Classic Movies I’ve Never Seen and Will Not See (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

II have E.T. on Blu-ray but so far have not made it all the way through the film. I think I just came to it way too late. I skipped it when it was released in the 1980s and did not attempt to really sit through it until sometime in the last 4 years or so. So, it has no "nostalgia" value for me because I did not see it way back when and it is not subject matter that really appeals to me. I will try again at some point.

I don't think I saw E.T. as a kid (definitely not all of it) but I fell in love with it as an adult. Its one of Williams' best scores and that's saying something.

 

[JohnRice]

Wow, "Gentlemen's Agreement" a stinker. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

I haven't seen that. I have a Kazan box set, and I don't remember if it's in it. I guess I'll have to check.

EDIT: Yep, it's in it. Incredible 18 DVD box set I got for $24. No idea why it was so cheap.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I haven't seen that. I have a Kazan box set, and I don't remember if it's in it. I guess I'll have to check.

EDIT: Yep, it's in it. Incredible 18 DVD box set I got for $24. No idea why it was so cheap.

After you watch it if you want some additional thoughts I had on it I can elaborate but if you are going to watch it go in cold and see what you think. I went into it excited about watching it due to the talent involved. I was sold on Kazan, Peck and Garfield and thought how could I go wrong?

 

[JohnRice]

After you watch it if you want some additional thoughts I had on it I can elaborate but if you are going to watch it go in cold and see what you think. I went into it excited about watching it due to the talent involved. I was sold on Kazan, Peck and Garfield and thought how could I go wrong?

Confession, I think the only Kazan movie I'd seen when I got that box was A Face in the Crowd. I've been portioning them slowly, but I've been floored by how much I've liked everything I've seen so far. Splendor in the Grass knocked me out.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

It was a very different time in 1947, and you need to watch these movies filmed in a different era with that clearly in mind. I've heard stories from my grandfather that would make your hair stand up and some of those stories involved white people suffering retributions because of their religion and/or ethnicity.

Yes, I seem to have a hard time getting into some of the old, I call them "message films" because of the approach to the material. I don't think there is anything wrong with making a message film they just to me can be the type of film that ages horribly. Also, I really like subtlety in a picture, which these older message films seem to want nothing to do with.

I mean not all older films age that way for me. I watch stuff like Bringing Up Baby or Treasure of the Sierra Madre once a year and love them every time. They don't seem dated or old they just seem like great movies and while I can watch them thinking of the year they were made and what sort of context that puts them in mostly I just get swept up in their stories.

I think what Kazan and company set out to do was a noble thing it just looks pretty off all these years later.

 

[David_B_K]

I mean not all older films age that way for me. I watch stuff like Bringing Up Baby or Treasure of the Sierra Madre once a year and love them every time. They don't seem dated or old they just seem like great movies and while I can watch them thinking of the year they were made and what sort of context that puts them in mostly I just get swept up in their stories.

When this thread started, I was thinking of Bringing Up Baby. I'm embarrassed to say I had never seen that movie (what cineaste hasn't seen it?). I knew what it was generally about, and could recognize any still or scene from it; but I had never actually watched it. For me it has been like James Joyce novels or Marcel Proust - I know enough to answer Jeopardy questions about them, but never actually make it through them. I had always planned to watch it, and sort of felt like I had because I knew all about it.

Bringing Up Baby is on TCM regularly, and they use a still from it in that movie pop-up book they use before movies. This year, I DVR'd it and decided I would finally watch it. My wife was not too keen on it as she does not like screwball comedy as a genre. I told her I knew she would love it. Everybody regards it as a classic! It's got Hepburn and Grant! It's a Howard Hawks film! Well, neither one of us cared for it. As I sat there, I kept asking myself why don't I like this, and why is it so adored by so many people? It came off to me as almost a caricature of a screwball comedy with an actress imitating Kate Hepburn's rapid-fire delivery and accent. Almost nothing worked for me in the whole film.

If there is a happy ending to my story of disillusionment, I watched The Awful Truth a short time later and absolutely loved it (I think I developed a crush on Irene Dune as well).

 

[Robert Crawford]

After you watch it if you want some additional thoughts I had on it I can elaborate but if you are going to watch it go in cold and see what you think. I went into it excited about watching it due to the talent involved. I was sold on Kazan, Peck and Garfield and thought how could I go wrong?

To be fair, Garfield isn't in the film for very long as I think he has maybe 10-15 minutes of screen time in the film. The film is led by Peck along with Dorothy McGuire as his love interest and Anne Revere as his mother and Celeste Holm as the woman he should have stayed with, but gets tossed for McGuire.

Again, remember its 1947, and America was very much different than it is now. Anti-Semitism was still alive in this country despite our major participation in defeating Hitler. Back then, movies would be boycotted by half of the country very easily for issues like providing a black person a major speaking part in a movie.

 

[Robert Crawford]

When this thread started, I was thinking of Bringing Up Baby. I'm embarrassed to say I had never seen that movie (what cineaste hasn't seen it?). I knew what it was generally about, and could recognize any still or scene from it; but I had never actually watched it. For me it has been like James Joyce novels or Marcel Proust - I know enough to answer Jeopardy questions about them, but never actually make it through them. I had always planned to watch it, and sort of felt like I had because I knew all about it.

Bringing Up Baby is on TCM regularly, and they use a still from it in that movie pop-up book they use before movies. This year, I DVR'd it and decided I would finally watch it. My wife was not too keen on it as she does not like screwball comedy as a genre. I told her I knew she would love it. Everybody regards it as a classic! It's got Hepburn and Grant! It's a Howard Hawks film! Well, neither one of us cared for it. As I sat there, I kept asking myself why don't I like this, and why is it so adored by so many people? It came off to me as almost a caricature of a screwball comedy with an actress imitating Kate Hepburn's rapid-fire delivery and accent. Almost nothing worked for me in the whole film.

If there is a happy ending to my story of disillusionment, I watched The Awful Truth a short time later and absolutely loved it (I think I developed a crush on Irene Dune as well).

For a long time, I wasn't a fan of "Bringing Up Baby". I watched it when I was in my youth and didn't revisit it until 25-30 or so years later. It happens to us all. My opinion of "Bringing Up Baby" has changed now that I'm fast approaching my senior years, but it's still not among my favorite films of Grant and Hepburn, though, I think it's a very good comedy. I felt the same way about "Holiday". I didn't like it in my youth, but have changed my opinion as a "mature" adult.

The same thing with musicals. I'm not a big fan of them, but I have watched my share of them. For some reason, I like musicals made in the last 40 years more than those made back in the 1930s. I especially don't like the Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy musicals. I didn't like them as a kid and I still don't like them now.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, I seem to have a hard time getting into some of the old, I call them "message films" because of the approach to the material. I don't think there is anything wrong with making a message film they just to me can be the type of film that ages horribly. Also, I really like subtlety in a picture, which these older message films seem to want nothing to do with.

I mean not all older films age that way for me. I watch stuff like Bringing Up Baby or Treasure of the Sierra Madre once a year and love them every time. They don't seem dated or old they just seem like great movies and while I can watch them thinking of the year they were made and what sort of context that puts them in mostly I just get swept up in their stories.

I think what Kazan and company set out to do was a noble thing it just looks pretty off all these years later.

Well, those movies aren't going to change, so perhaps, you need to be a little more malleable when watching such classic movies. It's how I learned to enjoy movies more now that I didn't like when I was a younger version of myself.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Yes, I seem to have a hard time getting into some of the old, I call them "message films" because of the approach to the material. I don't think there is anything wrong with making a message film they just to me can be the type of film that ages horribly. Also, I really like subtlety in a picture, which these older message films seem to want nothing to do with.

I mean not all older films age that way for me. I watch stuff like Bringing Up Baby or Treasure of the Sierra Madre once a year and love them every time. They don't seem dated or old they just seem like great movies and while I can watch them thinking of the year they were made and what sort of context that puts them in mostly I just get swept up in their stories.

I think what Kazan and company set out to do was a noble thing it just looks pretty off all these years later.

I haven't seen a lot of Elia Kazan's films but the ones that I have seen hold up remarkably well. And while I would agree that some of the 'messaging' is pretty out in the open, that doesn't mean that there aren't subtleties in his films. I think this is particularly true for East of Eden and On the Waterfront.

I have a friend who is fairly critical of older films and certainly enjoys them less than I do, mostly because he labels the acting 'wooden' or 'theatrical', because he views these works through today's lens. I sometimes tell him that he would enjoy these films more if he tried to adopt a mindset that judges them from the context of when they were made.

(I'm not directing this comment at you, Reggie; merely sharing an anecdote that puts me in agreement with Robert's thoughts on deriving more entertainment from these films.)

- Walter.

 

[bujaki]

To be fair, Garfield isn't in the film for very long as I think he has maybe 10-15 minutes of screen time in the film. The film is led by Peck along with Dorothy McGuire as his love interest and Anne Revere as his mother and Anne Revere as the woman he should have stayed with, but gets tossed for McGuire.

Again, remember its 1947, and America was very much different than it is now. Anti-Semitism was still alive in this country despite our major participation in defeating Hitler. Back then, movies would be boycotted by half of the country very easily for issues like providing a black person a major speaking part in a movie.

Robert, you mean Celeste Holm, not Anne Revere, as the woman Peck should have stayed with. And how I agree with that statement. As much as I like McGuire as an actress, how I hated her character, and how I admired Holm's.
Anyway, I first saw this film in the early '60s, in my early teens. As a Puerto Rican living in Puerto Rico, I wasn't a victim of racial prejudice (until I moved here), and I knew no Jews. So this film was a revelation to me. And sorry to say, it's message, heavy handed or not, is still relevant.
Acting honors for me go to Holm and Garfield. It's a crime that he wasn't even nominated. At least Holm took Oscar home.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Robert, you mean Celeste Holm, not Anne Revere, as the woman Peck should have stayed with. And how I agree with that statement. As much as I like McGuire as an actress, how I hated her character, and how I admired Holm's.
Anyway, I first saw this film in the early '60s, in my early teens. As a Puerto Rican living in Puerto Rico, I wasn't a victim of racial prejudice (until I moved here), and I knew no Jews. So this film was a revelation to me. And sorry to say, it's message, heavy handed or not, is still relevant.
Acting honors for me go to Holm and Garfield. It's a crime that he wasn't even nominated. At least Holm took Oscar home.

A senior moment as Revere can't be his mother and his girlfriend. Not in a 1947 movie.

 

[Jeffrey D]

A little off topic, but an observation of the differences between older, classic films and today’s films. The biggest difference is how the
older films were shot and edited. The actors had to know a whole page or multiple pages of dialog, and not flub any of their lines, or go out of character- the older films had very little editing or cuts during a scene, and there seems to be a lot fewer over-the-shoulder shots, and more one-shots of 2 or more actors on screen during scenes. I have a lot more admiration of the classic actors and actresses since I’ve started watching films of the past.

 

[Richard V]

Off topic, not a classic by any means, but I will NEVER see The Human Centipede.

 

[Worth]

...Again, remember its 1947, and America was very much different than it is now. Anti-Semitism was still alive in this country despite our major participation in defeating Hitler...

Was still alive? Given the current state of the world, I'd say it's premature to use the past tense.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Was still alive? Given the current state of the world, I'd say it's premature to use the past tense.

Fair enough, but my main point is it was really, really bad back then.

 

[Edwin-S]

I'm sure there are a lot of classic films that are good, but if the subject matter holds no interest for me then I would rather spend two hours watching something I know I would like, even if it is considered bad by other peoples standards.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm sure there are a lot of classic films that are good, but if the subject matter holds no interest for me then I would rather spend two hours watching something I know I would like, even if it is considered bad by other peoples standards.

Why would anybody care about other peoples standards?

 

[Edwin-S]

Why would anybody care about other peoples standards?

Sorry, but people are influenced by other peoples standards all of the time. There are plenty of people who will refuse to see a film if a bunch of opinionated reviewers pan a flick. The opposite is also true of course.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Sorry, but people are influenced by other peoples standards all of the time. There are plenty of people who will refuse to see a film if a bunch of opinionated reviewers pan a flick. The opposite is also true of course.

Even so that's their business as I can only control what I'm thinking and seeing.