# What old movies should I watch? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2018, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587 "2018-01-14T05:11:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/41 "2018-01-14T19:40:29Z")
Probably a vintage film newbie’s biggest challenge will be learning the names and faces Much like today, you instantly recognize Matt Damon, Chris Hemsworth, and Hugh Jackmon. You have to get equally familiar with the actors in older films. Learn the characters that they typically played. It adds to the enjoyment of the movie. There’s perhaps a dozen actors you’ll see repeatedly in older films and they always play very similar characters. The faces & names change from decade to decade. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/42 "2018-01-14T19:44:28Z")
Anything by Laurel and Hardy, especially \*\*\*Helpmates Going Bye-Bye Below Zero Perfect Day Towed in a Hole Come Clean Be Big The Midnight Patrol Blockheads Sons of the Desert Brats The Music Box Blotto Them Thar Hills Tit for Tat\*\*\* ---
**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:** [January 14, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/43 "2018-01-14T20:04:21Z")
> [@Leo\_Krupe](#): > > You remind me of my father. > That’s always been my problem The inside joke is that the actress is Matthau’s daughter Lucy. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/44 "2018-01-14T20:11:18Z")
In addition to the other classic horror movies mentioned above, try **The Island of Lost Souls** (1933), as much for Charles Laughton’s delightfully over-the-top performance as crazy old Dr. Moreau as for the monster stuff. This flick was banned in Great Britain until the 1970s on the basis of being “excessively horrifying.” My favorite war movie is **The Train** (1964), starring Burt Lancaster as a French Resistance fighter and Paul Scofield as a Nazi colonel with a soft spot for “degenerate” art, who’s trying to steal France’s greatest 19th-20th century paintings for Der Vaterland at the end of WWII. A very different sort of war film, asking who Art really belongs to, and whether ordinary people are more important than great art. And I’d like to speak up for the Brits, because movie nuts so rarely do: The 1930s-50s films of The Archers (Michael Powell and Emil Pressburger) are uniformly excellent, but vary widely in theme: **The Red Shoes; Black Narcissus; The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp; 42nd Parallel; A Matter of Life and Death.** Also the Ealing Studios comedies, anything with Alec Guinness in it: **Kind Hearts and Coronets; The Lavender Hill Mob; The Man in the White Suit; The Ladykillers.** ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/45 "2018-01-14T20:22:05Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > The Marx Brother are comedy gold, but ethic & racial references may offend some viewers. You can say that again. Sometimes those boys didn’t seem to have any ethics at _all._ Seriously, though, they are must-sees. I would skip the later MGM releases (everybody loved the first two in the mid-30s, but they seem kinda mild today). Stick with the anarchic Paramount catalogue, especially **Monkey Business; Horse Feathers; Duck Soup.**. (The first two, **The Cocoanuts** and **Animal Crackers** , are great if you like watching Broadway stage plays that somebody aimed a camera at; the latter three are pure Hollywood product.) ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/46 "2018-01-14T20:37:36Z")
Whatever happened to baby Jane Hud An occurrence at owl creek bridge (Not a movie, but well worth seeing, Netflix has it in the original twilight zone episodes) Night of the living dead. Cool hand Luke ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/47 "2018-01-14T20:41:32Z")
War _Attack_ (1956) Horror _Night of the Demon_ (1957) _Onibaba_ (1964) Disaster _Deluge_ (1933) _San Francisco_ (1936) Random & Worthwhile _Detour_ (1946) \*Invasion of the Body Snatchers \*(1956) _Kiss Me Deadly_ (1955) _The Big Combo_ (1955) _Sweet Smell of Success_ (1957) _Touch of Evil_ (1958) _Creation of the Humanoids_ (1962) _Seconds_ (1966) ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/48 "2018-01-14T20:46:37Z")
Using the pre-1974 cutoff and what seems to be your dispositions, things that haven’t yet been mentioned: - Spartacus - Zulu - Kelley’s Heroes - From Here to Eternity- It’s not a clean single genre fit. It shows the Japanese attack on Schofield Barracks but it’s not a war film. It’s mostly a pre-WWII military drama but with two love stories as part of it. It’s even got some musical numbers although it’s not a musical. It also won 8 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. If we relax the year standard to 1977 for a movie most haven’t seen - Cross of Iron. It’s Peckinpah’s only war film. It’s not his best film. Using real military equipment for most of the scenes he produces some of the best armor scenes in the history of cinema. It’s also kind of sloppy and overly slow in other parts. There’s plenty of discomfort to go around outside the trademark slow motion vilence - rape, violent retribution for the rape, death of a Russian child soldier, and a careerist officer blackmailing a homesexual subordinate with threat of taking official notice. That’s before we consider that the protagonists are WWII Germans. It can be both riveting and hard to watch. It’s not for everyone. It’s different enough from the mainstream war film it at least considers consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/49 "2018-01-14T20:46:58Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I don’t think you can go wrong with Casablanca. It’s sort of a war movie, though it more punches the “Dramas about important issues” button for you. It has an amazing cast, and you’ll be surprised at how many enduring catchphrases and ideas came out of it. For some reason, this is the first movie I thought of when reading the OP. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/50 "2018-01-14T20:52:51Z")
I’m going to suggest skipping _Metropolis, Casablanca_ and Charlie Chaplin films. Watch _The Heroes of Telemark._ ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/51 "2018-01-14T20:55:30Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Agreed on Keaton; the Jackie Chan of his age. No, Jacking Chan is the Keaton of _his_ age! ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/52 "2018-01-14T20:56:06Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > An occurrence at owl creek bridge > (Not a movie, but well worth seeing, Netflix has it in the original twilight zone episodes) I suppose I should clarify; there are a few versions of this, but the 1963 version won best short at Canne and the Oscars. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/53 "2018-01-14T21:03:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Here’s what I do like: > > Action > War movies **A Bridge Too Far** **The Guns of Navarone** **Gallipoli** **The Dirty Dozen** > [@](#): > > Dramas about important issues **12 Angry Men** - one of the best dramas about the legal system and the importance of the jury. Great cast. **Panic in the Streets** - Elia Kazan made this moody 1950s suspense film with an unusual hero (a uniformed officer of the U.S. Public Health Service), played by Richard Widmark, who usually played somewhat unhinged gangsters. Jack Palance is a thig who becomes infected with the bubonic plague in New Orleans, and Widmark has to track him down before he infects the whole city. Filmed entirely on location in 1950s New Orleans. **The Swimmer** - Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, country-club suburbanite who decides one day to “swim” back to his home through the suburbs - hoping fences and swimming through his neighbor’s pools. Very odd but engrossing flick as Lancaster’s backstory is gradually revealed with each new encounter with his neighbors. > [@](#): > > Horror. Not suspense horror, but supernatural horror. \*\*The Haunting \*\*(the original by Robert Wise, not the crappy remake) If I had to pick the best example of a horror film that achieves its chills through suggestion and sound, this is it. A masterpiece. **Curse of the Demon** (UK title: Night of the Demon) - Based on a short story by M.R. James. **The Devil’s Bride** (UK Title: **The Devil Rides Out** ) Christopher Lee in a rare role as a good guy, helping a WWI buddy who is being recruited into a satanic cult. The special effects are a little dated, but a fun movie which still holds some chills. **The Innocents** - Deborah Kerr is a governess hired to watch over two creepily precocious children in an isolated mansion, who may (or may not) be possessed by the spirits of two departed servants. **The Black Cat** - The original Universal version with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi (and even a cameo by John Carradine). Unlike most Universal horror films which are set in a hazily unstated place and time, this is set after WWI, as a honeymooning American couple get swept up in a feud between two WWI vets, one of whom is a black magician. Lugosi and Karloff really look like they hate each other in this, and cheerfully chew the scenery. The set design is amazing - instead of a creepy Gothic castle, Karloff’s mansion is a brightly-lit gorgeous Bauhaus creation, built on the graves of thousands killed in the war. (Now that I think of it, the villains in this, the Devil’s Bride, and Curse of the Demon were all based on the same man - Aleister Crowley.) > [@](#): > > Political thrillers. Now that I think about it, I have seen Dr. Strangelove. Stuff like that is cool. **7 Days in May** - Very apropos for our times. In the middle of a worsening international situation, the military plans a coup against a deeply unpopular president. A junior officer and a reporter (who are not fans of the president) become aware of it and have to decide whether to let it happen or protect the political process, regardless of how they feel about the president… **The Manchurian Candidate** - A presidential candidate is a communist agent. Frank Sinatra, a Korean War POW, has to figure out what is going on. **Day of the Condor** - Robert Redford is a CIA political analyst who becomes a fugitive when his entire research section is wiped out. **The Parallax View** - Warren Beatty is an investigative reporter investigating the assassination of a political candidate who learns of a secret corporation that apparently recruits the mentally unhinged as assassins, and goes undercover. The film-within-a-film that is used to test his aptitude to be an assassin is amazing. **Seconds** - A John Frankenheimer film wherein a middle aged executive, trapped in a loveless marriage, happens upon a secret corporation that will stage your death, then surgically construct you into a younger, more handsome man and place you in an exciting new identity - but there’s a catch. Rock Hudson is surprisingly good in this, and Will Geer (Grandpa Walton) plays the folksy psychopath who runs the corporation **Winter Kills** - Jeff Bridges places the young scion of a Kennedy-like family trying to resolve the assassination of his two brothers earlier in the decade. Wicked political satire from Richard Condon, who also wrote Manchurian Candidate and 7 Days in May. **The Conversation** - Gene Hackman is a withdrawn expert in electronic espionage, who gets drawn into a conspiracy when he is hired to bug a young couple’s meeting and finds himself getting personally involved. **Fail Safe** - A serious view of the same situation that happens in **Dr. Strangelove.** Interesting ending. > [@](#): > > Scifi with good science. Not “message” scifi like the Day the Earth Stood Still, or camp sci fi like nuclear radiation making giant creatures. **The Andromeda Strain** - again, find the 1970s Robert Wise original, not the awful remake. A satellite sent to capture micro-organisms in space crashlands in New Mexico, wiping put an entire town with an unknown malady. A secret government protocol brings 4 scientists into an underground installation to try to find an answer. Shot in a low-key, almost documentary style, one of the few films where the characters have to use real science and the scientific method to save the world. **Colossus: The Forbin Project** - An SDI-type computer system designed to create a nuclear defense shield quickly links up with its Soviet counterpart and decides to create a better world for us, whether we like it or not. Pretty chilling. Based on the first novel of a D.F. Jones trilogy, too bad they didn’t make the last two. **1984** - the version actually made in 1984. Absolutely perfect adaptation of George Orwell’s novel, with great performances by John Hurt and Richard Burton. **Quatermass and the Pit** (US Title: 5 Million Years to Earth) Made around the same time as 2001: A Space Odyssey, and with a similar theme with a darker handling: a crashed prehistoric spaceship is found while excavating a London subway. Dr. Quatermass and his team discover that the aliens inside boosted human intelligence and altered our DNA, but for the purpose of constructing a slave race - and the ship’s computer is becoming active again… Screenwriter Nigel Kneale wrote quite a few very good scifi series and movies, in which alien life was inimically hostile to us - see also **Quatermass II** > [@](#): > > Non-Disney animation I might not know about. **Fantastic Planet** - French animated film showing a very alien planetary ecology. **Allegro Non Troppo** - An Italian take-off on Fantasia, lots of fun and some very good animation. That should hold you. May think of some more later. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Krupe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@Leo\_Krupe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Krupe)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/54 "2018-01-14T21:04:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The inside joke is that the actress is Matthau’s daughter Lucy. I thought she was his daughter-in-law, but looking her up at imdb, she was his step-daughter. I also didn’t realize she died in 2003. Too bad. > **[Lucy Saroyan - Biography - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0765488/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm)** > > Lucy Saroyan. Actress: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Lucy Saroyan was born on 17 January 1946 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Hopscotch (1980) and Mannix (1967). She... Vincent Price made some great movies, some were great B-grade, and some weren’t. I particularly like _House on Haunted Hill_, _Theater of Blood_, and _Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine_. Someone mentioned Peter Lorre; I’d also suggest _Mad Love_. Truly suspenseful. ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/55 "2018-01-14T21:23:38Z")
Some other vintage scifi and horror: **Lathe of Heaven** (the original, not the remake) - George Orr, an apathetic citizen of an overpopulated Seattle in the near future, begins having “effective dreams” - whatever he dreams becomes true, altering the reality of the world. An ambitious government-appointed psychiatrist takes advantage of him to try to create a perfect world, with gradually worsening results. **Phase IV** - Ants begin to show evidence of new intelligence and cooperation and begin to force humans out of their habitats. A two-scientist team sets up a lab in the Arizona desert to try to understand what is going on. Made by Saul Bass, who was known for creating amazing title sequences for other directors. After you see it, find the deleted end sequence on YouTube, which is amazingly visually trippy. **The Illustrated Man** - a not-too-bad adaptation of the Ray Bradbury anthology. Rod Steiger is good in the tile role, as a circus performer whose tattoos come to life at night and tell frightening tales of the future. **It Came From Outer Space** - based on a Ray Bradbury script, originally a 3D movie about an alien craft of shape-shifters that crashes in the Arizona desert. They aren’t especially hostile, but just want to get off our world. The SFX hold up, and the use of the eerieness of the southwestern desert’s empty space is especially good,. **Privilege** - a pop star is recruited by a socialist government in near-future England to mold the views of the young. Amazing pop score, and like all of Peter Watkin’s movies, is shot as a mockumentary. See also his “The War Game”, showing the effect of a nuclear strike on London. **A Boy and His Dog** - Based on the Harlan Ellison novella, which is about as non-PC as you can imagine nowadays, in which a young teen and his telepathic dog have to survive any way they can in a post-nuclear future. **The Damned** - A middle-aged American becomes involved with the sister of a psychotic street gang leader (played by Oliver Reed). All 3 are unaware of a sinister government operation in the area to create children capable of surviving in a post-nuclear future. Gave the band its name. and Oliver Reed’s character was probably influential on Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/56 "2018-01-14T22:20:28Z")
> [@Arizona\_Mike](#): > > **Day of the Condor** - Robert Redford is a CIA political analyst who becomes a fugitive when his entire research section is wiped out… The movie you are thinking of is _Three Days of the Condor_. You are probably confusing the title with _Day of the Jackal_, which is an even better film. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2018, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/57 "2018-01-15T00:01:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The movie you are thinking of is _Three Days of the Condor_. You are probably confusing the title with _Day of the Jackal_, which is an even better film. Just to confuse the issue further, the novel the film is based on is _Six Days of the Condor_. Because of the low budget set by the studio, the filmmakers were only able to buy the rights to the first half of the book. Okay, that last part isn’t true. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/58 "2018-01-15T00:08:19Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > I suppose I should clarify; there are a few versions of this, but the 1963 version won best short at Canne and the Oscars. It also became an episode of _ **Twilight Zone** _. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/59 "2018-01-15T00:13:10Z")
\*\*\*The Lion in Winter Becket A Man for All Seasons Anne of the Thousand Days The Adventures of Robin Hood The Sea Hawk Captain Blood Captain from Castille The Treasure of the Sierra Madre The African Queen\*\*\* ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587/60 "2018-01-15T00:18:15Z")
A few others I forgot to mention: - **The Hustler** (1961) with Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott. - Two heist movies starring Sterling Hayden: John Huston’s **The Asphalt Jungle** (1950) and Kubrick’s\*\* The Killing\*\* (1956). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-old-movies-should-i-watch/806587.md?page=4)