choice to remain celibate in "Now, Voyager."
I was awstruck by the passion of that innocent scene. I wonder if anyone else was. Melodrama, maybe, but good stuff.
Tina B| 8.3.11 @ 6:33PM
"Now Jerry," Charlotte says, " don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."
from the film, "Now, Voyager". What a great line!
Tina B| 8.3.11 @ 6:37PM
(I can't believe I remembered that scene wrong!)
from Wikipedia:
For years, Davis and co-star Paul Henreid claimed the moment in which Jerry puts two cigarettes in his mouth, lights both, then passes one to Charlotte, was developed by them during rehearsals, inspired by a habit Henreid shared with his wife, but drafts of Casey Robinson's script on file at the University of Southern California indicate it was included by the screenwriter in his original script.[7] The scene remained an indelible trademark that Davis later would exploit as "hers".[8]
Live and loin.
general summerall| 8.3.11 @ 7:34PM
I pity the souls who cannot watch old blackandwhities--that means you will never have the experience of your first viewing of Double Indemnity, or of that little seen noir classic The Horn Blows at Midnight, imo Jack Benny's masterpiece, a dark view of the world in 1946 looking back at the just ended WW2. And try to check out the old Howard-Shearer Romeo and Juliet. Hokey as allgitout, but it does have a brief bit of Andy Devine as Edna May Oliver's servant trying to recite Shakespeare.
Sara from Alabama| 8.3.11 @ 7:57PM
What a lovely essay about one of my favorite topics. Some folks just can't appreciate old movies. I suppose the reasons are as various as the various folks. No early exposure, perhaps. But I brought my children up on them. We've watched It's A Wonderful Life every Christmas since VCRs were in vogue. We can repeat almost every line together, and still it's fresh as lemons and part of our tradition. Sometimes we sit the grandchildren down and put on Little Lord Fauntleroy, or The Quiet Man (best fight scenes ever), or To Kill a Mockingbird, later but still filmed in black and white, to its makers' credit.
My daughter and I found, when she was in high school, that her friends couldn't seem to understand any movie dialogue without color and car chases.
May I recommend Hobson's Choice with Charles Laughton at his irritable, alcoholic, comic best? It's just such a tight and tidy plot as those to which you refer, shot in 1954 but set in the late Victorian era. Never was man so self-important, so witless, and so overwhelmingly cornered and outwitted. It's a beautiful thing.
I could go on recommending. But I won't. Isn't fun to find your own way?
SF_Exile| 8.3.11 @ 8:00PM
I'll do you one better for Christmas movies: "The Bishop's Wife" with Cary Grant and Loretta Young. I turn into a watering pot every time I watch it. So good on so many levels.
Paul McGrath| 8.3.11 @ 10:05PM
The two that make be bawl every time like a big crybaby are Shane--Alan Ladd sacrificing himself for the boy, Van Heflin, and Jean Arthur--and About Schmidt. About Schmidt is a very recent one, with Jack Nicholson, for once, acting selflessly.
Shane was also great in the way that it made obvious the fact that Jean Arthur had fallen in love with Shane--and vice-versa--but because of the respect they had for Van Heflin--and the self-respect they had for themselves--they made sure to restrain their feelings for each other. Hollywood could not make this movie today.
PCC| 8.4.11 @ 2:02AM
Finally, some B&W's I've actually seen and, I must say, they're excellent.
SF_Exile| 8.3.11 @ 7:58PM
As a kid, I began watching classic film with my mom. She was very careful with the current movies she let us watch but screwball comedies and musicals got a huge thumbs up. At first I watched them because I thought of them as being a window back in time. I loved the clothes and the music. Then later on the impact of the clever dialogue hit me. I recall rolling on the floor in hysterics watching Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant make verbal mincemeat of each other in "His Girl Friday". I had never seen anything like it. I was enthralled. And once I discovered Busby Berkeley musicals I was done for. "Gold Diggers of 1933" is still one of my faves. With Ruby Keeler, Joan Blondell and a very young, very unknown Ginger Rogers, how can you go wrong?
"A Free Soul", along with "The Divorcée" are two wonderful examples of films made in what's known as the Pre-Code era. They were very plot driven with excellent writing and for the most part propelled by strong female characters. Many of them dealt with some pretty heavy subject matter - divorce, incest, prostitution, alcoholism, etc. - in realistic and at times dark ways. I discovered Pre-Code films almost by accident while watching Turner Classic Movies one summer. Such a rich treasure trove of films made in such a short amount of time, cinematically speaking.
The first pre-Code film I ever watched was called "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck. I won't ruin the plot for those who might be interested, but it's a good example of the gritty roles available to women at the time. And, one of the most controversial. One of the better actresses of this era whom the author did not mention was Helen Twelvetrees. It's too bad she faded into obscurity; she was a treat to watch onscreen.
Netflix is a godsend for classic film. Their collection is astounding. I had "The Women" on a waitlist for nearly a year while the original was being restored. It's a joy to watch. And even better, "Pandora's Box" with the lovely and talented Louise Brooks is available in Instant Watch. Hooray!
marshcope| 8.3.11 @ 8:43PM
A couple of very old movies worth seeing(they were both on DVD a while back) are Tillie's Punctured Romance, and A Fool There Was, both from c. 1916( Woodrow Wilson era movies). Tillie has Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Marie Dressler (who had already been acting on stage since the 1880s.) Heavy slapstick, but still watchable. A Fool is one of two surviving Theda Bara films, and it shows that Theda could Act, even doing her Vamp schtick. and it has a very brief shot of Theda showing us how to slide into a tin lizzie while wearing a hobble skirt. A few years ago I read a newspaper article noting that there were maybe six people still alive who had worked on the crews of silent movies. They are probably all gone by today. Does any acting department in collegeland teach the techniques of silent movie acting?
MOS was 71331| 8.4.11 @ 12:10AM
Rearrange the letters in Theda Bara, and you get Arab Death, which I believe was how, in the opposite direction, the lady came up with her stage name.
Stuart Koehl| 8.3.11 @ 9:00PM
Just remember that most of those glorious B&W movies were crap, and have been consigned to the memory hole, unknown and unremembered except by film majors. In a century, people will speak of the glorious 2-D films of the late 20th century, forgetting that 90% of them were also crap.
John II| 8.3.11 @ 11:09PM
Except for "The Big Stampede" (1932) and "Telegraph Trail" (1933), two of the most significant John Wayne B-flicks ever made, under the direction of the great Tenny Wright, who, after years of quietly introducing new shooting techniques and revolutionary camera angles, retired to the business side of film-making, with such unsung heroics as keeping "Casablanca" (1943) on budget at Warner.
Cast not such vague aspersions, Stu. As a practicing historian, you know better. The devil is in the details, so to speak. Besides, in this fallen world, ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crap, if I may be vouchsafed a theological point.
And now back to "March of the Wooden Soldiers" (1933), in the production of which a tragic rift happened between Hal Roach and Stan Laurel, eventually dooming the great comic team of Laurel and Hardy to the grinding machinations of 20th Century Fox, despite such intermittent strokes of genius as "Way Out West" (1937) before the fateful expiration of their contract with Hal Roach.
Stuart Koehl| 8.4.11 @ 9:43PM
I think I was the first on this blog to invoke Sturgeon's Epiphany.
By the way, I grew up on March of the Wooden Soldiers, which was a staple on WOR in New York every Thanksgiving. While our parents were gorging on turkey and lasagna, my siblings and cousins and I were glued to the B&W TV watching Laurel and Hardy invade Bogeyland.
adam aston| 8.3.11 @ 9:24PM
A couple of movie reviewers I follow both have commented that with the arrival of Captain America All of the great comic book superheroes have made it to the big screen. Actually, I am still waiting for Sergeant Rock, and Captain Fury and his Howling Commandoes to get 3D or 4thD movie renditions. Please, Hollywood, give us these two super warriors.
Nick| 8.4.11 @ 9:53AM
We'd be better off if they made a movie version of Sad Sack.
POST American| 8.3.11 @ 10:50PM
-------------------BOTTOM LINE--------------------
And speaking of old movies, one for these
Fukishima world de-pop cover-up days
is an old Japanese flick
IKIRU by Akira Kurosawa
1952
One for these corrupt Rockefeller corrupted
and fallout DENIAL days.
One for anyone over 40.
One for eternity.
-------------------CHECK IT OUT--------------------
john bunny| 8.4.11 @ 12:10AM
After the drama of last week's Capitol Hill happenings a good movie to see is the French-Polish French Revolution drama Danton. It is one of the great political movies of the 20th century.Hard to follow at times, but Danton is portrayed by Depardieu as a guy who loved giving speeches so much that instead of crushing Robespierre he talked his way to the guillotine, along with his entourage of Girondins. Watch the flick and think and fantasize about your favorite gabby politician. When the movie was released in Europe leftists and rightists both demonstrated against it, so it is worth watching . It was filmed during the martial law era in Poland.
Hambone| 8.4.11 @ 3:44PM
Those RKO staccato beeps are Morse Code, not random noise.
Corrine DuRoque| 8.4.11 @ 7:41PM
Lest we forget--2011 is the 90th anniversary of the premier of The Sheik. Oh Rudy Rudy Rudy. You folks who say you hate old movies should rent at least one Valentino movie and just watch it to see what the Man could do with those smoldering eyes of his.
bookworm| 8.7.11 @ 4:15PM
Thanks so much for this. My aunt, who died recently at 86, told me that in the old days, before the movie started, a theater employee would play the piano or the organ and the audience would SING! Can you imagine that world?
I've made the same discoveries you have about Jeanette MacDonald, Carole Lombard, Marion Davies, Fay Wray, and yes, Joan Crawford. Isn't she something in "Grand Hotel"?
On the subject of slang, my favorite moment is when Gladys George says to James Cagney in "The Roaring Twenties": "It burns me up to see you try to put out the torch you carry for that dame with a lot of cheap hooch." Don't forget, "Ya big ape!" "Is this on the level?" "And how!"
All of the movie logos you mentioned are greeted lovingly, but none means something special so much as the old shielf of Warner Brothers -- and how!
Hugo Fitch| 8.7.11 @ 9:38PM
How about a nod to Kay Francis? Watch Confession (1937) sometime. Her performance was unforgettable.
Vincent | 8.16.11 @ 3:01AM
A wonderful piece on the joys of old films, something I've appreciated since my youth. One thing that must be noted in context is that the moviegoing audience in the '20s, '30s and '40s was substantially different than it is today, where it's dominated by adolescent males with a frat-boy, beer-commercial mentality. Back in those days, especially before World War II, just about everybody went to movies; remember, there was no television, and not everyone was a fan of radio. Many theaters, especially in smaller towns, changed the bill two or three times a week, so if you wanted to see a favorite genre or actor, you made it a point to go (if your town was big enough, you got another chance at a second-run house).
Gerald, I'm glad you've become a fan of Carole Lombard, my all-time favorite actress (check my name for a link to my blog dedicated to her in particular and classic Hollywood in general). There's just something about her that's timeless, a quality shared by contemporaries such as Myrna Loy, William Powell and Barbara Stanwyck. Carole will be featured for 24 hours on TCM Aug. 28 as part of its "Summer Under The Stars" event. Other TCM star marathons of note include Humphrey Bogart on Wednesday, Debbie Reynolds on Friday, and Cary Grant, pre-Code fave Joan Blondell and Marlene Dietrich later on this month.