Yesterday we watched Mister Roberts on TCM. This is one of three films of that genre I like: Mister Roberts, Operation Petticoat, and Father Goose. Operation Petticoat was one of dad’s favourite films. He especially liked the part where the guy rides a motorcycle off of a pier. All of these films played regularly on weekend mornings/early afternoons when I was a kid. Coming from a Navy family, they resonated with me.
All good films which I haven’t seen in quite a while.
I take it the point of this thread is to list three films that really resonate with you. Okay then…
Office Space This movie captures perfectly the soul drain that is the office work environment. It even gives a glimpse of the corporate mindset in a non-office capacity in Joanna’s restaurant scenes. Being someone who daily endures the low level corporate grind, l feel a strong kinship with this movie.
Inherit the Wind Having grown up as a Jehovah’s Witness, watching this depiction of the Scope’s Monkey Trial set me to trembling. I was only beginning to question religious fundamentalism when I first saw it , and I think this movie helped me to start breaking free of the indoctrination to live my own life.
River’s Edge This movie was also based on a true incident in where a teenager killed his girlfriend, then showed his other friends the body, and no one reported it to the police. The movie explains the situation as the kids having no direction in their lives, being so jaded with drugs and boredom that even the notion of violent death doesn’t move them to do the right thing. Even the thought of a killer among them means nothing special. As one of the girls in the movie says, “I cried when that guy in Brian’s Song died. Why can’t I cry for Jamie, someone we hung out with?” Now, I don’t smoke weed, and I’d like to think I’d report a murder if I was shown one, but I get the deep sense of there’s no point in life, because I’ve got clinical depression. This movie resonated deeply with that. Also, the movie has a lot of dark humor which I love.
They were Sunday afternoon movies when I was young. I used to love settling down with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches to watch an old movie. I was particularly a fan of Mr Roberts and have seen it many times. Three Oscar winners (one of them Lemmon’s first for Pulver) and two actors with other nominations, all in a comedy.
I watched Mister Roberts a few weeks ago, probably playing on Memorial Day weekend. I’ve seen it many times since I was a young kid, it’s a great story and great performance by Fonda. I haven’t seen Father Goose since I was kid but I remember enjoying it, I do remember the line from Caron saying “How do you say parachute in English?”. I also saw Operation Petticoat a could of times, but it’s been a long time and I can’t remember much.
Okay, so I screwed up on a cognitive test. It’s not like I’m the President or something.
I like Mister Roberts, but never saw the other two.
I had to come up with a thread so that I could share those three films, but not limit it to ‘I like these films. Do you?’ So I guess the idea is to list three films that ‘go together’ for you. (Series would be cheating.) For me, the three in the OP go together because of their themes, their comedy, and when they were made. And being in regular rotation on KTLA when I was a kid.
I didn’t realize there were so many rules when I started in this thread. Next time provide a warning, a Quick Start Guide, and FAQ.
I’m going to interpret the theme of this thread as being to list the three movies that most impressed you when you first saw them. Here are those three. I give them in the order that I saw them:
Play it Again, Sam (1972, U.S., dir. Herbert Ross)
After Hours (1985, U.S., dir. Martin Scorsese)
Chungking Express (1994, Hong Kong, dir. Kar Wai Wong)
Three movie films that impressed me as a kid were the Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Fiddler on the Roof. I guessed I must have liked musicals when I was a kid. They’ve been playing in the background of my mind ever since, and I saw them all when I was pre-school. Maybe harkens back to more innocent times.
Three films in regular rotation on KTLA channel 5 when I was a kid in the Seventies were Monster Zero, War of the Gargantuas, and Voyage Into Space (about a boy and his giant robot who NEVER go to space). I’ve always loved Japanese monster movies, but those three, I’m particularly nostalgic for.
Yeah, I loved those monster movies, Japanese and classic '50s/'60s B films.
Incidentally, Tom Hatten died last year.
Yeah, I saw that. I can’t believe I’ve survived 40 years without a two hour dose of Popeye every week.
A while back you and I discussed the long-running double bill of this and “Casablanca” at the Varsity in Austin, delighted to have this additional context. 
Better Off Dead, The Sure Thing, and One Crazy Summer
The not actually a series John Cusack teen angst series. Say Anything is close. IT skews a little more towards the drama and away from some of the over top silly fun parts in these three.
Operation Petticoat was one of dad’s favourite films. He especially liked the part where the guy rides a motorcycle off of a pier.
Wasn’t that in Mister Roberts?
Yeah, I saw a double bill of Casablanca and Play It Again, Sam at the Varsity one Saturday. It had a huge effect on my life. First, it was about then that I became a hardcore film buff. I had actually grown up very seldom going to movie theaters, since I couldn’t walk to one and our family couldn’t afford to go very often anyway. I didn’t watch many movies on TV. The area within about a mile of the University of Texas campus had so many different places to see films at that time that I found myself seeing many more than I ever had before. Second, I was awestruck by what both movies said about possible romances and what I thought about my own life.
A decade later I tried to write a novel about all the feelings that that day caused in me. I decided that it was impossible for me to work that into a novel. Instead I wrote a novel which started with a semi-autobiographical main character living where I live now who (in the opening scene) walks out of a movie theater in which he has just seen a double bill of Casablanca and Play It Again, Sam. He has a flashback to what happened to him a decade before when he saw the same double bill at the Varsity when he lived in Austin. I finished the novel but I was never satisfied enough with it to find it worthwhile to submit it to anything.
Oh, no. I missed that news. That makes me sad. I always wanted to do the squiggle contest.
Do you remember Webster Webfoot???
One of the movies I remember playing ALL the time was “Damn Yankees.” I loved singing Ray Walston’s good ol’ days song.
Beastmaster, Red Sonja, Conan the Barbarian.
Guaranteed ONE of those would be on if I was home sick from school. Usually Beastmaster.