Does anyone here like old movies?

[Edgy MD]

Thirty films. That's a nice round number. No need to cast aside the early stuff. Let them stand or fall in competition.

[Double Switch]

Vic Sage wrote: Double Switch wrote: Would you tell me where those numbers come from? i found a website that ranked all of Kurosawa's films as an aggregate of IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc. Then i seeded them in each bracket accordingly, with slight tweaks based on my own assessments.

Impressive!



I rewatched Ikiru again the other night and was still overwhelmed by the end with every aspect of it. In a while I'll head over to the library to pick up Tampopo*, Dodes'kaden, and Hakuchi (The Idiot) for some overindulgence. Then I'll know if it's The Idiot or Scandal that I need to find as I know I saw one of them but not which one. For me they fell into the slot along with I Live in Fear.



*Some day I need to go on a rave regarding Juzo Itami.

[Vic Sage]

i loved Tampopo, but you'll have to go out and eat Ramen right after seeing it.

[Double Switch]

Vic Sage wrote: i loved Tampopo, but you'll have to go out and eat Ramen right after seeing it.

I love that stuff! Slurp!



And it's good to see Tsutomu Yamazaki as a good guy, still around at 83.

[whippoorwill]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Kirk Douglas is also 103 years old.

That is incredible. How old is his son? Doesn't he have an actor son?

[Edgy MD]

Four sons. Two became producers and two became actors, one of which pre-deceased Kirk by overdosing at 46.

[Vic Sage]

Edgy MD wrote: Thirty films. That's a nice round number. No need to cast aside the early stuff. Let them stand or fall in competition.

well, its 31 films, but sure. It doesn't really matter, though; nobody coming out of that bracket is going to beat 7 SAMURAI in the 1 v 4 quarter-finals.

[dgwphotography]

After seeing the crap CGI in the Ford V Ferrari trailer, I have a yearning to watch Le Mans.

[Vic Sage]

Ahhhh, McQueen. King of cool. He did a lot of his own driving in the movie, having competed in actual races.

[Vic Sage]

time for a list of best racing movies!

[Vic Sage]

Here's a car list from the archives:



MAN AT THE WHEEL



There is a man is at the wheel… he is driving fast, destination unknown. He may be chased, or in pursuit. He may have loved once, or been loved, and he may be fleeing justice, or seeking it, but now all the meaning in his life is defined by his skill and velocity. He is merely an object in space, and his only remaining relationship is with his machine. He is likely to meet his fate at gunpoint, or at a point of impact, or find himself at the vanishing point, where open blacktop meets the distant horizon.



He is a burnt out shell of a man, a ronin, the existential anti-hero at the wheel, hurtling toward his fate… and these are the movies that define him:



FAST & THE FURIOUS (1955) – this is the first AIP/Corman B-Movie… guy on the run, girl in danger, hijacked jaguar… time to race!

THE WILD RIDE (1960) – quintessential AIP/Corman juvenile delinquency flick for the Beat generation, with Jack Nicholson making trouble, racing around and dying young.

BONNIE & CLYDE (1967) – notorious lovers on the run in their vintage 30s cars, careening around to banjo music, until they're shot to death in their car.

VANISHING POINT (1971) – This is the absolute epitome of the genre.

2-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) – Monty Hellman's philosophical road picture

BADLANDS (1973) – Bonnie & Clyde's younger version, more interested in killing than stealing.

DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY (1974) – Peter Fonda on the run in a Dodge Charger

GONE IN 60 SECONDS (1974), (2000) (– also DEADLINE AUTO THEFT / THE JUNKMAN follow-ups) – stunt-driver HB Halicki wrote, produced, directed and starred in this no-budget chase film about car thieves. Halicki died in a car stunt making a sequel. These are probably unwatchable now, but the big budget remake with Nick Cage sucks, too.

SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974) – Spielberg's first feature, with Goldie Hawn on the run.

RETURN TO MACON COUNTY (1975) – young Don Johnson and Nick Nolte in this sequel to MACON COUNTY LINE, about delinquents looking to drag race.

TAXI DRIVER (1976) – He prowls the night, waiting for a rain to come and wash the scum from the streets… that is, until he realizes that HE is the rainstorm he's been waiting for.

THE DRIVER (1978) – Walter Hill's take on the existential wheel man.

BREATHLESS (1983) – while not quite as good as Godard's version (1960), they both celebrate the aimless criminal and his lover on the run

THELMA & LOUISE (1991) – a distaff version of Bonnie & Clyde, they end up driving off a cliff rather than live lives as southern housewives. Can't say I blame them.

HEAVEN'S BURNING (1997) – An Ozzie Bonnie & Clyde, with young Russell Crowe.

AMERICAN PERFEKT (1997) – Robert Forster as a psycho-psychiatrist on the run with a body in the trunk.

TRANSPORTER (2002), II (2005), III (2008) – Jason Statham as a merc who transports illicit packages in a cool BMW – no questions asked, of course.

DEATH PROOF (2007) – Tarentino's psycho automotive serial killer meets his match in pack of deadly female stunt drivers.

DRIVE (2011) – Ryan Gosling picks up the mantel of the wheelman not to be crossed, and knocks it out of the park



Moonshiners: these southern gothic actioners are a subset of the genre; usually low-budget exploitation by AIP, but Robert Mitchum set the standard in THUNDER ROAD and the Dukes buried it.



THUNDER ROAD (1958)

WHITE LIGHTNING (1973)

MOONRUNNERS (1975)

DIXIE DYNAMITE (1976)

BAD GEORGIA ROAD (1977)

THUNDER & LIGHTNING (1977)

DUKES OF HAZZARD (2005)



Driver comedies: the comic approach to the man behind the wheel has basically taken the form of extended chase films, usually involving illegal races, or chases, or crashes on a ridiculous scale.



IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) – also RAT RACE (2001)

FIREBALL 500 (1966)

EAT MY DUST (1976)

GUMBALL RALLY (1976)

CANNONBALL (1976)

GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977)

SMOKEY & THE BANDIT (1977), II (1980), III (1983)

BLUES BROTHERS (1980)

CANNONBALL RUN (1981)



Cross-genre driver movies: the existential driver pops up in horror and SF, most notably the MAD MAX movies.



DEATH RACE 2000 (1975) – black comedy/SF became a cult classic

MAD MAX (1979), II (1981), III (1985) – the ultimate in “burnt out shell of a man on the road” movies

THE LAST CHASE (1981) – bad sci fi but on the nose, theme-wise.

CARS (2006) – animated cars, but no drivers!

SPEED RACER (2008) – the cartoon comes to life, but no anti-heroes.



Horror Cars: some horror films feature the car or the driver as a supernatural force chasing the protagonist, which doesn't really fit the genre but what the hell:



DUEL (1971) – Spielberg's first was a TV film but got a theatrical release.

CARS THAT ATE PARIS (1974) – Peter Weir's Ozzie flick

RACE WITH THE DEVIL (1975) – Satanists chase Peter Fonda

CHRISTINE (1983) – Stephen King's killer car

DRIVE ANGRY (2011) – another over-the-top Nick Cage on the run film, escaped from Hell and chased by Satanists.



*The Trucker movie - sometimes the car is a big rig, and the driver is seeking justice, or a paycheck, or just survival.



THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940)

WHITE LINE FEVER (1975)

SORCERER (1977) – Friedkin's remake of WAGE OF FEAR (1953)

CONVOY (1978)



*Bikers - sometimes they drive 2 wheels, not 4.



GIRL ON THE MOTORCYCLE (1968)

EASY RIDER (1969)

ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE (1973)

GHOST RIDER (2010), II (2012)



*And sometimes, it's a train.



EMPEROR OF THE NORTH (1973)

RUNAWAY TRAIN (1985)



The Big Race: these aren't really anti-hero movies, featuring instead race car drivers driving legitimate races, but they do have some overlap.



THE GREAT RACE (1965) - Blake Edwards "race around the world" comedy with Tony Curtis, and Curtis's similar followup, THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN IN THEIR JAUNTY JALOPIES (1969)

GRAND PRIX (1966) – James Garner

WINNING (1969) – Paul Newman

LE MANS (1971) – Steve McQueen

LAST AMERICAN HERO (1973) - Jeff Bridges, true story about a moonshiner who becomes a stock car champion.

GREASED LIGHTNING (1977) – ditto, with Richard Pryor

STROKER ACE (1983) - good ole boy Burt Reynolds, in his comic redneck NASCAR driver mode (as opposed to comic redneck outrunning-the-cops mode)

DAYS OF THUNDER (1990) – Tom Cruise

TALLADEGA NIGHTS (2006) – Will Ferrell



Car chasers: some movies just feature a spectacular car chase or 2, but otherwise don't fit the genre. Worth mentioning are:



THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963) – McQueen racing on a motorcycle, jumping barbed wire

BULLITT (1968) – McQueen as a cop in hot pursuit on the hilly streets of SF

THE ITALIAN JOB (1969) – Caper film with Michael Caine

FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) – Friedkin's race under the L

THE GETAWAY (1972) – McQueen and McGraw on the run

SEVEN UPS (1973) – Cops in hot pursuit

MCQ (1974) – The Duke in a cool car

TO LIVE & DIE IN LA (1985) – Slick Michael Mann and his LA cops

RONIN (1998) – caper film with DeNiro and getaway chase through Europe

FAST & THE FURIOUS (2001), II, III, IV, V – this Vin Diesel series fetishizes car culture like none other. The only problem is it's about an undercover cop, not an existential anti-hero, so not within the genre.



Lifetime achievement award: Steve McQueen – the Tao of Steve required maintaining a detached cool even astride a Harley vaulting barbed wire fences to evade Nazis, flying a car over the hills of San Francisco, racing at Le Mans, on the run with Ali McGraw, bounty hunting atop a train, shot flying a jet as Thomas Crowne, financing a documentary on bikers, and generally living his life at maximum RPM. Runner-up: Paul Newman. Special mention: Burt Reynolds. Nick Cage has desperately attempted to join their elite ranks, but Nick lacks the chops and his movies usually suck.

[LWFS]

What, no Baby Driver (2017)? Edgar Wright's vehicle vehicle may be more of a caper-gone-wrong-er, but still... practical driving stuntin' (to a fantastically curated soundtrack) is VERY much a featured co-star.



The underrated CB-prank-gone-wrong slasher Joy Ride (2001) is worth a notice, too.

[Double Switch]

As for car chases/chasees/chasers, I have two words: Bill Hickman.

[Vic Sage]

=LWFS post_id=28354 time=1576206059 user_id=84]
What, no Baby Driver (2017)? Edgar Wright's vehicle vehicle may be more of a caper-gone-wrong-er, but still... practical driving stuntin' (to a fantastically curated soundtrack) is VERY much a featured co-star.



The underrated CB-prank-gone-wrong slasher Joy Ride (2001) is worth a notice, too.

[Frayed Knot]

I feel this movie/driving topic deserves its own thread (as does Kurosawa if that project ever actually gets off the ground).



The racing movie sub-topic now also includes the more recent:

- RUSH (2013): two polar opposite 'Formula One' drivers vying for the same prize start off as antagonists wind up with at least grudging respect for each other. Ron Howard directs, Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Bruhl in the leads.

- FORD vs FERRARI (2019): maverick driver-turned-designer (Matt Damon) hires maverick driver (Christian Bale) as they butt heads with corporate culture after Ford decides to spruce up their image by taking on Ferrari in European road racing.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Guest

[MFS62]

Did anyone mention A Man and a Woman (1966)?



Later

[kcmets]

Watched The Ox Bow Incident earlier today for the 15th time. Henry

Fonda and a young Col Potter from the mid 40's.

[Lefty Specialist]

Just saw this thread. There are a few movies I could watch over and over.

I can recite Casablanca from memory ("Are my eyes really brown?") but that's a cheapie that's on everyone's list.

It's not a car chase but the cropduster scene from North by Northwest is a few minutes of the best cinema ever. I saw it on the big screen recently and that scene is even more awesome.

And Grace Kelly tooling around the back roads of Monaco in To Catch a Thief is lots of fun. Yeah, I'm a Hitchcock fan.

The 1953 War of the Worlds was one of the best sci-fi movies to come out of the '50's. Still scary today.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is fun for celebrity spotting.

Blazing Saddles is a movie that couldn't be made today, but I'm glad Mel Brooks made it when he did.

Things to Come is a 1936 British movie that looks into the future after a world war. Old-school dystopia and redemption by technology.

[Vic Sage]

Hitchcock?

I got a filmography essay somewhere.

[Edgy MD]

Lefty Specialist wrote: It's not a car chase but the cropduster scene from North by Northwest is a few minutes of the best cinema ever.

We just noticed this got redone by James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

[Vic Sage]

I've got to take another look at that. but its also a scene that's been referenced many times over the years, like the Odessa Steps sequence from POTEMPKIN

[Vic Sage]

I can't find my Hitchcock essay in the archives.

oh well. another moment lost, like tears in rain.

[MFS62]

Vic, do you agree with me about Man and a Woman on the car movie list?

Later

[Vic Sage]

i didn't really consider foreign-language films, and if i did, i don't really think of MAN AND A WOMAN that way. Its racing is incidental, but i can definitely see the argument for it's inclusion. Maybe under the "big race" sub genre, despite the fact that its not about any particular race.

[Willets Point]

I DO like old movies. I also like new movies. Starting last summer I've been making a concerted effort to watch some classic movies that I've never seen before. I started in the silent era and I'm up to the early 60s now. There's still a lot of movies I've missed though. So little time.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Any silent movies stand out for you? I particularly like The Crowd. Also, Sunrise, and The Big Parade. My son really likes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

[Willets Point]

I like the Charlie Chaplin movies - The Kid, The Gold Rush, and City Lights. Harold Lloyd's Safety Last and Buster Keaton's The General are also funny with great action sequences. Battleship Potemkin and Man with a Movie Camera are both very interesting from a film history/technical innovation perspective but aren't exactly entertaining movies. Nosferatu is creepy and made me realize that I know very little of Dracula lore. Metropolis and Pandora's Box were slogs but they had their moments. Wings has great flying sequences and the adorable Clara Bow although the movie feels like it was made to be Oscar bait even before the Oscars were invented.



The only movie that you mentioned that I've watched before is The Big Parade, but that was in my high school film studies class so I barely remember it.

[MFS62]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Any silent movies stand out for you? I particularly like The Crowd. Also, Sunrise, and The Big Parade. My son really likes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Abel Gance's Napoleon and Sergei Eisenstein's Thunder Over Mexico.

Later

[Vic Sage]

I saw Napoleon at Radio City Music Hall, with a live orchestra conducted by Carmine Coppola. It was glorious.

[Vic Sage]

Vic Sage wrote: I can't find my Hitchcock essay in the archives. oh well. another moment lost, like tears in rain.

i found it!





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



- "Film your murders like love scenes, and film your love scenes like murders", Alfred Hitchcock.



Sir Alfred Hitchcock, the proverbial master of suspense, is generally considered the greatest British director of all time.



Hitch was a small, lonely, fat lad ("I was an uncommonly unattractive young man."), with an absent father and controlling mother, raised in strict catholic home. There is a story that, as a child, he was sent to the local constabulary, with a letter from his father. The policeman read the letter and immediately locked the boy up for ten minutes. After that, the sergeant let young Alfred go, explaining, "This is what happens to people who do bad things." He had a morbid fear of police from that day on. Obviously, such an upbringing would likely precipitate his later preoccupations, and so his neurotic obsessions with guilt, wrongful accusation, lost identity, voyeurism, and the linkage of sex and death formed the themes of his most iconic work.



He started out as an engineering draftsman and designer, which is evident in the visual storytelling techniques he developed ("If it's a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.") He then got work in the fledgling silent film industry in the UK, with some stops and starts. His first hit was the silent thriller THE LODGER, loosely based on Jack the ripper. His subsequent successes (MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, 39 STEPS and LADY VANISHES) would catch the attention of Hollywood, and the siren's song would soon call him across the pond.



selection of UK films:

* The Lodger (1927) - silent

* Blackmail (1929) - silent & then released as UK's 1st talkie

* The Man Who Knew too much (1934) - his 1st international hit (better than the subsequent remake)

* 39 Steps (1935) - his first great film

* The Lady Vanishes (1938) - another great early film, got the attention of Hollywood

* Jamaica Inn (1939) - a flop, but didn't deter Selznick



Selznick years



Noted producer David O. Selznick brought Hitch to Hollywood to direct the gothic melodrama REBECCA, to much acclaim and success, but not without tension between the two titanic control freaks. Hitch went on to make a number of successful films during his "Selznick years", though some were for other studios to whom Selznick had loaned (i.e., sold) him out. SUSPICION, NOTORIOUS and SHADOW OF A DOUBT are the best thrillers of the period. FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, SABOTEUR and LIFEBOAT are all solid WWII-themed works, but MR & MRS SMITH is a forgettable romantic comedy, SPELLBOUND is overwrought psychobabble and PARADINE CASE an overlong courtroom drama. Gregory Peck was not one of Hitch's better leading men, as his particular brand of square-jawed heroism lacked the moral ambiguity and sly humor of his more successful collaborations with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart.



* Rebecca (1940) - Academy Award (Best Picture) for Selznick, not Hitch. ultimately, more a Selznick movie than a Hitchcock movie (one of the few Hitch was not involved with the script's development). It has not dated well.

* Foreign Correspondent (1940) (AA nom/picture) - solid WWII anti-Nazi agitprop

* Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) - minor screwball comedy with Carole Lombard

* Suspicion (1941) - 1st work as a producer (AA nom/picture), and his first work with Cary Grant; solid, but a sellout ending

* Saboteur (1942) - solid WWII era "wrong man" thriller, ending atop Statue of Liberty (action scenes on iconic monuments a continuing motif)

* Shadow of a Doubt (1943) - Joseph Cotton great as psycho Uncle Charlie... terrific; Hitch's personal fave

* Lifeboat (1944) (AA nom/director) - solid WWII drama; more theatrical than cinematic (the "single set" limitation is one he'd go back to)

* Spellbound (1945) (AA nom/director, picture) - Gregory Peck, with 1st of hitch's great "cool blondes", Ingrid Bergman, and a Dali dream sequence. Doesn't hold up at all. Freudian subtext becomes text. silly, talky

* Notorious (1946) - Grant and Bergman are a much better pairing, Rains makes a great Cuckolded villain

* The Paradine Case (1947) - overlong courtroom flop, with Bergman & Peck



Warners:



After his contract with Selznick expired, Hitchcock produced his next 2, both flops. He experimented with extended cuts and technicolor in ROPE, loosely based on the Leopold & Loeb thrill killer case, with a miscast Jimmy Stewart as an academic. UNDER CAPRICORN was likely undone not only by its mediocrity but the worldwide scandal that Ingrid Bergman was in the middle of (as she was having an affair, and later a child, with director Roberto Rosellini). The films were released by Warner Bros, and they then produced many of his subsequent films of the period (most of which were not particularly successful). DIAL M was Hitch's first big widescreen effort, in which he used some 3D effects, though the film was not actually released in 3D version until the 1980s. It also featured the 1st work with his new "cool blonde", Grace Kelly.



* Rope (1948) - interesting filmic experiment, but dramatically flawed

* Under Capricorn (1949) - dull flop

* Stage Fright (1950) - Dietrich, minor work

* Strangers on a Train (1951) - the best of this WB period

* I Confess (1953) - Monty Clift as priest; nothing special. Hitch was not a fan of "method actors".

* Dial M for Murder (1954) -first widescreen film (3D in 1980s) and 1st with Grace Kelly; holds up pretty well.

* The Wrong Man (1956) - true story, with Henry Fonda. Its documentary feel undermines dramatic impact.



Paramount:



- "Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints."



Hitch did 5 films with Paramount, which were all given a theatrical re-release back in the 1980s, before being distributed in the newly burgeoning home video market. 2 of these were two of his very best films, REAR WINDOW and VERTIGO, both with Jimmy Stewart at his most sexually disturbing and obsessed, verging on sado-masochistic.



* Rear Window (1954) (AA nom/director) - Stewart & Kelly; darkly funny, disturbing rumination on voyeurism

* To Catch a Thief (1955) - Kelly and Grant in light romantic thriller; urbane sophisticated entertainment. Kelly went on to become Princess Grace after the film

* The Trouble with Harry (1955) - black comedy about a dead body, with a cute young Shirley McLaine; silly, pointless

* The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) - Doris Day sings "Que Sera, Sera" -- a ridiculous remake

* Vertigo (1958) - my favorite cool blonde, Kim Novak, totally fetishized by Stewart (and Hitch). One of the greatest films ever made

* North by Northwest (1959) - Grant and E.M.Saint, "wrong man", black comedy, Freudian sexual hysteria, thrilling climax on national monument, the crop duster... its Hitch at his absolute best

* Psycho (1960) (AA nom/director) - Hitch crossed the line from suspense to pure horror (depending on your definition), reinventing the genre and making a fortune for his efforts... he waived his salary to take 60% of net profits when he produced it as an indie (nobody wanted to touch the project), but eventually distributed by Paramount



Universal:



As host of his own long-running TV anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-65), Hitch became an international celebrity bigger than any of his movies ("I was very pleased that television was now showing murder stories, because it's bringing murder back into its rightful setting - in the home").



During the late 50s, his artistic accomplishments as a filmmaker were finally being recognized in Europe by Truffaut and other french journalists-turned-filmmakers, and he became the darling of the new auteur theorists. But Hitch's health started to deteriorate in the 1960s, and his films for Universal in the mid 60s-70s mark his slow fade.



* The Birds (1963) - Tippi Hedren was his next and last "cool blonde"; still memorable depiction of an avian uprising mysteriously connected to sexual desire. Arguably his last great film

* Marnie (1964) - Hedren with Sean Connery in a psycho-sexual thriller that harkened back to SPELLBOUND in its Freudian obsessions; unsuccessful but some critical views put it in the pantheon of Hitch's best work. I disagree

* Torn Curtain (1964) - an unsuccessful cold war thriller, this time with Julie Andrews (who was foisted upon him) and Paul Newman, who, as another "method actor", was a problem for Hitch. ("When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, "It's in the script"/ If he says, "But what's my motivation?", I say, "Your salary")

* Topaz (1969) - another cold war thriller, this one had no stars and flopped

* Frenzy (1972) - hitch went back to the UK, and became more explicit in his depiction of sex and death; some said it was a return to form, others bemoaned its excesses. But he always pushed the boundaries

* Family Plot (1976) - this goofy black comedy was Hitch's final film and an inauspicious final note



Never having won an Oscar as a director, Hitch was finally given a lifetime award in 1967 (his acceptance speech: "thank you.") In 1979, he was knighted (When asked by a member of the press why, at his advanced age, it took so long for the British government to grant him the title of Knight, he said: "I think it's just a matter of carelessness.") He died shortly thereafter. but his work lives on, not only in film archives, but in the careers of many filmmakers who came after him and were so influenced by his remarkable output.



A dozen to see:

39 Steps (1935)

Rebecca (1940)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Notorious (1946)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Rear Window (1954)

Vertigo (1958)

North by Northwest (1959)

Psycho (1960)

The Birds (1963)

Frenzy (1972)