Daily Entertainment.

[muji]

Hello all!

Does anyone here like old movies? No, I don't mean from the nineties. I mean like "Johnny-Weissmueller-was-my-first-celebrity-crush" old movies. Which ones do you like/not like? Why?

Or just hate/love on It's a Wonderful Life. Either/or.

Comments

[alchemistseraph]

I have a huge thing for the Swiss Family Robinson, and Captain Blood, and rather unsurprisingly the old version--I mean 1934--of The Count of Monte Cristo. I've always sort of liked the films that really stuck to the idea that movies weren't so much supposed to reflect current life as much as take people away from it for a couple hours.

And Errol Flynn was my first celebrity crush. >> I mean. Uh.

[muji]

ERROL FLYNN ROBIN HOOD RULES MY LIFE.

[alchemistseraph]

*giggles*

I didn't see him in Robin Hood until years after I saw Captain Blood, but I love him just as much in that. Looking over my favorite films as a child, I don't think my grandmother let me into anything produced after 1950.

This Explains A Lot.



ALSO, YOUR ICON WINS.

[muji]

I had to upload it. <333 Astaire is my man.

[alchemistseraph]

I know, right? Astaire is the shit. On the subject of guys who look killer while dancing, what's your take on the new Jetta commercial with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor? I've heard some i-love-its and some i-hate-its.

(Me? Waugh. What I would not do to have both of those guys in the back of my car.)

[muji]

What? I have not seen this commercial, and since I'm at work I can't find it on YouTube. Fail, Monday.

[alchemistseraph]

D: You should damn well check it out when you can! It's them doing a bit from their sitting dance, greenscreened into the backseat of the new Jetta. As far as car commercials go it's certainly different...

Ah, the age when men actually wore all the parts of a three-piece-suit regularly. And well.

[muji]

For srs! I will have to check it out.

What's your favorite dance movie? I will have to admit mine might be 'Top Hat'.

[sardonicynic]

I cannot even begin to articulate how much love I have for Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.

[muji]

He's a classic for sure. I am actually not all that enamoured of Mockingbird as a favorite of mine for Peck movies? That goes to The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.

[alchemistseraph]

I think my favorite might have to be White Nights--if only for the bits with Gregory Hines actually holding his own in a dance studio next to Mikhail Baryshnikov.

...I sure as hell couldn't do it.

[alchemistseraph]

He was just about the only thing in that movie I halfway liked.

[sardonicynic]

We watched Mockingbird after reading the book for class in middle school; I still prefer the book, but oh my, Peck's Atticus closed a fist around my heart.

Oh, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit is phenom. ♥ My dad had so much Gregory Peck love, when I was a kid, we used to lose half the weekend watching stuff on TCM -- I think I've seen Pork Chop Hill at least a dozen times, bwah.

[sardonicynic]

I still prefer the book, purist that I am. ;D But man, oh man, his Atticus blew me away.

[muji]

Can't forget about the ladies either! Mmmm Cyd Charisse.

[muji]

My mom met him!

I continue to hate her a little for this.

(In his California fundraising years.)

[sardonicynic]

BE STILL, MY HEART.

[muji]

IKR?

Who else do you have, re: celebrity crushes from When Men Were Classy On Camera(TM)?

[sdelmonte]

I love old movies.

Where to begin? Casablanca. Possibly the greatest example of a Hollywood film ever made. The greatest movie ever? No, it's a product of its time, and it's very much a capsule of pure Hollywood hokum with only the slightest resemblance to the real world. But it's such a wonderful film nonetheless, with that amazing cast, with Bogey at his best, with Ingrid Bergman as radiant as ever. (And I cast my vote for her as the most beautiful actress ever.) I can watch this film over and over. It never grows old. It never stops being witty. Or fun. Or moving. Or stirring.

Other favorites include Bridge on the River Kwai, The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, High Noon, and Bad Day at Black Rock. I am sure there are a lot of others I am forgetting. I used to watch old films a lot growing up, and my mother still watches Turner Classic Movies more than most other channels. (She prefers the original True Grit to the new one.)

I can't think of any I hate, though I feel that The Thin Man and The African Queen are overrated. As for It's a Wonderful Life, people don't give it enough credit for playing around with alternate timelines, but it's really quite hokey.

[alchemistseraph]

To be honest with you, I don't love either version. :-/ It just...I dunno, perhaps having to read and dissect it in school made me hate it. I haven't watched or read it in about...five years, I think.

[sardonicynic]

Oh, Lord. How cheeseball is it to say Clark Gable, particularly as Rhett Butler? Because I have ridiculous, sentimental love for Gone with the Wind; I'd sit up until the wee hours with my mom on the weekends, and we'd watch part one on Friday till 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., and part two on Saturday night.

Also, Audie Murphy, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and how can I not list Spencer Tracy? (Woman of the Year is probably my very, very favorite black-and-white.)

YOUR TURN.

[sardonicynic]

Bwah, that is a-okay -- I'm not judging! I have no patience left for all things Jesse Stuart; he was a big damn deal with our elementary- and middle-school teachers because he's a noted Kentucky author, but oh my LORD, if I ever see a copy of A Penny's Worth of Character or Hie to the Hunters, it will be too soon.

[alchemistseraph]

Augh. *flail* That woman. Yes.

[alchemistseraph]

Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaame deal with Flannery O'Connor.

*twitch*

[muji]

Oh damn. Um.

If it's cheesy to say Clark Gable, I'm fucked because uh. Cary Grant works for me. A lot. And Fred Astaire like I said from earlier. Paul Newman. Umf.