My Favorite Movies
Many of the following films are primarily for children.
But most are my "pre-computer" days.
And then came Madam Computer ... Uh-oh ... you all know what I'm saying.
Many of the following films are primarily for children.
But most are my "pre-computer" days.
And then came Madam Computer ... Uh-oh ... you all know what I'm saying.
I offer the following list with this quotation attributed to Ben Hecht (1893-1964):
"Movies are one of the bad habits that corrupted our century. Of their many sins, I offer as the worst their effect on the intellectual side of the nation. It is chiefly from that viewpoint I write of them--as an eruption of trash that has lamed the American mind and retarded Americans from becoming a cultured people."
This was said in spite of the fact that he created some of the most entertaining screenplays in Hollywood (including Some Like it Hot). Who would know better than he who worked right in the middle of it. And truth be told, I would say he is right. Btw, he also was a prolific storyteller, and authored some 35 books; quite a guy for the 20th century.
A Boy Named Charlie Brown A Chorus Line A Double Life A Face in a Crowd A Kiss Before Dying A New Leaf A Place in the Sun A Pocketful of Miracles A Thousand Clowns A Tree Grows in Brooklyn All About Eve All My Sons Anatomy of a Murder Annie Auntie Mame Bambi Bell, Book, and Candle Bicycle Thief Biloxi Blues Born Yesterday Carousel Casablanca Cavalleria Rusticana Charade Charlie Brown, the Musical Cinderella Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Citizen Kane City Lights Come Back Little Sheba D. O. A. Damn Yankees Death of a Salesman Dial M for Murder Double Indemnity Dr. Cyclops Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Dracula East of Eden Forest Gump Frenzy Gaslight Gentlemen's Agreement Gone With the Wind Guys and Dolls Harvey Hello Dolly High Noon How to Murder Your Wife How to Succeed in Business… Il Tabarro In the Heat of the Night Invasion of the Body Snatchers Irma LaDouce Kind Hearts and Coronets La Boheme La Strada Last Holiday Le Miserable Lifeboat Lillies of the Field Limelight Lost Horizon Love Letters Majority of One Margarie Morningstar Marty Mary Poppins Midnight Lace Mildred Pierce Moby Dick Modern Times Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Murder on the Orient Express Mutiny on the Bounty My Fair Lady My Little Chickadee Network Never Give a Sucker an Even Break Niagara North by Northwest Notorious Now Voyager O.Henry's Full House Ocean's Eleven Of Mice and Men Oklahoma Oliver On Borrowed Time On the Waterfront Once Upon a Time in America |
Our Town Pagliacci Paper Chase Phantom of the Opera Picture of Dorian Gray Plaza Suite Porgy and Bess Pride and Prejudice Psycho Quiz Show Race for Your Life Charlie Brown Rashomon Rear Window Red Balloon Saboteur Scarlet Street Shadow of a Doubt Shane Show Boat Snoopy Come Home Snow White Solid Gold Cadillac Some Like it Hot Stalag 17 Strangers On a Train Streetcar Named Desire Suddenly Suspicion Take the Money and Run Teahouse of the August Moon The 39 Steps The Apartment The Asphalt Jungle The Berenstain Bears The Big Clock The Bridge on the River Kwai The Cat in the Hat The Catered Affair The Dirty Dozen The Fortune Cookie The Fountainhead The Glass Managerie The Graduate The Great Dictator The Great Impostor The Gunfighter The Heiress The Hunchback of Notre Dame The Hustler The In-laws The Killers The King and I The Ladykillers The Last Chapter The Lavender Hill Mob The Lion King The List of Adrian Messenger The Lost Weekend The Maltese Falcon The Man in the Iron Mask The Man in the White Suit The Man Who Came to Dinner The Man Who Knew Too Much The Mechanic The Music Man The Naked City The Nuremberg Trials The Odd Couple The Out-of-Towners The Rainmaker The Red Shoes The Russians are Coming The Shrike The Sound of Music The Sting The Strange Loves of Martha Ives The Taking of Pelham One Two Three The Thin Man The Third Man The Wizard of Oz This Gun for Hire Three Days of the Condor To Catch a Thief Tobacco Road Tosca Touch of Evil Treasure of Sierra Madre Twelve Angry Men Vertigo Wall Street Where Eagles Dare Witness for the Prosecution You Can't Cheat an Honest Man
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One A.M. The Adventurer The Count The Cure The Fireman |
The Goldrush The Immigrant The Pawnshop The Rink The Vagabond
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"Oh, one more thing" ... every Columbo movie ever made.
That Peter Falk certainly knew how to create a character.
While putting this page together I keep thinking of one of the entries, Dracula, with Bela Lugosi. Using his naturally thick Eastern European accent and his stage experience, Lugosi masterfully made Bram Stoker's Count Dracula came alive in that 1931 movie. It was a pivotal performance that launched him into stardom. The truth is that he didn't know a word of English; I've been informed that the words were written out for him phonetically and that "handicap" helped him play the part in such a way that one can only think of him as the one and only, Count Dracula.
Listen to his first three lines when he slowly walks down those stairs and greets the unsuspecting Renfield, and says: "I am (pause) Count Dracula. (pause) I bid you (pause) welcome." (then he walks up the stairs through the huge spider web, we hear the wolves howling outside, he stops, turns around and continues) "Listen to them; (pause) children of the night; (pause) what music *they* make."
The effectiveness of this style was due to Lugosi's creepy lugubrious manner and the eerie silences of Browning's directing; it's those pauses that are most effective (I suppose he was struggling with the English sounds) and his Hungarian accent added to the total effect.
Lugosi was not alone with his scare ability in this picture. Dwight Frye, who played the "strongly influenced" Renfield, portrayed insanity in a very convincing manner (no small task unless you are really insane).