Calling all Classic Film Lovers!

Anybody seen Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la bête?

Not this callsign, no.

Yes, I have.

I just want to gush about it, that's all. It's so lush and beautiful. There's a lot of great moments like the jewels turning hideous and then back to shining jewels, the ending, the "hand" servants, and the crying diamonds bit.

edited 13th Apr '17 3:51:49 PM by LongTallShorty64

Went back to the beginning and made a work page for Leap Year.

It's actually pretty darn good, a sweet romantic comedy that's different from the nonstop slapstick of the Arbuckle shorts. Really makes you wonder what he would have done with his career.

So I watched a film called History is Made at Night starring Jean Arthur and Charles Boyer. It's mostly an unremarkable romantic drama until the end where there's this Titanic-like crash of an ocean liner. It eerily shares some similarities to the Cameron film: two star-crossed lovers where Boyer tries to get Arthur onto a lifeboat but she jumps off, the parting of an elderly couple, men trying to get on the lifeboats even if it's women and children first, a ship going full speed ahead even when told not to in foggy, cold weather, and people singing (I guess it's the band that plays in the '97 film but close enough) eerily as they think they're all going to die. The difference here is that they all survive since the boat's water blocking system holds out and happy Hollywood ending. I just found it very similar, but cursory searches show that Cameron was inspired by a different, actual account of the Titanic, A Night to Remember.

And almost surely by the 1943 Nazi Titanic, although he's apparently never admitted it.

A Nazi Titanic movie!?!?!

Not joking.

It was essentially a propaganda film that blamed the sinking on the British and added a heroic, selfless German character who saves most of the passengers.

But why the Titanic?! What a strange choice for a propaganda film.

The titanic perhaps was considered a recent enough event in living memory for them to use as propaganda

I have no idea why myself.

Supposedly, however, the film only played in German-occupied territory, never in Germany itself. A disaster film probably wouldn't have gone over too well in a country that was getting bombed daily.

It is just the oddest damn movie. A combination of thuddingly obvious propaganda and some actually not-terrible action sequences.

The 1931 version of "The Maltese Falcon" is airing on TCM April 27.

Apparently that version is super pre-codey. Has anyone watched both versions and know how they compare?

Never seen the 1931 version and am hugely looking forward to it.

This doesn't have anything to do with our era, strictly speaking, but I don't care...Olivia de Havilland's beautifully contemptuous reaction to "Feud''.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/04/olivia-de-havilland-emails-about-how-she-doesnt-watch-feud.html

What a class act.

Not only still alive at 100 but obviously still with it.

I've seen all three versions of The Maltese Falcon (the 1931 version, the comedy, and the Bogart version) and for my money, the '31 version doesn't compare. It's interesting for it's pre-codey-ness, but it turns Sam Spade into a smarmy ass who pretty much goes after anything in a skirt. The Bogart version is a much truer adaptation of Hammet's novel, truer to characters and atmosphere.

This is an instance where the code didn't hurt the film any, and the lack of code for the '31 version just gave them a license to lard it up with unnecessary sex.

I watched a good amount of films:

• Bicycle Thieves: I don't understand the "greatest movie made" tag this film has. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic, but not what I would consider the best movie ever. Well, YMMV, I guess.
• The Earrings of Madame de...: Devastating melodrama. Charles Boyer speaking his native French! Also co-stars the director of Bicycle Thieves.
• It: I liked this but if we're going to compare this to Why Be Good? which shares a lot of plot stuff with this one, I prefer WBG. Am I the only one who thinks it's strange they made a whole film based on some Cosmo magazine writer's vague definitions of sex appeal? I haven't seen enough Colleen Moore or Clara Bow to know which I like better but both are great in their respective films and both would never have a career after silents which is a shame.

edited 22nd Apr '17 6:04:31 PM by LongTallShorty64

Bicycle Thieves probably doesn't deserve a "greatest film ever made" tag but it did usher in a whole new school of filmmaking with Italian Neorealism. It must have made quite an impression for anyone in America who was more familiar with Hollywood glitz.

Never heard of Bycicle Thieves getting a 'greatest movie ever made' tag. I thought that belonged to either Citizen Kane or Vertigo.

It is, nonetheless, a very influential movie, as james said above.

edited 22nd Apr '17 6:53:45 PM by Quag15

At the time, it was considered the best film by Sight and Sound before the reevaluations of both Citizen Kane and Vertigo. I can definitely see it as influential to neo-realism and to the French New Wave especially.

I suspect there were probably people in 1927 wondering why Elinor Glyn was a big deal all of a sudden.

Clara Bow probably could have kept working in movies if she wanted. Her earlier talkies were popular and her comeback films Call Her Savage and Hoop-La were also popular. Call Her Savage is just amazing in a pre-Code WTF kind of way.

Colleen Moore delivers a great talkie performance in The Power and the Glory.