The Siren has an amazing post up about what films you should show to someone who has never seen a movie pre-1960, outside of, oh, Wizard of Oz or It’s a Wonderful Life. How do you introduce someone (students, let’s say, although it can be broader than that) to the wealth of genius in films from Hollywood’s Golden Era? She “crowd sourced” the post on Facebook, getting suggestions from her voluminous readership, a comments section that was rich with suggestions. So there are actually two posts that you need to read:
Easy to Love: Ten Classics For People Who Don’t Know Cinema
and
A Whole Bunch of Other Classic Film Suggestions.
My contribution was Only Angels Have Wings, which I consider to be a perfect and timeless film.
What would you suggest?
I’m glad someone finally suggested The Heiress in the second post. What a harrowing film! And yet I’m surprised it wasn’t included in the first post!
So harrowing!! Brilliant performances all around, and a perfect film, a perfect Tragedy.
I know the Siren wanted to limit it to 10 films and I think she agonized over the choice!
I’d probably suggest “The More the Merrier,” which to me is a perfect romantic comedy with stars who aren’t known as widely by people who aren’t classic movie buffs. Aside from the laughs and romance, the movie gives a good view of the atmosphere stateside during WWII, particularly in Washington, D.C.
Oh God, I love that movie.
I’d also go with some horror and sci-fi:
The Bride of Frankenstein
War of the Worlds
King Kong
Cat People
Metropolis
and
Sullivan’s Travels
Nice! Yes, you can really see that the modern generation didn’t invent alternate realities and scary sci-fi worlds. Good call.
I went back and fully read the “A Whole Bunch of Other Film Suggestions” – and saw Cat People mentioned and noticed that Citizen Kane did not get more than one mention. Why do you think that is – is it undergoing a re-evaluation?
And I’ll add the film that Sullivan from Sullivan’s Travels wished he’d made: Grapes of Wrath. (yeah, I know O Brother, Where Art Thou).
I think maybe Citizen Kane is not the best “introduction” to classic film to someone who’s not familiar with it – it’s so “other” – almost otherworldly. There’s a coldness and distance to it (which I think makes it great) – and of course its structure is totally modern – the whole thing is a flashback!! – but I could see that it would be alienating to someone who was new to the whole classic film thing, or even black and white films. Maybe you need to work up to it.
I still treasure the memory of going to see it with my 13 year old nephew at the AERO in Santa Monica. It played like gangbusters to a huge crowd – and is way more funny seen with an audience than it is alone in my apartment. So much fun!
Good point about not the best intro.
I haven’t clicked on the links yet, so these might already be mentioned, but here are a few I would recommend:
I Know Where I’m Going
The Philadelphia Story
Mildred Pierce
Leave Her to Heaven
Laura
All About Eve
Bringing Up Baby
White Christmas (I’m reading Girl Singer right now, love Rosemary Clooney)
Christmas in Connecticut
I could go on and on!
Yes – many of those are on the list (both her Top 10, as well as the crowd sourcing list). The comments are great, too – a real celebration of classic film!
And BLESS you for Leave Her to Heaven. Wow. That film would appeal to a “modern” sensibility for sure – it’s quietly influential, a real psychological study. Have we discussed it before? I wrote a brief thingie on it once, but I should definitely revisit it.
I am slowly making my way through the classics.
Some I think will appeal to anyone, even those with a modern sensibility:
Gunga Din
All About Eve (on Siren’s List, best dialogue ever)
Singin’ in the Rain (Way more than just a musical, great movie for people who love movies)
Casablanca (duh!)
The Maltese Falcon (That Bogart guy was pretty good)
North by Northwest (1959 so just makes your cutoff date, and I think one of the best ever… feels like it was made yesterday, if they made good movies yesterday).
Sunset Blvd.
The Third Man (Just awesome!)
Notorious (Thanks Sheila!)
The Magnificent Ambersons (way better than Kane)
The General
And four all-time greats from the 60s:
Z
The Battle of Algiers
Lawrence of Arabia
Seconds
And here are some “all-time classics” that left me underwhelmed, if anyone cares:
The Rules of the Game (I usually love “hyperlinks”! Not this time)
Rear Window (sorry Siren, bored me)
The Big Sleep (I’ll say…somebody wake me when they decipher the plot)
Vertigo
Touch of Evil (yeah, yeah, its a good tracking shot, but REALLY!?!)
Citizen Kane (“Best Ever” is an impossible thing to live up to)
No “Rules of the Game”? Really?? :(
Love your list – I agree that North by Northwest is pretty much a perfect movie. I’m trying to think of a flaw. Most movies have a flaw – not fatal, perhaps, but flaws nonetheless. That one doesn’t seem to.
and yay for Notorious! One of my best movie-going experiences ever was going to see that at the Film Forum with a packed house. A woman screamed – SCREEEAMED – when the bottle fell off the shelf and crashed on the floor. That movie works!!
Yeah North by Northwest is pretty much perfect, I agree that’s a rare thing to say even about my favorite films.
Regarding The Rules of Attraction, I think it suffered a bit for me (the same way Citizen Kane did) in that it is SO highly rated that it could never live up to expectations. It’s certainly a good movie, and I loved some aspects of it (the opening sequence at the airstrip, the way the female lead would be in love with whoever loved her at that moment).
But I had problems with the final act, which hinges on a case of mistaken identity right out of Three’s Company. And the groundskeeper seemed like a caricature, and nobody seemed to be much troubled by the fact that he was running through the house with a shotgun threatening to commit murder. I know it was on some level a farce, but the last act seemed off tonally from the rest of the movie. I may be nitpicking, but that’s fair when analyzing an “all time great”. It just didn’t blow me away the way something like The Third Man or Casablanca did. But it’s not like I thought it sucked or anything.
Happy Holidays Sheila, I didn’t quite know how to respond to your Anniversaries post without feeling presumptious, but just know there are many readers out here who really admire your work, and are wishing you nothing but the best!
Thank you, Todd. People have been very nice about that post and having people wish me well never feels presumptuous. I continued to write on my site during my crackup last year – and all through the crackup of 2009 – the routine of writing here was good for me, but I never let on what was going on. I can certainly see it now, looking back on some of the things I wrote – but it’s just not my thing to write about trauma as it is going on. Thank goodness. I’d be horrified at all that shit now. Nevertheless, thank you and happy holidays to you too.
Thanks for elaborating on your thoughts in re: Rules of the Game.
I guess I see Rules of the Game as sheer farce, a perfect example of its kind – with a bitter strain of irony/satire that makes it a commentary on life in Europe at that time, and the sort of hands-over-ears “lalalalalalala this is not happening” vibe of the aristocracy and intelligentsia. The Evelyn Waugh set, in other words – his book Vile Bodies (made into that film – Pretty Young Things) describes the manic revelry going on between the world wars in a way that is hilarious as well as terrifying. I see Rules of the Game strictly in that light. So the farcical elements don’t bother me – they seem to be the whole point.
And go, Marcel Dalio!! Even in his small part in Casablanca, he rules!!
My pick would be Best Years of Our Lives (out of about 4 Wyler movies I think are great). There are several westerns I’m a big fan of, but I get that those have may have limited appeal. Rear Window is also my favorite Hitchcock film, was glad to see that included on her list. Maybe Wild River is another I would recommend, although might be too low key to appeal to everyone.
Mutecypher – Citizen Kane does seem to be much more of a favorite of critics than the more civilian movie fan. Has always left me a little cold. Really didn’t even get the appeal until I watched the Criterion version with Ebert’s commentary (which was great), but still, I just don’t connect with it.
When Mr. Bernstein tells his story of seeing the girl in the white dress … it just kills me. And Kane’s “Everything you hate” answer to Mr. Thatcher’s question about what he would have liked to have been. And Susie Alexander’s “but what about me?” when Gettys brings the first Mrs. Kane to the boarding house. And “It cain’t be love, because there is not true love” when everyone is picnicking on the beach and Kane and Susie have a shouting fight…
I love the movie, but I can understand that everything gets re-evaluated in terms of changing tastes. If it left you cold, well different strokes…
I had a friend who recently went in for a colonoscopy ask for recommendations of movies to watch the night before. I recommended “Rear Window.” So there you go. (couldn’t resist, it is a wonderful movie.)
Ahhh Best Years of Our Lives. What a film. I know many people who are not classic film fans by any stretch of the imagination who count it as one of their favorite movies of all time. Of course many of those people are veterans of one war or another, which makes sense. Such a great film. It has it all!
I always suggest It Happened One Night or Casablanca, when someone asks me for a classic film suggestion right off the top of my head.
I’m so glad that I went through a stage in which I wouldn’t consider watching a movie if it wasn’t B&W.
It Happened One Night is a slam-dunk in any era. And so influential – you watch it and you see almost every two-opposite-types-thrown-together romantic comedy ever made afterwards.