My youngest daughter (then 16) just couldn't understand why I would watch black and white movies. "It's like the 21st century, Dad." Movies made in the 21st century have limited appeal to me. I'm in the target demographic of 50 to death. I also think it's because the big blockbusters for all their techo gimmickry lack really good dialogue. I remember when they dragged me to see Titanic and Pearl Harbor. I told them I know how these movies ends. "Look if the Titanic docks in New York, this is a finish I have to see." My protests fell on deaf ears. Probably from the loud crap they listen to. I sound just like my Dad. EWWW.
One Saturday afternoon when instant messaging, talking on the phone with the TV on and listening to music simultaneously was BORING, I invited her to watch " The Man Who Came to Dinner" with Monty Woolley, Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Jimmy Durante and a whole host of character actors you recognize but don't know their names. Well, she loved it. If you haven't seen it, get it from Netflix or see it on TCM. I believe it's the only comedy Bette Davis ever made. I wish she had made more.
So she was hooked and we embarked on an adventure together, viewing nothing but movies from the silver screen. So here's my list. This is going to be fun or not. And if you are 20 or 30 something, and think I'm clueless, give it a shot with a significant other.
I. The Man Who Came to Dinner. -- Monty Woolley et al
II. A Night at the Opera -- Marx Brothers (who knew Kitty Carlisle could sing?)
III. Dinner at Eight -- Jean Harlow (before the code) Drew Barrymore's Great Grandparents
IV. The Philadelphia Story -- Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn
V. The Petrified Forest -- Humprey Bogart and Leslie Howard
VI. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Jean Arthur, Jimmy Stewart
VII. Casablanca -- Humphrey Bogart,Ingrid Bergman
VIII To Be or Not to Be -- Jack Benny, Carole Lombard
IX. The Maltese Falcon - Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet
X. Arsenic and Old Lace - Cary Grant
XI. International House -- WC Fields, Burns and Allen
XII. Duck Soup - The Marx Brothers
XIII. Gay Nineties - Abbott and Costello (who's on first)
XIV. Miracle on 34th St - Natalie Wood Edmund Gwenn
XV Bringing up Baby - Cary Grant, Katherin Hepburn
XVI - To have and have not - Bogart/Bacall
XVII - One Two Three - James Cagney
XVIII - Laura - Clifton Webb, GeneTierney
XIX - The Thin Man - Myrna Loy, William Powell
XX - Blackboard Jungle - Glenn Ford
XXI - Key Largo - Bogart/Bacall
XXII - It Happened One Night Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert
XXIII - Woman of the year - Tracy/Hepburn
XXIV - The Strange love of Martha Ivers - Barbara Stanwyck, Kirk Douglas
XXV. Some Like it Hot - Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon
Enjoy.
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VII. Casablanca
Two of my favorites along with "Some Like It Hot". I loved Jack Lemmon.
(rated)
Greg -- The magic thing about this experience is that my daughter got more interested in reading, particularly because she liked the dialogue that went with characters. Plus the relationship building that came out of it was great too.
Rrrrrrated!
I think discovering black and white movies is sort of a rite of passage into "adulthood" for a lot of kids. I can remember when I first found The Maltese Falcon on some tv channel - probably WGN. It was love at first sight.
Oh, you can watch Some Like It Hot whenever you want, for free, at Hulu.com. It's legal.
I'd also recommend The Lady Eve for comedy. Oh, and His Girl Friday! - and then The Hudsucker Proxy. :)
Sullivan's Travels
Teacher's Pet
Father of the Bride (original version)
The Best Years of Our Lives -- (and talk to the teens about this movie in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan)
It's A Wonderful Life
The Seven Samurai - (give 'em a few foreign movies!)
Yojimbo
Schindler's List (yeah, it's modern but shot in black and white)
The Hidden Fortress (one of the inspirations of Star Wars, from what I hear)
(spoiler alert)
Teacher's Pet could be viewed as really sexist, but Gable shows some real humility at the end.
Best years of our lives doesn't really show its age at all. Good point about the Iraq and Afganistan.
Sullivan's Travels there's are lot of learning the character goes though.
I rate those thoughtful pics. Thanks very much.
These are awesome films, awesome. I watched a lot of these in High School, loved both The Philadelphia Story and High Society, also the Road series with Bing and Bob. I fell so hard for Cary Grant that I sobbed my eyes out when he died and kept his obituary by the side of my bed! Maybe it was a past life thing.
Your daughter is very lucky.
Surely you've seen Schindler's List. You must mean Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress. If you haven't seen them you're in for a real treat. Both are among my favorites. Both star Toshiro Mifune and were directed by Kurosawa. Yojimbo was remade into A Fistful of Dollars with Clint Eastwood, and Last Man Standing with Bruce Willis.
Blandings Dream House and Father of the Bride are hilarious -- just about killed me.
"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (even if it ventures far from the novel). That young Joan Blondell...
spud - When Nick at Nite first went on they had Route 66 which was filmed on location, and had great dialog. The old Perry Mason's were cool.
Jacey -- B/W movies are an acquired taste like Scotch or wine. Hope you enjoy these titles.
Palm Beach Story ... also with Claudette Colbert
The Awful Truth with Irene Dunne and Cary Grant.
Uh, maybe that's for the list of 50.
I second The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda
The 1939 version of The Women with Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford (definitely superior to last year's version)
Madame X with Lana Turner and while we're at it, Imitation of Life too.
Double Indemnity with Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck
The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum.....he was all kinds of crazy in that one.
A Place in the Sun with Monty Clift and Liz Taylor.
Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte with Olivia DeHavilland at her evil best and a pathetically fragile Bette Davis.
Mrs Miniver with Greer Garson
and lastly....for now.....Mildred Pierce with Joan Crawford......I still want to snatch Ann Blyth by the neck. lol
Mishima -- I meant the two Japanese movies you mentioned. Some others that are more cinematic:
Paths of Glory
Sweet Smell of Success
The Train
Naked City
Catamite - For a young Blondell and Hepburn, and Lucille Ball and Eve Arden STAGE DOOR.
Overoworked - I hadn't seen Midnight, have seen Palm Beach Story and Awful Truth.
now I might be losing my mind.. its very possible.. but wasnt What about Baby Jane.. or maybe it was called What ever happened to baby Jane.. or maybe just Baby Jane.. anyway wasnt that in black and white?? I love that movie.. and one day hope to be that pyscotic and do in my sister like that LOL
BTW Betty Davis had some freaky eyes
Rated.
Second all of the ones mentioned in this thread, and add Dr. Strangelove and His Girl Friday.
CatB--So glad to see someone mention I Want to Live. The gas chamber scene is one of the most chilling things I've ever seen on film.
Token Tarheel -- I love your phraseology "I forced her". Hahaha Like "eat your vegtables", then they find that they like it. MM was good in Seven Year Itch...not sure for 13 year old, but a great movie.
Barbara Ann -- Baby Jane a great flick, thats on the TOP 50 list.
Mumble - That's a great flick too, rated.
Bill Beck & Sheldon -- My daughter calls Citizen Kane, "The Sled Movie" . You two could appreciate that. Talk about spoiler.
Cartouche -- It's on the top 50. Watch the camera shots throughout the movie next time. Wide angle shots at the beginning, then tighter and tighter shots as the tensions build.
Do not get me started.
FTM - they are a great.
Allie - Watch for a lot of those depression era flicks to take an encore, given the economy.
Geoff - From a purely gender perspective, I couldn't get her interested in some of the John Ford movies, even though we were living in his hometown at the time. They Were Expendable, 30 Seconds Over Toyko, Battleground, Boomtown. It doesn't take much to get you started.
"Some Like It Hot" is of course one of the best movies ever made
And to Mishima's foreign films I'd add "Les Enfants du Paradis"
Procopious - Opening scene of Touch of Evil one of the best opening shots, ever.
Roy - I agree with on the newer B/W movies. I'd add The Last Picture Show, but I kept that off our list. I'd seen that movie at 16 and didn't want to get her any ideas.
This is but one of the many innovations that Welles played with in Kane (the only film on which he was ever given free rein), which were considered either startlingly new or just flashy (known about but not used in Hollywood) at the time. I took a friend to see Kane some years ago as he'd never seen it and they were showing it on a big screen and I told him before it started, you have to understand that most of this stuff would have looked shocking in 1941. But it's just impossible to see it with those eyes, as so much that Welles did is now not just old hat but standard. But there's a lot written about Kane if you ever want to know why it's considered so groundbreaking.
And as a side note to someone - Welles appears (famously and wonderfully) in the The Third Man but it was directed by Carol Reed, no slouch himself.
Glad you had more success than I did. Great list. Great shout out to TCM. I watch it as much as I watch HBO.
jimmymac -- Remember the curse: "Someday you'll have kids and they'll grow up to be just like you." The curse works. Bwhahahahaha.
Oh_Henry: I obviously lack Purity of Essence.
Favorite comment from my five year old? "Mommy, why was all the TV grey when you were a little girl?" Also, just introducing them to movie musicals (even though they are in color) is a must: Funny Girl, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain. It is our job to educate the masses, ie., our teenaged children. Rated!
Navel -- You're right about Patch of Blue and A Raisin in the Sun. I'd add Lillies of the Field and The Defiant Ones.
Lisa, I struggled with that list. Gentlemen's Agreement should on it. The first time I saw I was rooting for Celeste Holm to win Peck's love. She played a very 21st century woman character in 1947 and took no prisoners. She never got the man.
I kept the musicals out simply due to Technicolor.
Some I like to add:
Harvey
All About Eve
Sunset Boulevard
It's a Gift - W C Fields, sadly, has apparently been forgotten, but this one is a gem.
The Women - the "real" one, not the plastic remake.
Camille - don't leave out Garbo.
I am glad someone agrees with me about the Women.....last year's was a joke.
I agree with everyone's pick for Susan Hayward's "I want to live" that was excellent. I also enjoyed "Back Street" co-starring the handsome, John Gavin that illustrated that being the other woman is no fun.
sheepdog said comedy. I'm taking my pixels and going... nowhere.
I'm glad someone remembered Harvey.
All great mentions, tho. His Girl Friday is in the public domain, so it's also at Hulu.
If you don't know about it, this site: movies found online has some of the classics.
I do have to say that, although Citizen Kane is GREAT - a feast for the eyes - my favorite Welles' movie isn't one he directed. I love The Third Man. Touch of Evil is also wonderfully cheesy.
The Killers (Burt Lancaster's first film and a film noir classic)
M a german film starring Peter Lorre as a predatory pedophile (1930)
Kind Hearts and Coronets a British comedy where Alec Guiness plays 12 different rolls
Dr Strangelove Peter Sellers in 3 amazing roles
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon John Ford at his B&W best
The Informant about a dumb soul who becomes an informant against the IRA in the 30's
anything with Lana Turner!
I would add Fritz Lang's movies to your list: from the original B&W Metropolis, to M (with Peter Lorre in the role of the BAAAD guy), and more Hitchcok's: Notorious, The 39 Steps; and from Lubitsch (BTW, To Be or Not To Be, my favorite comedy of all time!): his little-known drama called Broken Lullaby, and his better-known The Shop Around the Corner.
And if you also care to introduce you daughter to great B&W foreign movies, -I did that with my teenagers-, try the 1956 Soviet cult movie: The Cranes Are Flying, with Tatiana Samoilova and Alexei Batalov, or also the Soviet version of Anna Karenina (and then compare with also good but not as good version with Greta Garbo). Italian movies galore: Rossellini's Stromboli and Roma, Citta Aperta come to mind right away, but also of course La Dolce Vita.
And in the Indie department, I recommend Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, or Down By Law; also Axel Corti's Trilogy about World War 2, Welcome in Vienna.
And, the first part of Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire (the second part is in color and brilliant too, but we are talking B&W here).
Finally and because I am French: Renoir's La regle du jeu is a good one too.
Also, the original "Diabolique." I don't even bother to watch the remake of a movie like that - why waste my money. (Same goes for The Women.)
Maybe someone can think of a decent remake but I can't - I think Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much was better than the Doris Day remake - even tho that's probably the best remake I can think of offhand.
Rene Clair's Le Million is also a great early slapstick comedy.
You've got me on a jag
Jules and Jim
anything by Renoir
the original Breathless
Kurosawa's Yojimbo, Kegamusha or Rashomen....
or anything by either Chaplin or Laurel & Hardy
From Here to Eternity (Burt Lancaster *and* Montgomery Clift)
Abbot and Costello
Pandora's Box (Louise Brooks)
The Sheik (Rudolph Valentino.... watch the blush rise *cackles*)
Gilda
Red River
The Day The Earth Stood Still
I'm No Angel (Mae West!!!)
Stalag 17
King Kong (the original, not the remake urgh)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Laughton)
Buster Keaton
Waterloo Bridge
Can I come back as I remember them? lol