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| King Kong (1933) | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 26 2005, 02:53 PM (1,306 Views) | |
| Frank Hale | May 13 2009, 12:50 PM Post #31 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Sorry for being too clever. I was just teasing Mr. Panzer. David Shepard is the archivist who restored so many silent pictures, and one of Mr. P’s mentors. On another thread somewhere Mr. P. mentioned this quote and seemed to half-agree with it. Yet here he is, announcing that King Kong is the greatest picture of all time! However, it is an interesting thought. I can’t name many pictures I think hold up under repeated viewings, in the way that a good novel can. I agree King Kong is a terrific picture, but I sure get tired of Fay Wray’s screaming and the endless perils in the middle section. OK, I’ll go back to sleep now. |
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| Frank Hale | May 13 2009, 01:46 PM Post #32 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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BTW, there seems to be disagreement on the definition of “great”: Orson Welles thought “Grand Illusion” was the greatest picture ever. “Citizen Kane” always tops the critics’ polls of greatest movies. Mr. Panzer feels it’s “King Kong” (although his “favorite” appears to be “The Leopard”.) Mr. Gravy thinks it’s “Cat-Women of the Moon” (based on it’s the only DVD he’s seen twice!) Last time I checked, the Godfather series was the all-time hit on IMdB. As I indicated, I’ll go with rewatchability, not big ideas, in any list of “great” pictures. On the short list of films I’m willing to rewatch over and over: Guns of Navarone Lost Horizon (1937) Casablanca The Maltese Falcon (1941) The Four Feathers (1939) They may not be intellectually challenging, but they sure are fun! |
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| Stony Brooke da Mesquiteer | May 14 2009, 08:34 AM Post #33 |
Balconeer Creeper
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I'd imagine you as a great fan of the fun (and great) film Adventures Of Robin Hood. |
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"She's got style, she's got grace She's got long, long legs, she's got... Savoir Faire" | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | May 14 2009, 09:12 AM Post #34 |
Mouth Breather
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Shepard is a guy I went to college with who will probably always be known as the greatest restorer of silent films. If you've seen anything by Lang or Griffith you're familiar with his work. Plus the Slapstick Encyclopedia was his. Many restored silents have his name on the box. When he said there are no great films he was trying to talk me out of making a lifetime career on his turf. I was his Teaching Assistant at Penn State for a year or two: the film history thing was so new there was no textbook -- we just winged it. It was a challenge. He had a movie theater where he showed foreign flicks and the official Film Classics, and I had a film society that showed old American fun movies as well as Underground flicks. My thing was in the social hall of a Methodist church, and when I showed Scorpio Rising it cost the minister his job. Still feel kinda bad about that, but on the plus side I got to see and write about a lot of movies that are now classic but were trash then, movies like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Hold Back the Dawn, Letter From an Unknown Woman, Ministry of Fear and They Drive By Night, to pick five I still love. As for Top Five of All Time, Jeez Louise! I'd do better listing my top 150. This week: Intolerance To Be Or Not To Be To Have and Have Not Jules and Jim The Bad Sleep Well I've seen all of these many times and they hold up well. There are only five serials that hold up for me after repeated viewings: Flash Gordon, The Spider Strikes, Perils of Nyoka, Gangbusters and The Mysterious Dr. Satan. There are some others that I've been happy to see many times: Easy Street, A Day's Pleasure, The Gold Rush, The Circus, City Lights and Modern Times: Cops, Sherlock Jr., Our Hospitality, The Navigator and Steamboat Bill, Jr; The Freshman and The Kid Brother; too many Laurel and Hardys to mention; Destiny, Metropolis, Spies, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Man Hunt and The Big Heat; Ten Days That Shook the World; The Marriage Circle, The Love Parade, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka and Heaven Can Wait; Stagecoach, Three Godfathers, Wagonmaster, The Searchers, Two Rode Together and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (plus guilty pleasure Donovan's Reef -- actually I'll watch any Ford movie any time); The Roaring Twenties, They Drive by Night and The World in His Arms; A Girl in Every Port, Scarface, Only Angels Have Wings, Air Force, Rio Bravo and El Dorado; The Lady Vanishes, Foreign Correspondent, Notorious, The Trouble With Harry and Vertigo; Out of the Past; Bigger Than Life; Caught, The Reckless Moment, The Exile, Letter From an Unknown Woman, La Ronde and The Earrings of Mme. de...; Seven Samurai, The Lower Depths, Yojimbo, Sanjuro, Dersu Uzala, and Ran; Breathless, Band of Outsiders, A Married Woman and Contempt; Night and Fog, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Last Year In Marienbad; The Eclipse and Blow-up; White Nights, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard and The Damned; The (other) Lower Depths, The Rules of the Game, La Grande Illusion, The River and Le Petit Theatre de Jean Renoir; Kiss Me Deadly, The Dirty Dozen and Ulzana's Raid; Accident and The Servant; The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Fairbanks Robin Hood too; The Fairbanks and the Korda Thieves of Bagdad; Four Feathers of course; The African Queen and The Dead (as well as a guilty pleasure, Beat the Devil); Docks of New York, Shanghai Express, The Scarlet Empress and the one with Gene Tierney and Victor Manure, can't remember the name just now (The Shanghai Gesture -- an awful film I could watch every month); Sansho the Bailiff; The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan's Travels and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock; Snow White and Dumbo; Cabin In the Sky, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Band Wagon, An American in Paris and (another guilty pleasure) Two Weeks In Another Town; Singin' In the Rain; Los Olvidados, Viridiana, and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie; Easy Living and Midnight; Stalag 17 and Some Like It Hot; Anatomy of a Murder, Advise and Consent and Bunny Lake Is Missing; The Pit and the Pendulum and Tomb of Ligeia; The first two Godfathers and Peggy Sue Got Married; Love, Actually; and I have a feeling there are lots more. I only listed the ones that seem to improve with repeat viewings. Some movies, like Stanley Kubrick's, you get the first time and never need to rewatch, except Lolita. I'd rather watch paint dry than endure Barry Lyndon again, or The Shining, or, God knows, A Clockwork Orange, which took all evening to make a very simple point. Kubrick would have become a better director if he had made a few program Westerns. Same with William Wyler: one time is enough. George Stevens, from Giant on, even more so. Alas, it's also true of many Ozu pictures, especially the silents. Mizoguchi, I don't know yet -- I'm just starting on him. As I've said many times before, The Leopard would top my list if I could get the whole movie, but I can't and as it is now the end is unsatisfying. Just annoys me to watch it. Edited by panzer the great & terrible, May 17 2009, 10:51 AM.
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| We Wear Short Shorts Flying Purple People Eater | |
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| Laughing Gravy | May 14 2009, 05:43 PM Post #35 |
Revered in the UK
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Wow. What a fabulous list. I rewatch fiilms all the time, mainly musicals and comedies - well, and the monster and "B" genre movies we watch on FNF. As Mr. P. said, I have rewatched so many Laurel & Hardy films that I usually start giggling just when I look at the title on the box. Grand Illusion is certainly very near the top of greatest pictures. So is Notorious, for that matter. So is Seven Samurai. Ditto Modern Times. Some movies are so great it is still an event to watch them... The Godfather, Bride of Frankenstein, Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain, To Kill a Mockingbird... We don't watch those just ANY old time. Short subjects? Well, you know me. But I would like to mention a few that we get more requests for than any others... Liberty and Big Business (Laurel & Hardy silents), The Music Box (L&H talkie), and Keaton's "One Week" get requested all the time. We get requests for "a Chaplin picture" but not a specific title. |
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| Frank Hale | May 16 2009, 06:29 PM Post #36 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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You’re right, Stony, the Flynn Robin Hood would have been on my list 20 or 30 years ago, but for whatever reason it slipped off. I’ll nominate “The Mark of Zorro” (1940) as a worthy successor. I think what I look for in a picture is: a) An overriding romantic viewpoint (in the literary sense); b) A smashing music score; c) A slick production, well directed. No dawdling. |
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1:17 PM Nov 26
