What's your oldest favorite movie?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Haven’t seen nearly enough silent movies, but I’d watch Sunrise (F.W. Murnau, 1927) again in a heartbeat. Melodrama, comedy, sex, a drunken pig, it’s all there.

More recently:

Wuthering Heights – men wouldn’t look that good again for 40 years

Any of the Thin Man movies – the smoking! the drinking! the wit! the clothes! those apartments! the parties!

Tarzan – the Weismuller-O’Sullivans

To Kill A Mockingbird – okay, it’s not that old (except to BuckNaked) – but any kid who didn’t get to spend their summers in back yards like those really missed out

42

I’m sorry these are THAT old, but my two favorites are:

The Out-of-Towners (1970) starring Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis

Seems Like Old Times (1980ish) starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase
Favorite quote: “I can’t breathe”/“What do you mean you can’t breathe, that’s all you’re doing is breathing!”

“Don’t look at me–I’m irrelevant.”

43

Nosferatu, everything the Marx Brothers ever did, and Arsenic and Old Lace (circa 193?): some great faces before they became great faces, and still hoot-out-loud funny.

And didn’t Cocteau do a spin on Sleeping Beauty in the mid-30’s? Remember it as being atmospheric as hell.

Sorry, my synapses are frying.
Veb

(P.S. to Eve: as a fan of old movies, have you ever run across a novel called Court of Silver Shadows by Beatrice Brandon? It’s a feeble mystery/romance by a writer who had to cash in on the romance market of the 70’s, but ignore the lame plot line. It’s a gorgeous love letter to silent film wrapped in a thin marketing wrapper. It bombed as a pop offering, but gotta love a book that’s passionate about Wallace Beery and assorted character actors.
Anyway, check it out if you have a chance; you may enjoy it.)

44

I’d have to second “The Cocoanuts” - Marx Bros. 1929.

“Room 239 wants ice water? Well send up a sliced onion, that’ll make his ice water.”

Leslie Irish Evans
http://leslie.scrappy.net

45

The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)- Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey and Nigel Bruce.

Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1937) - Ronald Colman and Jane Wyatt.

Citizen Kane (1941)

Back Street (1941) - Charles Boyer and Margaret Sullivan.

Another Frank Capra classic, Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) - Cary Grant, Raymond Massey and Peter Lorre.

Johnny Belinda (1948) - Jane Wyman won an Oscar without uttering a single word in the entire film.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) - Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

46

The Snake Pit (1948) with Olivia de Havilland. To me it is THE old movie.

I have included a certain amount of filth to please the gentlemen of the press.
–Baudelaire

47

THE WIZARD OF OZ
WUTHERING HEIGHTS… I liked the book better though

48

–Good Lord, AWB. W.K.L. Dickson not only produced and directed that thing he invented the Mutoscope camera that filmed it. 1893 would place him at the Magic Introduction Company at 841 Broadway (the scene would have been filmed on the roof). The company would become American Mutoscope in December, 1895.

49

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Also, quite a few of the Our Gang/Little Rascals shorts

50

Most of the older movies I like are horror. My favorites are Freaks, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Nosferatu. I have some non-horror favorites too: Camille (something about Greta Garbo…) and Blonde Venus.

I have a hobby. I have the world’s largest collection of seashells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you’ve seen some of it.

51

Disney’s Snow White (1937)

Chaplin’s City Lights (1931)

Winsor McKay’s Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

Eschew Obfuscation

52

The Horn Blows At Midnight (1945)

Metropolis (1927)

M (1931)

As lame as they are, I love the old Blondie comedies with Arthur Lake and Penny Singelton. (1930s-1950s)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Meet John Doe (1941)

The Lady Eve (1941)

I think thats it, all I can think of right now, I am sure there are others.

Oh, its not a favorite because I have never seen the whole thing, but what I have seen of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) makes it look really good, I would like to rent it one of these days.

pat

53

House of Games is not 1980, but 1987. So Frankie doesn’t have any favorite films older than 13 years. How old are you, Frankie?

But House of Games is one of my favorite films too. Here’s the list of my 100 favorite films:
http://www.defilmsociety.org

Click on Reviews, and then on Wendell’s revised thoughts about the AFI 100.

The oldest films in my list of 100 are the following from the '20’s and '30’s:

Metropolis (1926, Germany, dir. Fritz Lang)All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, U.S., dir. Lewis Milestone)
City Lights (1931, U.S., dir. Charles Chaplin)
M (1931, Germany, dir. Fritz Lang)
Freaks (1932, U.S., dir. Tod Browning)
King Kong (1933, U.S., dir. Merian C. Cooper)Duck Soup (1933, U.S., dir. Leo McCarey)Modern Times (1936, U.S., dir. Charles Chaplin)
Camille (1937, U.S., dir. George Cukor)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, U.S., dir. Michael Curtiz)
Gone with the Wind (1939, U.S., dir. Victor Fleming)
The Wizard of Oz (1939, U.S., dir. Victor Fleming)

So that’s 1 from the '20’s and 11 from the '30’s. I also chose 9 from the '40’s, 9 from the '50’s, 9 from the '60’s, 30 from the '70’s, 20 from the '80’s, and 11 from the '90’s.

54

Where to start…Harold Lloyd I suppose, 1923 Safety Last.
1925 The Phantom of the Opera - scared the hell out of me as a child.
1935 My Man Godfrey - Powell was one of my favorites, so pretty much anything he did on film could be included here.
1940 The Sea Hawk - buckling a lot of swash in this one, yay, Flynn.
1942 Yankee Doodle Dandy - Cagney, nuff said.
1952 Singin’ in the Rain - Gene Kelly AND Donald O’Conner dance, plus the unforgettable character of Lena Lemont.
1959(?) Some Like it Hot - please, Lemmon and Curtis in drag, and Joe E Brown, loved it.
I could go on but I havn’t the time.

All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people.

55

Gotta be Casablanca for me. In fact, it IS my favorite movie of anytime.

I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!

56

Rules of the Game- I wish I threw parties like that. No, wait, I don’t.

Cocoanuts and other Marx Bros

We saw Passion of Joan of Arc with the symphony. Wow.

Any with Fred Astaire.

I’m not a fallen angel, I’m a risen demon.

57

Another vote for King Kong.

The Thief of Baghdad.

Any of the Max Fliecher(sp?) cartoons, especially the old Popeyes.

Soon afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky.

58

I just happened to see a real old hilarious one…Peter Lorre in “Mr. Moto’s Last warning” . Aside from peter Lorre squinting and his rediculous japanese accent, can anybody tell me about these series of films? I belive these were made to compete with the Charlie Chan series. Can you get them on videotape? Peter Lorre (Austrian jewish) is simply hilarious trying to imitate a japanese detective!