old movies from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s

[alexis]

come pay day i shall be ordering some old movies on amazon, im a big fan of 1940s melodrama, well melodrama of any kind i guess.

Anyways i was wondering if people here have seen any of the films i will be buying
these include:
"letter from an unknown woman" from 1948
"Rebecca" from 1940
"Gaslight" from 1944
"since you went away" from 1944

[Jessie]

I have seen "Rebecca" from 1940, "Gaslight" from 1944, they were good films. I love old movies too, I watch them with my Mom, and Aunt.

[alexis]

I have seen "Rebecca" from 1940, "Gaslight" from 1944, they were good films. I love old movies too, I watch them with my Mom, and Aunt.

LOL i cant wait to see these films! I am not a fan of many films of today and i am only 27 years old. I always think of my Gran whos passed away when i watch films like these.

[tarquinia]

LOL i cant wait to see these films! I am not a fan of many films of today and i am only 27 years old. I always think of my Gran whos passed away when i watch films like these.

Exactly what I was going to say. I'm younger (23 y/o) but I always think of my grandma with these movies.

[MargaretKrebbs]

Here's my opinion.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is directed by the great Max Ophuls. Joan Fontaine is exceptional and Louis Jourdan is perfect in this film. It is a truly great film. Really affected me. It's the "smallest" film on your list, but is the deepest, I think. An interesting Portrait of the Artist.

Rebecca is another very very good film. It's Hitchcock, so you know to expect a certain level of quality and suspense. Joan Fontaine plays the naive young wife perfectly. Have you ever seen her in The Bigamist or Born to be Bad?

Gaslight is directed by the usually good George Cukor and stars two always interesting actors, Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. The art direction and cinematography are top notch too.

Since You Went Away is my least favorite on your list. It is a bit more sentimental than the rest, sometimes cloyingly so. But Claudette Colbert and Robert Walker keep things from going too far most of the time.

Have fun!

[alexis]

Here's my opinion.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is directed by the great Max Ophuls. Joan Fontaine is exceptional and Louis Jourdan is perfect in this film. It is a truly great film. Really affected me. It's the "smallest" film on your list, but is the deepest, I think. An interesting Portrait of the Artist.

Rebecca is another very very good film. It's Hitchcock, so you know to expect a certain level of quality and suspense. Joan Fontaine plays the naive young wife perfectly. Have you ever seen her in The Bigamist or Born to be Bad?

Gaslight is directed by the usually good George Cukor and stars two always interesting actors, Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. The art direction and cinematography are top notch too.

Since You Went Away is my least favorite on your list. It is a bit more sentimental than the rest, sometimes cloyingly so. But Claudette Colbert and Robert Walker keep things from going too far most of the time.

Have fun!

thanks for the reply, i have not seen Joan Fontaine in anything other than Jane Eyre. But i love old movies i used to spend alot of time with my grandmother as a child and i loved sitting on rainy afternoons (there are many in Ireland) watching old films like this with her. Afriend told me i would enjoy "Letter from an unknown woman" and i looked it up online and it sounds like just the thing i love i cant wait to watch these films ill be odering them along with the Dallas Dream season :P
Do you have any suggestions of old movies you think i would enjoy? I will also be ordering the Barbra Stanwyck collection having saw "Double Indemnity" And my favorite actresses are Vivien Leigh and Bette Davis.
Thanks

[MargaretKrebbs]

Barbara Stanwyck is a genius actor I am almost never disappointed by her films. I love her really early, that is probably because I love pre-code Hollywood movies so much: Babyface, Ten Cents a Dance, Ladies They Talk About, Night Nurse, and Forbidden are all fantastic. But I also like The Furies and Crash by Night, and Executive Suite. Her 1940's stuff is good. The Lady Eve is fabulous. East Side West Side is very good. Sorry, Wrong Number, The Two Mrs. Carrolls and The Strange Loves of Molly Ivers are all worth watching.

Bette Davis is legend. So you'll find your way through her oeuevre without much trouble. I really like her in Ex-Lady, Three on a Match, and So Big! Then there are the classic films: The Letter, Now Voyager, and Little Foxes are all a BD education in melodrama. All about Eve is classic later Davis, and White Mama, a made-for-TV film about an elderly white woman who lives in the black ghetto is remarkably good. It panders some, but Davis and te actor who plays the young black boy who befriends her are sincere together - and it's directed by former child actor Jackie Cooper!

How about trying out some Joan Crawford films? She's in tons of great melodrama, including Mildred Pierce, among other lesser known titles from the 1930's, before she was so hard looking.

Don't have any suggestions for Vivien Leigh.

[alexis]

Barbara Stanwyck is a genius actor I am almost never disappointed by her films. I love her really early, that is probably because I love pre-code Hollywood movies so much: Babyface, Ten Cents a Dance, Ladies They Talk About, Night Nurse, and Forbidden are all fantastic. But I also like The Furies and Crash by Night, and Executive Suite. Her 1940's stuff is good. The Lady Eve is fabulous. East Side West Side is very good. Sorry, Wrong Number, The Two Mrs. Carrolls and The Strange Loves of Molly Ivers are all worth watching.

Bette Davis is legend. So you'll find your way through her oeuevre without much trouble. I really like her in Ex-Lady, Three on a Match, and So Big! Then there are the classic films: The Letter, Now Voyager, and Little Foxes are all a BD education in melodrama. All about Eve is classic later Davis, and White Mama, a made-for-TV film about an elderly white woman who lives in the black ghetto is remarkably good. It panders some, but Davis and te actor who plays the young black boy who befriends her are sincere together - and it's directed by former child actor Jackie Cooper!

How about trying out some Joan Crawford films? She's in tons of great melodrama, including Mildred Pierce, among other lesser known titles from the 1930's, before she was so hard looking.

Don't have any suggestions for Vivien Leigh.

I loved Barbara Stanwyck iv also saw her in "Sorry, wrong number" which i enjoyed alot. I will be on the look out for more of her films, though its surprisingly hard to find many old movies on Dvd, companies need to make their entire classic back catalogue available.
I also have a few Bette Davis movies in my collection including "all about eve" but i want to get a copy of "The letter" and "now voyager" i have seen the latter and enjoyed it. I do quite like some of Joan Crawfords stuff too and own "Mildred pierce" and the very early "Rain" ill have to seek out some more of her 40s stuff though. Cant wait to pay day and order these films

[James from London]

Don't have any suggestions for Vivien Leigh.

Try WATERLOO BRIDGE.

[SnarkyOracle!]

(...) and The Strange Loves of Molly Ivers are all worth watching.(..)

That's Martha Ivers.

[MargaretKrebbs]

That's Martha Ivers.

You are right!! BIG difference.

Try WATERLOO BRIDGE.

True, Vivian Leigh is good in that film. But Robert Taylor is so pretty, he almost outshines her! It's a cleaned up contemporary version of a grittier pre-code version set in WWI, instead of WWII.

I really like the 1931 version, also titled Waterloo Bridge, starring Mae Clark as a down on her luck American chorus girl turned prostitute who picks up men on Waterloo Bridge before WWI, and meets Roy the young GI, played by the totally underrated Douglass Montgomery and has a tragic tragic end. And Bette Davis has a supporting role too.

A few others that I like:

Madame X, 1929. directed by Lionel Barrymore! Starring the terrifically melodramatic Ruth Chatterton!
"A young lawyer unknowingly defends his mother who abandoned him when he was three." Genius!

Wuthering Heights, with Merle Oberon, one of the most beautiful women in films ever!

In Name Only, Starring Cary Grant and Carole Lombarde.

Working Girls, 1931, directed by Dorothy Arzner

The Blue Angel, 1930, directed by von Sternberg and starring Marlene Dietrich

Primrose Path, 1940 and Kitty Foyle, 1940, both with Ginger Rodgers. There's no dancing in these.

And as much as I hate all her mugging and scene chewing, Greer Garson is in some big ol'melodramas. "Mrs. Miniver" is the best.

Anything starring Janet Gaynor.

Anything starring Kay Francis.

Lots of Ida Lupino films - ones she stars in as well as directs.

[leslie stewart]

This is my kind of thread! I love classic Hollywood and most of the actresses from that era. Here are some films I'd recommend from my favorite actresses:

BETTE DAVIS (Quite simply, THE BEST!)

The Cabin in The Cotton, Of Human Bondage, Fog Over Frisco, Jimmy The Gent, Dangerous, Bordertown, The Girl From 10th Avenue, The Petrified Forest, Marked Woman, It's Love I'm After, Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Old Maid, Juarez, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, All This, and Heaven Too, The Letter, The Little Foxes, Now, Voyager, In This Our Life, Watch On The Rhine, Old Acquaintance, Mr. Skeffington, The Corn is Green, A Stolen Life, Deception, June Bride, Beyond The Forest (the reviews of the day were terrible but Bette plays the Madame Bovary-ish small town strumpet Rosa Moline to perfection. A brave, balls-to-the-walls portrayal.)

Going beyond the 40's: All About Eve, Payment on Demand, Another Man's Poison, The Star, The Virgin Queen, The Catered Affair, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Dead Ringer, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Nanny, Death On The Nile (beautifully comedic in a cameo role), The Whales of August

On TV: Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter, Little Gloria: Happy At Last, A Piano For Mrs. Cimino, White Mama

BARBARA STANWYCK

Forbidden, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Stella Dallas, Remember The Night, Meet John Doe, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers

Beyond The 40's: The Furies, No Man of Her Own, Clash By Night

On TV: The Thorn Birds (Perhaps her all-time best performance.)

JOAN CRAWFORD

Rain, Posessed (!931), Sadie McKee, Mannequin, The Women, Strange Cargo, A Woman's Face, Mildred Pierce, Humoresque, Daisy Kenyon, Posssessed (1947, completely different subject matter than the '31 film of the same name), Flamingo Road

Beyond The 40's: The Damned Don't Cry, Harriet Craig, Queen Bee (camp par excellence), Autumn Leaves, Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, Strait-Jacket, Berserk (flawed but worth seeing for Joan.)

CLAUDETTE COLBERT

It Happened One Night, Imitation of Life, Cleopatra, Midnight, Drums Along The Mohawk

[alexis]

Try WATERLOO BRIDGE.

have seen Waterlo Bridge quite a while ago, and loved it. she is a magnificent actress. Just amazing to watch

[TJames03]

Sadly, a lot of movies from the early 20th century are forever gone because the film fell apart, etc.

Of course, no one could have known that those movies would have been playing clear into the next century. Also, there was not sufficient technology to preserve those films (at that time) either.

[Barbara Fan]

Rebecca is a great film and Gaslight stars one of my all times favs Ingrid Bergman being sent insane by her husband Charles Boyer

Other Hitchcocks Id recommend are Spellbound with Ingrid and Gregory Peck and Notorious with Ingrid and Cary Grant

My mum was a Bette Davis fan so grew up watching a lot of her films - Now Voyager and Dark Victory and if you want 40s meodrama then there is always Joan crawford too
Vivian Leigh was stunning when she was young

[jrs]

Great thread....i adore old movies...grew up with them...

I love Greer Garson and Joan Fontaine

Laurence Olivier is brilliant in Pride and Prejudice as Mr darcy long before Colin Firth was even a twinkle in his daddy's eye.

North by Northwest and Rear Window..thrilling

also loved all the old Universal horror films with Bela Lugosi/Karloff etc

and hammer horrors...awful special effects but something great about them...cliched...but the horror is sublime and subtle unlike the slasher horror porn nowadays

oh ....Ice Cold in Alex....Anthony Qualye and John mills...brilliant

[Jessie]

Have you seen any Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy films? Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Woman of the Year (1942) are two of my favourites with them.

[alexis]

Have you seen any Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy films? Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and Woman of the Year (1942) are two of my favourites with them.

I believe i saw a film of theirs called "Deskset" and i may have saw a few others when i was very young that i dont really remember, because i have it on good authority that my Grann loved Spencer Tracey
ill have to look into those. I love that there is a near inexhustable list of old movies for me to feast on.. bliss!

[alexis]

I will also have to look up Greer Garson... i dont know who she is

[zephiey]

I will also have to look up Greer Garson... i dont know who she is

Watch Mrs. Miniver , Goodbye Mr. Chips and That Forsythe Woman She is an absolutely fantastic actress.