Monday, June 27, 2011

A Few Reasons I Love Old Movies

If you haven’t ever stumbled upon an old movie channel, check it out next time you do. Old movies are a gold mine. Of course, it depends on the movie, but in general, the movies back then were filled with beautiful rarities. I’ll give you a list of just a few things I love about them.
1.       Men in suits and women in dresses. There’s just something about a sharp-dressed man in a suit. And a woman in a pretty, feminine dress. Both genders fulfill their proper roles and look pretty darn good doing it.

2.       Men and women respect each other. You don't see a whole lot of, "DANG, SHE FINE!" with some oggling. No sir.

3.       Actors can ACT. Even if they don’t look flawless in front of the camera. But they can sure act. The Golden Age of Hollywood was named thus for a reason. Everyone in the industry had talent.

4.       There’s tons of dialogue. Which means more storytelling. Movies these days have less of it, and the storylines are far less original and creative.

5.       Background actors stay in character and they’re memorable! Everyone in the movies had talent, not just the leading roles!

6.       People didn’t just act with their words and actions – they acted with their faces, too. The expressions in their faces (and even their tone of voice) portrayed the character they were playing.

7.       People had relationships with one another. No one had their noses buried in cell phones. They talked to one another, went to visit each other’s houses.

8.       There was real romance. It doesn’t take talent to take your clothes off. These actors sometimes never so much as touched each other in a scene, but it was still incredibly romantic. Take the telephone scene in It’s a Wonderful Life, for example. (See below for video!)

9.       There was little obscenity or vulgarity. Just pure, good, wholesome entertainment.

10.   Jimmy Stewart. Yep. Nuff said.

We could certainly use a good dose of the magic from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Maybe we can bring it back, but probably not to the same degree of greatness. But, every so often, I think a person should sit with a hot cup of tea, sit back and enjoy the sheer goodness of older films.



1 comment:

BG45 said...

+1 for Jimmy Stewart. For my current degree I'm working on, I'm in his home town. They're a tad nuts in their devotion of him here: Every Christmas they re-enact the running down the streets scene from It's A Wonderful Life. The walk signals for crosswalks are voiced by a Jimmy Stewart impersonator, welcoming you to the town and telling you to take your time (if you listen to the whole speech, it goes back to the Don't Cross sign). The bar my theology group meets at has gigantic posters from his films all over the first floor. And the Advising Center my assistantship is primarily based in is the site of where he attended kindergarten!

But agree with pretty much the whole post. I feel like a bit of a comment hog on this blog, so I'm sorry if I am! It's just I keep reading and going "Wow, that's really good."