AndyM108
-
Posts
4,255 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
18
Posts posted by AndyM108
-
-
We'll let some of the others catch up and post some more of their lists...but I plan to start a thread for the Underrated Sixties. I am going to do this all the way up to 2009. That gives us five more decades of classics to plow through!
In for a dime, in for a dollar. I'm going to post my top 10 of the 1940's over in the 40's (or I should say 1940) thread, and then do the same thing for the 1950's. I imagine it'll be harder for me to narrow it down in those two decades, but I'll know for sure when I start doing it.
-
Once we get much past the 60's or 70's I'm not sure I've even seen enough movies to list more than a few for each year. I didn't really start watching lots of films until I got hooked on the AFI in the 70's, but that was mostly older movies that they were showing. And after that, as long as I had a shop I hardly had time to keep current with the newer films, which is why I'm always pulling for TCM to keep showing "classic" movies from *ALL* eras, so between that and Netflix I can begin to catch up. Compared to you and many of the other people here, I'm a total greenhorn when it comes to knowledge about all this stuff. The depth of knowledge I see exhibited here on a daily basis is truly humbling.
Me, I'm of the "I know what I like" school of film appreciation.
But I'm always looking to get new insights by osmosis. -
It's absolutely brutal to try to rank the movies of the 30's as a whole, so this time I'm sticking to the Hollywood product only. I guess I should have a quota system for actors and actresses, but no matter how I shuffle it, I still get 3 Harlows and 3 Stanwycks. But considering that the former is Hollywood's greatest comedienne and the latter is Hollywood's foremost overall actress (obligatory *IMO* inserted here
), I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that this is how they came out. I've added two (or three) more just to make it an even (baker's) dozen.Best 12 American movies, *1930 - 1939*
1. Bombshell
2. I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
3. So Big
4. Stella Dallas
5. Red-Headed Woman
6. Libeled Lady
7. Heroes For Sale
8. Baby Face
9. Rain
10. A Man to Remember
11. 42nd Street / Footlight Parade
12. Bringing Up Baby
What I love about TCM is that of all the above films, I'd only seen six of them (2, 6, 9, 11a, 11b, and 12) before late 2009. That was when I broke down and bought a DVD recorder that let me go 24/7 with the Now Playing guide. Hard to believe what I'd been missing.
-
*1938* has one perfect comedy and one great dramatic movie, plus many others that I'd want to watch again.
1. Bringing Up Baby
2. A Man to Remember
3. La Bete Humaine
4. Port of Shadows
5. The Lady Vanishes
6. Angels With Dirty Faces
7. Le Schpountz
8. Holiday
9. Wives Under Suspicion
10. The Duke Is Tops
Best of the Rest: Torchy Blane movies taken as an entry; Block-Heads; Swing Your Lady; The Crowd Roars; I Am The Law; Young Dr. Kildare; Law of the Underworld
Underrated: A Man to Remember
Overrated: The Mad Miss Manton; Jezebel
Have to see: Algiers; Alexander Nevsky; Olympia
Best actor: Edward Ellis (A Man to Remember)
Best actress: Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby)
Best supporting actor: Humphrey Bogart (Angels With Dirty Faces)
Best supporting actress: Dame May Whitty (The Lady Vanishes)
Total number of films seen: About 70 - 75
-
Is it the chin, the hair, or the stare?
-
Most people, even many fans, would say a John Wayne movie has John Wayne in it, with a bunch of other people doing some actual ACTING. A lot of people, while saying they liked the movie, and Wayne's performance in it, thought his Oscar nod for TRUE GRIT was awarding John Wayne for being the same guy he was in just about every movie he's made in the 30 years prior.
But millions of people loved Wayne and his movies IN SPITE of this fact. Me too, I guess. I certainly liked far more of them than disliked. He was sort of like comfort food for movie goers. Chances were, if you went to a Wayne movie, you'd wind up liking it.
Other than Red River, I've never liked many of Wayne's more elaborate westerns, but OTOH I did like some of the programmers he made in the early 30's that TCM aired back in 2010. "Comfort food" is a good way of putting it, and if I liked westerns I'd probably put Wayne's movies in about the same class as Torchy Blaine or Boston ****. I just happen to go for movies set in the urban present more than those set in the rural past.
I will check out Donovan's Reef, if only because I like Lee Marvin. I'm assuming he plays "Lee Marvin" in this movie as much as he plays "Lee Marvin" in all the others I've seen.
-
Andy,
I would recommend The Long Voyage Home directed by John Ford, Hatari directed by Howard Hawks and The High and the Mighty directed by William Wellman,
lz, thanks to you and Kid Dabb for these other suggestions. I'm going to keep my eye out for them when they play in April.
-
Thanks. Appreciate your taking the time to write, but man, the "62 Mets analogy" hit me right in the stomach, ha.
Sorry, if I'd known you were a Mets fan I'd have said the 1972 Phillies, on the days that Steve Carlton wasn't pitching.
-
I'm curious why you think 1943 was so bad AndyM? Agree it's not the best year, but it is the year of Casablanca, The More The Merrier, Human Comedy, Heaven Can Wait, For Whom The Bell Tolls (although I have not seen that one in years).
Two reasons, one subjective and one objective.
*Subjectively* (emphasis added), I lean towards "realistic" movies, best embodied in pre-code drama, film noir, and dramas with a strong social or psychological bent. It also means that for instance, I find most foreign war movies far more "real" than most of their American counterparts, especially those produced during WWII itself. And it's not that I don't like a small number of musicals or a large number of comedies, but my personal bar for those genres is much higher than it would be for the genres I'm much more attuned to.
*Objectively,* it's all relative, and while there were a few good movies that came out that year, when you look at all the other years we've been discussing on these three threads devoted to the 30's, 40's, and 50's, it's rather clear that 1943 is far and away the "worst" of them all by almost any standard, even if one's subjective tastes are entirely different than mine.* This isn't Lake Wobegon, and not all years are above average.
*Okay, if American war movies that passed through wartime censorship is your favored cup of tea, I suppose that there might be worse years. But by any other standard, 1943 movies are in the same general league as the 1962 Mets.
-
Glad you mentioned Chained For Life, since as soon as I saw the "Musical" logo on the TCM schedule page, I didn't even bother to read the description. That's not the first time I've seen that "Musical" designation on some very non-musical genres.
-
Actually, Andy, I would never have considered Robert Ryan as scary due to the very reasons you state. Great as he was on screen, I never thought his villainy portrayals were a reflection of the real man. All the more reason to appreciate his skill as an actor, of course, but less reason to think that the man himself might be similarly intimidating.
Okay, I was only thinking of Ryan's screen presence. But if you're talking about the person underneath the mask, then Lawrence Tierney would probably be the man. Others have noted his role as Elaine's father in that classic Seinfeld episode, and I still laugh when I think of how he intimidated poor Jerry into walking out into the snow with his expensive leather coat exposed to the elements, rather than turning it inside out to protect it.
And of course he was also famous for getting into many offscreen brawls, and I think he wound up in jail for them more than once.
-
It warms the cockles of my hard heart that everyone loves Libeled Lady. I can't think of a single film where the top 5 parts were so masterfully cast, and where they all so perfectly complemented one another. Talk about star power!
Along with Bombshell, that's one of a very tiny handful of movies I could probably watch once a week and never get tired of it.
-
*1936* at least has one genuinely great movie, but I miss all those gems from 1932 through the first half of 1934. 1946 can't get here fast enough.
1. Libeled Lady (up there with Bombshell as Hollywood's best comedy)
2. Reefer Madness (the movie Ed Wood should have made)
3. These Three
4. The Unguarded Hour*
5. Smart Blonde
6. Bullets or Ballots
7. Wife vs Secretary
8. The Petrified Forest
9. Modern Times
10. Fury
*Mistakenly put in 1935 earlier, but now corrected
Best of the rest: The Ex-Mrs. Bradford; Banjo on My Knee; The Black Legion; Suzy; The Man Who Lived Twice; Satan Met a Lady; After the Thin Man; My Man Godfrey (though it's also a bit overrated)
Underrated: These Three; The Unguarded Hour
Overrated: San Francisco; Mr. Deeds Goes To Town
Have to see: The Story of a Cheat; The Crime of Monsieur Lange
Best actor: William Powell and Spencer Tracy (Libeled Lady)
Best actress: Jean Harlow and Myrna Loy (Libeled Lady)
Best supporting actor: Walter Connolly (Libeled Lady)
Best supporting actress: Can't think of any who really stand out; too bad the Marx Brothers skipped 1936, or else it would have been Margaret Dumont
Total number of films viewed: About 65 - 70
-
While you people are doing this, what was the worst year for film in the period 1930-1960?
I've yet to list 1960, or 1936 through 1939, but I can't imagine that any of those years would be remotely as bad as 1943. The highlight of that year was probably the usual assortment of Donald Duck and Warner Brothers cartoons.
-
May I suggest you take a look at Tycoon (1947), with John Wayne as a determined railroad builder. In my opinion, it's his best non-Western, dramatic role. He's also very good opposite Jean Arthur in the romantic comedy A Lady Takes a Chance (1943). He had quite the range as an actor, and I've always felt it was unfortunate he never got the chance to put his full acting ability on proper display.
Thanks to you and Tom for the suggestions, although I've already seen The Quiet Man, and didn't care much for it. I did like Trouble Along the Way and Big Jim McCain, however, especially the former. And I also liked Red River, although that one's a western that's an exception to my general rule.
I've always appreciated Wayne's screen presence, but since I'm not a fan of either westerns or American war movies, I probably haven't seen enough of his movies to give him a real assessment. That's why I was wondering about some of those other genres that he may have also appeared in.
-
Can anyone out there list a few of Wayne's better films that AREN'T westerns or war movies, where he has a major role and not just as a cameo as he has in Baby Face ? Or is he as much of a one trick pony as I've always suspected?
I've seen Trouble Along the Way and Big Jim McCain, so anything other than those two.
-
That's easy: *Robert Ryan* in Crossfire, Act of Violence, Caught, The Racket, Clash By Night, Beware, My Lovely, House of Bamboo, The Naked Spur, Lonelyhearts, and Odds Against Tomorrow. And that's only a partial list.
In real life Ryan was one of Hollywood's leading liberals, and was often quoted as saying that he'd devoted his his entire life to fighting the sort of characters he portrayed in his films. He resisted films that would have cast him in romantic leads to go along with his rugged good looks, because he said that such roles weren't interesting enough.
-
I've always thought that Rain was up there with Mildred Pierce and Sudden Fear among Crawford's finest performances, and it always has fascinated me that she seemed to view it as her worst. My take on that is that Crawford was always *striving* in her personal life to act the part of a respectable Republican club lady, and Sadie Thompson was just too far removed from that platonic ideal for Crawford to want to be even remotely identified with it. In a way it's sort of like Cagney's knocking his classic gangster performances in favor of Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Paul Muni's always trying to land "prestige" roles in those godawful biopic hagiographies that now seem as dated as stale cheese.
-
The descent from 1933 to 1935 was like jumping off a cliff, as the Breen Code sanitized the industry to the point where it was little more than a combination of the Archdiocese of Chicago and a blue ribbon grand jury. It's not as if there wasn't some good writing and acting, but it was like trying to exercise in a solitary confinement cell: No room to breathe or stretch your legs.
Nevertheless, here are the top 10 movies of a lame year. Not one of them would have been anywhere near the top 10 just two years earlier:
1. Bordertown
2. Little Big Shot (Sybil Jason is sublime)
3. The Clairvoyant
4. A Night at the Opera (easily the Marx Brothers' best)
5. Romance in Manhattan
6. The Informer
7. The Whole Town's Talking
8. Dangerous
9. The Murder Man
10. Traveling Saleslady
Best of the rest: Black Fury; The Goose and the Gander; Whipsaw; Stranded; Dr. Socrates; Dangerous Corner; The 39 Steps; I Found Stella Parrish
Underrated: Little Big Shot; The Murder Man; Traveling Saleslady
Overrated: Bride of Frankenstein; Sylvia Scarlett
Have to see: The Devil Is a Woman; Toni
Best actor: Victor McLagen (The Informer)
Best actress: Bette Davis (Dangerous)
Best supporting actor: Sig Ruman (A Night at the Opera)
Best supporting actress: Sybil Jason (Little Big Shot)
Total number of movies viewed: About 60 - 70
-
There were still plenty of good films in 1934, but you could see the dropoff from the previous year when the Production Code was largely ignored. Only the first 2 on this list would have made the top 10 cut for 1933.
Best of *1934:*
1. La Bandera
2. Gentlemen Are Born
3. Fog Over Frisco
4. Bedside (Warren William in his most fiendish scheme ever)
5. The Thin Man
6. It's A Gift
7. L'Atalante
8. Massacre
9. No Greater Glory
10. Manhattan Melodrama
Best of the rest: Imitation of Life; Death on the Diamond; Hi, Nellie!; He Was Her Man; Evelyn Prentice; Born to Be Bad; Heat Lightning; The Goddess; Little Miss Marker
Underrated: Gentlemen Are Born; Bedside; Death on the Diamond; Hi, Nellie!
Overrated: Twentieth Century
Have to see: Our Daily Bread; Stamboul Quest
Best actor: Warren William (Bedside)
Best actress: Myrna Loy (The Thin Man)
Best supporting actor: Michel Simon (L'Atalante)
Best supporting actress: Fredi Washington (Imitation of Life)
Total number of films viewed: About 80 - 85
-
1932 was the breakthrough year, and 1933 may be right up there with 1950 on my all-time list of greatest years for American movies. Once the Breen code took effect in mid-1934 there was a precipitous drop in quality.
Here's my *1933* list. Any of the first 4 could be # 1.
1. Bombshell (#1 U.S. comedy, just behind The Sheep Has Five Legs)
2. The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
3. Heroes For Sale
4. Baby Face
5. The Story of Temple Drake
6. 42nd Street / Footlight Parade (tie)
8. The Mind Reader
9. Wild Boys of the Road
10. Lady For a Day
Best of the rest: Ladies They Talk About; One Man's Journey; King Kong; Girl Missing; The Prizefighter and the Lady; Employees' Entrance; Lawyer Man; The Little Giant; The Women in His Life; Lady Killer; Elmer the Great; Ever in My Heart; Hold Your Man; Gabriel Over the White House; Parole Girl
Underrated: One Man's Journey; Girl Missing; The Little Giant
Overrated: Duck Soup; Dancing Lady
Have to see: Zero For Conduct
Best actor: Rudolf Klein-Rogge (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse)
Best actress: Jean Harlow (Bombshell)
Best supporting actor: Lee Tracy (Bombshell)
Best supporting actress: Dorothy Coonan (Wild Boys of the Road)
Best entire supporting cast: Everyone else in Bombshell, but especially Franchot Tone, C. Aubrey Smith and Mary Forbes.
Best song and dance number *EVER:* Jimmy Cagney and Ruby Keeler ("Shanghai Lil" in Footlight Parade)
Total number of films viewed: About 90 - 100. This was certainly Hollywood's most prolific year for great pre-code films.
-
The way that many studios did it in the 30's was perfect: After the studio logo and the opening title shot, you'd see brief shots of the leading actors of the film. For instance, in The Public Enemy, we'd see a grinning Jimmy Cagney swiping the beer off his puss (or something like that), while underneath it would say "JAMES CAGNEY as Tom Powers", and so on, down to the fifth or sixth character actor. There might be a brief mention after that of the top dozen non-actors involved in the film, always including the producer and the director, but that was it. For those who are (or were) fairly new to this period of Hollywood, it was a great way to learn to associate the names of the actors with their faces.
And at the end, it just said THE END. Which it was. The tenth assistant makeup crew members would have to find their glory in their paychecks.
I should add that in the 50''s and early 60's this practice was revived in a handful of movies, but with the names and faces coming at the end, rather than at the beginning. Either way was far more enjoyable than today's laundry list of people whose names mean nothing to 99.99999% of the audience outside their friends and family members.
-
If nightclub singer Ringa Dinga married Ding Dong Williams she would then be Ringa Dinga Ding Dong Williams ??
And if they lived on a ranch, would they have a horse named *Long Dong Silver* who would gallop off with *Ringa Dinga* for a little *"Catherine the Great"* style action while *Ding Dong Williams* was out pounding Lone Star beer at the local saloon?
-
We share a few titles for '31. I am duly impressed at your including THE MIRACLE WOMAN and so high on the list, too! It's on mine, but not ranked nearly as well. I do think it's a great example of the Stanwyck-Capra magic. I can't help but feel Jean Simmons borrowed from this when she made ELMER GANTRY, playing a similar role. David Manners, in one of his lead roles in a non-horror film, does remarkably well, too. A close friend of David's told me that THE MIRACLE WOMAN was David's favorite film-- he had a good time making it with such esteemed company!
Barbara Stanwyck is so much my favorite actress that I could almost compile a credible (to me, anyway) top 10 list from the 30's through the early 60's from just her films alone. That opening scene in The Miracle Worker gives us our first real taste of what was to come.
Here's my *1932* list. This was the real breakthrough year of the sound era, when the great pre-code films just came roaring downstream like a mighty river. Almost any of these could credibly be at the top of the list, even some of the "best of the rest". It's also noteworthy in that so many of the best films starred women in the leading role.
1. I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
2. So Big
3. Red-Headed Woman
4. Rain
5. I Was Born, But...
6. Freaks
7. Call Her Savage
8. Red Dust
9. The Match King
10. Symphony of Six Million
Best of the rest: Trouble in Paradise, The Mouthpiece, Night Court, Thirteen Women, Three on a Match, Central Park, Blonde Venus, Skyscraper Souls, Hell's Highway, If I Had a Million, The Dark Horse, The Heart of New York, Pack Up Your Troubles
Underrated: So Big, Call Her Savage, Symphony of Six Million, Night Court
Overrated: The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Have to see: Murders in the Rue Morgue; White Zombie
Best actor: Paul Muni (I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang)
Best actress: Barbara Stanwyck (So Big); Jean Harlow (Red-Headed Woman, AND Red Dust)
Best supporting actor: Lyle Talbot and Humphrey Bogart (Three on a Match)
Best supporting actress: Bette Davis (So Big)
Total number of films viewed: About 100
But I'm always looking to get new insights by osmosis.
1940- an underrated year
in General Discussions
Posted
Since I did it for the 1930's, I figure WTH, I'll try to figure out the top 12 movies of the 1940's, again narrowing it down to U.S. movies only, since that's what everyone else seems to be concentrating on. This is much harder than the 30's because of the rise of the more realistic dramas, including film noir, a genre that's my favorite of them all.
*The (annotated) top 12 American movies of the 1940's:*
*EDIT: Very embarrassing: I originally omitted It's A Wonderful Life, because it wasn't in my TCM database. So now this is a top 13 list.*
1. *The Search (1948)* - Everything that a film can offer: A moving story based on the reality of separated families in postwar Europe, without a drop of false sentimentality; fabulous performances by the American leading actor (Montgomery Clift), the American supporting actress (Aline McMahon), and the two Czech actors, Jarmila Novotn? and Ivan Jandl. There's not a shot fired in the entire 104 minutes, but it's as good a war movie as Hollywood has ever produced.
2. *The Killers (1946)* - The perfect noir, with the tone set right from the start by William Conrad and Charles McGraw in the roadside diner, and with Lancaster, Gardner, O'Brien, Dekker and an all-star cast of supporting actors taking it from there, right down to the unforgettable and appropriately ironic last line. Hemingway called it the best film adaptation of any of his work, and it's easy to see why.
3. *Out of the Past (1947)* - In a virtual dead heat with the Killers, and with the greatest femme fatale ever (Jane Greer) of the Hollywood screen. She could have been cast as the snake in the Garden of Eden.
4. *The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)* - Every once in a while Hollywood gets it right, and this one never misses a beat, with March, Loy, Andrews and Harold Russell. This was a perfect counterpoint to the rah-rah war movies that we'd been fed a steady dose of for the previous five years.
5. *Nightmare Alley (1947)* - Tyrone Power's favorite and best role, another pitch perfect noir featuring one betrayal and double cross after another, climaxed by one of the dirtiest dames the movies have ever seen, the treacherous Helen Walker as the larcenous psychiatrist who deftly outcons the master con man Power.
6, *Gilda (1946)* - Rita Hayworth at her absolute peak, Glenn Ford at his usual tough guy best, along with a much better than generic plot involving treachery and treason and an inspector (Joseph Calleia) whose gracious final touch is every bit the match for that of Claude Rains at the airport in Casablanca.
7. *It's A Wonderful Life (1946) (ADDED)* If ever there's been a movie that can be cited for honest emotion and melodrama as opposed to the phony sort we see so often, it's this extraordinary movie that speaks across generations as few others of its type still can do. After all, isn't the basic dividing line today still between the George Baileys of the world and the Potters? Jimmy Stewart was born for this role, and aside from maybe Vertigo he was never better.
8. *The Hard Way (1942)* - Ida Lupino had God knows how many first rate movies in her illustrious career, but her hard nosed portrait of the ultimate stage mother (although technically "Stage Sister") may have been her best performance of them all, with Joan Leslie and Jack Carson provided her with fine backup performances as the younger sister and the jilted beau.
9. *Roughly Speaking (1945)* - Another tale of pure grit, with Rosalind Russell and Jack Carson as the All-American couple who keep getting knocked down time after time and keep getting back on their feet. Russell is mostly known for her great comedic roles in The Women and His Girl Friday, but this one shows just how fine a dramatic actress she also was.
10. *Mildred Pierce (1945)* - Jack Carson keeps popping up in these great films, and I'm starting to suspect that this isn't any coincidence. But this one is Joan Crawford's movie, in one of her best - - - maybe her best - - - roles, in a film that delves deeply into the lengths that a mother will go to see her daughter get the things that she never had. And has there ever been a more ungrateful spoiled brat than Veda?
11. *Laura (1944)* - Up there with Gilda for glamour, and up there with The Killers and Out of the Past for intrigue and great character actors, led by the indescribable Clifton Webb. And the soundtrack alone nearly earns it a spot on this list.
12. *The Letter (1940)* - I'd rate this just below All About Eve as Bette Davis's finest role, the Gothic tale to end all Gothic tales. Poor Herbert Marshall has never been more cuckolded, and he'd had plenty of experience in that sad role.
13. *Thieves? Highway (1949)* - A Fox movie that doesn't seem to appear much if ever on TCM, it's only a slightly lesser variant of On The Waterfront, with Lee J. Cobb the actor who connects the two films. Richard Conte is the tough as nails returning veteran who singlehandedly takes on the racketeers in the wholesale produce business who killed his father, and Valentina Cortesa lends the perfect exotic touch.
Best of the rest in alphabetical order: The Big Clock; Casablanca; Framed; The Big 3 Ladd-Lake noirs; Intruder in the Dust; The Lady Eve; The Philadelphia Story; White Heat
Underrated movie of the decade: The Search
Have to see: Way too many
Best actor: Tyrone Power (Nightmare Alley); *ADDED: Jimmy Stewart (It's A Wonderful Life)*
Best actress: Joan Crawford (Mildred Pierce)
Best supporting actor: Clifton Webb (Laura)
Best supporting actress: Helen Walker (Nightmare Alley)
Edited by: AndyM108 on Jan 13, 2014 12:00 PM