Similarly, the “MASH” TV show became dated in the same way, particularly as regards the gay servicemember the doctors were trying to keep in the Army: Back in the 1950s, the progressive mainstream attitude towards homosexuality was that it was a mental illness but not any more immoral than, say, epilepsy. It wasn’t removed from the DSM until the 1970s. During the Korean War, the idea that being gay wasn’t in any sense an inherent problem was the domain of what were then radical gay rights groups such as the Mattachine Society.
I always thought Casablanca’s MacGuffin is dated, in that it assumes the Nazis would respect the written rule of law (and, therefore, the travel documents) to the extent it would prevent them from capturing a dissident. Of course, the larger context of the whole show is that Rick could presumably have been doing much more to help the refugees, had he stuck his neck out a bit, but he didn’t, which makes Rick look a bit monstrous once you know about the Holocaust.
Yeah. In the 1970s and early 80s, my parents held the extreme radical liberal position on homosexuality (for straight people), which was that as long as people kept it to themselves (which is to say, no PDAs, except maybe ambiguous lingering hugs), they could do whatever they wanted in private. I didn’t question it until I got to high school.
FWIW, my brother and I had a gay babysitter, and my parents didn’t have a problem with him, and my mother (my father is deceased) is now in favor of same-sex marriage, adoption, and generally against PDAs for everyone. Especially on her lawn.
Or, they actually were challenging movies that went over your head. **Persona ** is a truly great film, while Play It Again Sam never had any reputation other than being a funny comedy (no critic ever listed it among Allen’s best).
It seemed a little disconcerting that Paul was ‘kept’ by a woman, played by Patricia Neal. I think even Truman Capote admitted he switched the sex of the ‘keeper’ so the movie could be even made. (Same thing with another movie, ‘The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone’, where there is a whole sub-set of bored, rich, middle-aged American expatriate women living in Rome, arranging with an elderly female ‘pimp’ who provides ‘escorts’ of hunky young Italian gigolos. It could happen, I guess, but are there actually a lot of randy rich WOMEN yearning for a little sumpin’ sumpin’ from handsome young men?
Not comfortable? Have you seen any Tarantino movies lately? I really couldn’t count the number of movies in which nigger is used, both by blacks and whites. Any realistic movie dealing with low-lifes and criminals is peppered with the word.
As I’ve aged movies in which older people are treated poorly have become a little uncomfortable. For example, remember that Twilight Zone episode “Kick the Can” in which that feeble old fart gets left behind at the retirement home? Yeah, I’m more than a decade older than he was when he filmed that, and it creeps me out to watch it.
Same with Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard. When that was filmed she was seven years younger than Michelle Pfeiffer is right now, and she was portrayed as a pathetic old crone. Fifty-one years old. I’ve got shoes that are almost that old.
It seems in general that people in old movies were considered used up by fifty, ready for the slag heap.
Speaking of cartoons Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs directed by the great Robert Clampett and one of the best cartoons ever made could never be made today. “Clampett intended Coal Black as both a parody of Snow White and a dedication to the all-black jazz musical films popular in the early 1940s.” He used black actors for some of the characters, although of course the amazing Mel Blanc is there too. The main role So White (that cracks me up every time I hear it) is voiced by Vivian Dandridge, sister of the famous Dorothy, and their mother Ruby brought the Wicked Queen to life.
I’d love to see a pristine copy of this, the ones on the net are of terrible quality.
Which in its way is worse than being a hooker. At least with a hooker the terms of the transaction are clear to both parties from the start.
I always found the movie confusing because it was unclear (possibly deliberately so) to what extent Holly was leading her “dates” on about whether she would sleep with them. That wouldn’t be left ambiguous today.
I don’t know if it counts as dated since I suppose it is possible that attitiudes were really that way, but the ending of Saturday night fever just seemed wrong to my modern sensibilities. That a woman who had just almost been raped by a guy the night before, would just brush it off when he says he’s sorry and is going to get his life back together, made me want to scream at the screen.
A second nomination would be Red Dawn. Given what we know about the state of the soviet union post cold war, its hard to take seriously the idea that they could launch a sucessful invasion of the US mainland is ludicrous.
I just rewatched Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound. It’s incredibly dated with it’s reliance on psychoanalysis and dream analysis, as well as the “love at first sight” between Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Bergman’s involvement with her patient Peck would never fly today.
Haven’t seen Heart of Glass. Swept Away and Fellini’s Casanova were terrible films new.
Persona and The Night Porter are very fine films with difficult subject matters.
The one on the list that puzzled me was Play it Again Sam. I rewatched this a few years ago and still found it a superb film. Dated? Not so much. Then it hit me …
Tony Roberts going to the nearest pay phone all the time to update them on what number they can reach him at. And of course the numbers are all KLondike-5.
Christine. Where ya gonna find a self-service mechanic these days? And not only would that car get crushed but ran through an industrial shredder, separated, and recycled. Let’s see LeBay’s ghost reassemble that!
Wasn’t that mentioned in the story. Something about it being the last (or almost last) phone booth in the city. I haven’t seen it in years, but I seem to remember some sort of lampshade hanging on it,
Anyway playing dated movies is what TCM does. Thankfully they haven’t turned into a general purpose “just show whatever” station like AMC did (not that I don’t like many AMC shows, but when it comes to movies they’re now all drawn from the same pool of fairly recent stuff TBS, TNT, USA, FX, Comedy Central, etc all seem to draw from, and in the same “edited for TV” cuts that should have long since died out)
It’s been a long time since I saw it, so maybe you’re right. But (1) It was completely out of date at the time it was released, and (2) Most people had no idea what conditions in mental institutions were really like, and (3) That’s still the case.