# Do you find old movies creepy to watch? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2002, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444 "2002-07-17T17:37:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2002, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/41 "2002-07-20T18:26:41Z")
I think that one should ignore films like Austin Powers where quotable dialogue is concerned. A catch phrase and good dialogue are not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/42 "2002-07-21T15:06:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Doug Bowe \* > \*\* > > –The laugh tracks used for early TV situation comedies were recorded with studio audiences in the 50’s. When you watch old reruns does it bother you that most of the audience you’re laughing with has probably joined the choir eternal? \*\* Not really. It’s the lack of sound that pushes it over the edge for me. Movies with sound from, say, the 1930’s for example, don’t creep me out as much even though they are all similarly departed. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/43 "2002-07-21T19:51:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zebra \* > \*\*I wonder sometimes about Willy Wonka. Could you make that film today? Could you really say it’s bad for a kid to be fat? Or would Faruka be ‘sharing imparied’? \*\* As it happens, I watched this movie again last night (it’s an old favorite) with the boys and fella bilong missus flodnak, who had never seen it. No one ever says it’s bad that Augustus is fat, really - his fault is that he’s always stuffing his face, especially with sweets, which has the side effect of making him fat. And Veruca is so over-the-top that I don’t think too many people would object to calling her spoiled, although you’d probably have some denouncing the use of the word “brat” and the implication that Mummy and Daddy are to blame for her behavior. But there is one thing that obviously wouldn’t fly today - the Oompa Loompas. It’s hard to imagine any situation in which you could put a backing chorus of little people in a movie today without being (justifiably) accused of insensitivity. The costumes and the “dance” routines just make it worse. Much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/44 "2002-07-21T20:23:23Z")
They DO blame the parents for why the children are so awful. Especially Veruca-it even says so in the Oompa Loompa song! ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/45 "2002-07-21T21:35:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flodnak \* > \*\* But there is one thing that obviously wouldn’t fly today - the Oompa Loompas. It’s hard to imagine any situation in which you could put a backing chorus of little people in a movie today without being (justifiably) accused of insensitivity. The costumes and the “dance” routines just make it worse. Much worse. \*\* You’re being a little bit _over_sensitive here. Willy Wonka _is_ being remade, with Mike Myers in the lead, and the Oompa Loompas will be back. Hooray! [http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---9074,00.html](http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---9074,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/46 "2002-07-21T21:41:58Z")
The genre of old films that really creep me out is the _Boy Meets Girl_ films. Boy meets girl, who will not give him the time of day. Boy pines for girl, buy _spies on_ girl, boy _follows_ girl, boy does something to take some other boyfriend out of the picture, boy _forces_ a kiss out of girl (during which she melts and changes her mind about him). These says that kind of behavior is criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2002, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/47 "2002-07-21T21:44:35Z")
Make that , “These days that kind of behavior is crominal.” ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/48 "2002-07-22T02:47:19Z")
> [@](#): > > The genre of old films that really creep me out is the Boy Meets Girl films. > > Boy meets girl, who will not give him the time of day. Boy pines for girl, buy spies on girl, boy follows girl, boy does something to take some other boyfriend out of the picture, boy forces a kiss out of girl (during which she melts and changes her mind about him). > > These days that kind of behavior is criminal. Ha! [The Onion](http://www.theonion.com/) had a great story about this. I can’t find the whole thing in their archives, but here’s a snippet: * * * ROMANTIC COMEDY BEHAVIOUR GETS REAL-LIFE MAN ARRESTED Marzano, who recently broke his leg falling off a ladder leaning against Hamilton’s second-story bedroom window, said he was “extremely surprised” that his plan to woo the woman had failed. “She was supposed to hate me at first but gradually be won over by my incredible persistence, telling me that no one has ever gone to such lengths to win her love,” Marzano said. “But for some reason, her irritation never melted into affection.” ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2002, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/49 "2002-07-22T07:23:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by gobear \* > **Pulp Fiction is about the only movie from the lasr decade that I’d calla classic.** :smack: Err, I mean, to each his own. > [@](#): > > \*\*While every generation has its clunkers and gems, I still say that the best movies of the 1940s and 1950s beat the best of today’s movies by a considerable mark. > […] Which movies in 2002 would you nominate as equivalent or superior in quality? How many movies released today have such quotable dialogue? \*\* Well, 2002 is just half-over. _Goldmember_, _Pluto Nash_, and _Signs_ haven’t even come out yet. But seriously, it’s too early to tell what are going to be the classic movies of the past couple of years. Last year was pretty good, with _Fellowship of the Ring_, _Moulin Rouge_, _The Royal Tennenbaums_, _Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon_, and _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_ (2000, but close enough). And your argument is fatuous. Two classics (_Wizard of Oz_ and _Gone With the Wind_) happen to have been released in the same year, but the way you describe it, it sounds as if they were just cranking out classic after classic for any year you pick out. That’s an aberration, not the rule. The point stills tands: Only the best movies from the 40’s and 50’s get remembered. I’m with **gex gex** ; I think movies on the whole have improved over the years. There’s still a great lot of crap being put out, but the movies that are good are _really_ good, partly because they have so many older movies to use as reference or inspiration (see: just about any Coen Brothers movie). ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2002, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444/50 "2002-07-22T13:11:21Z")
**Sugaree** —Yes, that is my new book mentioned in the August _Vanity Fair_, thanks for noticing! This is what comes of two years of concentrated ass-kissing . . . [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-find-old-movies-creepy-to-watch/119444.md?page=2)