Help Me Find Some Fun Class Conflict Movies To Watch

[SaharaTea]

Planes, Trains & Automobiles - Steve Martin is the uptight professional to John Candy’s loveable blue-collar loser.

John Hughes practically made a career of throwing together teenagers from different social/economic classes. See Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, and Some Kind of Wonderful.

[Thudlow_Boink]

Would Educating Rita count?

[Bridget_Burke]

Cold Comfort Farm was a hilarious novel, an excellent BBC miniseries &finally a movie. In which young, beautifully educated Flora Post discovers herself an orphan with a tiny income–in 30’s England. So she decides to move in with relatives. And picks the Starkadders, a rural tribe as written by Thomas Hardy & D H Lawrence.

What is class? Flora is almost penniless & the Starkadders own a fine farm. But she is bright & modern while they are all mired in “lower class” despair. Can Flora fix them? The Starkadder daughter & the son of the local gentry are in love–can Flora give them a happy ending? The cast rounds up The Usual British Actor Subects…

If we’re examining apparent versus “real” class–how about Shaw’s Pygmalion?

[Flywheel]

City Lights

[Ibn_Warraq]

I hate to say it, but James Cameron’s Titanic would certainly qualify.

[Evil_Captor]

@Scribble

For class conflict in the Midwest–Breaking Away: Breaking Away (1979) - IMDb

I saw that film years ago, being a cyclist I focused on the cycling aspects, but yeah, the heart of the story was the conflict between the cutters and the townies. Great little film, as I recall.

[Evin]

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)

[Skywatcher]

Summer Rental - Air Traffic Controller John Candy takes his family on vacation in a fictional Florida town similar to Palm Beach and goes up against a wealthy local. A bit predictable but fun.

I think Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile fit, especially the former with famous author Kathleen Turner, world-wise Michael Douglas, lowlife Danny DeVito, and local crime boss Alfonso Arau.

[missred]

Doc Hollywood

A young soon-to-be California plastic surgeon doing community service out in the sticks. Rich/poor or urbane/rural, both class struggles.

[Quimby]

Easy Money with Rodney Dangerfield
Caddyshack
Brewster’s Millions (kind of)
The 70s and 80s had a sub genre of comedy called “Snobs vs. Slobs”.

[Skywatcher]

Speaking of Rodney: old money vs. new money in Back to School.

[Skywatcher]

The Flamingo Kid - working class Brooklyn boy Matt Dillon gets a job in a posh resort and butts heads with one of the members.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Ibn_Warraq

I hate to say it, but James Cameron’s Titanic would certainly qualify.

Those who submitted posts 5, 15 and 22 didn’t hate to say it.

[Evil_Captor]

@Charlie_Wayne

Extremely underrated movie.

I am in the minority, but IMHO, this is one of Woody’s best movies.

In fact, I have trouble thinking of many others that are better.

Here is a list of all 50 of his films ranked in order from worst to best.

http://www.film.com/movies/ranked-woody-allen-films-from-worst-to-best/2

But I think the critic who put together this list is out to lunch. He ranked Love and Death as Number 6. I think it is one of the worst movies ever made.

I will look for “Small Time Crooks.”

[Evil_Captor]

@Bridget_Burke

Cold Comfort Farm was a hilarious novel, an excellent BBC miniseries &finally a movie. In which young, beautifully educated Flora Post discovers herself an orphan with a tiny income–in 30’s England. So she decides to move in with relatives. And picks the Starkadders, a rural tribe as written by Thomas Hardy & D H Lawrence.

What is class? Flora is almost penniless & the Starkadders own a fine farm. But she is bright & modern while they are all mired in “lower class” despair. Can Flora fix them? The Starkadder daughter & the son of the local gentry are in love–can Flora give them a happy ending? The cast rounds up The Usual British Actor Subects…

Cold Comfort Farm sounds intriguing, if possibly outdated. And speaking of outdated …

If we’re examining apparent versus “real” class–how about Shaw’s Pygmalion?

I wrote up my thoughts on Shaw’s comedies years ago on my blog, they pretty much cover “Pygmalion” (and also “My Fair Lady”):

To tell the truth, Shaw wasn’t really a humorist like Benchley and Shulman, but he had a razor sharp wit and a real taste for skewering Victorian hypocrisy and pretense, especially in relation to class. And if there had been any Victorian hypocrisy and pretense around at the time, I would have been SOOO ready to work it over. If there had been anyone around trying to oppress others for rolling their "r"s or dropping their "h"s, I would have been SOOO ready with a witty epigram, or perhaps a bon mot or a mot juste. But I was living in the Deep South at the time, and although there was plenty of class oppression and hypocrisy floating around, most of it had to do with skin color (though the Deep South WAS and IS rich in sexual hypocrisy).

Unfortunately, Shaw’s awareness of sexual hypocrisy arose during the Victorian Era (he was born in 1858, which means he would have been in his 20s and 30s from 1878 to 1898). In my day, pure-D Victorian hypocrisy has been hard to come by – even in the Deep South we have long passed the point where arms and legs were referred to as “limbs” so they’d be less sexy.

I was like a fabulously well trained athlete in a sport that no longer existed. “42-man squamish! Anybody up for a game of 42-man squamish? I’ll spot you the first kronger and STILL take you to school!”

[Evil_Captor]

Linky for the above quote (my blog is fabulously NSFW, but this particularly post is OK unless pics of a fully clothed George Bernard Shaw violate some really obscure company policy, but since some of the ads might violate workplace prudery requirements):

George Bernard Shaw: Secret Bondage Pornographer?

[It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery]

The Harold and Kumar movies have that plotline all over the place.
If musicals count as “fun”, then The King and I.

[msmith537]

Class conflict 50s style:

The Outsiders - Greasers vs Socs

A Westside Story - Jets vs Sharks

Cry Baby - Drapes vs Squares
Olde Tyme class conflict movies:

Far and Away

Gangs of New York

[phreesh]

There’s elements of class struggle in the delightful Spotswood
Lady and the Tramp is all about class struggle.
The Milagro Beanfield War is more dramatic, but very good.
Gosford Park is another more dramatic movie about classes set in England

[mbh]

Flesh + Blood, with Rutger Hauer as the commoner and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the aristocrat.
Braveheart, although in real life, William Wallace was an aristocrat.
Rob Roy, with Liam Neeson as the commoner and Tim Roth as the aristocrat.
The Blue Max, starring George Peppard, in which World War One manages to take a back seat to class bickering.

Les Miserables.
The 1935 version, Frederic March versus Charles Laughton.
The 1978 TV version, with Richard Jordan versus Anthony Perkins.
The 1998 version, with Liam Neeson versus Geoffrey Rush.
The 2000 TV version, with Gerard Depardieu versus John Malkovich.
Even the 2012 musical version, with Hugh Jackman versus Russell Crowe, had its moments.
Actors who play Jean Valjean kind of blur together in my memory. But I can vividly recall every Javert.