The Silver Screen Oasis

Oh, I like that story Uncle Stevie.

I appreciate how your wife feels only I haven't gone as far as telling any store proprietors that their signs are wrong. Good for her and your brother in law.

My hubby does not like classic films either. He also likes to point out continuity mistakes, so I don't ask him to watch anything I care about. I can occasionally get him to watch a comedy if there is nothing else on - so far, out of the hundreds of movies he has fallen asleep to, he likes (I had a list of just the 5 top movies, but now he is chiming in with more so he'll look good ):

The Fortune Cookie
Sunset Boulevard
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
The Ladykillers
The Lavender Hill Mob
Kind Hearts and Coronets
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
The Long Night
The Third Man
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Party
The Pink Panther

He giggled at the end of I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

Lately, he has been softening up, watching surreptitiously when I am not there... I think TCM is working it's magic spell....

That is an unusual list for someone not all that interested in movies. I love "The Party" but it does run out of gas near the end. I've never been able to warm up to "The Fortune Cookie."

JackFavell wrote:The Wreck of the Mary Deare
The Long Night
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Pink Panther

Wow! I'd say he has great taste!

He giggled at the end of I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

oh boy! i hope that didn't start a row...

He does have good taste, but I have to drag him kicking and screaming to it.

I also did not know till last night when I was typing my reply that he actually really liked any of these, except for The Fortune Cookie, which he watched a second time without me forcing him to. With the Guinness movies I was pretty sure he liked them (whew!) because he did not fall asleep.

oh boy! i hope that didn't start a row...

Oh, Goddess! No row, but a quick nasty glance from me, tears streaming down my face - "Did you just GIGGLE???!!!!" I think he knew he stepped over the line.

Yesterday was my biggest turn off. We invited three friends to a home made lunch. All three are college buddies from fifty years ago. We keep in touch 2 times per year. One couple are former summer stock performers and visitors to theater production their entire adult life. They often go to concerts and watch movies. The third person (widowed) has seen every single play in the city of New York as well as almost every movie released, as well as traveled to over 30 countries. My wife wore normal lovely clothing but I showed up wearing a Deanna Durbin T shirt. They laughed at my attire and were astonished when I said I own 360 classic movies. They all professed a lack of interest in classic movies and chuckled at the thought. They chided me all afternoon.

I am indeed lonely in my passion, even though lunch was delicious.


Uncle Stevie

My husband won't watch any classic movies (that goes double for silents) with the exception of mysteries. He'll watch the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies, and the Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto series, for example. He actually watched the new blu-ray of The Maltese Falcon with me last weekend -- in fact, he saw more of it than I did because I was zonked on pain medication for my back and I slept through most of it. ;) (My back is much improved, thanks for asking...just a bad muscle pull.)

Wendy, does your husband like Charles Boyer films, my husband does like him but tells me that no man has ever behaved like that and I haven't shared the more romantic ones with him, he'd giggle and ruin the mood.

He does like some, some of the ones he does like

Hobson Choice's
Brief Encounter
Lawrence of Arabia
Dr Zhivago
Ryan's Daughter
The Ladykillers
Frenzy
Gaslight
Ice Cold in Alex
Some Like it Hot
The Heiress
I Confess
Wild River
A Kind Of Loving
Saturday Night Sunday Morning
Black Narcissus
The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp
A Matter of Life and Death
Whiskey Galore
The Odd Couple
The Misfits
The African Queen
My Fair Lady
Sunset Boulevard
Great Expectations
Man in a White Suit
The Lavender Hill Mob
Some Carry on films

Hates film noir, can tolerate Hitchcock, can take some Westerns. Prefers British films to Hollywood tends to hates Hollywood forties films, loves British films from forties/fifities. Also likes historical films

Actors he thinks are consistently good Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, sometimes Humphrey Bogart, James Mason, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman

Hubby would like me to add John Mills to his list of likes and mention another couple of movies

The Family Way
Whistle Down the Wind
Cool Hand Luke
The Godfather I & II
Ran
Throne of Blood
Seven Samurai
The Good The Bad and The Ugly
Lolita
Dr Strangelove
Georgy Girl

He's getting quite into this now, listing movies for me he likes, I feel like I've been hard on him but he still doesn't like Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh or Buster Keaton

and he can't stand Lizabeth Scott.

Ha ha! The hubbies want to show they can be tolerant of our movies!

Andrew does like Cool Hand Luke. He is probably the opposite of your hubby in his tastes - NO MUSICALS, NO CHICK FLICKS - that means romance. NO SUBTITLES, NO FOREIGN FILMS, though I suspect if I could get him to stay awake for Throne of Blood he might like it.

Does like Dr. Strangelove

Probably would like Clint Eastwood movies. May have even seen some of them.

The Odd Couple is OK.

Nothing else on your list would appeal to him. I think he might like film noir. Gaslight maaaybe, but it's a stretch since they are in costume. Hitchcock he probably could sit through, I think he liked Strangers on a Train (which I love) if he did not fall asleep as an immediate defense mechanism. Probably not Shadow of a Doubt. I'd really be curious to get his impression of Vertigo.

Chris doesn't like Vertigo, apart from the shots of San Francisco, he doesn't believe in the plot and here's another problem, it has to be believeable or else he'll be muttering asides all night. He hates To Catch a Thief.
I've not seen Strangers on the Train in the longest time, maybe it's time to revisit it.

The stupidest movie ever made is Singin in the Rain and the reason he thinks that is because he never watches it, only sees clips and says it makes no sense at all, well of course it does the musical numbers don't make sense. He generally dislikes musicals apart from Rocky Horror Picture Show and Fiddler on the Roof.

He liked Witness for the Prosecution we watched that recently.

I prefer to watch films by myself because I find watching with others distracts me. As for those who would criticize your favorites, I wouldn't worry about it. If I let unenlightened tastes dictate my viewing, who knows what drivel I'd be forced to endure?

Now, I must get back to my Eurotrash Weekend Film Festival for one.

I read this thread earlier in the week and resolved to try and introduce my two young sons to one of my old films this weekend. They stay with me every Saturday and Sunday and we call Saturday night "movie night." Being October, I figured a classic horror film would be in order. I selected the 1925 Phantom of the Opera--a gorgeous print recorded from TCM a few years ago. Anticipating some groaning when I introduced it, I said, "We'll watch it for twenty minutes, and if you can't stand it, we'll switch to something else." As it turns out, by the twentieth minute, they were fully engaged in the story. Imagine my delight to hear Felix, my youngest, wondering in the dimly lit room, "Is she going to try to take off his mask?" Like the advert says, "priceless."

Ah, that's really nice.

My kids will watch some but because they're kids they like to watch the same films again and again, so we have a handful of Laurel and Hardy movies that they love, they laugh before the gags are done in sheer anticipation. I'm going to try and watch Some Like it Hot with them, see if they find it funny, if they do they've completely inherited my sense of humour.