The Classic Film Thread (Pre-1970: Bogart, Stewart, Grant, Peck, etc.)

Really? We didn't have one of these already? That's criminal.

Since you brought up John Wayne...

Most people around here will tell you that The Searchers is the ultimate Wayne film. Don't get me wrong, I love The Searchers; I think it's brilliant, and certainly Wayne's second best film. But for me, the real masterpiece was The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Lee Marvin. Come on! And star power aside, it's just a great movie. There's an aura of tragedy and loss over the opening that's palpable, and you haven't even been told what happened yet.

Absolutely one of my favorite westerns.

The Big Combo is a great little film noir, along with Anthony Mann classics Raw Deal and T-men.

All About Eve is a great movie, don't get me wrong. But I can't stand the very last shot of the film with the girl looking in the mirror, as it has one of the absolute worst goofs in the history of cinema, the sort of screw-up so extreme you can't believe people let it slide. As the girl stares at her reflection and the shot kaleidoscopes around, you can very, very plainly see a fucking crew member sitting in the top corner of the set watching the scene. And he's practically the size of her face in the shot, it's completely unmissable. At first I thought I simply didn't get it, and that he was there on purpose. But nope, it's listed in the goofs on IMDB. Probably the worst, most great-movie-ruining goof of all time in my book.

Aside from the Capra films my two all-time favorite classic films are Captain Blood, the 1935 swashbuckler that first launched Errol Flynn into stardom and got me on the pirate craze back in 1989, a little earlier than everyone else haha. A fucking joy to watch, pure old-fashioned high adventure, with a great Rathbone villain duel and a gigantic ship explosion that always seemed to me like the great-granddaddy of the Death Star I's death knell to boot.

My second favorite was another I first watched as a little kid, taped off of TV by my dad and watched to the point that I knew all the old commercials on it by heart. Drums Along The Mohawk, a quasi western (it's actually set in pioneer country of upstate New York during the Revolutionary War) about the colonists starting a new life in the wilderness, beginning families, and banding together to protect themselves from an army of Brits and Indians led by a nefarious English bastard with an eyepatch. The best scene by far has the lead character Gil Martin sneaking from their fort to run for help, and being chased by three champion Indian braves for countless miles. An incredible movie, when they first raise Old Glory in the last scene it had me proud to be an American at age 5.

frankly, I don't see the difference between this thread and the B-movie thread. Both are discussing classics.

But joking aside, when I took an American Film 101 class back in college, they showed Gun Crazy. A film that was released before the censorship craze. Pretty good flick.

I saw this quite recently, the influence on POTC is unmistakeable, they even try to make Orlando Bloom as Errol Flynnish as possible, for a movie made in the 1930's the action holds up quite well, some great cannon battles.

"Norma Desmond? You used to be big" "I AM Big. It was the pictures that got small"

There are so many great dialogue exchanges in 'Sunset Boulevard' there's something desperately tragic about Norma Desmond, the way she starts moulding Joe Gillis even though he's openly contemptuous of her.

Another great Wayne western is 'Red River', it's a really tense pyschological film hampered by a ending that feels off.

Pre-1960 seems more fitting, but whatever.

Just saw Philadelphia Story for the first time last week, fell in love with Jimmy Stewart all over again. He has this amazing hilarious weirdness that you don't see often in older films ("This is the voice of Doom. I've come for the seventh son of the SEVENTH SON.") And a hilarious drunk as well.

But really, for me, classic comedy begins and ends with the Marx Brothers. Duck Soup and Night at the Opera being two of the funniest movies of all time (the former being THE funniest movie of all time).

I just watched that the other day, and couldn't fucking stand the ending. Don't get me wrong, the way the girl berates them and they both sit up and stare at her is pretty hilarious, but I can't believe that the scene goes like this:

-Wayne walks up all pissed off.
-Cherry tries to stop him and gets shot to death
-Wayne walks up and starts beating the crap outta Montgomery
-Montgomery gets a few licks in, then the girl tells them to stop fighting each other
-Wayne's all "I couldn't hurt you kid, let's go home and forget this ever happened!"
-Audience: "What about Cherry, Montgomery's best friend who you just killed?"
-Montgomery: "Fuck him!"

About three years ago, I just went nuts for Singin' in the Rain. I'd seen it when I was a kid, and I kind of liked it, but for some reason watching it again a couple years back just brought into focus how absolutely great it truly is.

The performances are spectacular (especially Jean Hagen...SO funny), the dancing is unbelievable (Donald O'Connor is a fucking madman in this flick), and the film serves as an etertaining look at the transition from silent films to talkies.

Just love this movie.

One of my favorite classic films is A Big Hand for the Little Lady. Just a great cast and a great ending that I won't spoil if you've never seen it.

Speaking of John Wayne, my favorite film of his is probably The Quiet Man. It's a nice change of pace for him from the cowboy/Marine routine, and the big fist fight is a hell of a lot of fun.

I'm right there with you on this one. The Quiet Man is excellent, and one of the most flat-out enjoyable films I've ever seen. The final fight is just a great topper.

How about pre-1967 (the year of The Graduate and Bonnie & Clyde)?

There's this great moment in the documentary on the Quiet Man DVD where there's all these famous filmmakers and talking heads going on and on about the greatness of the movie and then it just cuts to Scorsese pausing for a few moments and finally saying to the effect of, "I just don't get it. I don't get the love for it."

For me nothing's funnier than Arsenic and Old Lace... His Girl Friday is good too but everyone's seen that.

I don't like His Girl Friday. Generally I don't like the old school technique called fasttalkingequalsfunny. It's all just annoying gibberish to me. And let's face it- Cary Grant is a jerk and that chick is no prize either. Who will cry for Ralph Bellamy?

Damn you, BobClark. First you come down on The Lost Boys and, now, you're going after His Girl Friday. Well, I'm drawing the line here.

And, yes, Cary Grant is a jerk in that movie... that's sort of the point and sort of the charm (in my opinion).

I'll add to the list Double Indemnity and The Thin Man. Both of these films have my undying love. They're both so... damn... clever.

Oh, and uh, Rififi is my favorite film noir for what it's worth. It's foreign but WHATEVER.
Brute Force is great too... I need to pick up the criterion.

I dislike the Thin Man series almost as much as His Girl friday. Almost. Just don't like that flat Gilmore Girls rat-a-tat-tat dialogue.

Great thread idea, Wood!

On SINGIN' IN THE RAIN: I watched it for a film class last month. The Donald O'Connor number "Make 'em Laugh" is insanity, the man is a living cartoon for a straight five-minute take. But for my money I like the fantasy sequence with Cyd Charisse. It's not as physically impressive as the other dance numbers but very graceful nonetheless.

I've never really gotten into watching John Wayne movies that much, just a few of the tentpoles, like THE SEARCHERS and so forth. I did recently watch a great Gregory Peck western called THE GUNFIGHTER. Tightly paced and a good ensemble.

Love Robert Preston in THE MUSIC MAN. He comes to town and just fucks with everyone. Plus it has some nice catchy music.

GASLIGHT- Spooky little gem. Charles Boyer tries to make Ingrid Bergman go nuts by messing with her head.

Hitchcock's ROPE was outstanding.

ABSENT-MINDED PROFESSOR, great little comedy.

I got "Sergeant York" and "Young Mr. Lincoln" this Christmas, both favorites of mine that only recently made it to DVD.

I finally got to see "Beckett", which blew me away. I consider Peter O'Toole's performance in "Lawrence of Arabia" to be quite possibly the best film performance of all time, so to see him nearly matching it in his follow-up was a very pleasant surprise. Plus, it almost singlehandedly shows what the hype is about in regards to Richard Burton.

And as far as John Wayne is concerned, I love "Stagecoach". But I also love "The Alamo", sue me.

"3:10 to Yuma" was awesome, and surprisingly gritty.

"High Noon" may be the greatest western of all time.

MCLINTOCK is great.

I lent IN COLD BLOOD to a co-worker of mine. He had listened to the audio book and was game to watch the flick.

I asked him a couple of days later what he thought of it and he said he didn't finish it because it was in black & white. I said so what and he said he hates black and white "stuff."

Motherfucker. Shoot me, please.

It's a very simple morality tale, yet it manages to feel so effortless and genuine. Plus, it's in real time, which is genius. And that opening song is pretty great too.

Absolute perfect plotting, and the tension just ramps up with every second that ticks off the clock.

Shame nobody in the movie can act, though.

I like HIGH NOON better as OUTLAND.

I think the real time bit is a genius gimmick that works in favor of the original.

I've tried watching Outland a few times, but just never seem to really get into it.

For those of you who love 'Singin' in the Rain' you should check out 'The Band Wagon', it's a really classy musical with some outstanding numbers, Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray tend to overdo it with their performances (it's a musical I know but they're really annoying sometimes)
The noir dance spoof is just sheer visual poetry, Michael Jackson copped it for his 'Smooth Criminal' music video but Astaire is amazing, also Cyd Charisse is smokin' hot.

I don't know that this is entirely fair. Gary Cooper is no Gary Oldman, but as a classic movie star, he plays his part beautifully. You feel the tension and conflict inside him, and without him being able to do this, I don't think any amount of real time trickery would be able to make this movie work. And yeah, some of the townspeople still have that overblown quality to their performances, but that's a characteristic of most movies pre-1960 I'd say. I wouldn't say "they can't act", they just had a different style.

Gary Cooper is so incredibly humble in that film, it kills me.

Can we start talking about noirish films from the 40s and 50s yet? DOA is one of my favorite movies of all time. So many good parts that still retain the power to shock and entertain some 60 years after it was first made. Neville Brand (aka Chester aka psycho who always talked about stabbing somebody in the belly) made the movie worthwhile by himself.

The thing you have to remember about watching a classic is that even though we might've seen the whole "dirty cop" schtick a million times now, back then it was fresh.

I recall watching Animal Crackers and when Groucho busted out the old "I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my pajamas, I'll never know" line, I went "ah, I get it now".

I'm definitely not trying to bust your balls on that; I think ANYONE who's worked his way backward into the classics has to deal with the same hurdle.

I'm the guy who couldn't keep awake during Citizen Kane - I went in knowing why it was important and great, but I just couldn't get into the story. And all the mind-blowing innovations in technique I've been weaned on for 30-odd years now, so it wasn't as fresh. It sucks, but CK is still a movie I'm going to keep trying to love.

After watching 'Spartacus' I have only one thing to say, Jean Simmons is one spectacularly attractive woman.

TOUCH OF EVIL, in agreement with Wood, has some goofiness in it (the stuff at the hotel is excessively goofy), but I love Orson Welles in it--he's pretty ultimately sleazy. Maybe if he had been more the protagonist than Heston, the movie would have been more poetic. But the last scene is greatness, especially the coda by Marlene Dietrich. Love that scene.

Well, we did get a scene of Jean undressing in front of Kirk Douglas (if that was even her) as compensation.

"I love you Spartacus", thank you "The Simpsons"

Everything Heston does in the movie is so operatic. Have you seen the SOYLENT GREEN sketch from SNL c. early 90s? With Phil Hartman doing the "Soylent green is people! It's PEEE-OPLLLLLE!!!!" That's how Heston comes off a lot of the time in TOUCH OF EVIL.

But I really like the Welles line, in that husky drawl, "I can feel him....He's close to me."

That's my meat. For my money, I could watch OUT OF THE PAST on a loop. The flashback sequence with Mitchum telling Virginia Huston everything that happened between him and Jane Greer is one of my favorite segments of cinema ever. Some of the coolest dialogue written, delivered by a couple of the coolest actors.

That used to be a widely used convention, I've noticed, in movies from that era: the extended flashback, you might call it. Almost a movie within a movie. You have a similar case in CASABLANCA with the Paris flashbacks. It's a simplistic way to drop a big load of exposition, but it also lends the leading character that whole romantic air of mystery. A great conceit of that era that I've always liked.