So Casablanca doesn’t have a sense of humor, and someone else says it has wooden acting. From Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.
Am I seeing a version created in a parallel universe from the rest of you guys? Because Bogart & Bergman are steaming hot, and subtle rather than grandiose but definitely not wooden.
And every other line out of Capt. Renault’s mouth is funny. Same with Rick and his staff, particularly early in the film. Even Victor has some dryly amusing lines.
Classic movies are wonderful. Not all old movies are great, but same can be said for modern films. Sure, they have a different style, but so do Mozart and Bach and Vivaldi when compared to the Beatles. Doesn’t mean you can’t love all of the glorious variety. Seems a shame to narrow one’s appreciation of art to a narrow field of thirty years or so.
Basically, Casablanca is like E.T., The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin with me: Anyone who says they don’t like it, I can pretty much discount their taste in all forms of entertainment, as there’s pretty much just gonna be no meeting of the minds. Granted, it’s all opinion, but the aforementioned entertainments/-ers are my litmus tests that decide whether you and I can hang or not.
Yeesh – do you think the world was just created with the beginning of cinema? Arsenic and Old Lace – to take one example I’ve already raised – is all about playing with stereotypes, cliches, and expectations. So are plenty of other “old movies”.
As a class, of course, you’re going to get a mix of good and bad, covering the range. But the OP , despite its use of “most” in the title, seems to be condemning older movies as a class, and specifically heaping scorn on some of the best. my point is that there’s plenty of wit and sophistication in even the oldest collection, simply because people have been at this entertainment business for a long time. You didn’t have to wait until the 1970s to have meta-references to Things that have Gone Before, making fun of Old Cliches, and Campiness.
I’m there with you. It’s not all old movies that I have a distaste for, but it seems like for movies from 1960 and earlier, the ones that appeal to me are the rare exceptions, not the norm. For example, I really enjoyed Peyton Place when I stumbled upon it; it seems quite contemporary, despite it being a product of the 1950s. Casablanca is a true classic, with timeless appeal.
What bothers me about older American movies?
Acting that seems overly dramatic, and seems more suited for the stage rather than the screen. I understand that with talkies being a relatively new phenomenon, and theatrical performances still being commonplace throughout the United States into the 1950s, there’s a reason for the overdramatic acting in films of the era. Still, I don’t like it.
The unnatural accents; clipped, nasal “Say there, sonny boy!” inflections and pretentious Connecticut Lockjaw accents seem to dominate. Nobody sounds normal. Regional accents are used for comedic effect or to reinforce stereotypes (e.g. Southerners, Mexicans, Brooklyn residents, the old Negro “yes massa” accent, etc) rather than to provide authenticity.
The limited themes, at least what I encounter when I’m flipping through the channels; westerns, detective/mystery/noir, New York high-class society, war, and worst of all, musicals. The comedies that are out there seem much more slapstick than those of today.
They just don’t seem … well, not to sound like a Doper, but they don’t seem very intellectual. That’s not to say all movies of the past were lowest-common-denominator, but what I’ve seen doesn’t leave you thinking about what you just saw for hours or days later. Older movies just seem “fluffier”, for lack of a better word, than movies of today.
Personally, I liked “Casablanca” well enough, but if I were flipping channels and I came across it I probably wouldn’t start watching it. Not like “The Sting” or “Goodfellas” or “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” or “Singin’ in the Rain” or “This is Spinal Tap” (to name some films from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s).
I just didn’t think it was as funny enough to make it a “classic”. I still liked it well enough, but I don’t have any particular desire to see it again.
A followup: instead of complaining, maybe some Dopers who might have felt the same way as me can tell me about old movies that changed their mind. Which New York society “sweeping down the staircase” film should I stop flipping the channels at? What about film noir? What about the old British movies that always air on the local PBS affiliate?
It’s a sure bet that the acting conventions of today will seem as cheesy and peculiar to those 50 years down the line as those of a half-century ago do to most people now. To appreciate the popular art of the past you need to cast aside the mindset of the age you live in, otherwise you will remain locked in it, unable to appreciate anything which does not cohere to the conventions of the day. That’s sad.
New York Society film: How about All About Eve? I don’t know if it’s New York “society”, but it’s New York theater society, and it kicks butt. It’s one of my favorites.
Film Noir: Double Indemnity.
Old British Movie: Hobson’s Choice or I Know Where I’m Going.
But that white teenage boy is such a terrible actor! Or he was terribly directed. The kid is pontificating – he sounds pompous and “important” – he really put me off.
I’ll give it another go if you say it’s worth it, but it better be good.
needscoffee, re Leave Her to Heaven – I read the book a few months ago after watching the movie. I liked the movie but I thought there were some plot holes, and the book filled those in nicely. I think the movie deserves a remake, to bring it closer to the book. The scene where Gene Tierney scatters her father’s ashes was another reason to read the book. It’s a very powerful scene, and I wanted to see how the author wrote it.
ETA: There are some decent discussions of the film and book at IMDb. Surprise surprise.
The first “old movie” that I sat through and thoroughly enjoyed (not counting the classic Disney animated movies or The Wizard of Oz) was The Music Man. A couple years after that (this would be when I was about 13), I had the extreme pleasure of seeing To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. (It’s still one of my favorites of all time.)
After those, and about a year later, my dad took me to see both Rebel Without a Cause and Giant at a revival house not too far from where I lived at the time. And I guess that from that point on, I was pretty well a fan of “classic”, “old” movies.
Well nobody has mentioned the Hayes Code, but fact is the Hayes Code was in effect right through to the 1960s, though filmmakers were poking at it in the 50s, and the Hayes Code did have a bad effect on film. It was not just the “no sex, no nudity” stuff. They Hayes Code also REQUIRED that the good guys should win in the end, that authority figures such as police, judges, preists, etc., always be treated with respect (considering the Hayes Code was largely the product of the Catholic Church, you can see how this would be handy for pedophile preists) and also had some restrictions on how women should behave … no abortions or over sexuality, of course, but also they were not allowed to be involved in violence.
The effect of the Hayes Code was to cast a pall over films for decades, and I suspect that many who do not like old movies may be reacting to the enforced plotting and characterization required by the Hayes Code. Some great films were made during the Hayes Code era of course, and the restrictions did make filmmakers come up with some imaginative metaphors for sex and sexuality, but this is like saying, “He ran a good race for a man with no legs.”
In short, there really is something WRONG with the old movies, and I suspect that they would be a lot more interesting if they were not stifled by the Hayes Code.
I was going to bring up the subject of the Motion Picture Production Code and how it shaped Hollywood movies from 1930 to 1968. I wonder how many young viewers seeing “old” (i.e., before 1965) films are aware of the Code’s existence when they complain that old movies are absurdly quaint and artificial?
That’s a VAST oversimplification, and an extremely subjective opinion. My proof? There were a HUGE number of masterpieces made during that period. Granted, there were not a lot of masterpieces about titties or double dildos made during that period, but to suggest that the Code “cast a pall over films for decades” is to suggest that there are no subjects worth examining that don’t include beaver shots.
I have a HUGE problem with the Code–I think it can claim a great deal of responsibility for today’s capital punishment culture, if you want an interesting debate for another thread–so I’m not minimizing its effects. But to downgrade the value of all of the films made during Hollywood’s “Golden Era” because there were no boobies is an extremely blindered viewpoint.
And that’s not even mentioning the fact that your argument only addresses American films, making your argument not only narrow but provincial.
Listen to recordings of FDR speaking sometime - I won’t claim that dialog in older movies isn’t stylized, but at least some of this does relate to changing times. At least some people, some of the time, did in fact talk like that.
