Enchanting.

Does it have Claude Rains, James Mason, Olivier-or Errol Flynn?

Does it show Jimmy Stewart’s dark side?

Is it an Ealing comedy?

Is the score by Korngold, Herman, or Goldsmith?

Is it filmed in 1939 Technicolor?

(I haven’t seen a new movie in ages; I sort of wanted to see Les Miz and The Hobbit, but insufficiently not to wait for the dvds. Otoh, on tv I’m on pins and needles for the next season of Game of Thrones.)

Best. Post. Ever.

About half-way through, I was thinking to myself, “Does Ward Bond wear a uniform of some sort?” and boom! There’s the man himself.

I definitely get what you’re saying. On the other hand, the one reason I go to new movies is I feel that you miss out on something when not seeing movies on the big screen. After all, that is how they are intended to be viewed. There is something lost in translation when viewing a movie on a TV sized screen (and forget about tablets or phones). Now, if I lived in NY or LA, and I could go to Film Forum or some other venue every week and see old (and foreign) films, I probably wouldn’t watch too many new ones myself. But I like to keep a balance; I feel like you can’t really appreciate the new or the old without the other.

Loved your pic mash-up of the audience from Sullivan’s Travels and that romantic movie I love, Brief Encounter-very clever what you did there! Scrolling through your pictures made me remember that I am half-way through Night Nurse and you bet Joan Blondell has been cracking wise. My kids are always asking me why I prefer to old movies to the new ones of today and I tell them that the plots and acting are better, the humor is usually cleverer, wittier, and the scary movies were more suspenseful, not so much blood and gore as nowadays.

Faylen! “I’m gonna kill that boy.”

Loved your pic mash-up of the audience from Sullivan’s Travels and that romantic movie I love, Brief Encounter-very clever what you did there!

I wish I could claim credit for that bit of Photoshoppery but I found that on the Internet. You don’t know how hard it is to find vintage pictures of movie audiences where everyone isn’t wearing 3D glasses!

PS. If anybody knows the artist of that particular work, let me know and I’ll gladly provide credit.

No sense getting all dressed up and going out if there’s no chance of running into Dan Duryea.

“Is there something for Charles Lane?”

Man, you’re covering quite a few decades there!

Swell post, the Welden bit was great. I stopped seeing new movies in the theater after The Matrix 2, it broke me, I guess, or a part of me, at least. Got rid of cable a while after (I only miss TCM, and miss it very much). I just lost interest in keeping up. It wasn’t a statement or a challenge to anyone or a declaration that I was a superior movie customer or anything. I just wasn’t enjoying myself. When friends would bug me about seeing something I’d tell them I’d probably get around to it when I’m in an old folk’s home, there’s plenty of time, and if there isn’t, I still haven’t seen The Wages of Fear or Casablanca or Scarlet Street (I tend to watch too many monster movies). I’d rather catch up on the old stuff, which I tend to enjoy even if it isn’t all that great, largely because of the kinds of things you mentioned above. I don’t get the same excitement out of spotting modern character actors as I do Frank McHugh or Ned Sparks or Billy Benedict. Even the worst of the old cranked-out crap doesn’t drive me up the wall the way even some decent films do nowadays, I think it comes down to self-awareness and smugness, severe cases of authorial anxiety where the audience is required to notice filmmakers working, cutting, directing, at almost every moment. Okay, not everyone, but I can wait a while to see what the big deals were.

Then again, maybe I’m just super-cranky.

I understand. I try to see new movies but as I get older I find that I’m less willing to give away time on something that isn’t proven with me. I know this is sad but I do understand

Is ‘chorus-girl’ or ‘prize-fighter’ a perfectly common and acceptable profession?

Very well said! Some of the movies made today are destined to be classics, but only time will tell. BTW that scene in Sullivan’s Travels was an absolute tour de force.

Does an interrogation elicit the response “No flatfoot’s gonna railroad me. I got a mouthpiece!”

I can still get a thrill out of spotting Tracey Walter.

I’ve always wanted to cover a mattress with a giant calendar page so I could film someone literally being punched into next Wednesday.

A few friends and I watched “The Quiet Man” tonight on Blu-ray, and it looked and sounded great. It might have been better viewed on a silver screen, but we made do, and enjoyed it very much.
Seeing Gable above makes me think that it’s about time to watch “Manhattan Melodrama” again.

Does Eugene Pallette bang the top and bottom halves of a silver serving dish together like cymbals?

These are all perfectly reasonable questions.

I get what you’re saying. I catch hell from all of my friends for watching so many old movies and old TV shows so much. Why, just yesterday I posted my top 10 queue from Netflix on Facebook and got some very telling responses: “Did you run out of GOOD movies?” and “Nothing from THIS century?” Now, I still go to the movies. A lot. I love going to the movies. I love seeing good, NEW movies as well as watching good, OLD movies. What new ones I don’t see in the theater I catch on DVD. I do find it irritating though that people of my generation discount something just because it’s in black and white or made before 1980 or 1990. There are still plenty of good, new movies being made these days. I just love movies. I want to see as many as I can before I leave this world. I also want to go to one of those fancy clubs from the 30′s or 40′s where everybody is wearing tuxedoes or fancy evening gowns.

I swear, I saw you mention Edward Van Sloane and I muttered to myself, “If George E. Stone is in this post, I am going to plotz.” It was apparently a figurative plotz because I didn’t have to pick myself up off the floor, but still.

I’ve recently been reviewing new films for a job-shaped thing I’m doing, and it’s been difficult. Things like the ubiquitous blue filter and women being treated worse in modern films than they were in the 30s and 40s rub me the wrong way. Right now I’m at a point where I just want to turn all this other junk off and watch TCM for a few days straight, so this post really hit home with me.

you convinced me, looks like out of the past for viewing tonight.

Loved this! Thanks, Richard!

“The older I get, the more I enjoy the company of older movies.”

You got that right. Could not agree more.

1975? Ha! I was watching something from 1964 on Oscar night! (Nothing But a Man). Beat you by 11 years!

I never feel bad when my DVR is filled with movies off TCM instead of the latest “Real Housewives” — only I hate it when I have watched and need to delete them for space.

Thanks for this swell post and you’ve asked all the questions that so many of us have thought of!

[...] Over at Movie Morlocks, Richard Harlan Smith has a great post outlining things he loves about older movies posted as a series of questions (with accompanying [...]

I figure the point is to see GOOD movies, regardless of when they were made. Some of the best new movies today are made for TV. How about “Foyle’s War”, or the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett? Some genres, like these murder mystery-type things, seem to have shifted almost completely to tv. Occasionally a good film does show up on the big screen these days, too. I liked “Midnight in Paris” quite a bit, for example. As for the oldies, someone already mentioned “The Quiet Man” on blu-ray—I also just showed that to some friends. I have a projector and a big screen in the house, so that the image is about 9 feet wide. That is plenty big for a living room with a dozen or so guests. I have shown “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “The Adventures of Robin Hood” and many others, and recommend this to all who have the space and can afford it. It allows friends to have the big-screen experience with the oldies. The Robin Hood blu-ray, by the way, is incredible, just beautiful.
Having said all of that, if the number of good films produced today is compared with the number from the past that are available,it stands to reason that anyone who loves movies will spend most of his time looking at the oldies, and when possible, make up the difference in screen size with a projector.

Somehow I still manage to enjoy the experience of going to the movies, even if it’s a stinker (ie. The Last Exorcism Part II, easily the dumbest title since that sequel to The Neverending Story), it’s fun to talk about it afterwards with a friend, discuss what went horribly wrong, and sometimes it can even make you appreciate other movies even more (Exorcist II: The Heretic now looks a lot better by comparison, heaven forbid). And then I can go home and watch Lee Tracy talk himself out of a jam or Elisha Cook Jr. get the short end of the stick once again.

I feel certain no one will ever ask you again what new movies you have liked. Love this post.

Love this post! I want to remember those questions next time I get asked about one of the new movies. It is now (that I am getting older!) a chore to go to the movie theater, even though it is the best way to see a movie, at least because that is the way it was meant to be shown. But, I can’t stand the talking, phone calls, kicking of my seat back and other tomfoolery that goes on. We still go, but pick our battles and go at a time when the majority of people are doing something else. Besides, if an acrobatic, harmonica playing ex-wrestler/murder suspect isn’t on the character list, I find it hard to get excited about it.

Now I’ve got a date to go see Quartet tonight. Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, what’s not to love? I have no idea what Dustin Hoffman might be like as a director, but it’s not like he has to contend with CGI dinosaurs or music video-style editing, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

swac44:”sometimes it can even make you appreciate other movies even more (Exorcist II: The Heretic now looks a lot better by comparison, heaven forbid).”
C’mon, friend! Richard Burton and Linda Blair cross-eyed with wires on their heads? Priceless beyond Rubies!
Of course, I even have kind words for the unofficial sequel, “Repossessed” once again starring Blair.
One thing I mentioned to my friends while watching “The Quiet Man”-pay no attention to their shadows against the backdrop in the carriage sequence. Blu-Ray reveals what Hollywood hides.
Possibly my hopes shouldn’t be raised too high for “Oz the Great and Powerful” but I do want to see what they do with it.
I finally got to see “Skyfall” the other night, and it was very good. They DO still make good movies, but the dross outweighs the gold.

Doug- You are correct. There are more bad movies than good being released. It is wise to be careful when deciding on what to see. However, when you see something really good, like Skyfall, it makes the gamble worthwhile.

“There are more bad movies than good being released.”

Yes, as always. It’s easy to find the good stuff when looking back on over 100 years of film history. It may be harder to find a really great movie at the multiplex these days, for many reasons, but great and good films are being made every year, and it’s probably easier to access them than ever before, between theatrical, home video, video on demand, cable TV and internet streaming.

I’m second to no one in my love of classic film, but I don’t like to fetishize them. I realize that as we get older, it’s harder to keep up with new things, and it’s tempting to just keep consuming the older things we already know we love. But I still like to feel like I’m part of the current culture as well, because that’s the world I live in. It’s a personal choice, of course, but just imagine if you were a silent film purist in the 30s, 40s, 50s — how many great films you would have deprived yourself of!

Some of the best new movies today are made for TV. How about “Foyle’s War”, or the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett?

I love those PBS mysteries, so yes, I’m with you there. They are like cinema in some ways – very meaty, very well-acted, very little posturing.

Absolutely fantastic post! I’m showing it to my daughter right now so she’ll see why I love classic film.

When Bill and I saw THE MASTER together at the AFI, Bill couldn’t stop saying, “Aren’t you glad Richard isn’t here? He’d just go on and on about how much he hates new movies. Deliver me!” I hope Bill doesn’t see this post. He will lose it!

[...] post expresses so very well how I sometimes feel about watching newly-released films.  I’m an [...]

You mean your favorite films have dialog you can hear, and no title cards. Hey, you’re way to modern for me.

I finally had a chance to catch up with my moviemorlocks.com lurking and loved this article. My own question is: Does Robert Young spend most of his time in a rich playboy’s tuxedo and never (well, rarely ever) get the girl?

Thanks for such an enjoyable time.

“Does Gene Lockhart play an alcoholic?”

“Does somebody say, ‘Why, you . . .’ just before socking somebody else?”