I've gotten more into it, these last few years, but a lot of the "classics" we frequently hear referenced are actually still excellent.
Casablanca is my favourite movie of all time. To Catch a Thief is bloody good (Grace Kelly!), as is North by Northwest (Eva Marie Saint!). It's a Wonderful Life has grown on me, over time, and, as a Christmas movie, it's definitely above average, if rather bleak. Spartacus, while cheesy, is pretty good, too. The Magnificent Seven (original) is fucking great. Towering Inferno (original) is also, I feel, rather underrated, these days. Hatari (John Wayne) is great, too. Even Logan's Run (just before blockbusters really took off) is very good, if a little weird. Network is a biting satire, far ahead of its time. And the original Pelham 1,2,3 is ahead of its time, too. I didn't really like The Graduate, but the soundtrack is very good.
Even some silent films (notably Metropolis by Fritz Lang, Nosferatu, etc) are pretty good too, in hindsight.
So yeah, I'm not claiming that Hollywood was ever particularly "based", or anything like that, but some of these "Silver Age" and "Golden Age" Hollywood productions are actually very, very good. Credit where credit is due.
No real point to this - just saying, if you are yet to really give "classics" like some of that lot a go, well, maybe it's worth it, for a break from all the woke shit of Current Era, lol...
Any other recommendations welcome, ha.
Spartacus was written by an outright commie as propaganda, attempting to portray the united states as fascist. Just because they largely failed at this and made a halfway decent movie out of it doesn't ameliorate the fact that Hollywood even then was a den of leftist vipers bent on subverting civilized society.
That is the criticism of Hollywood. Malignant intent, not competency.
This is true, but can you imagine a top star like John Wayne in today's Hollywood, agitating to remove commies from the industry and making reply movies like Rio Bravo to High Noon? Like most entertainment industries they are now utterly overtaken.
Of course it's gotten worse. That is the wage of tolerance. If you don't get rid of the termites, they'll only ever eat more of your house. Coexistence was never possible or desirable.
Agreed. This outcome was inevitable with "live and let live" philosophy.
Live and let live works perfectly well if everyone involved abides by it. But this is only possible in a culturally and racially homogeneous society, that punishes those who won't abide by it.
Here are a few more worth checking out if you haven't already:
Very good list. I think Thief is a very underrated film, probably one of the best neo noirs.
Kudos for mentioning the oft-overlooked Sorcerer!
The original The Wages of Fear is also great, but doesn't have the otherworldly feel of Sorcerer.
Night of the Hunter.
Basically what went wrong was the Jews systematically took over media after WWII for propaganda and along with it came their weird ethos that nobody else can stand.
Before that movies had wholesome values and actual talented triple threats, after it was base and smutty.
All good movies. I have the book Logan’s Run is based on but haven’t read it yet. Casablanca is one of my all time favorite movies and Bogart is one of my favorite actors. Magnificent 7 is great and that soundtrack was good. I have been meaning to watch The 7 Samurai. You may like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Best Years of Our Lives, Lilies in the Field, Dial M for Murder, and In the Heat of the Night.
Audrey Hepburn movies are always good as well. Wow, I could go on and on lol
To Be or Not to Be is a surprisingly fresh comedy for its time (original 1942 - mel brooks did an 80s remake but eh), and director Ernst Lubitch also has a good romcom/christmas movie called The Shop Around the Corner (Jimmy Stewart) which I watched last month.
Obvious classic noirs should not be missed, my pick would be Double Indemnity, Night and the City and Murder, My Sweet. The Big Heat is also a classic and I remember having a soft spot for Where the Sidewalk Ends, which made me sad that Dana Andrews was never better utilised in more noirs (I don't really like Laura, the best known one of his).
Classic westerns is an area of which I'm pretty ignorant, although Winchester '73 is a very overlooked one, again with Jimmy Stewart.
For some 1940s-50s Hollywood meta commentary, I don't think you can do better than what the Coens showed in Barton Fink and Hail, Caesar. Although they're 2 very different types of movie, 25 years apart, I kind of view them as a pair. The first of is a surreal psychological examination of Hollywood's relationship with beauty and truth, the latter being a satirical take on the struggles of hollywood 'fixer' Eddie Manix, who is depicted as practically a saint even though the Coens surely know he was not.
Who thinks otherwise?
Me. I'm not the kind of person who automatically hates everything old, but old movies in particular I really don't like. The acting is extremely stilted because they all went to the same rigid acting school, so everyone is always doing a bad impression of British royalty. Look up "transatlantic accent". Nobody talks like that. Nobody except actors who were taught to because it makes them sound fancy.
Some older movies where they actually act like human beings are great, but almost all of them are terribly acted.
Having done a little bit of "theatre" stuff myself - it's an entirely different form of acting...
Not saying you're wrong, necessarily, but there's a reason that style of acting feels so weird, nowadays...
Essentially, the sort of "naturalism", if you will, hadn't really come into film acting yet (arguably, some TV of the era had it, to a greater extent), in particular as many of those actors had a theatrical background...
They were literally taught to speak that way. Much as newsreaders in Commonwealth countries were.
So it's not that the acting is "terrible". It's just not what you are used to.
Personally, I love Cary Grant's acting, even if obviously the accent is dubious. It just takes some getting used to is all.
Probably still a pack of degenerative narcissists, but the studio system’s PR people kept it under wraps.
It's a Wonderful Life is one of those movies that's very interesting with the benefit of 80 years' of hindsight now that we all live in Pottersville.
George is clearly a smart guy; one of the smartest in Bedford Falls. And he's a driven man who directs that drive toward his people. But what's he want to do at the beginning of the movie? Go off to college and never return to Bedford Falls. What would have happened if he had? The town probably would have been much the same as it was had he never been born, excepting his brother would still be alive and the pharmacist wouldn't have poisoned those kids.
What started to happen in the 60s and really kicked into overdrive in the 80s and 90s? More universities were built, and more people like George were able to live their dream of going to college. And many did in fact never return home when they graduated. It's similar in concept to the "Brain Drain" concept less developed countries go through when their smartest citizens immigrate to more developed ones.
Of course something that a Hollywood movie made in that era wouldn't want to bring attention to is that sometimes in real life people like Potter are simply gunned down in the street in broad daylight, and sometimes when that happens the sheriff (who may also be under the thumb of that someone) is too "busy" to find out who did it.