What are your favourite old movies?

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The Ten Commandments, on two video cassettes. It always surprised me, how often my kids picked that one to watch all the way through.
 
Demolition Man, my version of a scary movie, in which procreation is limited to persons biologically approved by the state, with virtual sex available to the remainder of the population.

My alternate “scary” movie is The Matrix.
 
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Is there any other (worth seeing, that is)? Wonderful, funny film with a somewhat touching ending. Even those who are NOT New Yorkers can appreciate this one.

Sorry, Margaret, this post was meant to address Pup’s comment about The Out-of-Towners.
 
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About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson, crusty old guy goes on a trip after his wife dies, opens up to new meaning in his life.
 
Crocus said:
The Ten Commandments, on two video cassettes. It always surprised me, how often my kids picked that one to watch all the way through.
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I have a story about this movie and “The Greatest Story Ever Told”.

It’s 100% true.

We were living in Saudi Arabia and had driven to Bahrain for a long weekend. Bahrain is far more liberal than Saudi was (this was around the year 2000) - you can drink, women didn’t have to wear an abayya (the black cloak you see Saudi women in), you get the picture. So when we drove back across the causeway, I had to put my abayya back on.

We had bought those two DVDs in the mall in Manama.

I stuck them in the waist of my pants and put my abayya on over them, knowing they’d never search a female (it’s unlikely they’d search an expat anyway, but I knew they’d never touch me).

😆😆😆

Still have the DVDs. We just can’t get rid of them. After all, they were contraband.
 
meltzerboy2 said:
Sorry, Margaret, this post was meant to address Pup’s comment about The Out-of-Towners.
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That is quite possibly the funniest movie I’ve ever seen.

I still lose it when he chips that tooth and whistles for the rest of the film.

And her “Oh my GOOOOD, George” in that exaggerated NYC accent is priceless.
 
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Crocus said:
We picked up a DVD of The Searchers a couple of years ago and found it very cringe worthy, for its depiction of indigenous people as savages. It was common in old movies and even in school textbooks sad to say. 😔
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they were not politically correct in those days and if they would ever do a remake, some of the dialogue would have to be changed.
the movie was made in the mid 1950’s.
dude ranches were popular in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Arizona had only been a state for about 40 years. stories of life in the Old West were still fresh from Grandparents. the pioneers settling in the West faced many dangers and i am sure Indian attacks were close to the top of the list.
TV Westerns were popular in the 1950’s and movie westerns had been popular since the 1930’s. Zane Grey was a popular author. it was part of the history of our nation.
i still think the movie is very good, especially for fans of John Wayne and old
Westerns.
 
You have to take a lot of old movies in the era in which they were written. You can’t put a 21st century filter on something made sixty years ago for certain.
 
I totally agree that those were different times, though some of the racist tensions survive today.

Watching the same movie in the 50s is much different than watching it today, as it should be. We can learn from it.

My biggest shock was the portrayal of the kidnapped girl as having been turned into a base wild animal, whose intellectual capacities only returned after she suddenly remembered her earlier civilized life on the ranch.
 
Witness, about a murder an Amish boy witnesses, is excellent. With Harrison Ford. I can’t remember the lead woman’s name.
 
Imitation of Life - Claudette Colbert and the Lana Turner version. The first is a little more cutesie, but the portrayal by Susan Kohner in the Lana version is amazing.
 
yes, i was shocked too of the portrayal of white women who had been taken by the
Indians to live among them.
Dances With Wolves was a little kinder.
everyone copes differently, so perhaps it was not far from the truth for certain women.
 
Dlee said:
Imitation of Life - Claudette Colbert and the Lana Turner version. The first is a little more cutesie, but the portrayal by Susan Kohner in the Lana version is amazing.
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Imitation of Life is fascinating to me, dealing as it does with a phenomenon that was prevalent in the twentieth century: that of light-skinned black people trying to pass as white in order to gain the perceived societal advantages of white people, like better jobs, the right to vote, buying property in desirable neighborhoods, &c. In this sense both the original and the remake are rather dated, but that doesn’t nullify the incredible emotional impact of the story, especially in the Lana Turner remake. I agree that Susan Kohner’s performance is outstanding, but even Lana, who could often be wooden and monochromatic, is better than her usual standard. I think everyone was inspired by the story.
 
•Amadeus (a must for any music lover. It changed the music world!)

Absolutely.

But “A Christmas Carol” with George C. Scott as Scrooge.

“Empire of the Sun”

And most of all “Schindler’s List”
 
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Avatar reminded me a little of Dances With
Wolves. I liked Dances With Wolves better
than Avatar. I have not seen Dances With
Wolves for years so I can’t comment on it historical accuracy.
 
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Tombstone.
 
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7_Sorrows said:
I have not seen Dances With
Wolves for years so I can’t comment on it historical accuracy.
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Oh, it’s enjoyable enough. Not being critical of anyone who likes it. I was just surprised when it portrayed the Pawnee as the oppressors of the Sioux, when it was very much the other way around.
 
“Gran Torino” with Clint Eastwood has a lot of sadness in it, but a lot that’s uplifting. Eastwood’s character’s trick on the bad guys in the end is just priceless!
 
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