I don't recall the names of all the films I've seen Edward G. Robinson in. All my sons doesn't sound familiar. I need to get a copy.
I just watched Edward G in "Little Ceasar" [1931]
Now thats a gangster!! I was talking to a friend
who teaches film studies in high school ,and she
tells me that kids today won't watch black and white movies. Some of them say because they
aren't in color they can't tell the difference between
the characters! I guess thats just another sign of the decline and fall of western civilization.
I also watched 3 Red Skelton movies: "Whistling in Dixie", Whistling in Brooklyn", and "Whistling in the Dark".Watch them if you can find them, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.
My kids would not watch a film if it was old. For instance, My daughter loved a tv movie called Parent Trap II, which featured Haley Mills as an adult playing the same twins, but now with children of their own. I was certain she would fall in love with the original film. She looked at about thirty seconds of it and said, "You just want us to watch old movies." She left the room. So I watched it alone.
That's sad.
My mother was a huge movie fan and some of my fondest memories are watching our old favorites together. She adored "The Parent Trap." But she adored anything with Haley Mills.
I couldn't count the hours I have spent with my grandson watching Star Wars and Power Ranger movies. Fortunately, he has outgrown them now. He didn't even like Attack of the Clones and I was bored by it myself.
Edgar, I'm with you: I love old movies. Here's my list of 100 movies that I want to get on DVD -- not necessarily my top 100 list of all time, but just the ones that I really want to own (any title marked with an asterisk is something I already have in my DVD collection)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Adventures of Robin Hood, The (1938)*
Airplane! (1980)*
Aleksandr Nevsky (1938)
All About Eve (1950)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
Amadeus (1984)*
Animal Crackers (1930)
Animal House (1978)*
Apartment, The (1960)*
Big Sleep, The (1946)*
Blaue Engel, Der (1930)
Blazing Saddles (1974)*
Blues Brothers, The (1980)*
Born Yesterday (1950)*
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925)
Bull Durham (1988)*
Caine Mutiny, The (1954)
Casablanca (1942)*
Catch-22 (1970)*
Christmas Story, A (1983)
Citizen Kane (1941)*
City Lights (1931)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)*
Dracula (1931)
Duck Soup (1933)
Ed Wood (1994)
Fargo (1996)
Faust (1926)
Frankenstein (1931)
Gallipoli (1981)
General, The (1927)
Godfather, The (1972)
Godfather: Part II, The (1974)
Gold Rush, The (1925)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Goodfellas (1990)*
Graduate, The (1967)*
Grande illusion, La (1937)
Grapes of Wrath, The (1940)
Häxan (1922)
Harold and Maude (1971)*
High Noon (1952)
Horse Feathers (1932)
King Kong (1933)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
League of Their Own, A (1992)*
Lost Weekend, The (1945)*
Love and Death (1975)
M (1931)*
Maltese Falcon, The (1941)*
Manchurian Candidate, The (1962)
Manhattan (1979)
MASH (1970)
Meet John Doe (1941)
Metropolis (1927)
Mister Roberts (1955)*
Modern Times (1936)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)*
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)*
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)*
Music Man, The (1962)*
My Favorite Year (1982)*
My Man Godfrey (1936)*
Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, The (1988)*
Natural, The (1984)*
Night at the Opera, A (1935)
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)*
On the Waterfront (1954)*
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)*
Paths of Glory (1957)*
Patton (1970)
Phantom of the Opera, The (1925)
Princess Bride, The (1987)
Producers, The (1968)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Ran (1985)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)*
Safety Last! (1923)
Shining, The (1980)*
Singin' in the Rain (1952)*
Sleeper (1973)*
Son of Frankenstein (1939)
South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)*
Sting, The (1973)
Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Third Man, The (1949)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Unforgiven (1992)*
Verdict, The (1982)
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)*
White Heat (1949)
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
Young Frankenstein (1974)*
Joe
That's a great list. I own a number of them and a few I don't know. There are not many there that I don't care about.
Joefromchicago:
Old movies (before 1970) on your to buy list that I've seen, you don't have and I highly reccomend:
Aleksandr Nevsky (1938)
Blaue Engel, Der (1930)
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)
Bronenosets Potyomkin (1925)
City Lights (1931)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Gold Rush, The (1925)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Grapes of Wrath, The (1940)
Häxan (1922)
Horse Feathers (1932)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Metropolis (1927)
Modern Times (1936)
Night at the Opera, A (1935)
Streetcar Named Desire, A (1951)
Third Man, The (1949)
Wizard of Oz, The (1939)
Great list, BTW.
Thanks, Edgar and Læknir Scrat. I've seen all the movies on my list, but the following I've had some trouble finding on DVD:
Animal Crackers
Duck Soup
Horsefeathers
The old Paramount Marx Bros. movies were released on dvd some time ago, but they are no longer in print (used copies routinely go for over $100). As I understand it, the Paramount Marx Bros. movies are copyright nightmares, especially Animal Crackers. Paramount sold off its entire movie catalog in the 1950s, so there are always some problems in clearing up the legal rights to these titles.
Bride of Frankenstein
Dracula
Frankenstein
I believe that Universal released these titles on dvd a while ago: I've seen boxed sets of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, but I don't know if these titles, along with Bride of Frankenstein, have been released individually or are out of print.
Double Indemnity
I don't know what's up with this title. It should be available on dvd, but I've never seen it anywhere.
King Kong
I'm not sure what's up with this title either. I suspect that the RKO movies have some of the same copyright problems that the old Paramount titles have.
Safety Last
This one breaks my heart. Harold Lloyd owned the rights to all of his movies, and he steadfastly refused to release them for distribution. I think his heirs have relented somewhat (I saw Safety Last in a theater accompanied by a live jazz band conducted by Carl Davis), but there is no sign of any Lloyd movie appearing any time soon on dvd. Hopefully, Kino or Criterion will get their hands on these, restore them, and release them.
joe, you can buy Double Indemnity from A2K's portal here:
http://search.able2know.com/About/1602.html
mac11: Thanks for the link, but following it to Amazon.com shows that Double Indemnity is only available used. So I still don't know why this title is, apparently, out of print.
I'll also add one more title to my short "where are they?" list:
White Heat
This title had been released on videocassette, but it doesn't look like there are any plans to release it on dvd. Perhaps the recent release of the two-disc "Yankee Doodle Dandy" will spur more interest in releasing additional Cagney titles.
You're right, joe. Sorry if I got your hopes up - I should have checked out the availability on Amazon...
My current "where are they" list would include Ed Wood.
mac11: It looks like the
"special edition" of Ed Wood is set for release on Feb. 4.
White Heat and Harold Lloyd! I would love to get some of those.
edgarblythe wrote:White Heat and Harold Lloyd! I would love to get some of those.
Edgar, I'd bet that there are thousands of cinephiles around the globe who'd love to get their mitts on some of Harold Lloyd's movies. We can only hope that they become available soon.
And the scene in "White Heat" where Cagney learns that his mother is dead is worth the price of admission. The overwhelming grief, rage, and terror that Cagney displayed, without uttering a single line of dialog, is simply amazing.
Every once in a while I recall a B flick which starred a woman I don't remember and Percy Helton. Even the title eludes me - Maybe something like Wicked Woman. It opens with the woman stepping off a bus, running into Percy, then feigning love for him. They have some scenes in his room where Percy displays his passion. Soon he discovers the sham and after a blow up she is seen getting aboard another bus and the end. I liked Percy's performance enough I would like to see it today from a more mature point of view.
A video store down the street is selling off their stock. I bought They Came to Cordura, because I am such a fan of Gary Cooper, but I also like Rita Hayworth. It's another one I've long heard about, but never saw. I think it's the only time I've seen Van Heflin play a bad guy. Tab Hunter did pretty well, as did Richard Conte and Dick York. The first part did not draw me in, perhaps because of the clumsy nature of a film formatted from Cinemascope. You miss a lot because the picture is clipped, especially with the broad sweeping out of doors and the widely spread out soldiers in Battle scenes. Once it was just the big guy bringing the unwilling troops and unwilling Rita Hayworth along, it became quite absorbing. I guessed that Van Heflen would experience a change of heart and then help Coop out, but was only partially right. He experienced the change right at the conclusion. I was a bit disappointed that a film set in Mexico had so few Mexicans in it.
I saw They Came to Cordura a long time ago. I remember Cooper pulling some sort of conveyance by rope. He didn't look well (drawn and haggard) in that picture and I remember wishing that he hadn't aged so. I kept thinking of The Plainsman and The Westerner and wishing that time had been kinder to him.
He was accused of cowardice in the film, wasn't he? And the men who were to receive medals turned out to be not so deserving?
