Bringing Up Baby
Favorite? Disney’s Fantasia (1940), followed by the Wizard of Oz.
Cinematically, this is where I live. As a kid I’d far prefer to stay in watching the Million Dollar Movie on Saturday afternoon than riding bikes and whatever else my friends were doing.
Some favorites that I don’t think have been mentioned already are:
If I Had a Million, which includes one of my favorite W.C. Fields performances (second only to the Carl LaFong scene in It’s a Gift.) It’s a beautiful movie about a cranky millionaire who decides to give his money away, one million dollars at a time to strangers chosen at random form the phone book to keep it out of the hands of his circling vulture relatives. Actually, not much of it is about the millionaire. It’s separate vignettes about each of the recipients.
A recent discovery for me is a charming screwball comedy called If you Could Only Cook.
Without planning it ahead the other two I planned to mention star the leads from If You Could Only Cook. Herbert Marshall is in The Good Fairy, with Margaret Sullavan directed by William Wyler. It also has Frank Morgan, and some wonderful oft quoted in our house lines. (Morgan and Sullavan are together again in The Shop Around the Corner, which I also enjoy.) Jean Arthur is in You Can’t Take it With You which is cheesy and Capra-y but gosh darnit, it makes me smile.
I don’t necessarily think these are better films than Casablanca or Wizard of Oz, just ones that I enjoy which I feel deserve a mention.
Also, Now Voyager, Babes in Toyland, The Crimson Pirate, The Flame and the Arrow…
Am I the first to mention ‘Miracle on 34th Street’?
This is the classic feel-good family movie. Perfect for Xmas. 
With quotes like:
Democratic Judge’s political adviser: “All right, you go back and tell them that the New York State Supreme Court rules there’s no Santa Claus. It’s all over the papers. The kids read it and they don’t hang up their stockings. Now what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockings? Nobody buys them. The toy manufacturers are going to like that; so they have to lay off a lot of their employees, union employees. Now you got the CIO and the AF of L against ya and they’re going to adore ya for it and they’re going to say it with votes. Oh, and the department stores are going to love ya too and the Christmas card makers and the candy companies. Ho ho, Henry, you’re going to be an awful popular fella. And what about the Salvation Army? Why, they got a Santy Claus on every corner, and they’re taking a fortune. But you go ahead Henry, you do it your way. You go on back in there and tell them that you rule there is no Santy Claus. Go on. But if you do, remember this: you can count on getting just two votes, your own and that district attorney’s out there.”
Judge Henry X. Harper: “The District Attorney’s a Republican.”
and
District Attorney: “What is your name?”
Kris Kringle: “Kris Kringle.”
District Attorney: “Where do you live?”
Kris Kringle: “That’s what this hearing will decide.”
Judge Henry X. Harper: “A very sound answer, Mister Kringle.”
District Attorney: “Do you really believe that you’re Santa Claus?”
Kris Kringle: “Of course.”
District Attorney: [long pause] “The state rests, your honor.”
The great thing about Miracle is that every adult in it, with the exception of Kris Kringle and part-time exception of Fred Gayley, acts out of pure self-interest all the time–and yet the overall happiness of the world is increased. 
It’s the most wonderfully cynical movie ever made (if I’m using the term correctly). Xmas bites everybody in the butt and comes up the winner.
KRIS: Sawyer. You mean, uh…
ALFRED: That’s the one. He’s a psychologist.
KRIS: Ohh, that’s a debatable poin…
67 posts and nobody’s mentioned Citizen Kane yet?
Casablanca has been rightly mentioned a number of times.
I would like to add a silent movie comedy from 1926 to the discussion - The General.
See Post # 8.
One of my two favorite movies, Gentleman’s Agreement, was the Academy Award winner for Best Picture in 1947.
Although some people consider it dated, its themes still resonate for me today, and the acting, particularly by Gregory Peck, Celeste Holm, Anne Revere, and adorable 11-year-old Dean Stockwell is superb.
Other favorites prevously mentioned:
Tarzan and His Mate
The 39 Steps
Goodbye Mr. Chips
How Green Was My Valley
That’s Stage Door.
That’s The Little Princess, probably the 1939 Shirley Temple version.
Looking at my IMDB ratings the pre-1950 movies that I rated highly, that haven’t been mentioned yet, are (I think):
Laura
Rope
Kind Hearts and Coronets
Here are some I don’t think have been mentioned so far:
Pygmalion (1938)
Johnny Belinda (1948)
The Life of Emile Zola (1937)
Rebecca (1940)
Modern Times (1936)
The one where Buster Keaton chases a train in the Civil War… the General?
scanning up, I see that Warmonger (sp?) recommended it already. Seconded.
I have to question the choice of Johnny Belinda. I realize it was a “message” movie of it’s time, and the message was that sign language was good, in a time when parents were told not to sign to their Deaf children, Deaf children were punished for signing in Deaf Schools in some places, and students had to “fail” at oral classes (which was where all the academics were taught) before being placed in signing classes (which were the vocational classes) in the more liberal schools.
But it’s a horribly skewed depiction of a deaf person-- played by a hearing person. When TCM airs it, they precede it with a commentary on how dated and flawed the film is, done by Marlee Matlin, Linda Bove (the Deaf woman on Sesame Street, and one of the founding members of the National Theater of the Deaf), and Phyllis Frelich (the woman who won a Tony for performing on Broadway the same role Marlee Matlin won an Oscar for playing; she was also, more recently, Grissom’s mother on CSI).
It was an important film when it came out-- Deaf people didn’t have full rights in every state-- but it’s really uncomfortable to watch now if you know Deaf people.
Val Lawton’s “Cat People” (1942) was a film I enjoyed watching a great deal the first time, well after I’d seen the 1980s remake. I found the black and white version to be a lot more sinister, but there was so much they had to leave out of it for Hayes Code reasons that the 1980s version actually came out ahead in some respects, despite the fact that Paul Schrader is a far inferior director to Lawton.
Still, a very fine movie.
“Curse of the Demon” is better than “Cat People” IMHO but sadly, did not make the dealine.
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Kind Hearts and Coronets
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This was my first choice. Ultra-dry humour, with wonderful acting and a razor-sharp screenplay.
I got hold of a copy of the original novel on which the film was based: *Israel Rank: the autobiography of a criminal *by Roy Horniman. Kind Hearts and Coronets is one of those rare examples where the film is much better than the book.
The play that just won the Tony Award for Best Musical, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, is based on the same source material as Kind Hearts and Coronets.
That’s them, thank you.
I love Buster Keaton - what’s the one where he works in a music store?
There’s a trippy 1903 silent “Alice in Wonderland” film short that I like.
And of course the 1927 “Metropolis.” One of my favourite movie scenes ever is when the false Maria “wakes up” and lifts her one eyebrow.
Battleship Potemkin is still thrilling after almost 90 years. Many films pay tribute to it.
The distinguished professor is correct about Fantasia, but Pinocchio is better than The Wizard of Oz.
Many of the rest of my favorites have been mentioned, with the exceptions of Frankenstein and Dracula, both in 1931.
Regards,
Shodan