OK here goes. In this thread feel free to suggest and discuss the best films released before the start of the 1950's. This is pretty much going to be a 1940's and 1950's poll but if you want o vote for Un Chien Andalou, Battleship Potemkin and Grand Hotel this is the place.

I imagine that the majority of us can't say we've seen 100 from this period so the limit will be 50 films with points allocated as follows.

1. 500
2. 350
3. 250
4. 200
5. 180
6. 160
7. 140
8. 120
9. 100
10. 80
11. 65
12. 60
13. 55
14. 50
15. 45
16. 40
17. 38
18. 36
19. 34
20. 32
21. 30
22. 29
23. 28
24. 27
25. 26
26. 25

etc

44. 11
45. 10
46-50. 5

I hope this will put an emphasis on ordering the higher end of the list and won't penalise those who submit smaller lists or give a bias to either the films we've all seen or high ranking films on a few lists.

The deadline for votes is 16th March at the moment and the list will be counted down before the 20th. Again don't expect a list with enteries as long as displayed on previous votes on here. The final countdown for every set will be 100 but the full list of multiple votes will be made available.

Best places to start...

http://uk.imdb.com/chart/1910s
http://uk.imdb.com/chart/1920s
http://uk.imdb.com/chart/1930s
http://uk.imdb.com/chart/1940s

Please don't start list polls when you're drunk.

I hate the metric system.

This is my favorite movie.

Sweet!

When's the deadline? Time to fill my Q with some oldies.


For your consideration:

Yeah fixed but the idea of harshly smiting you #8 films was quite appealing



OK, the #1 choices will all be awarded a gross of cubits.




March 10th i'm afraid. Either that or the start of April. I was guessing that the former would be the preference, please say if it's not.

Even better:

Top Five:

5. Casablanca
4. Nosferatu
3. King Kong
2. Duck Soup
1. Citizen Kane

Unless there are at least a few people like me who would try to see some undiscovered oldies before the deadline, then the sooner the better. I'd always go with the later deadline.

Go with the earlier deadline. Most people here have had at least 20 years to catch these movies.

Then we can move on to better eras.

Is this an official or unoffical list?



Yeah it has to fit round my plans so it's one or the other I figured that pushing 6 weeks is too long for the poll that will, I'm sure, get the least attention.

Battleship Potemkin



Cabinet of Dr. Caligari



l'Age d'Or

Bambi



Birth of a Nation

do you see the word OFFICIAL anywhere around there?
That's how it works around here. Are you still drunk?

what happened to waiting until the Simpsons poll is over?

There's 10 days grace and I won't post the results until the Sausage is done. Otherwise I can't do it untill April. Just thought we could get going on the suggestions.

(in fact I wouldn't have started this today if I had seen that you had started.)

whatever, not a big deal.

Don't forget those classic Universal monsters!









or these babies, still in the horror/thriller realm...

Yeah I'm pretty sure I could name 100 classic films but I havn't seen them all. I'm sure most of us have seen 30 odd but they won't all be the same set so I hope that is going to make the poll really interesting.

I have ALOT of old movies, if anyone wants to tape or dvd trade or something, it can be arranged. The stuff I have is mostly horror related though.

Will point out that British Cinema was never healthier than it was in this period.....

Passport to Pimlico (1949)
Hamlet (1948)
Black Narcissus (1947)
Oliver Twist (1948)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Whisky Galore! (1949)
Brighton Rock (1947)
Henry V (1944)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
The Third Man (1949)
Brief Encounter (1945)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Great Expectations (1946)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
The Red Shoes (1948)

Can't forget the sacred cows of silent film, "The General," "Sherlock, Jr.," "City Lights," "Modern Times," "Intolerance," "Battleship Potemkin."

"Ivan The Terrible Part 1 & 2" (especially Part 2) also deserve a spot. Maybe "Alexander Nevsky."
"Out of the Past" (excellent noir, Robert Mitchum's best)
"Only Angels Have Wings" (excellent Hawks)
The Marx Brothers' "Duck Soup" and all of their Paramount films
"Olympiad Berlin 1936" (where Jesse Owens upstages the Nazis)
"October" (narrative is pure propaganda, visually it's amazing)
"Nosferatu" (the best vampire film ever)
"Boudu Saved From Drowning" (Renoir)
"A Day In The Country" (Renoir's famous truncated film)
"Ninotchka" (Garbo laughs - Lubitsch made it)
"Napoléon" (Abel Gance's famous epic)
"Mildred Pierce" (1940's feminist classic)
"The 39 Steps" (Hitchock's first excellent film)
"Un Chien Andalou" (early surrealist work by Bunuel and Dali)
"L'Age d'Or" (Bunuel)
"A Story of Floating Weeds" (Ozu's silent classic, now on DVD)
"Late Spring" (Ozu)
"Fury" (Fritz Lang, one of Spencer Tracy's best performances)
"The Phantom Carriage" (good luck finding it - I never saw this, but I know someone who loves it. A perfect candidate for Criterion DVD release.)
"The Wind" (another classic from Sjöström, this time in the U.S. with Lillian Gish)
"The Cheat" (a miracle - a silent classic....by Cecil B. DeMille!)
"His Girl Friday" (Hawks' classic screwball comedy)
"Brief Encounter" (Lean's classic romance)
"The Great Dictator" (Chaplin's heavy handed but funny political satire)
"Day of Wrath" (Dreyer)
"The Circus" (Chaplin)
"The Red Shoes" (the Archers, one of Scorsese's favorites, and Shearer just passed recently)
"Black Narcissus" (the Archers - Powell and Pressburger of course)
"Swing Time" (George Stevens makes the best Astaire-Rogers vehicle ever)
"Top Hat" (this is a close second)
"The Last Laugh" (pure silent film - only one title card that serves as an explanation for an outrageous but funny tacked-on ending)
"Metropolis" (in some ways a real mess, but amazing looking sci-fi)
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (German expressionism with paint, no lights)
"Sullivan's Travels" (a bit too sappy at the end, but Preston Sturges's "masterpiece")
"Shadow of a Doubt" (another Hitchcock classic)
"The Passion of Joan of Arc" (Dreyer - possibly the greatest silent film ever)
"L'Atalante" (Vigo's masterpiece)
"Beauty and the Beast" (Cocteau)
"Henry V" (Olivier's gorgeous war propaganda film)
"Red River" (flawed but classic Hawks western)
"Orpheus" (Cocteau)
"Blood of a Poet"(Cocteau)
"The Third Man" (in my top 5)
"The Grapes Of Wrath" ('wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat...')
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (should've won Best Picture in '48 - the source of that 'stinkin' badges' joke)
"Notorious" - Hitchock's best black & white film
"The Best Years of Our Lives" - William Wyler's best film
"My Darling Clementine" - corny title, awesome western
"It Happened One Night" - classic screwball comedy
"Double Indemnity" - possibly Billy Wilder's first great film
"Pinocchio"
"Snow White & The Seven Dwarves"
"Fantasia" - the holy trinity of Diz-nee flicks
"The Gold Rush" (Chaplin)
"Stagecoach" (Ford)
"Bringing Up Baby" (classic Hawks screwball comedy)
"M" (Fritz Lang's best)
"Sunrise" (Murnau)
"The Shop Around The Corner" (one of Lubitsch's best)
"To Be Or Not To Be" (this too)
"To Have Or Have Not" (Hawks redoing one of Hemingway's lesser stories - he claimed "I did it for the money" to Hawks)
"Blue Angel" (Dietrich and Sternberg)
"Scarface" (Hawks, better than the trashy DePalma flick)
"The Palm Beach Story" (Sturges's funniest)
"Nanook Of The North" (a 'staged' documentary in some ways but a breakthrough in silent cinema - proof that realism can be narratively compelling)
"Monsieur Verdoux" (one of Chaplin's best)
"Meet Me In St. Louis" (Garland's third best musical)
"Greed" (the super-long cut is overrated - check out the reconstruction)
"Freaks" (one of us, one of us)
"Foolish Wives" (Stroheim's other masterpiece)
"The Crowd" (King Vidor's best)
"Broken Blossoms" (flawed but still one of Griffith's best)
"Zero de Conduite"
"Le Million"
"The Rules of the Game"
"The Grand Illusion"
"Ugetsu Monogatari"
"Trouble In Paradise"
"Open City"
"The Bicycle Thief"
"Citizen Kane" and "The Magnificent Ambersons"
"Casablanca"
"The Wizard of Oz"
"It's A Wonderful Life"
"Gone With The Wind" (just putting this out there...for all you Titanic fans)

Official.

Honestly, I wasn't sure if the thread was for real or not, that's why I didn't bother stating one way or the other.

I nominate/suggest this one be included, even though it is from 1922:

Nothing wrong with that, 1922 is before 1950 last time I looked.

Sheet. Looks like I've seen just as few old movies as I have new ones.

Strong contender for my #1.

Same here. As are His Girl Friday and The 39 Steps

Was hoping you'd wait on this. :/

'Fraid this i the only times I can fit this around my plans. Nothing is set in stone though and your timetable re; the Simpsons will help me decide when this happens.

Could we get a pin on this maybe, please?

Tony to thread! Come on, Tony? You GOTTA vote in this one. Your input will be most enlightening.

So do we vote for films thru 1950, or 1949?

up to but not including 1950.

Hence, Sunset Blvd is not an option...

nor, Ace in the Hole, har-har-har.


edit-asking Tony to vote is like asking Marcel Marceau to speak up.

Best Production

* 1927-28 Wings - Paramount Famous Lasky - Lucien Hubbard
o The Racket - Caddo, United Artists - Howard Hughes
o Seventh Heaven - Fox - William Fox

Best Picture, Unique and Artistic Production also known as "Best Artistic Quality of Production" was only presented in the first year.

* 1927-28 Sunrise - Fox - William Fox
o Chang - Paramount - Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack
o The Crowd - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - Irving Thalberg
Best Picture winners

* 1928-29 The Broadway Melody
* 1929-30 All Quiet on the Western Front
* 1930-31 Cimarron
* 1931-32 Grand Hotel
* 1932-33 Cavalcade
* 1934 It Happened One Night
* 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty
* 1936 The Great Ziegfeld
* 1937 The Life of Emile Zola
* 1938 You Can't Take it With You
* 1939 Gone with the Wind
* 1940 Rebecca
* 1941 How Green Was My Valley
* 1942 Mrs. Miniver
* 1943 Casablanca
* 1944 Going My Way
* 1945 The Lost Weekend
* 1946 The Best Years of Our Lives
* 1947 Gentleman's Agreement
* 1948 Hamlet
* 1949 All the King's Men

Anyone want to stick a list on. The deadline is still in two Fridays time but that could all change if it has too. Now that I've finished watching The Simpsons (Don't forget to vote in that!) I can watch some of the classics.

We'll put our lists in this thread?

Yeah

1. "The Third Man"
2. "Citizen Kane"
3. "The Magnificent Ambersons"
4. "The Passion of Joan of Arc"
5. "Sunrise"
6. "The Rules of the Game"
7. "Battleship Potemkin"
8. "Casablanca"
9. "The General"
10. "The Wizard of Oz"
11. "Sherlock, Jr."
12. "City Lights"
13. "The Red Shoes"
14. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"
15. "M"
16. "L'Atalante"
17. "Ugetsu Monogatari"
18. "Open City"
19. "It's A Wonderful Life"
20. "The Grand Illusion"
21. "Notorious"
22. "Duck Soup"
23. "Bringing Up Baby"
24. "My Darling Clementine"
25. "The Wind"
26. "Modern Times"
27. "Out of the Past"
28. "Blue Angel" (Dietrich and Sternberg)
29. "Pinocchio"
30. "Nanook Of The North"
31. "Ivan The Terrible Part 1 & 2"
32. "Olympiad Berlin 1936"
33. "The Bicycle Thief"
34. "The Shop Around The Corner"
35. "His Girl Friday"
36. "Nosferatu"
37. "Un Chien Andalou"
38. "A Story of Floating Weeds"
39. "Greed"
40. "The Best Years of Our Lives"
41. "Swing Time"
42. "Trouble In Paradise"
43. "Only Angels Have Wings"
44. "Top Hat"
45. "Sullivan's Travels"
46. "It Happened One Night"
47. "Double Indemnity"
48. "Scarface"
49. "The Crowd"
50. "Le Million"

Cool list, I'm thinking that Third Man has as good a shout as Casablanca and Citizen Kane to take this.

I think there may be some Citizen Kane backlash. It's deserving of a top spot, I almost put it at #1, but because it ALWAYS finishes first, whether it's an AFI poll, a critics poll, a filmmaker's poll, domestically or internationally, people develop unrealistic expectations, like it's going to blow their mind like nothing before. It may very well be the best, but it's not light years above every film ever made.

Plus, some have criticized it for being hollow: Simon Callow, even Joseph Cotten. I never agreed with this, I think the 'hollowness' is a result of Kane, not the film itself; I'm not even sure I'd call Kane hollow, but he definitely is someone who's always manufactured ideals to live by instead of truly believing in them, someone's who immersed himself in one illusion after another up to the bitter end.

How are people's lists coming along? The deadline is extended to Fri 16th now, makes life easier for me.

Screw it--OFFICIAL

1.His Girl Friday
2.Citizen Kane
3.Gone With the Wind
4.The Wizard of Oz
5.The Inspector General
6.The Gold Rush
7.Fantasia
8.Duck Soup
9.It's A Wonderful Life
10.Intolerance
11.Modern Times
12.M
13.Snow White & the 7 Dwarves
14.Metropolis
15.City Lights
16.Nosferatu
17.The General
18.The Battleship Potemkin
19.The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
20Un Chien Andalou
21.Casablanca
22.Money Business
23.Animal Crackers
24.Olympiad
25.Ivan The Terrible

I hate lists like these. All of my favorites are animated shorts.

Thanks for that!

See you during the 1960-79 section then.

Have Had Tivo set to AMC and TCM- taken in these over the last few weeks:


Very entertaining and surprisingly risque considering the social mores of the time...also has the classic Capra feel-good ending.


Epic saga of an immigrant SanFrancisco family. Phillip Dorn delivers a classic supporting actor performance.


Kind of goofy, but, unlike Pride of the Yankees, doesn't pretend to be a serious drama.


Didn't Hepburn and Tracy read the script...great performances wasted by a ridiculous plot.

Definitely top 10 material for me. Bleak but compelling drama.

are you serious?? Time will only remember that boring fucking movie as "That boring fucking movie that beat Citizen Kane for the oscar"