Golden Age of Hollywood Book Club discussion

What are your favorite old Hollywood movies and why?

I pretty much watch any genre from all decades. So, I think the best way for me to do this is to list my #1 choice from each decade.

Silent: The Big Parade (1925)
1930s: My Man Godfrey (1936)
1940s: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
1950s: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
1960s: West Side Story (1961)

I am going to assume that the cutoff for old movies is the mid-60's. So I think I will stop there with the list. :)

Some of my favorites in no particular order:
The Philadelphia Story
Duck Soup
Suspicion
The Wizard of Oz
Dracula's Daughter
Double Indemnity
My Gal Friday

I love Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, William Powell and Natalie Wood! I've seen all those except The Big Parade. I haven't seen many silent films. One I did was Metropolis and I think Mary Pickford if fascinating! I think stopping at the 60s is perfect. I have a hard time with most movies from the 70s and I can't accept TCM playing movies from the 80s.

Steve wrote: "Some of my favorites in no particular order:
The Philadelphia Story
Duck Soup
Suspicion
The Wizard of Oz
Dracula's Daughter
Double Indemnity
My Gal Friday"

Those are great movies too! I haven't seen Duck Soup or Dracula's Daughter. I have seen some of the Marx Brothers movies. I'm guessing you mean His Gal Friday which I love. It's a great movie. And who doesn't love a good Hitchcock film! I would love to read a biography of his life.

I'll probably think of many more later but for now favorites include:

The Sheik (silent)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Sabrina (Hepburn/Bogart, of course)
The Sound and the Fury
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Kismet (musical version)
Day the Earth Stood Still (Michael Rennie version)
Some Like it Hot
African Queen
Trouble With Harry
Harvey
Arsenic & Old Lace

Anything by Hitchcock by most especially Psycho and The Birds.

Also I love Guys and Dolls and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane.

anything by Hitchcock for me as well (I haven't seen any of the silent ones though).

The Big Sleep, Key Largo, You Can't Take it With You, Lawrence of Arabia, Ben-Hur, 12 Angry Men, On the Waterfront, and many more.

These aren't necessarily my favorite movies but I do like these and they should all be available on Netflix:

How to Marry a Millionaire, The Lady Vanishes, His Girl Friday, The Lady Eve, Charade, Breakfast at Tiffany's, White Christmas, Miracle on 34th street, Daddy Long Legs, Call Northside 777 and Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.

Was scanning upcoming movies on TCM and noticed two of my favorites playing almost back-to-back next week.

Ghost and Mrs Muir is on 2/25 at 8pm and Green Dolphin Street follows at 12:15am on 2/26.

And another title I mentioned as a possibility for a book/movie group read shows up on TCM 3/02 at 10:30pm: Captain Blood.

My favorites? That's a tough question.
-Shall We Dance, with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,
-The Third Man, with Orson Wells and Joseph Cotton,
-Princess O'Rourke, with Olivia DeHavilland and Robert Cummings,
-Gaslight, with Ingrid Bergman & Charles Boyer,
-Bachelor Mother, Ginger Rogers & David Niven,
-Robin Hood, with Errol Flynn, and many other great actors,
-Ben Hur, with Charlton Heston
-The Robe, with Jean Simmons and Richard Burton
-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, James Stewart and Jean Simmons
-How to Steal a Million, Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn,
And So Many More! If I kept going, I could fill a book! :)

Very short list of Favorites:
-Notorious, Hitchock
-Rebecca, Laurence Olivier
-All About Eve, Bette Davis
-Mildred Pierce
-Laura, Clifton Web and Gene Tierney
-The Ghost & Mrs. Muir
-The Heiress
-dance movies with Fred and Ginger
-everything with Barbara Stanwyck

Maria wrote: "Very short list of Favorites:
..."

Great movies!

On my short list of favorites are Vertigo, A Place in the Sun, All About Eve, Rebecca, Rear Window, Rosemary's Baby, and Gone with the Wind.

My list would include: Singing in the Rain, Bringing up Baby, The Lady Eve, The Road to Morocco, A Star is Born (with Judy Garland of course), Holiday Inn, Forsaking All Others, Shall We Dance, Royal Wedding, Mildred Pierce.

"A Place in the Sun" should have been on my list!

My all time favorite is Dirty Dancing. I love that movie to death. I will watch pretty much any movie with Patrick Swayze in it.

Katie wrote: "I pretty much watch any genre from all decades. So, I think the best way for me to do this is to list my #1 choice from each decade.

Silent: The Big Parade (1925)
1930s: My Man Godfrey (1936)
1940..."

Great list! I haven't seen The Big Parade. I need to check it out although I have a hard time with silent films haha!

My cut-off list for classics is 1982. Its not just an arbitrary cut-off either; I look at certain industry changes which happened as the 1970s petered out and the Lucas/Spielberg era took over.

For one thing the cinematography began to change (at that point) over to videography. Slowly but surely. The flicks just began to look different in their lighting and coloring and motion. Its to the point today that 35 mm film stock itself is in serious jeopardy of being continued. The studios would love to retire 35mm because distributing digital movies saves them 90% of their usual distribution costs. Basically, Japanese technology is killing the best art form this country originally pioneered, which may be the best art form in the world.

Another issue for me: right around this point in time you begin to see a marked decline in directors and actors still appearing in theatrical films who were young enough to have also worked under the classic studio system. Sir Ralph Richardson, Olivier, Guinness, Burton, all began to disappear from marquees. As well as stellar studio talents from the American side. Heston, for example; or Lee Marvin; or Bill Holden...all began their slow ebb to the sidelines. Directors also: truly great directors all turned in their last couple films before either returning or passing away.

Another factor was the debacle of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate" (starring Chris Walken and Kris Kristofferson) which bombed so badly it took down the studio which funded it. Anyway what affect did this have? Big Hollywood studios and distributors all but halted future investments in arthouse/adult drama movies in theaters. Sharp decline. The only mature, grown-up flicks we get now are 2-3 per year, and they are clearly just 'Oscar Bait'.

William Goldman (who was in LA writing scripts at the time) concurs with another observation. He points out that 'Star Wars' and 'Close Encounters' notwithstanding, the conservative money in Hollywood was still not convinced that Lucas/Spielberg were anything but flukes. However, once Spielberg turned in the juggernaut which was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' the conviction became embedded. That movie turned in so much godamn money that it turned LA upside down. The lesson went in deep: kiddie and adolescent escapism became the new order of the day. It became the #1 priority.

Anther: the rise of the 'summer blockbuster'.

Another: demographics. Traditionally film audiences were adults; and thanks to the baby-boom this lasted all the way up until the late 70s. Thereafter, the demographics of the USA changed in such as way which made most movie audiences = youngsters. The result? Less 'demanding' audiences. Less criticism, less scrutiny, less pressure for films to maintain high standards of drama or acting.

So yeah. I'll watch anything from 1892 to 1982 (including silent films, foreign, indie, docu) but turn a jaundiced eye at anything subsequent. Its the industry changes which form my bookends. Call me a purist.

Ha Trav. :p

There already are some articles out there on this. I mean, there usually are a handful any given year, as people start to realize how absurd and atrocious this situation is. I'm not a completely lone voice. Here's a few more:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...

http://www.soundonsight.org/the-gray-...

http://www.laweekly.com/2012-04-12/fi...

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013...

https://www.mises.org/library/how-ant...

Now, 'Raiders' (as was 'Star Wars') yes--just as you say--naturally they were a throwback to 1950s Hollywood Saturday adventure serials. Those matinees mainly were for kids; nevertheless, the primary demographic of moviegoers between the 1930s-70s was adult. There were rousing adventure movies for adults too, of course.

Still, because of the lack of a rating system, most movies were designed to be 'one size fits all'. They were intended to be reasonably intelligent as well as escapist. Suitable for anyone of any age. During the studio system heyday, (save for a few minor exceptions) you could simply walk into any theater to see any flick; showing at any time, regardless of your age.

Maybe I'm not seeing the point you wish to make?

bridge over the river kwai
the best years of our lives
citizen kane
gunga din
the magnificent ambersons
spartacus
meet john doe
the ox-bow incident
mr smith goes to washington
my darling clementine
paths of glory
ben-hur
2001: a space odyssey
anatomy of a murder
sunset boulevard
the searchers
mr roberts
the wild bunch
stalag 17
the hunchback of notre dame
the seventh seal
from here to eternity
the third man
white cargo
random harvest
the train
viva zapata
the great escape
the sand pebbles
shadow of a doubt
laura
the country girl
winchester 73
atlantic city
orphee
shoot the piano player
chinatown
network
dr strangelove
la dolce vita
woman in the dunes
king of hearts
white heat
waterloo bridge
lawrence of arabia
dr zhivago
in the heat of the night
suspicion
the pawnbroker
high noon
state of the union
strangers on a train
a star is born
butch cassidy and the sundance kid
the maltese falcon
to have and have not
the informer
once upon a time in the west
the quiet man
the blue angel
the young lions
fort apache
autumn sonata
night for day
the great gatsby
black narcissus
diabolique
diva
bite the bullet
wings
the bad & the beautiful
ace in the hole
all the law west of the pecos
forbidden planet
the day of the jackal
a double life
mrs miniver
the duellists
the wages of fear
nashvile
the treasure of sierra madre
all about eve
cool hand luke
smiles of a summer night
casablanca
queen christina
alexander nevsky
ivan the terrible
the battleship potemkin
the good, the bad, and the ugly
the caine mutiny
the african queen
a night to remember
breakfast at tiffanys
shane
touch of evil
bring me the head of alfredo garcia
vacation from marriage
m
rain
only angels have wings
the big sleep
five graves to cairo
the quiller memorandum
they shoot horses dont they
the boat
the buccaneer
deliverance
the killing
the philadelphia story
12 angry men
roman holiday
twelve o'clock high
the gunfighter
from out of the past
heaven knows, mr addison
the setup
the andromeda strain
manhunt
the guns of navarone
badlands
junior bonner
destry rides again
pride of the yankees
the big country
the lavender hill mob
north by northwest
saboteur
the 39 steps
nothing sacred
they made me a criminal
a man for all seasons
picnic
night moves
la strada
blowup
high sierra
algiers
the last picture show
hud
ninotchka
the entertainer
the grapes of wrath
patton
the lion in winter
on the waterfront
a streetcar named desire
b must die
nightmare alley
mildred pierce
mash
emperor of the north
the postman always rings twice
the lost weekend
the swimmer
goodbye mr chips
a letter to three wives
grand prix
seconds
murder my sweet
angel face
in harms way
dark victory
young cassidy
they were expendable
a man and a woman
last year at marienbad
asphalt jungle
the man who would be king
big wednesday
who's afraid of virginia woolf
a foreign affair
you cant take it with you
the hustler
gentleman jim

Feliks wrote: "My cut-off list for classics is 1982. Its not just an arbitrary cut-off either; I look at certain industry changes which happened as the 1970s petered out and the Lucas/Spielberg era took over.

Fo..."

What interesting information! My bookends for classics start once movies have speaking (although I do like some silent) and end before the 70s. I just can't take the look of most 70s movies for some reason. There of course are exceptions. I do like some 80s-current time movies but normally funny ones.

Agreed. They just don't look the same, and its not our imagination. There's technical reasons for the new visual traits.

In the music industry (where this is also happening to audio) its not even a secret that pop-songs are programmed to sound similar. For the sake of easier marketing.

Eh. I'm glad I was able to make my ruminations on all this, somewhat coherent to you. I usually get flamed for my somewhat 'negative-sounding' appraisal, but I've always felt my reasons are free enough from any bias which might annul their validity. I'm an industry-watcher; I'm very interested in the movie-making process (not just the results).

Naturally no one wants to hear all the movies they were exposed to during their formative yrs, 'dissed on'. Same thing with music--most people tend to 'favor' whatever they heard when they were teens. You can't tell someone who grew up on weak 'alt rock' that they're not...true rockers. They honestly think they've jammed hard.

Nevertheless, the changes in both cinema and pop music (I mean in the industries and in the technologies) ...these are simply matters of fact. They can hardly be denied when we (as adults) strive to inform our tastes.

Naturally I'm not saying that 'after a certain date, no good movies were made'. I think --at most--all I'm saying is that many fewer great flicks are bound to emerge. And, as far as the ones which do: they have a much tougher time achieving real stature.

I guess I tend to muse over this a lot as I'm an amateur scriptwriter struggling to make a few bucks on the side. Thanks for listenin' to me woolgather...!

p.s. I have this other theory which may interest you

If you take a look at any movie in the Lucas/Splelberg/Cameron/Tarantino era... and if it seems to you that there's something about it, something about it ...or maybe at least 2-3 other films made during this period ...which are kind of 'modern classics' because they're so popular?

My idea is that this small handful of 'mega-popular' flicks of the current day are only so powerful because the director has probably chosen to harken back to a classic, studio-era format.

For example, the Zucker Bros 'Airplane!' and 'Naked Gun' movies. The Zuckers single-handedly revived zany, slapstick comedy with these. Physical comedy had been languishing forgotten, for decades.

Another: Cameron's "Titanic"--nothing else but a return to studio era tearjerker melodrama. There hadn't been one of those in ages.

Another: Clint Eastwood, (actor-turned-director) and head of his own production company (Malpaso Pictures). Eastwood learned under the studio system and Malpaso adopted the same efficient 'assembly-line' techniques for all his flicks. Subsequently, Eastwood is unmatched in today's Hollywood for turning in films under budget and on schedule, every single time. He's renowned for it. And 'Unforgiven' is simply a classic-style revenge western.

"LA Confidential" -- just a standard traipse back through very familiar detective/noir terrain.

So I tentatively suggest this is a new paradigm which applies across the board. If you see a modern hit, it is a smash usually because its drawing on some past model or formula which was already a proven success.

Test out the theory yourself. True or false: Can you name any modern movie which is superb because its truly showing us something new? Or is it just going back over an old technique?

The prose fiction market shows the same thing: authors are cranking out books in the corniest, hoariest old space-opera and fantasy formats galore. Vampire romances, a return to Victorian Gothic Romance. Nothing new, just repackaged.

Just thinking out loud here..

My cut off date for movies is 1960! Have watched very few made since then. IMHO current movies are mostly sound and visual effects with gratuitous swearing and nudity that don't add to the plot. Comedies are a series of one liners unlike the physical comedy of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and the comparably younger Dick Van Dyke. I extend the date for television shows through the early 1970s for select comedies (such as The Dick Van Dyke Show and Get Smart) and crime dramas and mysteries (like Columbo and Hawaii Five-O).

Aha! Excellent. So I see I am not alone in applying 'bookends'. Very reassuring!

I thought I was the only bookend person so was surprised/pleased to see others do the same. I don't have a beginning date either. Am fascinated with Thomas Edison movies from the late 1800s. My coworkers ask if I've seen a movie, and I always reply, "If it's after 1960, no." The studio system made movies and stars more interesting/entertaining.

"The studio system made movies and stars more interesting/entertaining. "

That's for sure. Just a world of difference. The great movies I've viewed changed my life and helped form my character, my personality...my values...my entire outlook on life. For the better. Helped me discover good in other people; taught me what to look for in relationships. Many other benefits.

Can you imagine being a kid growing up today, looking around at all this junk, surrounded by constant screaming slogans and offers and bargains and discounts and all this yammering and uproar...and believing its normal? Like, never having known anything else? It's insane that this is all we now have to offer them.

I agree, Feliks.

Feliks wrote: "p.s. I have this other theory which may interest you

If you take a look at any movie in the Lucas/Splelberg/Cameron/Tarantino era... and if it seems to you that there's something about it, somethi..."

Oh things are definitely repackaged. Same for clothing. Funny movies that do well today have the same format as the 80s (my childhood favorites) which mostly mirror comedies in the 30s-50s with the addition of adult content.

Mollie wrote: "My cut off date for movies is 1960! Have watched very few made since then. IMHO current movies are mostly sound and visual effects with gratuitous swearing and nudity that don't add to the plot. Co..."

Comedies also rely on shock value and not exactly humor.

Mollie wrote: "My cut off date for movies is 1960! Have watched very few made since then. IMHO current movies are mostly sound and visual effects with gratuitous swearing and nudity that don't add to the plot. Co..."

I think I like 60s movies for the aesthetic. I love watching movies even if its just for the fashion aspect. I think there are a lot of "cute" movies in the 60s that are fun to watch.

For sure. A lot of flicks from that era have genuinely bubbly, high spirits and good cheer. More so than today. Yet that was the 'more turbulent' timeperiod!

Jamie wrote: "Oh things are definitely repackaged. ..."

Right, and I'm not simply referring to the cyclical trend of re-makes, 're-boots', and prequels, and sequels, and franchises and director's cuts and all that. Or like how, every dozen years or so, they always come out with a new version of 'Robin Hood', a new version of 'Dracula', etc.

(I mean, my god who had even given a thought to 'Robin Hood' in decades before the Kevin Costner version? And now we get them regularly as if we're all desperate to see this tale when instead we're all bored to tears by it).

Or like the way that a film will be a sly, 'unstated' remake. 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills' being a remake of a Jean Renoir film from the 30s!

No what I mean is that all the studio's "old workhorses" were so good in their day, so well-honed and well-understood (westerns, musicals, 'big bug movies', slapstick, courtroom dramas, pirate movies, tear-jerkers, noirs, detectives, crime) that anytime a modern director turns his hand at a revival or a homage...there's a better-than-usual chance that he can actually make some new success out of it.

Wasn't there a recent Academy Award Best Picture winner which was a return to 'silent movies'? No deception or underhandedness in this, just a demonstration that the studios knew how to make things work. When you have six major studios all making 2 pictures per week, you know what succeeds and what fails. And that knowledge is still good today.

Jamie wrote: "Same for clothing. ..."

Aye, the way that 'Annie Hall' and 'Bonnie & Clyde' re-introduced older styles back into vogue.

I think that is the primary reason I like movies and television shows from these eras--they always end happy and/or have a moral to the story. I don't want to be depressed or sad after watching something for entertainment. Otherwise, I would watch the evening news . . . . They are also educational from an historic perspective--architecture, technology, fashion, etc. All Steve McGarrett and Columbo had were blood type and fingerprints to ID a criminal. And they had to stop and use a payphone to contact the office.

Steve wrote: "Dracula's Daughter."

Now that is a very obscure and unusual choice. Its a fairly well-reputed movie among horror fans, but it is even more renowned among LGBT circles for its 'overt lesbianism'. Not much to speak of as far as I can tell, but eh whadda I know.

Jamie wrote: "And who doesn't love a good Hitchcock film! I would love to read a biography of his life...."

His life itself is actually not that dazzling; its his method and his thought and his technique, which yields so much more to scrutiny and review. You want Hitchcock's Notebooks:: An Authorized And Illustrated Look Inside The Creative Mind Of Alfred Hitchcook. Although it is dense and wordy high-end analysis of his notebooks rather than direct reprints themselves.

Websites do almost as good a job, surprisingly. Like this one:
http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/11/hitchc...
(filmmakerIQ in general is a very good site but this link may be bad...here's another try:
https://storyboardart.org/hitchcocks-...

My point is that most of the famous storyboard everyone assume were drawn by Hitch were in fact drawn by a man named Harold Michelson.

Feliks wrote: "Steve wrote: "Dracula's Daughter."

Now that is a very obscure and unusual choice. Its a fairly well-reputed movie among horror fans, but it is even more renowned among LGBT circles for its 'overt ..."

Thanks for the links! I do have a Hitchcock book by Truffaut which is an interview with Hitchcock talking about each film. I have yet to read it though.

That's a famous interview, yep.

Something I've been chatting about to someone this week: isn't it weird how whenever they remake a flick from the 40s and 'update it for today' (adding in nudity, expletives, gory violence)...it usually fails? Whereas the classic version, people still want to watch exactly with the 'old fashioned' style it was originally made in?

Food for thought.

Precisely, Feliks. That's why I don't watch current movies. Rhett carrying Scarlett up the staircase is one of the most romantic scenes in a movie, yet both parties remain fully clothed.

Goodreads sent me a coupon today to purchase the iBook "Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood" for $2.99! It is on my "Want to Read" list. I prefer to read paper books, but couldn't pass up the price. Although I've never read an electronic book, I'm trying to cut back on clutter at home so at least this won't take up space. It will be handy to read while I'm waiting at appointments.

It all kind of proves the (overused) adage usually attributed to Kate Hepburn - we didn't know how to blow up buildings so we had to tell a good story.

Great quote Hugh

"...Goodreads sent me a coupon today to purchase the iBook..."

Shudder! Beware of this slippery slope you may be placing your dainty little foot upon! It's insidiously addictive..

:*[|]

I love Hitchcock,and most of his movies.

Can't go wrong with Hitchcock movies.
His American period is pure greatness.
Even his 'not-so-great' films are still better than most.
The golden years 1951-1964 especially 'Strangers on a Train'; 'Rear Window'; 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'; 'Vertigo'; 'North by Northwest'; 'Psycho'; 'The Birds' and under appreciated 'Marnie' all classics that can be watched over and over again without ever becoming tiresome. Every time you watch a Hitchcock, apart from the pure enjoyment, there is always something new to discover!

I've watched most of them,many times over.One which didn't meet the usual standard was Topaz.

Good book, though.

My fave is probably one that no one ever heard of. Made in England by E.A Dupont at the end of the silent film era, Picadilly stars the amazingly beautiful Chinese-American actress, Ann May Wong. Miss Wong went to England to escape the stereotyped roles given to Far Eastern actors and she almost succeeds in this film. The ending is a let-down but I so love the movie.

Here are my film ratings, starting with 5 stars.

https://rateyourmusic.com/film_collec...

Casablanca
Sabrina
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Seven Samurai
The Magnificent Seven
Cool Hand Luke
Almost every Hitchcock
The King and I
Singing in the Rain
Imitation of Life
Rosemary's Baby
A Patch of Blue
To Sir, with Love

And so, so many others.

Aye, ya can't forget how good that young Sidney Poitier was. Even 'late-classic-era' classic stars like he, (1960s & 70s) and the movies he appeared in, still seem to TOWER over the look of anything out there today. There's just a 'verve' and a 'presence' these guys had even though the studio era was effectively over. They behaved and spoke like stars should. Even in grim, gritty, granular, kitchen-sink dramas! Larger than life.