I don’t have much to add to the discussion, except I generally agree with the OP. While I’ll occasionally get into something on TCM, I have a hard time doing so.
As a data point, I saw the Cohen brothers version of True Grit in the theater. A few weeks later, I watched the original. The original isn’t any less graphic, and the plot isn’t significantly different. I actually preferred some things about it (more wide shots, a better sense of space). But it just felt completely goofy. Unlike the new version, which darkly meanders from scene to scene, the original has a very tidy feeling. Actors perform a scene, John Wayne makes a wry quip, and the super upbeat orchestral prairie music starts up as the movies switches to a long shot of horse riding as they transition to the next set.
I can’t really explain it beyond saying that the 1969 version gives off a campy, old-movie feeling, and that feeling doesn’t register well with me. It just doesn’t feel right, because the movies I grew up with weren’t like that. I enjoyed watching it, but I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. The remake I could watch over and over.
Just look here for a start. While this may be an, ahem, exploitative approach to the subject of early Hollywood mores, the mere existence of this book shows that the scandalous stories from today are really old news. The only difference is the vast increase in today’s media coverage.
Oooh, if Eve were still here she’d have your butt for recommending that book. It’s been excoriated by plenty of critics for inaccuracy, my favorite quote being:
I don’t really see this as relevant to the OP, anyway. There’s no doubt that people have always been fallible people, or that those in show business have had seemingly amplified scandals, even before the advent of film. the OP has a hard time taking old movies seriously, which is an entirely separate issue.
Watching old movies is like genealogy. If you like a recent movie, sometimes you want to know what it is derived from (and all recent movie are highly derivative) and you might want to watch previous work of the actors and directors, even the cinematographers if the film was visually striking to you. Then you want to know the same thing about those films. And so on and so on. The connections and lines of film history are endlessly fascinating.
Old movies are good if they are good movies. There are plenty of mediocre and crappy old movies that are just as mediocre and crappy as lots of new movies.
I find that the overwhelming majority of movies I’ve watched repeatedly were made before 1970, even though I like quite a few of the ones I’ve seen in the theater recently. Films like “Rear Window”, “Stalag 17” and “Bridge On The River Kwai” have an appeal to me that new movies can’t match despite their technical magic.
Personal preference, not etched in stone.
Betcha you wouldn’t say that about Grace Kelly.
I can’t understand the fuss about Jean Harlow. And years from now people will be wondering what anyone saw in Sarah Jessica Parker.
I’m with you in that this isn’t really relevant to the thread, and I don’t want to turn this this into a hijack, but my goal wasn’t to recommend “Hollywood Babylon” as a reliable source, but to just point out the book’s existence to show that Hollywood gossip isn’t a phenomenon of our times, in response to ministryman’s IMO rather naive assumption that early Hollywood was all vanilla and vice-free.
So, here’s a disclaimer: don’t read “Hollywood Babylon” as genuine Hollywood history, or don’t read it at all.
Good post, I can relate to a lot of what you are saying here, I get this from from many old films. Sometimes I can look past this to enjoy them on their merits, but other times I find it too distracting.
What did you think of them in Lawrence of Arabia? I found them both convincing in that. In Guinness’s case, it may have helped that he was playing a prince and politician.
Old movies seem to try harder, if that makes any sense. New(er) movies are just some studio’s product, a title to be marketed to millions of people, each of whom has a jillion entertainment options, a title which will show up on DVD and Netflix and pay TV within a year of its theatrical release. Yes, of course I know they were a product 70 years ago as well, but I look at an old movie… think of the scene at the train depot in Gone With the Wind, where the camera pulls back and back and back until Scarlett is a tiny figure among hundreds, and finally you see the tattered flag enter the frame, and the music swells, and that’s a movie. Nowadays a scene like that would be CGI, and you’d know that, and you mentally step out of the scene and admire the shot. In those days it was take after take in the hot sun, getting everything set up and everyone in position, the directors communicating with a dozen or more people, and… ACTION!
I enjoyed a lot of movies from the 1970s, but earlier, I can take 'em or leave 'em. I hate, hate, HATE musicals–the songs take me right out of the story. Do you know anyone who bursts into song for little or no reason? Me neither.
The other reason is the color stock, mainly Techincolor. Everything looks so harsh, especially the makeup and the sky. There’s one movie this works for: The Wizard of Oz. The older movies I like tend to be B&W, such as Casablanca, Psycho, and the Marx Brothers. I love the Frank Capra movies also.
Somebody said it earlier, but it bears repeating: The majority of Thirties and Forties movies are crap; they were disposable product intended to fill the theater chain’s screens.
The only reason we now believe that old movies are great is the relentless winnowing of time, which has resulted in most old movies falling into obscurity, and only a few better-than-average ones being remembered.
I thank god every day of my life for Turner Classic Movies. I’m actually offended when they have ‘newer’ movies on, I don’t necessarily want to see on TCM any movie I actually went out to the theater to see. I love the 30’s art deco and musicals, I love the womens pics of the 40’s, I ADORE every loud, garish Technicolor costume picture or musical, the louder and gaudier, the better, of the 50’s. I like some of the silent movies, too. The Wind. Greed. … I think 90% of the movies out there today are pure garbage. Don’t want to see hungover assholes, career girls who can’t find a man, odd couples raising/having babies, people being cut up alive,
(most) comic book heroes, or movies about toys. Or 'splosions, or ugly guys causing 'splosions.
So I go to the theater maybe twice a year if it’s really something special. Otherwise, I’ll be at home watching Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Ladd, Laurence Olivier, Fred and Ginger, William Holden, Doris Day…not trying to explain why, just find modern stuff 90% boring trash. Welcome to it.
I rather find I share the OP’s opinion of old movies, although I must admit that I haven’t really watched that many. I would like to give it a go, though, so I’d be grateful if some of you would be kind enough to point me in the direction of some that you think I might enjoy.
If it’s any help, some of my favourite (newer) movies are Snatch, The Prestige, The Others, Amadeus, the Departed, Inception, The Big Lebowski, Amores Perros, Jodhaa Akbar, and Let the Right One In. The only old movies I’ve really enjoyed are Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Umrao Jaan (1980), which I liked because of their visual splendour, but as these are Hindi movies I expect they won’t be familiar to most people here.
Qia Sic Dico, I would recommend: Casablanca
The African Queen
The Lion in Winter
His Girl Friday
The Mark of Zorro
The Magnificent Seven
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Freaks
any Marx Bros. movie of the '20’s and '30’s
*The Wizard of Oz
Rear Window
Psycho
I’m All Right, Jack
Being There
**King Kong *(1933) The Innocents
The Seventh Seal
The Haunting
For visual splendor, I recommend Kubrick. Mentioned above, Barry Lyndon is my favorite, but not really a gateway film. Try The Shining, but watch it at least twice - first for the story and the scary, next for the amazing lush atmosphere. The setting and camerawork are outrageous.** Lolita** and Dr. Strangelove might float your boat as well given your Coen Bros affection - very fastpaced and clever with great WTF?? touches.
Also for visual splendor, you might be interested in some 60s Westerns. Don’t know how you feel about tons of violence, but The Wild Bunch is probably worth seeing if you’re not squeamish (I kind of am but I’ve seen it a few times anyway). Also any Leone, my favorite is either Duck You Sucker or Once Upon a Time in the West.
And I agree with The_Peyote_Coyote’s whole list. Who doesn’t like the Marx Brothers???
Well, define “good.” In all honesty, the absolute best you can say about a lot of old movies is that they’re a moderately entertaining way to burn a couple hours. But in all honesty that’s the absolute best you can say about the vast bulk of new movies, too.
people saying they don’t like anything ‘old’ whether movies or songs has more to do with wanting to stay young or at least make people think they’re still young. they take the opportunity to brand anything mentioned as coming before “their time.”
i get that crap from people even older than me. i’m about the thread starter’s age.