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Jeannie Come Lately Post: BookLikes Round Robin — Favorite Pre-1980s Movies – Lioness at Large

Jeannie Come Lately Post: BookLikes Round Robin — Favorite Pre-1980s Movies

Pretty much everybody has seen it at this point I guess, but anyway, here is Book Cupidity’s idea:

“Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. The list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The parameters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980, I sort of arbitrarily picked this number, and sort of didn’t — for the young whippersnappers, Star Wars is the equivalent to some of our black and white favs. Plus, I think cinema in the 80’s had a different feel.

So, tell me some of your favorites! Maybe we will discover new great flicks and new friends. Let’s tag the post so that we can search it over the weekend – “Fav old movies’. I will also use the tag ‘BL Round Robin.”

So while everybody else is probably already moving on to the next decade, i.e. movies made in the 1980s (since that’s cropped up in the comments to some of yesterday’s posts), here’s my pre-1980s contribution:

 

Humphrey Bogart
They don’t make ’em like that anymore — there isn’t, never was and never will be, anyone like him.  I’m going to limit myself to the three absolute essentials, though I’m sorely tempted to list virtually his entire body of work.

Oh yes, and Bacall of course — and Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.  ‘Nuff said


All About Eve
The Bette Davis movie to end all Bette Davis movies, and the principal reason why I’m a fan of hers.  Bumpy ride indeed.


Grigori Kozintsev: Hamlet (Гамлет)
You didn’t really think I’d be capable of posting without a reference to Shakespeare, did you?  This is one of my all-time favorite adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in general, and of “Hamlet” in particular.  (And no, I don’t speak Russian, but who needs subtitles with a play, and a movie, like this?!)


Witness for the Prosecution
Marlene Dietrich.  Billy Wilder.  Charles Laughton.  (OK, and Tyrone Power.)  Based on a story (and a play) by Agatha Christie.  One of the best court movies ever made — and that “hearing aid” cross-examination scene is even the stuff of law school trial advocacy classes these days.


Murder on the Orient Express
Allbert Finney isn’t my favorite Poirot (that would be David Suchet), but you can’t beat this one for class, style and a cast that somehow makes the word “star-studded” sound like the understatement of the decade (including some of my all-time favorite actors, in particular Lauren Bacall, John Gielgud, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, and Wendy Hiller).


Mata Hari
Ah, Greta Garbo.  Hollywood’s iciest blonde, even more so than Bacall and La Dietrich.  I could just as well have listed Ninotchka, Grand Hotel or Anna Karenina, too, but what the heck.  This one is utterly and completely fictionalized, but it’s a great spy story, and who can resist Garbo opposite Ramon Novarro?


The Thin Man
Doesn’t actually have all that much to do with Dashiell Hammett’s literary original, but a hot contender for an adaptation that’s actually better than the book.  Myrna Loy and William Powell are the duo from hell (or heaven, depending on your perspective), and you just gotta love Asta.

“Will you bring me five more martinis, please?”


Chinatown
43 years later, still the best neo-noir, bar none.  Hits all the right skewed notes and grey shades (noir grey, that is, not that book … [*TA ducks*]), and Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston are right up there with Bogey, Bacall and Sidney Greenstreet.

“Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown …”


Le Samouraï
Nobody epitomized “cool” the way Alain Delon did, and nowhere more so than in this movie.  Looks to die for and killer charm at arctic temperatures.


M: Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder
Claustrophobic, dark and eerily timeless: German pre-WWII cinema at its best; the story of a serial killer and child abuser who ends up being hunted by an entire city.  Directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre.


The Godfather
The whole trilogy, actually, though only Parts 1 and 2 qualify for inclusion in this list.  The mob movie trilogy to end all mob movies — directed by Francis Ford Coppola and bringing together Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert de Niro.  How much more heavyweight can you get?

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse …”


To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men
Golden Age Hollywood’s two other stand-out court movies, with mindblowing performances by their respective stars and a tremendous cast all around.


Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Two names: Paul Newman and Tennessee Williams.  A killer combination in the best and most lethal sense simultaneously.  Liz Taylor is in great shape, too, but truthfully, it’s all about those two guys for me.


Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Sting
While we’re mentioning Paul Newman, his hilariously funny double bill with Robert Redford obviously can’t be left out, either.

Bifocals, anybody?


All the President’s Men
And while we’re on it, I could just as easily have listed the better part of His Redfordness’s body of work, too.  One of my all-time favorite Redford movies is outside the parameters for this list (Out of Africa … expect that one on my list for the 1980s), but this one comes darned close.  And anyway, Watergate was one of the defining moments of the 1970s, so there!


The Day of the Jackal and Bullitt
The two movies that, along with Redford’s Three Days of the Condor and the Sean Connery Bond films exemplify 1960s and 1970s thrillers to me.


James Bond 007: Goldfinger
There’s only one James Bond, and he is Sean Connery — and Goldfinger sets the standard for every single other Bond movie.  (Plus, it’s got Gert Froebe.)


In the Heat of the Night
“My name is Virgil Tibbs.”

Growing up in Europe, the movie that taught me more about racism in the pre-Civil Rights / Black Power Movement Southern U.S. than anything I could have read in a book.


East of Eden and Rebel Without a Cause
Can you reach adulthood as a woman without having had a giant crush on James Dean at some point in your life, I wonder?  (Or is this a generational thing?)  Mine had everything to do with these two movies — and it (as well as my lasting interest in everything Southwestern U.S.) also ended up making me a major fan of John Steinbeck.


Gone With the Wind
The epic love story to end all epic love stories.  (Also, Clark Gable.)  Yes, I know it’s been called racist, and totally for good reason.  But I can’t help it; I’m sucked right in every single time.  So call me a sop …


The Scarlet Pimpernel
Forget Anthony Andrews and Richard E. Grant: If you haven’t seen the Pimpernel portrayed by Leslie Howard yet, you’ve missed out on the real thing.  Nobody else manages the transition from cunning swashbuckling hero to preposterous fop as seamlessly and convincingly.  And needless to say, this is a completely different Leslie Howard from Ashley in Gone With the Wind, too …


Scaramouche
He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad” — and he’s a hot contender for the Pimpernel when it comes to swashbuckling heroes and revolutionary France.


The Three Musketeers
1973 version — never surpassed.  One of the first swashbucklers I ever watched, and still one of my all-time favorites.


Ivanhoe
And speaking of swashbucklers, how can I leave out this story?  Never again in film history were medieval knights and damsels in distress so romantic and just plain sexy.


The Adventures of Robin Hood
Never again after Ivanhoe … but before that there was, of course, already Errol Flynn!  I’m going to go with Robin Hood, here (particularly since I’ve already included another Sabatini story further above — Scaramouche), but I could just as easily have included the adaptations of Raphael Sabatini’s Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk.


Kind Hearts and Coronets
Alec Guinness’s most hilarious multiple-character tour de force ever.  Ealing Studios at their absolute best.


To Catch a Thief
Hitchcock on a slightly lighter note — also, Nice and the French Riviera (… and Cary Grant.  Has to be at least one Cary Grant movie in everybody’s list, as it turns out!).  A sentimental favorite.


Lawrence of Arabia
(aka “Orence”). I’m a sucker for Hollywood’s classic epic movies in case you hadn’t noticed, and who can resist a double billing of Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif, set in an exotic location (and purporting to be based on, even though in reality myopically glorifying, real historical events)?


The Lion in Winter and Becket
Speking of Peter O’Toole, can’t leave out his two forays into medieval history (or more precisely, Henry II’s troubled reign), either.  You really don’t want to cross that Plantagenet king … and his costars in both movies aren’t exactly slouches, either.  Pure dynamite, in fact.


A Man for All Seasons
And while we’re speaking about great historical movies and English kings and their advisors, obviously this one needs to be added to the list, too.  Up until Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books I’d have taken this as gospel on Thomas More’s character, but whatever the historical truth, it’s an amazing film.


Ben-Hur
‘Nother one of Hollywood’s great epics.  Yes, it’s preachy — but man, that chariot race alone is worth the price of admission.  And you just gotta love Sheik Ilderim … (also, as a teenager I had a major crush on Stephen Boyd’s Messala).


Quo Vadis
Forget the persecution of Christians stuff; this one you have to see just for the fun of watching Peter Ustinov satirizing Emperor Nero.


Star Wars
(So I’m finally getting ’round to this one, too, Troy … 🙂 )

To this day, one of the few SciFi / Fantasy sagas other than Tolkien’s Middle Earth books that I not only can endure but can actually watch over and over.  It changed the way Hollywood does things in more ways than one, made household names of those of its participants that weren’t well-known already, and taught moviegoers that even robots can be downright cute.


Cabaret, West Side Story, and My Fair Lady
Of Hollywood’s varied and numerous adaptations of musicals (or films featuring musical numbers), by and large these three qualify as my all-time favorites; in terms of storylines, actors and production values alike, each in its own way.


Karl May Adaptations
My guilty pleasure movies: the 1960s’ Karl May adaptations starring Pierre Brice and Lex Barker as Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Cheesy and only marginally faithful to the books at best, but with two heroes such as these, who gives a flying f*ck?  To this day, you can’t grow up in Germany without becoming aware of Karl May’s adventure novels, the most popular of which are set either in the American West or in the Middle East — and I was hooked pretty much from the time I learned to read.  That I’d also become a fan of the movies was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

 


Upstairs, Downstairs
OK, for my final entry I’m going to break the rules and include a TV series: the first series I ever watched, in fact (in its original run), and of which I instantly became a fan, with a particular fondness for Gordon Jackson, David Langton and Jean Marsh (as well as the characters played by them, as well as Angela Baddeley’s Mrs. Bridges).  Forget “Downton Abbey” … this one’s the real thing!


______________________

A Few Belated Add-Ons …

… I can’t believe I forgot these the first time around!

Arsenic and Old Lace, High Society, and Singin’ in the Rain
Some of Hollywood’s greatest heartthrobs at their funniest, most romantic, most musical … and most murderous.


Spartacus
Like Ben Hur, a “Barbarian” enslaved by the Romans … but definitely no Christian charity in evidence here.  On either side.


Fiddler on the Roof
Much as it may be at the constant risk of being turned into a cliché, this is still the genuine article when it comes to the lives and fates of Jews in Eastern Europe.   It will break your heart (several times over); and yet, even the biggest heartbreak can’t bring down these people’s indomitable spirit.

“If I were a rich man …”


 

Saturday Night Fever & Grease
My generation’s seminal teenage dance movies.  I was never a fan of John Travolta’s, and both movies are so firmly rooted in American high school / New York stereotypes that they shouldn’t easily have struck a chord, but the music and the love stories still did.  I suppose in the case of Grease, the overtones of Rebel Without a Cause also helped.


Rocky Horror Picture Show
Another generation-defining movie.

“Let’s do the timewarp again …”


Disney: The Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, Bambi, and Dumbo
Finally (this time really). the classic Disney animal movies.  I loved these even as a kid — and also owned the comic books and soundtrack LPs going with them.

 

Original post:
http://themisathena.booklikes.com/post/1368656/jeannie-come-lately-post-booklikes-round-robin-favorite-pre-1980s-movies

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Comments and Related Posts on BookLikes

Troy’s Blog
My kind of list! Good stuff.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Thank you! 🙂 It was fun putting together …


Troy’s Blog
No doubt. 🙂


Books, hockey, and a bucketful of snark
Ahhh, Upstairs Downstairs. Loved that show.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Wasn’t it fabulous?


Books, hockey, and a bucketful of snark
Yeah, it sure was. Downton is a pale imitation. Don’t get on the Titanic, Lady Marjorie!


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Book
Hah. Indeed! I kind of ended up liking Hazel, but Lady Marjorie was totally in a class of her own. Too bad Rachel Gurney couldn’t be prevailed upon to stick it out longer with the series.


Troy’s Blog
Either of you going to keep up with his next series? It’s already in the works.

Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
You mean Julian Fellows’s — the “Gilded Age” thing? I’m probably going to take a look at it, but from the previews, I’m not sure it’s going to work for me. Then again, it’s Julian Fellows, so who knows …


Troy’s Blog
That’s the one. I’m debating myself, seeing as how Lord Fellows is a one-trick pony. I got sucked into Downton, decided to go back and check out his other works, and… surprise, it’s all the same.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Yes, that’s sort of what struck me, too. As long as he’s basically talking about the history of his own family and their peers (in a dual sense) and the world they were moving in, he’s on his home turf, and the outcome is spot-on. Try to translate that sort of thing to different circumstances, or to a different framework, and it stops working quite as well. That said, to me his real standout thing isn’t “Downton Abbey” in the first place — it’s “Gosford Park”. “Downton Abbey” is way too polished to begin with.


Troy’s Blog
I found plusses and minuses to all of it. What worked for Downton is the character actors and the settings (I can lose myself in that library!). Gosford Park was more realistic, but I don’t think it worked for me at all in a movie format because you didn’t have time to really get to know anyone. From Time to Time was much better, I think, because it did do something a bit different with it. More digging… it looks like he actually does quite a bit that nobody realizes is him, but his fingerprints are there once you see it. I started digging into his acting roles too. I didn’t realilze this, but he was Churchill in an episode of Young Indiana Jones.


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
It’s incredible that a series could loose THREE of its leading ladies at the same time, and keep on going like it was no big deal.

And besides, sinking on the Titanic – what a way to be written out!


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
That’s probably the *only* way they got away with it in the first place! 🙂


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Aaargh — is it just me, or *are* all the image links broken?


Troy’s Blog
I’m seeing a couple of them, but most of them are broken, yes. Odd…


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Oh, no!! Well, it’s past midnight here, so I’m not going to get around to fixing this tonight … will have to attend to it tomorrow! 🙁

Thanks for letting me know. (Sigh.)


Troy’s Blog
No worries. Good luck fixing it when you get the shot. Sleep well.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Fixed and reposted. I hope this time the images are going to stick!


Troy’s Blog
MUCH better!


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Thanks. Man, what a hassle! 🙂


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Upstairs Downstairs! Fabulous series.

Gordon Jackson is in Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, as well.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Yes, true — I’d almost forgotten that! He also co-starred with Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins in “The Professionals” … don’t know whether that ever aired in the U.S.?


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
I don’t think it ran here? I don’t remember it, anyway.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professionals_%28TV_series%29
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075561/

I’m pretty sure you’d remember if it had ever been on American TV.


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
No, I’ve never seen that. I suspect it didn’t run here in the U.S.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
It was sort of the British version of shows like Starsky & Hutch (with which it also competed in Europe), with a bit of James Bond and “The Avengers” thrown in for good measure. I loved it as a teenager, both for its protagonists and (ahem) its action values — the storylines were, particularly looking at them in hindsight, the frequently stereotyped and of course unrealistic stuff you’d get in all of those series … but then, realism wasn’t what it was all about to begin with! 🙂


Got My Book
My Fair Lady was on my “Musicals” list, which I never got around to because it was also around midnight here when I did my own list.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
So write it up now! 🙂 (She says, still having to fix her own list’s images …)


Got My Book
I think I will, I have a bit of time today. I will post an Update.


Got My Book
Ok, done and posted.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Nice!


Rachel the Book Harlot
Great list! It’s nice to see another West Side Story lover. 🙂


Books, hockey, and a bucketful of snark
West Side Story is my absolute favourite musical. Closely followed by Cabaret, Calamity Jane, My Fair Lady, and Oklahoma.


Rachel the Book Harlot
Mine, too! It’s one of my favorite films. I’m not generally a fan of musicals, I tend to dislike them, so that’s definitely saying something. 🙂


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Between the three I listed, I’ve never been able to make up my mind which one is my no.1 favorite, but all three of them are unquestionably head and shoulders above the others.

I’ll need to dig out Lili Palmer’s memoirs one of these days … as I recall, she was married to Rex Harrison when he was filming “My Fair Lady”, and there is the odd bit of “off camera” background stuff in there.


Got My Book
Oh, I missed that you included that one too.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Probably because those damned image links didn’t work initially …


Lillelara
Man, now I know which movie I forgot to mention. It never occured to me to take a German movie, so I have forgotten “Es geschah am hellichten Tag”. A splendid performance by Gert Fröbe. And the play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt has been one of my favorite reads back in school.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Great movie that, too, yes. There would have been so many others one could have included!! “Das Versprechen” has been translated into English as “The Pledge”, incidentally — that’s also the name of the movie’s Hollywood remake, starring Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson. Like you, though, I prefer the German original — not only on account of Gert Fröbe, but also Heinz Rühmann and Siegfried Lowitz!


Lillelara
Why watch the remake when you can enjoy the real thing :).


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Exactly! 🙂


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
You’ve outdone yourself as usual…Wonderful list and sideline commentaries.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Muito obrigada! 🙂


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
De nada. Quando tiver um pouco mais de tempo, vou complementar a minha lista.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
I’m already looking forward to it!


charlton
Nice list! The Godfather,To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men,Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Sting,Bullitt,James Bond 007: Goldfinger,The Three Musketeers,The Adventures of Robin Hood,Ben-Hur,Star Wars!Great movies.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Thank you! There’s some great stuff out there indeed …


Kate Says: “Reading Is Fun!”
Great list! I too am a Humphrey Bogart fan and I especially enjoyed your list of musicals. However, I would need to add ‘La Strada’ to my list. That one made a huge impression on me when I first saw it and is still with me to this day. While most descriptions of this movie are lacking at best, the actual film is well done all around, from the writing, to the casting, to the directing of the photography. Plus, I find Italian an extremely beautiful and emotive language.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Yes, that would have been another contender — as well as the movie adaptation of Moravia’s “La ciociara” (Vittorio de Sica, Sophia Loren) and Fellini’s “La dolce vita”.


Kate Says: “Reading Is Fun!”
Yes to all of those as well!


Batgrl: Bookish Hooha
This was all such fun – I loved reading your comments! And I now have several to add to my Oh Right Must ReWatch list!


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Thank you, and you’re welcome! 🙂


Awogfli – Bookcroc
Awesome idea! I totally agree with your list and want to add a few of my personal favourites 🙂 If you count till 1980 Apocalypse Now 1979 is missing. My favourite Bogie film is not “Casablanca” it is “We’re no angels” with Ustinov. Then I would add “The Brain” with David Niven and Belmondo and “Arsenic and old lace”. I would put more Hitchcock films on the list :-), “The front page” with Jack Lemmon and “Some like it hot” and Breaktfast at Tiffany


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Well, I’ll be looking forward to your list then!

“Arsenic and Old Lace” — I knew I’d forgotten another one …! (And that although Panama is just so topical again these days …)

I could have listed pretty much all of both Bogart’s and Hitchcock’s body of work — it was hard enough to draw the line somewhere, so I picked those movies that I’d go to in a snap decision, without thinking about it at all. If I hadn’t done that, the list would have become endless … and not just on account of the Bogart and Hitchcock entries, either! 🙂


Awogfli – Bookcroc
your’re so right the list is endless Metropolis also came up to my mind 🙂


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
… and … and … and … 😀


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Sigh, Arsenic and Old Lace, add another one to “Dr. Strangelove” that’s missing from my already-silly list…




Comments:

Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
I watched Roman Holiday when I was on a Hepburn kick and I have to admit, it just didn’t work for me. I liked both the actors but it just didn’t seem to click for me.

Now, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, on the other hand…


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
So many good movies from that era…


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
I forgot “It Happened One Night”. What a movie!!


Troy’s Blog
One of my personal faves!


Book Cupidity
As always, what a wonderful and thoughtful post.

Reading The Lion in Winter was a big treat and I’ve never seen the film version – mostly because I couldn’t find it to watch. I bet I could now.

Blazing Saddles has made an appearance! “What in the Wide World of Sports is a-going on here!”


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
You’d do it for Randolph Scott.


Book Cupidity
I didn’t get a hrruumph outta that guy.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
Blazing Saddles had me laughing so hard that I was having trouble breathing…


Troy’s Blog
Awesome choices!


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
And I keep thinking “oh, and I forgot that one!” (Most recently about Dr. Strangelove.)


Troy’s Blog
That’s why I had to stop on mine. You have to draw the line somewhere. lol


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Wow, that’s a concept. LOL


Troy’s Blog
I know, it was crazy when I decided it too.


Book Cupidity
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have picked a decade — maybe the next round robin we can do just 80’s flicks.


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Oh, that works for me! Some great movies from the 80s.


Troy’s Blog
Bring it. I’ll still be there all day. 😛


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Predictably, I’m tempted to include every other movie from your list in mine as well. And y’know what, I actually *am* keeping this post open as a point of reference so as not to forget anything that I’m later going to kick myself over …


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
It was a lot of fun making it.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
I bet!


Lora’s Rants and Reviews
Yay! Someone else listed Prime of Miss Jean Brodie! Damn, I missed Grease!



Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road

Booklikes Round Robin

12:50 am 2 April 2016

Thanks to Book Cupidity for getting this started. 

Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. the list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes.

The perimeters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980.

Let’s tag the post so that we can search it over the weekend – “Fav old movies’. I will also use the tag ‘BL Round Robin”.

__________________________________________

I ended up going through my dvd/bluray collection to see what I had that was of this vintage and to help spark my memory.

I have to admit, I came up pretty short. Turns out most of the stuff I’ve watched and bought have been from the mid 80s and on. Most have been since ’96.

So here is my little list w/ pictures: 

 

1) Star Wars
back when it was still Star Wars and Lucas hadn’t dumped on all the fans

 

2) Sabrina
Bogie and Hepburn. Oh yeah…

 

3) The Man Who Knew Too Much
Jimmy Stewart in a Hitchcock Thriller

 

4) Arsenic and Old Lace
A romantic comedy with Cary Grant, whose old aunts are killing off the gentlemen.

 

5) Africa Screams
While Abbot and Costello don’t amuse me as much as the 3 Stooges, this movie was just great.

 

6) Tron
Actually came out in ’82, but come on, Tron is awesome!

And that is pretty much it. If you’d like to participate, feel free to copy/paste the first part of this post [everything before the ———————] and add the tags Book Cupidity put in quotes so others can find your post even if they don’t follow you. Hope you have as much fun making your own list as I did.


Comments:

Book Cupidity
I love the list of 5! (Deliberately ignoring that cheater one on the end)

Did you like the Harrison Ford remake of Sabrina? It’s hard to top the classic, but I thought it was still good.

I’ve not seen a single Abbot and Costello flick. We had their skits on cassette tape and would listen to them on the way to the lake during summer weekends, so I’m surprised that we never watched a movie of theirs.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
I actually own the remake as well and like it just as much, if not better. Kinnear and Ford made for a better set of Larrabe brothers but Bogie on his own still rules…


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
I also love “Arsenic and Old Lace”. i remember laughing extremely hard and being like “oh shit this is gonna be wonderful”. Massey and Lorre…who would have thought they couid act


“I cannot live without books”
I saw the play version at a local high school a couple years ago and it had a few great gags that were cut (censored?) from the movie version.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
@Musings:
I just laughed and laughed. I’m not familiar enough with anyone besides Grant to make a judgement call about their ability. Probably let me enjoy it more 🙂


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
@ICLWB [for the record, that is a pain to write out 🙂 ]
Considering that Old Lace was made in the 40’s, I’m not surprised…


ELK’s Library
When I first saw “Arsenic and Old Lace” I remember thinking “No way am I going to enjoy this.” Five minutes in I was hooked and had completely abandoned the project I was working on at the time.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
😀


Book Cupidity
Wait, no Dirty Harry?


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
Nope. I have never watched it. Never been a Clint Eastwood fan for some reason. I will probably end up watching it at some point, as a cultural thing [kind of like some of the classics I read] but even now I have no “desire” to go out and watch it…


Got My Book
First of all, thanks for participating. Seeing your post in my RSS brought it to my attention. Plus, you shortened my list by including Sabrina. And, I own Tron too.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
Glad I could help. And I love Tron, a lot. I also liked Legacy and watched Uprising until it got cancelled. I was sad when I realized it was never coming back. I just hope they can make one more movie before either of the main actors passes away…


Got My Book
*fingers crossed* / By the way, is your background new or did I just never notice when you changed it? I really like it. I looked for a green one for my blog, but couldn’t find one that felt right so I stuck with the black and white.


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
I changed it a week or so ago. I don’t expect others to notice, as I don’t notice their backgrounds because I hardly ever visit someone’s actual page. I’m almost always using the feed 🙂


Bookstooge’s Reviews On the Road
I think I just googled fantasy forest to find this…




White Christmas

The Big Street

Key Largo

The Great Dictator

Puttin on the Ritz

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

An Affair To Remember

Arsenic and Old Lace

Casablanca

Its a Wonderful Life

Son of Frankenstein

Mildred Pierce

Day the Earth Stood Still

Bringing Up Baby

Titanic: A Night to Remember

The Parent Trap

The Count of Monte Cristo



Charade

Arsenic and Old Lace

The Philadelphia Story

I could go on listing Cary Grant movies, but you got the idea already.

Lawrence of Arabia

Witness for the Prosecution

My Man Godfrey

Oh, man, I’m sure I could continue this list for quite some time….

What are some of your treasured films?




Comments:

Book Cupidity
Alien COUNTS. Fantastic! I am surprised we haven’t seen more westerns yet 🙂


Lillelara
Alien is the only movie that makes me want to go back in time to experience it on the big screen. I would probably have peed in my pants watching it but it would have been totally worth it ;). 

There are a lost of western that can be named, that´s for sure. The ones I mentioned are my favorites, because they are a lot of fun.


Book Cupidity
Along the lines of fun westerns, I could watch McClintock twice in a row and not be bored.


Book Cupidity
Oh, I can relate with What you said about Alien. There was a time when I could only watch in installments because it was so intense.


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
My father saw it when it came out – he said it was genuinely the scariest movie he’d ever seen. In a good way.


Lillelara
McLintok sounds like a movie right up my alley. Looking forward to it. 

I have to rewatch Alien as soon as possible, it´s just been to long since I have watched it the last time. In 1979 the tension must have been unbearable, not knowing what is roaming the Nostromo. Such an awesome movie.


Lillelara
@Susanne: I envy your father, even though it was scary. But I´m glad that he kind of enjoyed that scary experience :).


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
I wasn’t allowed to go – my parents didn’t think I was old enough. (They were quite right.)


Lillelara
I don´t know how old you were at the time but I guess you parents were right. I watched “The Silence of the Lambs” when I was 12 or 13 years old and I couldn´t sleep all night. Talk about a nightmare inducing movie.


Book Cupidity
MCClintock is a great slant on Taming of the Shrew with one of my favs, Maureen O’Hara. I hope you can check it out – fun!


BrokenTune
Oooh, Midnight Lace and Some Like It Hot.

Great list altogether.


Lillelara
Midnight Lace … the only movie in which Doris Days haircut is about to get disheveled ;).


BrokenTune
Haha. So, true!


Whiskey in the Jar Likes to Read
Alien and Aliens still remain in my favorite movies 🙂


Obsidian Black Death
I loved Alien!


Got My Book
I’m not a big Western fan, but Some Like It Hot might have made my list if you didn’t mention it. I think of it whenever I wear my really high heels.



Troy’s Blog

Booklikes Round Robin

4:25 pm 1 April 2016

Book Cupidity had a grand idea that I’ve decided to participate in and spread around.  From her post:

It’s been awhile since we’ve done any of those fun posts that everyone participates in and gets people talking. And I miss it. So here’s my try at getting something started.

Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. the list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes. The perimeters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980, I sort of arbitrarily picked this number, and sort of didn’t — for the young whippersnappers, Star Wars is the equivalent to some of our black and white favs. Plus, I think cinema in the 80’s had a different feel.

So, tell me some of your favorites! Maybe we will discover new great flicks and new friends. Let’s tag the post so that we can search it over the weekend – “Fav old movies’. I will also use the tag ‘BL Round Robin”

You can find that post and her own list here.

My list… that’s a bit long, so I’ll actually have to narrow it down.  in keeping with her outline, these will all be movies before Star Wars

I’ll start with the obvious.  Since I’ve been doing the Project: Monster blogs, you can bet a large number of creature features make this cut.  But since both Universal and Hammer have a huge list that I’ve only begun to scratch, let’s just say that 90% of those catalogs make the cut for me, whether they’re actually good or not.  These include various forms and sequels of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Invisible Man, and so on.  Add King Kong to that list, definitely.

From The Phantom of the Opera, we lead into my love of silent film.  Lon Chaney is a personal screen hero of mine that led me to discover his contemporaries and movies like Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Man Who Laughs.  But there are also the works of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks (The Mark of Zorro!), and Buster Keaton.  If you’ve not seen The General, you’re missing out.  It’s genius.

Moving outside of classic monsters, Bogart sets the high watermark for me with Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, among a long list of others.  Likewise, I’m a huge fan of Claudette Colbert.  It Happened One Night, The Sign of the Cross, and Cleopatra rank as my favorites from her.

Speaking of Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor’s epic rendition started me down that path of both love for the last Egyptian queen and love for the old style Hollywood epic.  To that list of epics, you can also add Ben-Hur, Spartacus, The Ten Commandments, and a great many other things in that vein where they take 3-4 hours and an intermission to tell properly.

Scaramouche ranks as one of my favorite sword films, and related, I could go on and on about the many swashbuckling works of Errol Flynn, who inspired that film a generation later.  The Sea Hawks, Robin Hood… the list goes on.  Related to that, you get movies about Zorro (Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone set the standard here) or movies about knights and Arthurian legend, so we move into Knights of the Round Table, Ivanhoe (featuring a young Elizabeth Taylor), Prince Valiant… and again the list goes on.

You already know I’m a 007 fan.  I think I can spare you the list and just say “all of them.”  For some classic Connery outside of that realm… Darby O’Gill and the Little People scared the crap out of me as a kid.  Having come face to face with a banshee like that in real life since, I have mixed feelings now between the memory of that and my insane love for this movie for no reason whatsoever.

Let’s talk sci-fi!  I’ve already mentioned Metropolis, but there are a lot of movies between that and Star Wars.  Some of my faves here are The War of the Worlds, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, and The Planet of the Apes.

Westerns!  Pretty much anything with John Ford’s name attached, like StagecoachThe Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is also a classic.  I’ll cheat and add Tombstone because I feel like that’s a return to this level of greatness so many decades later.

Know what else was in the movie theater?  Cartoons and serials.  Yeah.  Looney Tunes… I love them all and own most of them.  Likewise with early Disney, and we can branch into feature films from there with Fantasia and most of those earlier offerings.  Outside of the Big 2, you get Superman, Popeye, Betty Boop, and some early Tex Avery classics.  With the serials, The Adventures of Captain Marvel is probably considered to be the best of the best of the best.  Both Superman serials were goofy, but I love them for what they are, and both Batman serials still hold up today in spite of the costumes.  I also recommend The Shadow, The Phantom, Tarzan, Zorro (all of them), Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers.

And of course I love the historical dramas.  Some notables include A Man For All Seasons, The Lion in Winter, Becket, Anne of the Thousand Days, The Longest Day, Where Eagles Dare, Mary Queen of Scots, and Tora! Tora Tora!

This is truly getting out of control now, and I could add a ton of others in a variety of genres.  I mean, I haven’t even touched Hitchcock’s movies or The Godfather or most of the old mobster movies of the 30s and 40s or the works of the classic Hollywood goddess/sirens or anything with Ray Harryhausen monster effects or … yeah, it has to end somewhere.  She did say “before 1980” so I’m adding in Superman: The Movie, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture just on account because you already know Star Wars is on this list.  Can’t leave off Orson Welles, so I’ll thrown in Citizen Kane and cut this off at the knees.  Want to play along?  Write up your own post and link back to Book Cupidity’s post just on account.  Credit where it’s due, and all that.


Comments:

Book Cupidity
Nosferatu – 1922? Have they ever re-vamped that one?

Spartacus, definitely.

OMG – Darby O’Gil and the Little People!! I fORGOT about that one completely!

Tombstone would be on my fav all time list, but it is cheating.

I have a a special place in my souls for Robin Williams Popeye. Unfortunately, I tried to watch it the other year and could not. The cartoon is great.

I should have given you tighter perimeters so that you could have expanded more. 🙂

Your post does remind me that I missed “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” from my list


Troy’s Blog
They redid Nosferatu in the 70s. And it was in color. It’s pretty bad in my estimation, but some love it. The 1922 version is FAR superior.

Ironically, Mad Mad World is my Dad’s favorite movie. How I overlooked it or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is beyond me.

Yeah, I needed tighter boundaries here. I went nuts. Love me some movies. Just think how many I love after 1980. 🙂


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
I’ll try to get on the bandwagon. So much to do, so little time to do it…


Troy’s Blog
I know the feeling well.


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
I’m leaving work now, to go to a football match (Benfica vs Braga), being Benfica my team… As soon as I get home, I’ll try to bounce some ideas around later today…If Benfica loses I’ll be unable to write…7 games till the end of the championship. This is one of the most difficult…


Troy’s Blog
There you go. Enjoy!


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Enjoy the match!


Musings/Träumereien/Devaneios
5-1. Benfica two points ahead at the top of the table…


Troy’s Blog
So you’re smiling big. lol


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Congrats!


SusannaG – Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
OK, I’m game. (I could do a whole separate one on just 80s movies, for that matter.)


Troy’s Blog
Me too. That was a great decade for movies.


Got My Book
It Happened One Night was the movie I was most tempted to break my “nothing anyone else has already mentioned” rule for. People in my family often break into, “Young people in love are very seldom hungry” (you have to actually sing it) whenever anyone says “hungry.”


Troy’s Blog
I love that movie. They just don’t movies like that anymore. Your family sounds like fun.


Got My Book
There were a lot of us, so “Name that Quote” was one way our parents kept us from fighting in the car. It was also a way to help the older & younger ones relate, since we had to watch each other’s favorites to keep up.


Troy’s Blog
That makes a lot of sense. Parenting… they did it right.


Got My Book
Yeah. We had a lot of “dysfunction,” but we all survived and we all get along & support each other as adults. So there is still hope for the parents dealing with fighting among siblings.


Troy’s Blog
Every family has dysfunction. That’s what family is. Yours is to be congratulated.


Got My Book
Thanks


Troy’s Blog
Not at all. I call it like I see it.


Got My Book
FYI: I mentioned this discussion (and linked to this post) when I updated my list to include the Musicals.


Troy’s Blog
I just realized I hadn’t seen your blog, probably because it’s not on my dashboard. I fixed that now. 🙂 Good list you got there!


Got My Book
Thanks


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Spartacus!!! *Facepalm* — I knew I’d missed something in mine. And I even bought the damned book it’s based on last August when visiting the Grassic Gibbon Centre …


Troy’s Blog
There’s always going to be something, let’s face it. I’ve been doing a lot of facepalming by reading other lists.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
I know it’s inevitable, and anyway, you have to make a cut somewhere. Still annoys me a bit. 🙂


Troy’s Blog
I know the feeling, believe me. This whole exercise has me wanting to watch a lot more of my old movies all over again now.


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Likewise! Which I suppose is actually a good thing … 🙂


Troy’s Blog
It is until you start counting up how many hours you’ve already spent doing that in the first place. 😛 Almost makes me want to start another blog series, but I think I’ve got more than enough of those for now. After all, sooner or later, I need time to actually read too. lol


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Sounds like a plan!


Troy’s Blog
For as long as it lasts. 😛


Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books
Well, if it doesn’t it will doubtlessly be replaced by something equally good or better! 🙂


Troy’s Blog
That’s always the hope. I appreciate the vote of confidence on that one.



Booklikes Round Robin

4:03 pm 1 April 2016

Thanks to Book Cupidity for getting this started. 

Let’s list favorite old (or older) movies. the list can be long or short, with a narrative or no, anything goes.

The perimeters is that it has to have been made prior to 1980.

Let’s tag the post so that we can search it over the weekend – “Fav old movies’. I will also use the tag ‘BL Round Robin”.

I love the idea of this. One of my favorite things to do as a teen besides reading was watching old movies on Turner’s Classics Saturday mornings. I am just going to keep my list to 10 though it’s really hard. I have my top favorite comedies, musicals, thrillers, mysteries, etc. 

Here’s my list:

1. His Girl Friday (1940) starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell

 

2. Auntie Mame (1958) starring Rosalind Russell

 

3. Oklahoma! (1955) starring Gordon MacRae and Gloria Graheme

 

4. The Sound of Music (1965) starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer

 

5. The Wizard of Oz (1939) starring Judy Garland

 

6. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) starring Gregory Peck

 

7. Double Indemnity (1944) starring Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler

 

8. Strangers on a Train (1951) starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker

 

9. Rear Window (1954) starring John Stewart and Grace Kelly

 

10. The Women (1939) starring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell

 


Comments:

BrokenTune
Double Indemnity with the awesome Barbara Stanwyck! Love the list.

p>And of course His Girl Friday. 😀


Obsidian Black Death
I love that one. I really loved a lot of the black and white movies with the femme fatale twisting the unsuspecting man.


Lora’s Rants and Reviews
Labyrinth!


Obsidian Black Death
I love Labyrinth but can’t recall when it came out. After 1980?


Lora’s Rants and Reviews
1976. I’ll do a proper post tomorrow.


Lora’s Rants and Reviews
Ok I’m wrong, it was 1986. I’ll have to check whichever ones I post!


Obsidian Black Death
@Lora great! I can’t wait to see your post!


Book Cupidity
Yes! I’ve not seen His Girl Friday. And how could I forget The Sound of Music. I used to think Christopher Plummer was so dreamy.


Obsidian Black Death
Oh His Girl Friday is freaking hilarious. If you have Netflix, I think it is still available this month.

I was so in love with Christopher Plummer when I watched that movie. I had no idea what was going on!


Book Cupidity
Instant Queued it!


Obsidian Black Death
Enjoy 🙂


BrokenTune
I love Christopher Plummer (and Julie Andrews) in anything but TSOM. I cannot stand that film. That is a great TSOM gif, tho.


Obsidian Black Death
LOL you don’t like TSoM? I feel like I don’t even know you (joking). Parts of it were a little dry. I dithered between TSoM or My Fair Lady.


BrokenTune
Oh, I love My Fair Lady. As for TSOM – hate it with a passion. 😀


Obsidian Black Death
I am kind of in the mood to go home and re-watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s right now.


BrokenTune
Do it!


Obsidian Black Death
I am finally onmy way so I think I will. I have to pick up some library books first though.


BrokenTune
Yay!


Char’s Horror Corner
YAY for Rear Window! I could watch that movie over and over again. And have. 🙂


Book Cupidity
Anyone remember the old Netflix, where you’d get DVD’s in the mail? They had a great old movie stock and I got to see Rear Window because of it.


Obsidian Black Death
I love Rear Window.

@Book Cupidity I just have the streaming service, but Rear Window was available via stream on Netflix a few months back.


charlton
I still get the DVD’s in the mail,but I stream too. 🙂


Book Cupidity
What!? I had no idea that was an option!! (Obviously, I am not the one who handles our subscription) I must check this out.


Obsidian Black Death
@Book Cupidity, yeah you just have to sign up online and you can get the streaming service. You can do both since my movie partner in crime does both. He gets DVDs and has Netflix set up on his t.v.


Lillelara
There are a lot of movies on your list that I don´t know. I definitely have to watch more classics in the future. 

Is “Strangers on the Train” any good? I recently read Patricia Highsmiths novel and hated it.


Obsidian Black Death
I haven’t read the book, but I did love the movie.


Lillelara
Great, thanks. A word of advice: Stay with the movie. The book will probably infuriate you.


Obsidian Black Death
I will!


Whiskey in the Jar Likes to Read
So much yes to His Girl Friday, love love love!


Obsidian Black Death
It was so funny. Grant and Russell had awesome chemistry.


Got My Book
Glad you added Sound of Music and Wizard of Oz (it helped shrink my list), I also own His Girl Friday.


Obsidian Black Death
I love those movies 🙂


Got My Book
*smile


charlton
My favorite on your list is “To Kill A Mockingbird”.


Obsidian Black Death
I only saw it for the first time last year. I loved it.



The Black Swan

The Wild One

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Bonnie and Clyde

Taxi Driver





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