Bride of Frankenstein- not so much the first one or the follow-ups, except for Frankenstein Meets the WolfMan, because that’s just cool, and speaking of… The WolfMan, because the amiable yet tormented Larry Talbot is just such a great character.
Lugosi’s Dracula- until they get to England, then it’s just hit (the Renfield scenes) and miss (Harker & Seward & the final staking).
Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera- the unmasking!
Claude Rains’ The Invisible Man- because it’s so close to the book!
For the same reason, George Pal’s The Time Machine.
Everything Audrey Hepburn ever made, especially Roman Holiday, Sabrina, and Wait Until Dark.
Likewise, damn near everything Kate Hepburn ever made.
The original black and white version of The Haunting scared the crap out of me when I saw it about 10 years ago. That kind of non-gory suspense is damn near lost these days.
Cinderella ** (most Disney cartoons, for that matter)
Gulliver’s Travels (A lot of people will disagree, but I think the Fleischer cartoon is a masterpiece)
There are plenty of other films – there are LOTS of great films from that erqa, after all, but I’m not sure what you mean by “hold up.” Some people on this Board have expressed problems with black and white films – does To Kill a Mockingbird hold up for them? A lot of people think Gone with the Wind is racist* – does it hold up for them?
*It’s not – it’s a story of the Civil War told through the eyes of a slave-holding white woman. How the hell do you think she’s going to perceive slavery?
Days of Wine and Roses–I believe it came out in the early 60s. The breakdown of a relationship, work, and more because of mutual alcoholism is portrayed in stark black and white, with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick giving some very powerful performances. It’s actually painful to watch the two of them going through so much emotional agony.
My wife does not share my love of the Road movies, but my kids have been conditioned by *Family Guy *to pre-like them.
I had forgotten how good “The Bedford Incident” was, Ranchoth, but I see it and raise you “The Enemy Below.” Greatest sub movie, with the POSSIBLE exception of “Das Boot,” which may have realism out the wazoo, but wasn’t as tense.
Nope, they’d just CGI it and it would look like a video game. Keaton is awesome. Check out “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” Nobody these days would expect a stuntman to do some of that, much less the star.
I’d disagree. If you were to take an average selection of a hundred movies made before 1965 and a hundred movies made since 1965, I bet you’d find the post-1965 group was better. But you can’t really make the comparison - because the chances of a movie surviving are linked to its quality. The movies that were made before 1965 but are still around are not the average movies of their era - they’re the movies that survived. The average crap was lost over the decades. Obviously a lot of good movies were lost and some bad movies survived. But a random selection of movies made before 1965 is really being made from what was actually the top fraction of all the movies that were actually made.
And keep in mind that movies used to be the main form of mass entertainment. There are now hundreds of movies made in America each year but there used to be thousands. And not every one of those thousands was a classic. Most were just throwaway filler to be shown for one week and then forgotten the next.
Hard to disagree with any of these here, but the fact that Bringing Up Baby hasn’t been mentioned yet makes me sad. Still for me the greatest madcap comedy of all time with Hepburn at her carefree best and Grant right behind her, of course not to mention Baby.
It’s been a long time since I was a teenager. In fact, I’m old enough that AMC actually showed Movie Classics when I was a teenager. But I watched
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
How to Marry a Millionaire
Stage Door
Bringing Up Baby
Holiday (Grant & Hepburn)
My Man Godfrey
His Girl Friday
The Thin Man
Anything with Fred & Ginger
The Awful Truth
Arsenic & Old Lace
I like romantic comedies - but I’m not looking for originality, I’m looking for chemistry and talent and entertainment. Those did not originate in 1965.
I haven’t seen Guns of Navarone or Psycho in decades and have never seen Gulliver’s Travels, but agree with all the other choices. They wear it well.
The phrase “hold up” --like any value judgment-- won’t have the same meaning for everyone. But again… I’m thinking an old film that you’ve recently discovered and liked, or that you’ve revisited and didn’t think, “That’s not nearly as good as I remembered.”
And if you feel that you could show it to someone with no emotional attachment to the time the film was made and they would like it (e.g. “a bright teenager”) that would confirm it’s “holding up” status.
But everyone likes different films, old and new.
(I’ve never cared for Mockingbird or Shane.)
A lot of great movies have been mentioned. I would add:
All About Eve - I saw this for the first time a few weeks ago. I had seen scenes from it so often that I thought I’d already seen it, but right from the beginning it was unfamiliar. In context those iconic scenes (“fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride” for instance) made so much more of an impact. Now I understand why, and am slightly surprised by the fact that, it won all those Oscars.
[insert eek and confused smileys here] I’ve never met anybody in my entire life who didn’t like To Kill A Mockingbird. Has your daughter seen it? If not, I hope you don’t passively keep it from her just because you don’t like it.
Whisky Galore
Paths of Glory
Zulu
It’s a Wonderful Life
Goodbye Mr. Chips
A Matter of Life and Death
The 39 Steps
M
Fury
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
When I read the title I assumed by “movies that held up” meant those that would fit the zeitgeist of today. Therefore, I nominate The Big Carnival aka Ace In The Hole.
A washed up journalist tries to revive his career broadcasting the plight of a man trapped in a cave, but the story gets out of his control and becomes a media circus. A little tweaking and it would certainly work in this climate.
