# Pre-1965 Movies That Hold Up **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 28, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252 "2009-06-28T11:54:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/21 "2009-06-28T15:52:39Z")
Twelve O’Clock High Seventh Voyage of Sinbad Jason and The Argonauts ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/22 "2009-06-28T15:54:10Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Well, Mr. ArchiveGuy, you raise an interesting point, and I definitely welcome discussion of why or why not a movie “holds up.” > > I did type my comment on _Miracle of Morgan Creek_ understanding that it would be essentially impossible for it to be made and reviewed today… > > But still, if an independent film maker in 2010 was to produce a film set in 1944, imitating classic hair styles and cinematography and using the same script… I believe contemporary audiences would find it an interesting novelty but view the story and dialog as not very entertaining and find the characters generally annoying. Cute lead actress though. And if 4 guys named Paul, George, John, and Ringo released _Rubber Soul_ today, it would be dismissed as cute but too retro (though that Paul is a dreamboat). The metric you’re using is, with all due respect, a specious one, since certain art forms and specific works of art will adapt to it more easily than others, when evaluation of art should not be “could it be released today” but “does it still resonate decades later”. The fact that _Miracle_ doesn’t fulfill the first standard doesn’t mean it fails the latter. > [@](#): > > I deliberately led of my original post by asking if a “bright teenager” of today would enjoy the film. That meant does the film work as a contemporary entertainment instead of as document of historical interest. A bright teenager would know that there is an enormously large grey area that straddles these two criteria you characterize as separate and distinct. A perfect example: there have been several attempts to remake and “contemporize” _King Kong_, but if you released the original 1933 film (with the same quality of special effects) today, it would be seen as campy or chintzy or at least rooted in nostalgia. But even though the remakes are more “modern” and better qualify as “contemporary entertainment”, the original is the one that still best stands the test of time. It remains the masterpiece and not just because it’s a “document of historical interest.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/23 "2009-06-28T16:17:05Z")
The Adventures of Robin Hood Arsenic and Old Lace Kind Hearts and Coronets Operation Petticoat The Red Shoes 7 Faces of Dr. Lao Some Like It Hot ---
**Author:** ![randwill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/24 "2009-06-28T16:43:51Z")
The mention above of John, Paul, George and Ringo made me think of “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/25 "2009-06-28T17:03:12Z")
[The Grapes of Wrath](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath_(film)) ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/26 "2009-06-28T17:04:24Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > And if 4 guys named Paul, George, John, and Ringo released _Rubber Soul_ today, it would be dismissed as cute but too retro (though that Paul is a dreamboat). The metric you’re using is, with all due respect, a specious one, since certain art forms and specific works of art will adapt to it more easily than others, when evaluation of art should not be “could it be released today” but “does it still resonate decades later”. The fact that _Miracle_ doesn’t fulfill the first standard doesn’t mean it fails the latter. > > A bright teenager would know that there is an enormously large grey area that straddles these two criteria you characterize as separate and distinct. I found that the Sturges film does not still resonate today. I think that for most people that will be true, but do not have proof. _Rubber Soul_ and the the Beatles still are gaining millions of new fans every year. If was Rubber Soul was released today, it would have a chance of being a best seller, but even if it wasn’t it could very likely be treasured by a cult following (without a knowledge of Late 60s culture and music being needed.) And it could easily spawn cover versions in contemporary music styles. But… let me stop make random comments and address your main point, which I believe is “there’s no importance at all to whether or not a movie would be praised if it were released new today, rather than 50 years ago.” I’d say there is. It means that the movie still (in your words) “resonates.” “Duck Soup” could still garner huge praise for the word play and for Harpo’s pantomime. It could easily become a cult film. Those things simply have not been done better in the time since it was made. \*Nostferatu \* could be as popular as, say, “She Gotta Have It,” Cleaned up a little and with the right marketing it could do better than “Blair Witch Project.” I’d say that a lot of people would prefer “High Noon” to “3:10 to Yuma” and if the production values were the same it could gross more money. So, how a movie would be greeted if it were were released as new today isn’t an ultimate yardstick of quality and I didn’t present it as such… but I don’t think my comment about\* Morgan Creek\* was meaningless. Finally I don’t think I categorized the criteria of “does it resonating” and “what if it was released today” as separate and distinct… with no gray areas. And really your idea that if a movie was “hilarious” when it came out that it will always be hilarious is very strange. Surely you didn’t mean that. ---
**Author:** ![straggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@straggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/straggler)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/27 "2009-06-28T17:04:49Z")
**The Great Escape** (1963). I watched in the late 90s as a 14-year old, and it remains my favourite movie to this day. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/28 "2009-06-28T17:06:30Z")
Shane. Without a shadow of doubt the best western ever made ---
**Author:** ![The\_Shroud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@The\_Shroud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Shroud)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/29 "2009-06-28T17:08:08Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > A lot of them do almost nothing for me, and I’m sure would do even less for someone younger than myself. I’m not sure how much age has to do with it; when I was a teenager, I was watching old Bob Hope movies that people my mom’s age thought were totally corny. That said…Bob Hope movies! Specifically the “Road” movies with Bing Crosby (“Morocco” and “Utopia” are the best), and _My Favorite Blonde._ If you like the Marx Brothers and Looney Tunes, these movies are at about the same level as fun and irreverence. I especially like them because there’s a slight amount of improvisation, which goes a long way toward making the performers seem human, rather than weird, stiff 1940s people. _Bringing Up Baby_ is another good one, along those same lines. Pre-code films are also known for being a little more sophisticated. The 1930s version of _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_ (the one with Fredric March) is sexy and suspenseful, even today, and movies like _Design For Living_ and _Trouble in Paradise_ (both directed by Ernst Lubitsch) portray adultery in a way that would have been impossible after 1934. Billy Wilder is a good bet, too. _Double Indemnity,_ _Sunset Boulevard_, and _the Apartment_, from 3 different decades, all blew me away when I was a teenager. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/30 "2009-06-28T17:13:43Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Here some pre-1965 films that I’ve enjoyed and that often my teenager daughter has enjoyed with me: > > Rear Window > Duck Soup > Nosferatu > Casablanca > Wizard of Oz > High Noon > Hard Day’s Night > Father Goose > Harvey I haven’t seen Father Goose or Harvey or Hard Day’s Night, but I can think of a few movies comparable to some others on the list. Rear Window – Rope, Wait Until Dark, Cape Fear, Psycho, Night of the Hunter (great tension in all those) High Noon – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Shane, The Searchers, Seven Men From Now Nosferatu – Freaks, the Bela Lugosi Dracula, James Whale’s Frankenstein Casablanca – I can’t think of anything comparable to Casablanca. Maybe The Third Man or Sunset Boulevard, not because the stories are similar but because of the ambiance. Ditto for The Little Foxes, and if she likes that then The Magnificent Ambersons, Now Voyager, Dark Victory, How Green Was My Valley ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/31 "2009-06-28T17:14:28Z")
_Duck Soup A Night at the Opera It Happened One Night Sullivan’s Travels_ ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/32 "2009-06-28T17:19:00Z")
We just saw _The General_ last night. It was _awesome_. A lot of people are unwilling to try silents, but they’re missing out - they’re perfectly accessible. And you can totally tell that to get the shot of the train falling off the bridge into the river, they just threw a train off a bridge into a river. Like to see a movie today where they do _that_. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/33 "2009-06-28T17:20:33Z")
> [@chowder](#): > > **Shane.** > > Without a shadow of doubt the best western ever made It isn’t, but I’d put it on the list anyway. Then add the real #1 - **Red River**. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/34 "2009-06-28T17:38:27Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > These should be films that, say, a bright teenager of today might enjoy. They should be things you’ve re-watched or (even better) seen for the first time within the last 10 years. If you’re in the mood for something less than an hour, my daughters love watching Perry Mason reruns with me. They’re free on [www.cbs.com](http://www.cbs.com). My girls really get into the 1950’s B&W genre, for some reason. Jackets and ties for dinner. Smoking in every scene, with cigarettes always offered as an icebreaker. Nurses and maids that wear uniforms. Two-seated roadsters and hip flasks. Perry Mason has got just enough film-noir quality, but without any real violence in it, that makes it suitable for them. Plus, they love the implied romantic tension between Della and Perry (especially ironic, considering Raymond Burr was gay), even though nothing ever comes of it. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/35 "2009-06-28T17:38:31Z")
_The Gold Rush_, starring Charlie Chaplin. Another vote for _The General_, starring Buster Keaton. _Desk Set_, starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. The computer science is dated, but the movie is really about office politics, and is just as relevant today as it was then. And Tracy and Hepburn are just plain fun to watch! _Father of the Bride_, and _Father’s Little Dividend_ . . . the Spencer Tracy originals, not the Steve Martin remakes. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/36 "2009-06-28T17:53:37Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > I found that the Sturges film does not still resonate today. > > I think that for most people that will be true, but do not have proof. That’s where YMMV, though clearly [quite a number of people disagree](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037077/) > [@](#): > > But… let me stop make random comments and address your main point, which I believe is “there’s no importance at all to whether or not a movie would be praised if it were released new today, rather than 50 years ago.” Actually, I’m not saying anything of the sort. You claim that a film “holds up” if you could release it completely unaltered today and have the same reception. That’s your metric, and while that may be true with some movies (or music or TV shows, etc.), to have that be the standard for whether things remain good or not is an incredibly limited one. > [@](#): > > I’d say there is. It means that the movie still (in your words) “resonates.” “Duck Soup” could still garner huge praise for the word play and for Harpo’s pantomime. It could easily become a cult film. Those things simply have not been done better in the time since it was made. I really think you’re kidding yourself, here. I love the Marx Brothers, but that style of humor is rooted in long-faded traditions of vaudeville, most of which would be foreign and unappealling to modern audiences. It’s an impossible thing to predict, but to claim that one movie would survive in the marketplace today while the other wouldn’t is essentially unsupportable and conflates back to “I found one funny and the other not”. And by using the convenient “cult following” meme, you’re also moving the goalposts, since cult followings are by definition things that are rejected by the mainstream and only have a niche level of appeal that doesn’t translate to something with wider potential. > [@](#): > > I’d say that a lot of people would prefer “High Noon” to “3:10 to Yuma” and **if the production values were the same** it could gross more money. Bolding mine–and there you’re moving the goalposts again. And I also think you’re kidding yourself about _High Noon_: nobody fires a shot in that movie until the last reel; modern audiences would have an extraordinary lack of patience for that level of pacing (especially in a genre that is largely irrelevant to modern tastes, anyway). Ditto silent movies, no matter how amazing, like _Nosferatu_. Both have stood the test of time for their own reasons, but I’d say “because they could still be released today” is decidedly not one of them. > [@](#): > > So, how a movie would be greeted if it were were released as new today isn’t an ultimate yardstick of quality and I didn’t present it as such… but I don’t think my comment about\* Morgan Creek\* was meaningless. Not meaningless, just reductive. If you don’t think it’s funny or insightful, that’s fine (though personally inexplicable), but your primary argument against the film is that “released today” reason, and it’s simply too insubstantial to take very seriously, I’m afraid. You’ve already admitted that you don’t like most old movies, so I think that says more about your personal criteria than it does about the sustanibility of films from those eras. > [@](#): > > Finally I don’t think I categorized the criteria of “does it resonating” and “what if it was released today” as separate and distinct… with no gray areas. You said: > [@](#): > > That meant does the film work as a contemporary entertainment instead of as document of historical interest. You position an either/or condition here, and you’d already established that a “contemporary entertainment” criteria you use is the “released today” one. There are plenty of films that resonate today (meaning they are more than of mere historical interest) while still being unreleasable as “contemporary entertainment” (my _Kong_ example, for one), but your statement doesn’t make allowances for those films. > [@](#): > > And really your idea that if a movie was “hilarious” when it came out that it will always be hilarious is very strange. Surely you didn’t mean that. I can’t mean an idea I never once expressed. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/37 "2009-06-28T18:09:40Z")
_The Grand Illusion_, assuming the bright teenager has nothing against subtitles. ---
**Author:** ![Rufus\_Xavier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rufus\_Xavier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rufus_Xavier)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/38 "2009-06-28T18:13:30Z")
_Singing in the Rain_ is my teenaged daughter’s favorite pre-1965 movie. I love it, too. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/39 "2009-06-28T19:48:08Z")
Wouldn’t it be far simpler to ask if any post-1965 movies hold up? The target age at which most movies are aimed has fallen inexorably in the last 50 years (the same is true for popular music). As a result intelligent adult movies are far less common now than they were 50 years ago. Hollywood knows what the kids want, they want more bangs for their bucks. Of course, this isn’t to say that wonderful, intelligent movies aren’t still made, and that isn’t to say that they didn’t churn out pabulum years ago. It’s just that the proportions have changed in favor of the slush. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252/40 "2009-06-28T20:14:26Z")
It took 40 posts for someone to mention The Seven Samurai? The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers (Alec Guinness’ Ealing Studios comedies). Plenty of Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin. Rebel Without A Cause. The Day The Earth Stood Still. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-1965-movies-that-hold-up/501252.md?page=3)