My classic movie gratitude list

Posted by highhurdler on July 19, 2011

One of the best ways to begin the day is to list the things – people, beauty, events, personal qualities (e.g. health) etc. – that you’re grateful for. Start with an attitude of gratitude! This technique can help you to de-stress, to stop worrying about yesterday and the future, and focus on today’s ‘gifts’: what you have vs. what you don’t. There will always be someone else that has more, but there are also those that have less, no matter who you are. Pay attention to what you have, and be grateful for it. Whether you thank God, a Higher Power, your parents, spouse, children or even kindergarten teacher, there are qualities about you and your life’s situation to be happy about, and honoring these by making a mental, verbal or actual (physical) note of them is a great technique for beginning each day … and those of us who are blessed to be classic film fans have so much to be thankful for:

First and foremost, I am grateful for Turner Classic Movies, a channel which has introduced me to so many classic films, genres, directors, writers, character actors and (yes) even movie stars.

Obviously I am also grateful for this Movie Morlocks website, which has allowed me to not only explore and share my own classic film passions and perspectives, but also to learn from my fellow contributors and, of course, “those wonderful people out there in the dark!” who contribute their replies, comments and more to our various topics and discussions.

I am grateful for Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, James Cagney, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Edward G. Robinson, William Holden and so many more of the actors whose bodies of work have added immensely to my enjoyment of watching TCM’s channel

I am grateful for Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Audrey Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Irene Dunne, Greer Garson, and Shirley MacLaine, who I count among my favorite actresses, for their varied abilities – including intelligence, beauty and grace – which light up the screen

Of course I am also grateful for my favorite directors – Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, William Wyler, Ernst Lubitsch, Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, and John Ford – whose unique talents helped to create, develop, transform, translate and communicate the art form; their influence on audiences, and legacy for other filmmakers, continues globally to this day

I am grateful for character actors, especially Walter Brennan, Charles Bickford, Charles Coburn, Donald Crisp, William Demarest, James Gleason, Thomas Mitchell, and countless others that have stolen scenes or spiced otherwise mundane movies with sometimes eccentric but always interesting characterizations

I am also grateful for character actresses like Thelma Ritter, Maria Ouspenskaya, Beulah Bondi, Marjorie Main, Fay Bainter, Billie Burke, Gale Sondergaard, Spring Byington, Edna May Oliver, Judith Anderson, Theresa Wright, Gladys Cooper, Dame May Whitty, Anne Revere, Gloria Grahame, Elsa Lanchester, Katy Jurado, Agnes Moorehead, Eve Arden, Ethel Barrymore, Jane Darwell, Mildreds Dunnock & Natwick, and Unas Merkel & O’Connor for their similar abilities and prolific resumes

I am grateful for writers Charles Brackett, Ben Hecht, Leo McCarey, Dalton Trumbo, Billy Wilder, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Paddy Chayefsky and Tennessee Williams for their styles and stories that entertain and inform, for dialogue that evokes laughter, tears, anger and virtually every other emotional response

I am especially grateful for the thrice blessed, multi-talented writer/producer/directors like John Huston, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder

I am grateful for British cinema, contributors like the Ealing Studios, Noel Coward, and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, and additionally the too-numerous-to-name actors that provided the sophisticated and droll characters that delight

I am grateful for the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, High Noon, Stagecoach and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Lawrence of Arabia, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Adventures of Robin Hood and Scaramouche, It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life, Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17, A Star is Born (1954), Swing Time and Top Hat, To Be or Not to Be (and other Lubitsch), A Place in the Sun, Kind Hearts and Coronets, King Kong, The Lady Eve, Meet Me in St. Louis, Miracle on 34th Street, Lady for a Day, Libeled Lady, The Little Foxes, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Awful Truth, Roman Holiday, Singin’ in the Rain, Born Yesterday, Casablanca, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Notorious, To Catch a Thief, North By Northwest and Psycho, Dinner at Eight, Imitation of Life, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Spartacus and Dr. Strangelove, Executive Suite, The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, Oklahoma!, On the Waterfront, The Palm Beach Story, Random Harvest, My Fair Lady, The Wizard of Oz, Adam’s Rib and Woman of the Year, West Side Story, The Thin Man, Ninotchka, His Girl Friday, I Remember Mama, and of course Life With Father to name just 60 before 1965.

I am grateful for Black-and-White movies of all kinds (not just film noir or silents)

I am grateful for RKO’s B-Westerns of the late ‘30s and early ‘40s with George O’Brien and Tim Holt and even from Holt’s later years when he was paired with the insufferable Richard Martin as Chito Jose Gonzalez Bustamante Rafferty

I am grateful for Warner Bros.’ gritty crime dramas of the early 1930’s

I am grateful for MGM’s musicals, especially those produced by Arthur Freed and/or directed by Stanley Donen or Vincente Minnelli; I am also grateful for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s many collaborations

I am grateful for all the nostalgia of seeing fedora hats, milk trucks, picnic basket raffles, and trains etc.

Being thankful and counting ones blessings isn’t something that needs to be reserved only for the fourth Thursday in November in fact it can be quite therapeutic every single day. Why not give it a try today.

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11 Responses My classic movie gratitude list

Posted By Vincent : July 19, 2011 3:40 pm

I am grateful for Turner Entertainment’s work with its library, first with TNT in its original incarnation (even with commercials, it was showing many films that hadn’t been seen since the ’30s — including pre-Codes, which studios declined to dispense in their TV syndication packages in the ’50s and ’60s since they were deemed too racy) and, since 1994, with TCM.

I am grateful for Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, William Powell, Fred MacMurray and Robert Montgomery (to cite three actresses and three actors not listed above); directors such as Mitchell Leisen, Jack Conway and Gregory La Cava (again, a trio not listed earlier), character actors such as Walter Connolly, Alice Brady and Eugene Pallette (yep, they weren’t earlier mentioned); the concept of pre-Code championed by Mick LaSalle, among others; and to TCM’s message boards and this site. Long may you run.

Posted By Juana Maria : July 19, 2011 3:50 pm

I am grateful for the Turner Networks also, first TBS and TNT, later TCM. I have been able to watch and discuss a wide variety of films beacause of these channels. Muchas gracias! I really enjoyed the Latin American flims featured on this channel, the Mexican cinema in particular. Please play the “Pancho Villa” movies with Pedro Armendariz again soon! I speak Spanish and English,and understand a little German and French. I have always enjoyed most of the foreign films shown. I also love Akira Kurosawa films–so beautiful, and influential. Thank you TCM!

Posted By Medusa Morlock : July 19, 2011 6:47 pm

I’m glad to see somebody giving early TNT some love re: classic movies! We worked really hard to — even within the parameters of commercial TV — show movies as well and as interestingly as we possibly could. I think we succeeded admirably, and we also tried to broaden the appeal when we could, by using pop culture iconography and sensibility. As someone who was in at the birth of TNT and later TCM, it was an honor to work with the movies and I’m glad to see that everything’s still going strong!

I’m grateful to TV for bringing these many movies which often get their biggest boost through in-home viewing. Not everybody lives in a city where there are classic movie venues and so we need TV to spread the word!

Wonderful post, highhurdler! I think many of our choices would echo yours! xoxoxo

Posted By Greg Ferrara : July 19, 2011 10:46 pm

I’ll tell you who I’m grateful for (aside from pretty much everyone you listed): Glenda Farrell. What. A. Dame!

Posted By dukeroberts : July 20, 2011 11:25 am

I am extremely grateful for all of the above. We cannot appreciate what we have without acknowledging the past and those who made the present possible.

I am grateful for John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Joseph Cotten, Walter Pidgeon, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Robert Mitchum, Charles Laughton, Tyrone Power, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, James Dean, Elvis, Brando, Montgomery Clift, Paul Newman, Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Jack Carson, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields, Henry Fonda, Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, Fatty Arbuckle, Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Ray Milland, Raymond Massey, Ward Bond, Rex Harrison, Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, Charlton Heston, Wendell Corey, Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Sean Connery, David Niven, Audie Murphy, Yakima Canutt, Rex Ingram, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, Mickey Rooney, Alan Ladd, Dick Powell, Jackie Cooper, Gordon McCrae, Joel McCrea, Frank Faylen, Frank Morgan, H.B. Warner, Todd Karns, Farley Granger, John Dahl, Dean Stockwell, Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine, Robrt Ryan, Robert Young, Ronald Reagan, Edmund Gwynn, Monty Woolley, John Payne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Johny Weissmuller, Edmond O’Brien, Percy Kilbride and Lloyd Nolan.

I am grateful for Marilyn Monroe, Linda Darnell, Mitzi Gaynor, Jayne Mansfield, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, Zasu Pitts, Hattie McDaniel, Vivien Leigh, Evelyn Keyes, Audrey Totter, Joan Leslie, Joan Bennett, Mercedes McCamridge, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Crawford, Ethel Merman, Esther Wiliams, Ida Lupino, Jean Arthur, Mabel Normand, Gloria Swanson, Donna Reed, Vera Miles, Janet Leigh, Simone Simon, Geraldine Page, Glynis Johns, Shirley Temple, Susan Hayward, Gail Russell, Veronica Lake, Jane Wyman, Jane Wyatt, Elizabeth Taylor, Julie Andrews, Shirley Jones, Lillian Gish, Jennifer Jones, Joanne Dru, Maureen O’Sullivan, Maureen O’Hara, Margaret Sullavan, Lena Horne, Louise Beavers, Ethel Waters, Joan Fontaine, Natalie Wood, Loretta Young, Doris Day, Jeanne Craine, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Lucille Ball, Anne Baxter and Hedy Lamarr.

Posted By dukeroberts : July 20, 2011 11:39 am

I am also grateful for Orson Welles, Budd Boetticher, James Whale, William Dieterle, Michael Curtiz, William Keighley, Victor Fleming, George Cukor, King Vidor, D.W. Griffith, F.W. Murnau, Jacques Tourneur, Edward Dmytryk, Willam Wellman, Henry Koster, Raoul Walsh, Busby Berkeley, Robert Wise, Howard Hawks, John Sturges, I.A.L. Diamond, A.I. Bezzerides, Herman Mankiewicz, Joseph Mankiewicz, Edith Head, all of the Westmore brothers, Jack Pierce, Ray Harryhausen, Willis O’Brien, Adrian, Jack Cardiff, James Wong Howe, Joseph Biroc, John Alton, Gregg Toland and all of the others who worked behind the camera.

Posted By DBenson : July 20, 2011 8:18 pm

I’m grateful for DVDs. I’ve got all the important Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and even Langdon on a shelf, plus what would have been a film vault full of cartoons.

Posted By Commander Adams : July 22, 2011 4:36 pm

I am grateful to Elwy Yost, the host of Canada’s Saturday Night at the Movies who introduced me to nearly all of the movies and people listed above. Sadly, Elwy passed away last night; his legacy of love for the movies and the people who made them will live on.

Posted By Doug : July 22, 2011 11:30 pm

Today I was thankful for “Born To Dance” showing on TCM-I have it on DVD, but I want more people to remember the fun musicals of old Hollywood. I already have my DVR set to record “George Washington Slept Here” on July 31st. Save the date.

Posted By missrhea : July 23, 2011 6:33 pm

I am grateful for those listed above and for Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, Lew Ayres, and Dorothy McGuire.

I’m grateful for being introduced to “Drs. Kildare and Gillespie” and ditzy young women like “Claudia” and her long-suffering “David”.

I’m also grateful for the feature on the redesigned website which makes it easier to track when our favorite actors’ films are scheduled…almost six weeks ahead of air time…for and the reminders that can be sent so that DVRs can be ready!

Posted By Juana Maria : July 29, 2011 2:36 pm

Truly I’m grateful for TCM, however I have a complaint,why did TCM omit John Davis Chandler from ther year end “TCM Remembers”? I know all his fans would be happy to have him mentioned.

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