The companion to this thread. Lots of movies are shoveled out as disposable crap, to cash in on the latest trend before those punk kids turn to something new. Movies that only have a reason to exist for a short time, and then are deservedly forgotten.
Except sometimes, somehow, someone manages to make a movie about a disposable trend or fad or flavor of the month pop star, but years after the trend is forgotten and mocked, the movie is still watchable and moving.
The classic example is “A Hard Day’s Night”. This movie was supposed to be a cash grab based on the popularity of the Beatles. But even though Beatlemania has been over for 40 years, the movie is still worth watching. The disposable teenage pop songs are still worth listening too. The lads themselves knew the studio would be happy with a crappy exploitation movie, but they decided to make something worthwhile instead.
Other times a movie is so thoroughly of or about its own time and place that it’s a fascinating historical document. I recently saw John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, made in 1982. Kurt Russel’s hair and attitude instantly date the movie to the late 70s/early 80s. The creature effects are all puppets and slime, whereas nowadays they’d use crappy cartoony CGI. It held up nicely for a cheap horror movie from the early 80s.
Casablanca was not a B movie. A B movie is one intended to be the minor film in a double feature. Casablanca was “an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers”:
I watched War Games a month or so ago and thought it would be cringe-worthy nostalgia, but I felt it actually held up. Considering all the outdated technology, it probably showed one of the better hacking scenes by Hollywood standards (that’s a very, very low bar). YMMV.
Hunt for Red October (both the book and the movie) especially considering the drivel that Clancy pens today. The Connery James Bond, from *Russia with Love * especially.
“All Quiet On The Western Front” (the 1930 version with Lew Ayres) still stands out as a well-made war movie with harrowing battle scenes, not what you’d expect for the era.
I’ll certainly agree on* A Hard Day’s Night*. On a recent viewing, I remember thinking “that’s a really good song!” Duh.
Since the other thread is accepting TV shows, I’ll mention Max Headroom. The ladies’ shoulderpads are pure 80’s–but the larger concepts still make sense. The tech had a retro design, so it’s aged far less than “state of the art” 80’s stuff would have. Yes, we’re now probably “20 minutes into the future”–but the show is set in a slightly off-kilter alternate future…
The point remains, though, that it didn’t even have a complete script until shooting was well underway, and nobody had any reason to imagine it would last any longer than its first run in theaters.
But remember that movies back in the Casablanca era had a completely different life cycle than they do in today’s home video era. Movies were transitory by definition.
I watched **Willow **a couple of years ago, and thought it had held up remarkably well. It’s got some stop-motion animation that does stand out a bit, but the acting, cinematography, and story are still quite good.
I’d argue for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Big-budget special effects SF really should “date” very quickly, as the effects become standard and then cheesy. This one is still good, and still looks good (yes I know some people hate it, but they hate it for the same reasons they would hate in back in 1968 when it was released - that’s nearly 45 years ago!).
I saw this on TV the other week. HD transmission and it looked* beautiful*. As the nominal future date actually approaches it looks more relevant than ever.
Actually, thinking about it, perhaps this is down to Ridley Scott seeing as much could be said about “Alien”
<i>The Graduate</i> is so sixties-mod that it could easily have begun to look dated and cheesy to the point where we don’t care about the characters. Instead, it has stayed retro-cool, charming, and relevant.
Star Wars was supposedly a complete mess while it was being made. The actors thought the script was poor, the production was rife with problems, and George Lucas was promising visuals that nobody expected to look nearly as good as he was selling. The first cut of the film was overly long and tedious and in bad need of an editor to make it watchable. As the release date approached and the film still wasn’t finished the production company seriously considered scrapping the film and salvaging a few of the better unfinished special effects for TV shows. It was a film that very few people had any faith in until all of the pieces came together at the end.
