Classic Films

[AnarchoChloe]

It's a classic film night over here at Casa de Chloe. I've got on my best set of heels and stockings, a freshly opened bottle of wine, and Audrey on the screen. Tonight's film is Funny Face, a 1957 Gershwin musical, starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn as, respectively, a fashion photographer torn between authentic artistic expression and his paycheck and a shy Greenwich Village philosophy bookseller and feminist who decides to accept a modeling contract in order to attend a lecture in Paris by her favorite philosopher. Like nearly every film she's in, Audrey just shines. A perfect blend of mousy vulnerability and fierce thinker. The music is a ton of fun and the dancing is superb. There was a Gap commercial a few years back that copped a jazz dance routine from this film to sell blue jeans (ironic considering the anti-commmercial theme of the film) that is still one of my favorites:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNesa12IL-o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

How about anyone else? Any love out there for the quality cinema of yesteryear?

[bethany]

Absolutly one of my all time favorites is "Bringing up Baby" staring Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn. It has to be the funniest movie I ever seen.

[AnarchoChloe]

Bringing Up Baby is a great one, Bethany. I love when the dog runs off with the dinosaur bone. I think my favorite Cary Grant film has to be The Philadelphia Story, though, with Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart. It's such a cute spin on Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night's Dream and Kate and Cary have such good chemistry together.

[Shodan]

For me you can never go wrong with an old Akira Kirosawa film. Rashomon and Throne of Blood are particularly among my favorites. That and you can never go wrong with Hitchcock.

[Andy]

YESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

I am a huge classic film fan. (I have Laurel and Hardy on right now, but not sure how much that counts!?)

Love Audrey and Katharine, of course! "African Queen" is a standard fave. Bogie, Gable, et al!! If "Gone With the Wind" comes on I have to stop everything and watch.

"Wuthering Heights," "Jane  Eyre"  -- anything and everything with Bette Davis or Carole Lombard!

Gotta have my Nick and Nora--love all the "Thin Man" movies (William Powell and Myrna Loy).

And don't forget my all time favorite....drum roll, please! "REBECCA"!!!! Love Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in that!!

If you haven't seen "Rebecca," stop everything right away and go rent it. It's Hitchcock!!

Oh, how I love my classic movies! Good thread!!! 

[bethany]

I forgot to mention another favorite of mine. It's a film from 1933. I consider it to be the greatest action adventure film of all time. And it gave birth to the scream queens. It stars Fay Wray and Bruce Cabot. It's none other than the eighth wonder of the world King Kong.

There is just something magical about this movie to me. It has the budding romance between Ann Darrow and Jack Driscoll. The special effects for the time were truly ground breaking. In fact I prefer them over todays use of cgi.

And I always tear up at the end of the film.

[Andy]

Oh, good one Bethany Dawn!

"King Kong" is great! And oh, how about all the old Universal "horror" set?! "Frankenstein," "Son of Frankenstein" and all the rest. That director...um, James Whale I think? Wonderfully portrayed by Sir Ian McKellan in "Gods and Monsters." (I love the gay connection on this--Hollywood! You can't make this >-bleeped-< up!!  )

And lest I forget my beloved TARZAN movies. Johnny Weissmuller, with Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane. "Tarzan and His Mate"--pre-code--is so freakin' HOT for its time!!! LOL  +  Wow.   


On another note, @ Chloe, I hope you don't mind that I read through your posts, a belated welcome! I loved reading your story, thanks for sharing, and thanks for joining us!

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

The Thin Man series.  With William Powell and Myrna Loy.  Some of the one liners are hilarious.

[AnarchoChloe]

Yes! The Thin Man series is a winner through and through. It's rare that I think a film trumps the book, but they go far beyond the Dashiell Hammett source material. I don't know how I've not seen Rebecca yet, Andy, but I'm going to be rectifying that in the very near future.

Speaking of Hitchcock, one of my all-time favorite films has to be To Catch A Thief with the always-amazing Cary Grant and the luminous Grace Kelly. She is just so effortlessly gorgeous in that film, it always takes my breath away. There's one shot in particular where she steps from a darkened room into the light and the light just dapples across her shoulders in such a splendid way that I've replayed dozens of times. Hitchcock had an amazing eye for how to frame a shot.

[AnarchoChloe]

@Andy- Thanks for the welcome. I'm really glad to have stumbled upon such an open and caring community.

[big kim]

The Adventure's of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn,there's never been a better Robin Hood.
The silent Nosferatu excellent
Night of the Demon
Angels with Dirty Faces

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Has to be "Casablanca" hands down.  Bogey and Bergman.

[AnarchoChloe]

Casablance is tip top. Peter Lorre at the top of his game.

[Andy]

Oh yes, of course "Casablanca." One of the best and one of my favorites. I had a gf years ago who looked like Ingrid Bergman (too bad she was crazy--one of those "pretty but mental" types--the gf, not Bergman LOL), so I always get a special thrill watching that one. Like Grace Kelly, she was "luminous."

@Ms O'Brien: Yes, good one liners in the "Thin Man" and one of my favorites: they are in a train, supposed to be packing to get off the train, Nora yells at Nick, "Are you packing?" and Nick says, "Yes, dear, I'm just putting away this liquor!" Priceless! 

I realized it's "Bride of Frankenstein" I meant earlier, not "Son of..". Elsa Lanchester is hysterical, and the whole thing has such a funny, queer sensibility about it, it's over-the-top!

[Devlyn]

Bogart does an excellent job in The Caine Mutiny, so does José Ferrer. The perfect snack for this one?


                                                   "Two quarts of strawberries."

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

The African Queen.  Hepburn was great playing with Bogey.

[Andy]

Going forward a little bit, I was such a snob of '30s and '40s movies (naw! really??), it took me a long time to admit to myself how much I love some of the later classics (and by later, I mean like '50s & '60s lol).

A lot of good movies came out of the '60s/early '70s: "Goodbye, Mr.Chips" (corny ol' thing! But I love Peter O'Toole lol), "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (OMG OMG MAGGIE SMITH!!lol) and "Bonnie and Clyde."

Some '50s classics as well, but they were a bit stilted in some way for my taste...like plays, maybe? But a few that stand out would be "A Place in the Sun" with the ever-gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, "Rebel Without a Cause" with James Dean and Natalie Wood, "On the Waterfront" with Marlon Brando, and a CLASSIC, "Some Like it Hot," with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the wonderful Marilyn Monroe!!!

[AnarchoChloe]

Yes! I've actually been on a bit of a Robert Redford bender lately- watched Butch Cassidy, 3 Days of the Condor, and The Candidate in the past week. The Sting is another that I just love. Bonnie & Clyde is stellar, early Warren Beatty is a catch. I agree with your take on a lot of 50s films, so many of them just seem stilted and contrived, as though they were poorly adapted from the stage. I am a big fan of young Brando though- On the Waterfront and Streetcar should be required viewing for anyone who enjoys film. I need to see The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie still, especially knowing that Maggie Smith is in it. I've been loving her on Downton Abbey.

[Andy]

Oh, I forgot to mention another classic favorite--"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"! Unbelievable acting. Dorothy McGuire. Um, Devlyn Marie, could you please pass the tissues??

Yes, Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey is wonderful and of course the Harry Potter movies, but way back when she was amazing as Jean Brodie.

Funny about Robert Redford, I had friends visiting over the holidays, and "The Way We Were" came on and of course everybody wanted to watch that!!

[bethany]

There are just to many great movies from years past. the 60's and 70's had great films made. The Hustler, The Graduate, Neil Simmon's The Odd Couple, M*A*S*H, The Godfather parts 1 and 2, Jaws, Star Wars (Even though Lucas killed the series by mucking with them way to much), Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Are all classic movies to me.