Film Recommendations - Pre-1950

[Garek]

Hey all. Was thinking maybe could use this thread for recommendation of old films, preferably less well known ones, or forgotten ones.

Just about to start watching Cat People.

Anyone got any recommendations? Political? Foreign? Noir?

On my list so far that I have to watch are Angels With Dirty Faces, Cat People and Salt of the Earth. I'd especially be interested in any foreign suggestions.

 

[Orang Utan]

black narcissus
great expectations
rebecca

 

[imposs1904]

Sullivan's Travels

 

[marty21]

The Blue Lamp

 

[Orang Utan]

bringing up baby is ace

 

[marty21]

Mr Smith goes to Washington.

 

[Termite Man]

I'll take any excuse to post this http://www.archive.org/

 

[Zabo]

Les Enfants Du Paradis (1945) Screenplay by the wonderful poet Jacques Prevert

Une Si Jolie Petite Plage (1949)

They Live By Night (1948)

Waga Koi Wa Moenu (1949)

Les Maudits (1947)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Los Olvidados (1950)

Das Blaue Licht (1932)

Triumph Des Willens (1935)

Rififi (1955) - Yes I know it's post 1950 but it is brilliant.

That should keep you busy!

IMDB = bollocks. Best place for a synopsis is here: http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/the-children-of-paradise-v9264

Use Opera Content Blocker to get rid of unwanted images-ads.

 

[Lea]

Anything starring Cary Grant. I'm a big fan of his. The Philidelphia Story. My Favourite Wife. Bringing Up Baby. Suspicion. Arsenic and Old Lace. Notorious etc

 

[N_igma]

Hey all. Was thinking maybe could use this thread for recommendation of old films, preferably less well known ones, or forgotten ones.

Just about to start watching Cat People.

Anyone got any recommendations? Political? Foreign? Noir?

On my list so far that I have to watch are Angels With Dirty Faces, Cat People and Salt of the Earth. I'd especially be interested in any foreign suggestions.

This ticks some of those boxes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Man_Out

 

[davesgcr]

A Run for Your Money
Wuthering Heights
How Green Was My Valley
The 39 Steps

 

[krtek a houby]

Song At Midnight - 1930s take on Phantom of the Opera; lots of shadows and light. I watched it without subtitles years ago & was able to follow. V beautiful.

 

[Pseudopsycho]

Get Todd Browning's Freaks and then lend it to me

 

[weltweit]

The original - The postman always rings twice.

 

[Garek]

Cheers all for the recomendations Realised I should have come back onto this thread sooner. I am currently 'sourcing' 'A Matter of Life and Death', 'The Postman ALways Rings Twice' and 'Black Narcissus'.

Any more recommendations? Thinking maybe old foreign cinema? I can see this hunt for all films getting out of hand and diving down all sorts of rabbit holes

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Waga Koi Wa Moenu (1949)

Looks interesting, will check it out.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Casablanca
The Big Sleep
Grapes of Wrath
Brighton Rock
Whiskey Galore
Ossessione (1943 Italian version of 'the postman always rings twice')
All Quiet on the Western Front

 

[albionism]

These two are absolutely stunning.

Sunrise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YiTQwqRufs&feature=related
Pandora's Box http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zbCIGk6_1k&feature=related

 

[albionism]

and also The Golem: How He Came Into the World

 

[davesgcr]

The Naked City

New York as it was ....

 

[Garek]

Brighton Rock

Hmmm, I did not not enjoy the book but I will give the film a go.

 

[redsquirrel]

All the Archers films, lots of Hitchcock (of course)
Red River
Casablanca
To Have and Have Not
Murder My Sweet
The Killers
Green For Danger
The Glass Key
The Blue Dahlia
Gilda
Out Of The Past
The Lady From Shanghai
The Third Man
Frieda

 

[Kaka Tim]

Hmmm, I did not not enjoy the book but I will give the film a go.

Its great. Dark, menacing and Dickie Attenborough is utterly compelling as Pinky (Yes really - like a fucked up, young Brando gone bad ) . Brilliantly nasty ending as well.

 

[chandlerp]

The Unsuspected

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039941/

 

[DaveCinzano]

Some fine suggestions so far.

How about:

• Wings (1927, silent about World War I pilots, with romantic subplot)
• Blackmail (1929, Hitchcock's first talkie, a thriller which started off as a silent)
• All Quiet On The Western Front (1930, fair rendering of Remarque's anti-war novel, with Americans playing Germans sympathetically)
• Zemlya AKA Earth (1930, silent Soviet flick about landless peasants rising up and working together)
• M (1931, dark & expressionistic Fritz Lang thriller)
• Duck Soup (1933, one of the best Marx Brothers comedies)
• The Lady Vanishes (1938, fun spies-and-quips Hitchcock)
• His Girl Friday (1940, zingy newsroom screwball comedy with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell)
• Detour (1945, early noir)

Plenty of these are available on the Internet Archive for free.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Green For Danger

I love this little potboiler! It's got everything - rigid British class relationships slightly loosened under wartime pressures, stoicism, lots of melodrama, tension, and great moments of wit. Plus Alastair Sim as a pre-Columbo Columbo-type detective!

Another couple come to mind, both based on the same play by Arnold Ridley (Pte Godfrey in Dad's Army):

Oh, Mr Porter! (1937, with Will Hay)
The Ghost Train (1941, with Arthur Askey)

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

We watched the recently restored version of Metropolis this week and it's absolutely brilliant, really would recommend seeing this.

 

[krtek a houby]

We watched the recently restored version of Metropolis this week and it's absolutely brilliant, really would recommend seeing this.

I seriously want to see this

 

[ViolentPanda]

"I Was A Fireman" (also released as "Fires Were Started") from 1943 - story of 24 hours in the life of a war-time fire crew in London's docklands. The director used locals and local fire-crew as some of the secondary characters, and it's quite tense and claustrophobic in places.

 

[pennimania]

Battleship Potemkin - I saw this for the first time the other day and I thought it was wonderful.

powerful, moving and also unwittingly funny