Just got Netflix. Name some great old movies.

[TheAuldGrump]

Some silent greats:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - my favorite silent movie, and one of my all time favorites period.

Nosferatu. The remake with Klaus Kinsky is also interesting.

Sardonicus.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Phantom of the Opera.

Silent Movie (Mel Brooks... the only spoken line in the movie is by Marcel Marceau.)

*EDIT* Metropolis (of course).

The Auld Grump

 

[Wombat]

Some silent greats:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - my favorite silent movie, and one of my all time favorites period.

Nosferatu. The remake with Klaus Kinsky is also interesting.

Sardonicus.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Phantom of the Opera.

Silent Movie (Mel Brooks... the only spoken line in the movie is by Marcel Marceau.)

Y'know, AuldGrump, you and I have to get together for some serious film-festing!

Of course this opens up another line of enquiry -- imagine screening multiple versions of the same film (or film-theme) from the silents on forward. I mean
The Phantom of the Opera has been done at least three times, Nosferatu could lead to a whole Dracula-splurge, and with The Hunchback of Notre Dame you get at least the two versions (plus the Disney musical, but let's not get silly...).

Think of watching the evolving taste in Westerns by watching, say, Tom Mix and slowly working forward to the more gritty modern visions. The same with films on WWII of even (very broadly) comedies. Watching "greats" from one time to another could give you a whole panorama of the changes in tastes towards what is desireable in movies.

Egads! Just watching (those available, of course) the Best Picture films in chronological order would be quite the eye-opener!

 

[Dagger75]

Well here is the list of all the best pictures.

http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Academy_Awards_USA/

This should come in handy.

 

[Desdichado]

Nosferatu. The remake with Klaus Kinsky is also interesting.

As is the recent movie about the making of the silent movie with the star as a real vampire. Can't remember the name of that one, though.

I'm surprised you left Metropolis off the list of silent movies, though. Not often remembered today (what silent movie is?) yet perhaps one of the most influential of them all in many ways.

 

[Warrior Poet]

As is the recent movie about the making of the silent movie with the star as a real vampire. Can't remember the name of that one, though.

Shadow of the Vampire with John Malkovic as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as the vampire.

Warrior Poet

 

[Warrior Poet]

I'm surprised you left Metropolis off the list of silent movies, though. Not often remembered today (what silent movie is?) yet perhaps one of the most influential of them all in many ways.

I was always curious about the story of the original silent film, that was shown in a tent in the late 19th c., I think. It showed a train pulling into a station. Supposedly, being the first time people had seen "motion pictures," the tent emptied out with the spectators screaming and running for their lives, afraid they were going to be run over by the train.

What I want to know is, wouldn't a train make a tremendous amount of noise? This was before sound was part of film. Giant steam engine whistling and screeching on steel rails. Maybe they were equally terrified of the fact that someone had developed a top secret stealth train.

I guess I can see the scare factor coming from the innovation of it all, and the realism, but I would have thought the lack of noise would have somehow precluded such a reaction.

Warrior Poet

 

[The_Universe]

Westerns:
McLintock!
Rio Bravo
The War Wagon

WWII:
The Dirty Dozen

 

[TheAuldGrump]

As is the recent movie about the making of the silent movie with the star as a real vampire. Can't remember the name of that one, though.

I'm surprised you left Metropolis off the list of silent movies, though. Not often remembered today (what silent movie is?) yet perhaps one of the most influential of them all in many ways.

It looks like Metropolis disappeared, along with my customary tag line of 'The Auld Grump', not sure how, but I have now added both back in. It is my second favorite of the silents.

And a movie that changed the world, but not in a good way - Birth of a Nation... A movie that I truly wish had never been made.

The Auld Grump

 

[sniffles]

Ah, so nice to see silents being recommended - I was beginning to think no one was willing to watch silent movies anymore but me.

Any Charlie Chaplin film, ditto Buster Keaton.
Greed - there's a great silent.
Sunrise
Alexander Nevsky
Potemkin
Aelita - Queen of Mars (although I only recommend the Martian parts - the rest is awful propaganda)

I pushed Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast on another thread, but I'll push it again. Add to that his Orpheus.

The Flash Gordon serials are fun when they're not all chopped up and full of commercials.

The Monsier Hulot films - Mon Oncle, Mr. Hulot's Holiday, and Playtime.

Man, this list could go on forever.

 

[Tanager]

ok, here's the 'chick flick, but I like em anyway, you wanna make something of it?' list:

Eve's Bayou and Cavenman's Valentine both directed by Kasi Lemmons
Antonia's Line
Like Water for Chocolate
Babette's Feast
But I'm a Cheerleader


I'll second the recommendation for Kaspar Hausar, Arsenic and Old Lace, Bubba Ho-Tep (how can it not be good? Bruce Cambell as Elvis, fighting the undead, you can't go wrong!), Kind Hearts and Coronets, Shadow of the Vampire and Where Eagles Dare.

There's one I really want to reccomend, but I'm drawing a blank on the title, and the actors names at the moment. It'll come to me later I'm sure.