OLD FILMS THAT I LOVE

[SANDRO43]

During the holiday season TV stations often broadcast old movies. Below are some that made a lasting impression when I saw them as a kid/teenager.

HARVEY (1950)
James Stewart is Elwood P. Dowd, a suave and mildly mad man whose drinking mate is Harvey, a 6'-tall white rabbit pooka (a creature from Celtic folklore). His family wants to commit him to an institution, but Harvey solves the situation.

The Ladykillers (1955)
Five oddball criminals planning a bank robbery rent rooms on a cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow under the pretext that they are classical musicians. Featuring Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom and a young Peter Sellers.

The Horse's Mouth (1958)
Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay from the 1944 novel The Horse's Mouth by Joyce Cary, and also played the lead role of Gulley Jimson, a London painter living in a houseboat on the Thames.

The Party (1968)
The 4th film directed by Blake Edwards, starring a now nature Peter Sellers playing Hrundi V. Bakshi, an incompetent Indian actor who gets mistakenly invited to his studio head's dinner party.

BTW The Goon Show (1951-1960)
Not a a movie but a very popular British radio comedy series with  Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan interpreting a variety of odd characters.

[Gator]

Sandro, you have a fondness for British comedies.  In the 50s and 60s the Brits were producing many such films, and American  audiences flocked to them. 

Peter Sellers was the most accomplished of the British comedians, probably best known for his clumsy slapstick in the  Pink Panther films .  I favored a later film of his,  Being There, and Dr. Strangelove was also good.      Sadly died in his mid-50s. 

I liked comedy, yet personally preferred the drama genre.   Epics attracted big box offices, yet I found many lacking, other than Lawrence of Arabia

[SANDRO43]

Sandro, you have a fondness for British comedies.

Yes I do, probably because I prefer British humour having started out as a teenager reading authors like Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927), Stephen Leacock (1869-1944), P.G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) et al.

I also bought several issues of the Punch weekly magazine but its humour was above me then, I mostly liked its cartoons.

What I appreciated most of those films I cited is the originality of their plots/characters, a quality sadly lacking in too many later productions.

BTW, 2 out of 4 were made in the US , and below is another Blake Edwards's classic from 1959, 3h 21' of fun!

[2tallbill]

Bumping up a one of the Late Great Sandro's threads. A comedy with Peter Sellers from 1959
(before I was born) 

[Turboguy]

There were some pretty bad old movies but some great ones as well.  I loved the Movie Harvy. I liked most of Jimmy Stuart's films with Rear Window being my favorite.  Some of the ones I really enjoyed were African Queen, Notorious. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, North by Northwest and so many more. 


I was talking to a 30 year old friend and mentioned Jimmy Stuart and he had no idea who that was.   Sad.