For someone with a deep curiosity about old movies, the 1980s were a great time to come of age. Home video was just coming in, and revival houses were still common in big cities. I watched everything I could.
That was all it took for me to get myself pretty well grounded. Going on half a century later, it would be much harder for a young person to do. I had only about 40 years of sound films to catch up with; today a kid has almost 90, with so many more films now released each year than ever in the past. Add in the ease of streaming, and the result is a strong gravitational pull toward the new or recent. Cinema’s past can feel very far away.
Lately I have been thinking about the role that film literacy should play in the lives of educated, curious people — and, on that basis, which old movies I want my children to have caught at least once. By old, I mean ancient: movies from before 1965, when most film was in black-and-white, acting styles were different and the Hays Code was still in force.
The merits of exposing kids to movies their grandparents or great-grandparents watched will not be obvious to everyone. Certainly it will not be obvious to most kids. But good films are as worthy of their time as good books, and the best of them are as artistically rich as the finest literature our nation has produced. With film as well as books, in the wise words of someone I once knew, “You know, the thing about the classics is, they’re good!”
Old movies are a useful way for kids to see how the past was different, with humans as intelligent as we are, living life as intensely as we do, and yet doing so under different expectations in terms of violence, the welfare state, racial, gender and class hierarchy and more. I especially value that an old movie can discourage the tempting idea that America’s path is stasis and regression, rather than progress. It’s hard not to see our lives now, imperfections acknowledged, as vastly beyond the America in which Black people were conceived of as only servants, Native Americans only as disposable background figures with the temerity to resent white people’s encroachment, and women dreaming of nothing but the kitchen and the nursery.
Old movies are also a lesson in the history of popular music. Kids can experience first hand the fact that music sounded different way back when, but can still be nice to get a listen to. Seeing the songs of a musical expertly performed is a better way to learn that than just hearing the records played through the ear. This also gives kids a look at how people once danced: Even toddlers would be transfixed watching the Nicholas Brothers’ acrobatic dancing in “Stormy Weather.”
With that in mind, I drew up a list of 10 Sunday afternoon possibilities. I am sticking to American films for now, and also take the liberty of assuming that “The Wizard of Oz” and the older Disney classics get around by themselves. Your list would no doubt look very different — and that’s why I’m sharing it here: because half the fun of it is debating what merits the highest tier of admiration. Here are my picks. What are yours?
“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952). A smashing collection of songs perfectly executed, a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat, plus some dandy history about the dawn of sound film. (And much more appealing than so many other MGM musicals of this era, which I find to be too rosy-cheeked and too cheesy, with their birthday cake kind of color.) All sentient beings should see this. My girls loved it.
“Rear Window” (1954). The mystery element, the erotic charge between Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart, the luscious scoring, the neat set, the scary climax: This is my favorite Hitchcock, clever, romantic and chilling, and kids should see it at least once.
“Gone With the Wind” (1939). Out of fashion because of its sanitized depiction of slavery, but that’s something to discuss and learn from, not to ignore. This remains one of the most powerful films ever made. Watching it, one lives a life in four hours. Do so on the biggest screen possible.
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962). A meat-and-potatoes rendition of the Ford sensibility, with signature performances by John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart and the marvelous Vera Miles, whose acting style feels very contemporary. This film teaches the concept of vigilante justice, as well as the sadly current idea that “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
“Citizen Kane” (1941). I first tracked this down on TV when I was a kid because Linus mentioned it in a “Peanuts” strip and I wanted to know what he was referring to. I was immobile for two hours. All kids should get a chance to have that experience.
“All About Eve” (1950) My girls heard Madonna’s “Vogue” and got a kick out of the lyric “Bette Davis, we love you” — which led to the question “Who’s Bette Davis?” In “All About Eve” she offers proof that the acting style of another era can still be fierce. Young people should also get an earful of the aggressively articulate vintage dialogue — rye and cigarettes in prose — and it’s just a crackling good story.
“Top Hat” (1935). I’m not much for dance, but Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers could transport anyone. This is perhaps the pinnacle of their stellar musicals, with five perfect Irving Berlin songs, including “Cheek to Cheek,” all of which hold up today and then some.
“42nd Street” (1933). Not an obvious choice, but this one is a dark and resonant take on the Depression, exploring of all things the staging of a musical. Harry Warren and Al Dubin’s sweetly solid songs are presented only as performances — no one breaks out into song about love on a park bench — which might make them an easier sell for skeptical young viewers. The final shot is for the ages: not a tap-dance finale or a happy couple smooching, but the director slouched on the fire escape smoking, lonely and near death.
“Casablanca” (1942). The quintessential “old movie” drama, which no one expected to be a hit but floors us still today because of the magic synergy of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart. Tell your kids about the lift shoes that Bogart wore to seem taller than Bergman. And point out the lines they’ll hear again and again: “Play it again, Sam,” — actually, no one says exactly that in the movie, but still — “Don’t amount to a hill of beans,” “Shocked, shocked!”
“Stormy Weather” (1943). One of the rare times when a studio in the old days gathered a passel of Black pop artists at the top of their games. The result includes Lena Horne’s deathless rendition of the title song and Fats Waller as funny now as he was then. I loved this movie (which only pretends to have a plot) when I watched it at 8 with my mother. Other kids would, too.
Wait, did I say only 10? But how about the 1959 version of “Imitation of Life,” to introduce the concept of Black people “passing” with good old-fashioned melodrama to boot. Some would include “The Philadelphia Story,” but frankly I have never gotten Katharine Hepburn (sorry!). If it’s screwball comedy you seek, go for “The Awful Truth.” For some Frank Capra, I would show “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” these days to lend a sense of what Senator Cory Booker was doing last week. The choices are endless. Which ones do you pick?
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