Got a little extra time on your hands? Unless you’re still working, in many states that’s a rhetorical question! So if the answer is yes, we offer this piece from Ed Meek of Somerville, Massachusetts, with suggestions for some classic films for boomers to watch during the pandemic.
One of the effects of watching movies from an earlier era— and heaven knows, until the pandemic is under control, we’ve got time now to do it— is that they transport us to a time when life was not quite so complicated.
The production values might not be so refined, and the pace is often one we’re not used to today. In some cases, old movies seem too slow and in other cases they seem to be packed with dialogue that’s hard to keep up with.
Nonetheless, they are well worth the effort and most are available on Amazon Prime or Netflix. In addition, they are as cheap as $2.98 on Amazon and in some cases, on both, free to watch. There are some great films still available that were made before our time.
One of my favorites, Trouble in Paradise, was made in 1932 by Ernst Lubitsch. It’s a con artist movie. Seems apt for our time with our con artist-in-chief running the country. Herbert Marshall plays an international thief, Gaston Monescu, who meets his match in female con Lily, played by Miriam Hopkins. They team up, but the person they are trying to take advantage of is the beautiful Kay Francis, Mariette, who owns a perfume company. The plan goes awry when Gaston falls for Mariette and is caught between the two women. This one is a little harder to find, but well worth the search. It appears to be available free on Daily Motion.
The same director made The Shop Around the Corner. The modern and super-popular You’ve Got Mail is a remake of it, but the original is a much better movie. It stars Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan. They work together in a leather-goods store in Budapest. They are in constant conflict in the store, but at the same time, they are corresponding anonymously with each other and each falls in love with the pen pal. The movie is based on a play and is very witty. It’s a delight to imagine such a world where people were once so nice and naive. This can be rented through Amazon.
It’s an Odd Time in the World!
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Three Preston Sturges movies are well worth watching: The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, Unfaithfully Yours, and The Lady Eve. Preston Sturges was a writer and director whose films were a wild blend of sophistication and wackiness. There is really no one making films like his today. Start with The Lady Eve, made in 1941, starring Barbara Stanwick and Henry Fonda. Jean (Stanwick) and her father are con artists who prey on the naïve, wealthy Charles (Fonda). He is taking a cruise ship back from a trip to the Amazon. The sophisticated Jean and her father find Charles an easy mark but then Jean falls for Charles. When Charles is tipped off about Jean and her father, he dumps Jean, but she isn’t done with him and she comes up with a new plan to capture his heart. The male and female roles will seem in some ways alien to our current era, but in other ways very familiar.
If you want to go right for a classic screwball comedy, Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, made in 1944, fills the bill. Betty Hutton plays a small-town girl, Trudy Kockenlocker, and Eddie Bracken is the boy next door, Norval Jones. Trudy wants to give a send-off to the boys going to war. She goes to a dance and parties all night. She has Norval cover for her with her father, the sheriff. Trudy gets wasted, sleeps with a soldier and gets married, but blacks out and by the next morning can’t remember what happened or even what the soldier’s name is. A few months later she is pregnant. Norval steps up to help her out, but things get really complicated.
Unfaithfully Yours, made in 1948, is the most sophisticated of the three Sturges films. Rex Harrison stars with Linda Darnell as a married couple. He is Sir Alfred, a conductor of a symphony orchestra. She is his beautiful American wife. When Sir Alfred goes on a trip abroad, he asks his uptight brother-in-law to keep an eye on his wife. But the brother-in-law is busy, so he hires a private detective who seems to find that Sir Alfred’s wife Daphne has been having an affair with Sir Alfred’s handsome young assistant. Sir Alfred plays out three wild scenarios in response as he conducts music by Rossini, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky.
If you want to get a feel for any of these films, the best way to do that is to watch clips from YouTube. They all have trailers, although the trailers back then did not do justice to the films. These are films that our parents would have been familiar with, and they provide a window on the generations that preceded us, as well as some of the values our parents passed along.
Good piece, Ed, and a good selection of old movies. Here, in no particular order, are my top 10 movies, all old (some very much so) and all good: “A Christmas Story” (1983), “The Godfather” (1972), “Ruggles of Red Gap” (1935), “His Girl Friday” (1940), “Duck Soup” (1933), “King Kong” (1933), “All the President’s Men” (1976), “National Lampoon’s Animal House” (1978), “The Thing From Another World” (1951), “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946). Bonus: “Babes in Toyland” (1934).
Thanks Jerry, I was hoping people would list some of their old favorites.