Calling all Classic Film Lovers!

Splendor in the Grass is a great movie. Beatty and Wood were such a charismatic couple.

Watched a terrible Cecil B. DeMille film called Madam Satan. You'd think that as prolific as De Mille was, he would have made a good film by accident, but I don't think I've seen one yet other than The Cheat.

You don't like De Mille's religious epics do you?

Not particularly. And I've seen religious epics I liked, such as the 1925 Ben Hur. But De Mille's religious films, the ones that I've seen, are bloated and dull. Haven't seen The Ten Commandments.

I have. It's quite a good yarn, well-acted throughout, Heston is imperious as heck, Edward G. Robinson is suitably slimy as the kinda-traitor, the music is awesome and the special effects are phenomenal for their era. Given I'm a pretty fundamentalist atheist, yon's high praise.

Yes, I've read that it's the best of the lot, all the Sword and Sandal flicks that were super-popular for a while there.

Of course, the real best Sword and Sandal flick is Spartacus.

Watched The Kid Brother. Never gets old.

In the Classic era? Yep. I'd go for that.

But overall? Nope.

That'd be Gladiator. I adore that film for all its faults, as well as all the stuff it gets right.

edited 20th Nov '17 9:28:19 PM by TamH70

Gladiator made a hash out of history but I did enjoy it.

"I am vexed. I am terribly vexed."

But getting back to our era, it's been my experience that most of the Sword and Sandal films were pretty bad. The Charlton Heston Ben Hur is pretty bad. I already ranted in this thread about awful poop fest The Robe.

edited 20th Nov '17 10:12:18 PM by jamespolk

I should hate that movie and its sequel, and the De Mille-style Jesus movies, and the Jesus/Moses telly series, but I don't.

I fricking love them.

The modern crop of similar movies? Nah. I've seen the real deal

I just watched a bunch of Czechoslovakian movies from the tail-end years of our time frame, the years of the Czech New Wave.

• The Firemen's Ball (1967). It's a comedy of errors, and the whole movie reminds me a lot of the restaurant scene in Jacques Tati's Playtime from the same year.
• Closely Watched Trains (1966). The film manages to combine the political intrigue of resistance against the Nazis in WWII Czechoslovakia with the comedic sexual exploits of the people working at a train station. It sounds like it shouldn't be possible, but thanks to the film's dry wit, it is.
• The Shop on Main Street (1965). It shows The Holocaust from a perspective I don't think I've seen in any other film. Give it a watch if you get the chance.
• Marketa Lazarová (1967). It seems to top lists of the best Czech-Slovak films of all time more often than not. I honestly don't quite understand why; both Closely Watched Trains and The Shop on Main Street are clearly better, in my opinion.
• Daisies (1966). It's... weird. I can't even really describe it, other than that it's weird in a funny way.

The Czechs were certainly making some amazing films in the mid-1960s. Or the Slovaks, in the case of The Shop on Main Street.

I just learned that the first ever Palme d'Or was given to a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

Holy crap, The Firemen's Ball is on Amazon Prime.

EDIT: ...and so is Extase, also known as That Movie Where Hedy Lamarr Gets Naked. Man, finding some weird stuff tonight.

edited 28th Nov '17 10:39:56 PM by jamespolk

i am summoned whenever someone mentions Daisies

Well please stay! Talk about other movies! I'm gonna have to see if there's anything else from the Czech New Wave on Amazon.

I do lurk this thread a lot but I don't watch a ton of older movies so I don't have a lot to say. Will try to post sometimes though.

Saw Summer Holiday and Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid in the last two weeks so I had to make pages for them. The latter movie slightly confused me at the end but I enjoyed the film; I like William Powell and Ann Blyth and I enjoyed them being together on-screen; and I didn't know what to expect with Summer Holiday, but I enjoyed it. I can't wait to see more Cliff Richard musicals.

Never even heard of either of those films. I'm impressed.

Ecstasy, better known as the movie where Hedy Lamarr got naked.

It's actually quite good. Simple story of a frustrated wife having a sexual awakening. Most erotic films in my experience are pretty terrible but I liked this one.

3 Godfathers, directed by John Ford, starring John Wayne.

Quite good, I thought. Three dudes rob a bank, and they're trying to get away, and they're stuck in the Thirsty Desert (it was actually shot in Death Valley). So, all well and good.

Then they run across a woman in a wagon who's 9 months pregnant and in labor.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Watched Topper, because I thought the premise sounded hilarious. It was pretty meh. The pacing was pretty bad, the comedy mostly one-note (the invisibility gags are funny, but that's almost the only thing it's got going for it), and the way the movie treats women is... let's just call it "1930s".

I liked Topper, but I wouldn't put it in the top tier of 1930s screwball comedies; it doesn't rank with Bringing Up Baby or My Man Godfrey.

I was surprised by how secondary Cary Grant's part is. You would expect Roland Young to be the comic relief in a Cary Grant vehicle, not the other way around.

Haven't seen the second Topper which apparently hit the Reset Button and wasn't very good. Saw the third one, Topper Returns, which was pretty silly but had wall-to-wall Fanservice from Joan Blondell and Carole Landis. It was worth watching just for that. (If you ever want to be depressed, read about the life of Carole Landis.)

Is it a crime to say I've never thought of Bringing Up Baby as all that great? It's always striked me as annoying and kind of badly paced. I'm probably due for a rewatch, though.

The story of Landis has always reminded me of Lupe Velez who also shared a similar fate. Really tragic lives for them both.

edited 4th Dec '17 6:45:14 AM by LongTallShorty64

Yes. Yes it is.

It's the only screwball comedy where I was left totally aghast to why people love it so. I enjoyed the ending, however, so it wasn't all lost on me, I guess.