Classic Cinema Discussion

[METALMAN]

This is quite interesting. I’m a big reader and I love lots of music but I know next to nothing about film and TV (which is why I barely ever post here). For instance, in the entirety of 2022 I watched two films:

Spoiler

The Inbetweeners Movie and The Inbetweeners Movie 2

I guess part of this is I just don’t really enjoy films as a medium. I know that probably sounds stupid but it’s kind of true. In any case I’ve always thought I’d like to give films a crack at some point. I might check out one of these lists.

[Your Mom]

The Maltese Falcon

 

 

COLD BLOODED! Wow!

[DFF]

I watched The Big Sleep for the first time the other day. What a film! Defo one of the better film noirs I have seen (I probably prefer Double Indemnity slightly, but otherwise this is tip top). 

[Lint]

11 hours ago, Your Mom said:

The Maltese Falcon

 

 

COLD BLOODED! Wow!

So...did you like it?

[Colly]

12 hours ago, METALMAN said:

This is quite interesting. I’m a big reader and I love lots of music but I know next to nothing about film and TV (which is why I barely ever post here). For instance, in the entirety of 2022 I watched two films:

  Hide contents

The Inbetweeners Movie and The Inbetweeners Movie 2

I guess part of this is I just don’t really enjoy films as a medium. I know that probably sounds stupid but it’s kind of true. In any case I’ve always thought I’d like to give films a crack at some point. I might check out one of these lists.

You keep good company.

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/the-toe-poke/65/post/3176324/michael-owen-hates-watching-films-heres-his-best-reviews

 

[Hobo]

On 26/01/2023 at 01:05, Dan B. said:

The Great Race is hugely underrated.  It also has one of my favorite movie cars, the Hannibal 8 - basically an early 20th-century Bond car, except nothing on it works right - and the mother of all movie pie fights.

Regarding Herzog, I'll throw in a recommendation for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser for his narrative films, and for his documentaries I can't recommend Cave of Forgotten Dreams enough; it's actually my favorite documentary period.  Some of the commentary on the sheer *age* of the cave paintings is mind-boggling.

That said, one of my single favorite Herzog things is this forty-second clip of him talking about chickens.

 

I need to get around to watching Kasper Hauser. I think its one of the only feature films on the Herzog BFI boxset that Ive not watched yet.

It actually connects to my earlier posts as the film stars Bruno S from Strozek and Brigette Mira who was in Fear Eats The Soul.

There are so many wild Herzog stories. The big one being literally everything that happened with shooting Fitzcarraldo (see the documentary The Burden of Dreams). Then there's stuff like allegedly all the actors on Heart of Glass were hypnotized during their performance. That he just walked up to the Albanian border one day to try and enter the country back when Albania was still an isolationist Stalinist dictatorship because he heard you couldn't get in (he didn't). Or when he got shot with an air rifle during an interview with Mark Kermode and just shrugged it off.

Edit: Oh and how could I forget Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe

[Skummy]

Burden of Dreams is fantastic - even though I would consider Fitzcarraldo one of my favourite films, I'd still say it's a rare Making Of documentary that's better than the movie it's talking about. 

[Your Mom]

2 hours ago, Lint said:

So...did you like it?

Loved it! I just assumed things were more innocent back then but Sam Spade was a total asshole and I'm surprisingly ok with it.

[gunnar hendershow]

21 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

Loved it! I just assumed things were more innocent back then but Sam Spade was a total asshole and I'm surprisingly ok with it.

An interesting thing about older Hollywood films is they were made under the Hays Code, so you'll see a lot of sometimes clever ways to skirt around the restrictions.

If there's a reason that, conversely, films from the 70s are sometimes so incredibly vulgar it's because the restrictions were lifted and now that people could say "fuck" they said it a lot.

[DFF]

1 minute ago, damhausen said:

An interesting thing about older Hollywood films is they were made under the Hays Code, so you'll see a lot of sometimes clever ways to skirt around the restrictions.

If there's a reason that, conversely, films from the 70s are sometimes so incredibly vulgar it's because the restrictions were lifted and now that people could say "fuck" they said it a lot.

If you're canny, you can find some really interesting pre-Hays Code films where they try and work out what they should and shouldn't show etc.

[Skummy]

2 minutes ago, damhausen said:

An interesting thing about older Hollywood films is they were made under the Hays Code, so you'll see a lot of sometimes clever ways to skirt around the restrictions.

If there's a reason that, conversely, films from the 70s are sometimes so incredibly vulgar it's because the restrictions were lifted and now that people could say "fuck" they said it a lot.

There's a lot of visual puns and whatnot that got stereotyped after the end of the Hays Code - trains going into tunnels, jets of waters and so on - that directors would cut away to from sex scenes, and everyone watching would know what they represented, to the point that the Hays Code started restricting some of them too. 

To go back to Casablanca, as one of my favourite "classic" movies - there was a lot of talk about how Ingrid Bergman didn't know until late in filming whether Ilsa would end up with Rick or with Laszlo, and there's been an awful lot of energy expended in debating that point, whether it was the "right" ending, whether there had ever been any other ending in mind, and it's all bullshit. The Hay's Code wouldn't allow for a woman to be shown cheating on or leaving her husband without being punished for it. It's one of those films were the writing becomes much more subtle and nuanced for not being able to show most of what's actually going on, but in terms of the ending, it could legally have only ever gone one way.

[gunnar hendershow]

4 minutes ago, Skummy said:

The Hay's Code wouldn't allow for a woman to be shown cheating on or leaving her husband without being punished for it. It's one of those films were the writing becomes much more subtle and nuanced for not being able to show most of what's actually going on, but in terms of the ending, it could legally have only ever gone one way.

This is a big point with the Hays Code and I think a lot of us often take some of these scenes in this era of films where it seems like a female character is being coerced by a male character or something similar as deeply problematic. And rightfully so, but that was a means to an end in many cases. Couldn't show what they *actually* wanted to so instead they had to give a *wink wink* to the audience.

[Your Mom]

Yeah like in this movie his assistant or whatever was a totally capable detective too or at least it seemed like it and he basically treated her like a pet. He's all "Well isn't that cute you're a little detective yourself dollface" or whatever and I'm like she's just as good as you!  

[gunnar hendershow]

It's been awhile since I read some Dashiell Hammett books (and even longer since I've watched The Maltese Falcon but that's besides the point) but I don't recall anything being as overtly "old fashioned" as that. Might just be rose-tinted nostalgia. But I suspect for a Hays Code era movie adaptation it had to make some real choices in how to tone some of the more suggestive parts down.

[GoGo Yubari]

22 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Have to remind myself this was a different time and Sam Spade didn't just SA a woman. I love this kind of I don't know if I'd call it overacting but I think you know what I mean. This Cairo guy is my favorite so far. I don't know but there is something about him

That's Peter Lorre. He's one of those guys you'd probably never seen an actual movie of until now (give or take Casablanca, maybe?) but you've seen him in pop culture a ton without realizing it. Cartoons from like the '30s to the '90s loved working in either a depiction of him or someone doing an impression of his voice. Ren from Ren and Stimpy, for example, is basically Billy West doing a slightly modified Lorre impression.

EDIT: Another great "here's a guy you've seen without ever seeing" guy in that movie is Sydney Greenstreet, who plays Kaspar Gutman. He's basically the visual reference/inspiration for the Kingpin.

[Your Mom]

I'm really on a roll with this. I am now watching The Third Man!

[Your Mom]

The Third Man

Spoiler

Don't know if I need to spoiler for 80 year old movies but I figured I'd play it safe. I really enjoy the twists and turns of these movies. They always keep me guessing. I have two complaints about this one though.

1. Could they only afford one song? I could be dumb here maybe but it felt like they played the same song over and over again and it was getting to me by the end.

2. I was a little disappointed by how Harry got caught by the police. Maybe he trusted his friend not to turn him in I guess? But it seemed like he was a smarter guy and he just kind of bumbled into their trap. I mean I'm glad he was caught but it seemed like maybe that was the wrong way to do it I guess

Anyway Orson Welles was great but I was feeling a bit underwhelmed with this one until he showed up. But from then on it turned into a good show

 

Classics watched this year:

1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. The Third Man

[GhostMachine]

14 hours ago, DFF said:

I watched The Big Sleep for the first time the other day. What a film! Defo one of the better film noirs I have seen (I probably prefer Double Indemnity slightly, but otherwise this is tip top). 

I agree with you about preferring Double Indemnity. Incidentally, watch when Neff (Fred MacMurray) leaves Keyes' (Edward G. Robinson) office. The man reading the magazine is Raymond Chandler, making a cameo. Chandler and Billy Wilder wrote the script, but it was based on a novel by James M. Cain.

 

@Your Momif you liked The Third Man, then you really should watch The Stranger and Citizen Kane. *Maybe* Touch of Evil. Touch of Evil is regarded as one of Welles' best films, but I really think Charlton Heston was miscast in it. 

 

[Your Mom]

Changing it up a little. This one gets a ton of mentions in the Tarantino book because he said it influenced a ton of great directors so film number 4 is The Searchers!

[Your Mom]

The Searchers

Spoiler

Was an enjoyable enough movie but the ending was kinda bullshit. The last time they found the kidnapped girl she is like "These are my people now go away" and then when they find her again out of the blue she is super happy to be rescued. They give no reason for this. It just happens because it's the end of the movie.

Also John Wayne is all about putting a bullet in her head because she is a "Comanche" now but then he tracks her down and just says "Let's go home" and they hug and go home. Like what?!?

Plus there is all this weirdly placed comedic stuff. Like a slapstick fight at the wedding and the Captain gets stabbed in the butt on accident. Then there is the guy who I guess is trying to do an accent but sounds like a cartoon character. How did this influence Scorsese and a bunch of other greats? I don't get it man.

Classics watched this year:

1. 12 Angry Men (1957)
2. The Maltese Falcon
3. The Third Man
4. The Searchers