LISTS… (Some of) My Best from the Rest

#1930s #1940s #1950s #1960s #1970s #1980s #AllPosts

 

Just one (more) favourite film for each decade…

 

Seeing as I have reviewed my (never changing) favourites already (at least once) here’s the best from the ones I have still to review.

 

Gone With the Wind

The Big Bus

 

As you know, I am constantly revising my decisions on my favourite films from the decades of the 1930s to the 1980s. I am now getting in the habit of adding these into subcategories to much broader categories.

If that description is confusing you already, here’s an example. Films in the 70s have since been divided into at least three subcategories such as favourite 70s disaster movie, favourite 70s Joan Collins movie and favourite 70s musical… for starters.

Here are a few of my yet to be categorised favourites… 

 

The 1930s…  Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gone with the Wind (1939) Official Trailer – Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh Movie HD, Movieclips Classic Trailers

It is a 10-time Oscar-winning historical epic set at the time of the American Civil War and the time after this. It tells of a plantation owner’s headstrong daughter, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and her unrequited love for Ashley Wilkes (Trevor Howard). Ashley married her cousin Melanie (Olivia De Havilland). Scarlett then marries Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) and it all leads to Gable saying one of the most iconic lines in movies.

This is one of my favourite blockbuster movies – of nearly four hours running time – and one that I made a point of seeing the whole thing as a teenager. Its plot depicts slavery and marital rape in its plot and is now seen as politically and morally incorrect. But its all-star cast, sumptuous sets and costumes, and melodramatic and soapy themes predated those Civil War themed 1980s mini-series. These include North and South parts 1, 2 and 3 (1985-1994) where the cast of this three-part epic mini-series also included Olivia De Havilland.

Max Steiner (who also composed music for A Summer Place (1959)) wrote the score including the bombastic love theme, Tara’s Theme. This film also indirectly spawned Scarlett (1994), a reportedly guilty pleasure sequel… And after reading about it more, I for one frankly don’t give a damn about this follow-up mini-series despite Timothy Dalton, Joanne Whalley Kilmer and Sean Bean heading a fantastic cast.

 

The 1940s…  The Philadelphia Story (1940)

The Philadelphia Story (1940) Official Trailer – Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart Movie HD, Movieclips Classic Trailers

This film is one of those rare films that I also like in its musical remake, High Society (1956). This original film version of the Broadway play has the top-billed Cary Grant (later Bing Crosby in the musical version), as Dexter the ex-husband of the strong-willed Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn).  Hepburn had played Tracy on Broadway, with Joseph Cotten in the Dexter Role and Van Heflin as Mike. She was later replaced by Gracy Kelly and Heflin by Frank Sinatra in High Society.

 

I have only seen this film once, but Katharine Hepburn as Tracy is my favourite actress in this role. This Broadway play was specially written for Hepburn and Howard Hughes bought her the film rights. Interestingly, Hepburn wanted Clark Gable in Dexter’s role, and Spencer Tracy as Mike but both had other commitments at the time.

 

Hepburn and Grant have such fantastic chemistry that you want them together as a couple from the start. In the film Dexter’s arrival along with the press, “Mike” (James Stewart) and Liz (Ruth Hussey) cause all sorts of comic and romantic complications for Tracy. Tracy is torn between the three men.. But you will have to watch it to discover if Cary Grant is one of the marrying kind in this film.

 

 

The 1950s… Some Like It Hot (1959)

Some Like it Hot (1959) Movie Trailer HD, Movieclips Trailers

In 1929, Jerry (Jack Lemmon) and Joe (Tony Curtis) witness a gangland massacre and flee town in drag, under the aliases of Daphne and Josephine (respectively). They then join an all-girl band. Jerry falls for the band’s singer Sugar “Kane” Kowalczyk, (Marilyn Monroe) and he poses as Shell Oil Junior who romances her, and “Daphne” becomes the object of affection of a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III (Joe E Brown). Cue comic complications…

I watched this as a kid, even staying up until the wee small hours to watch it at Christmas. This Scottish TV schedule was pretty bad back then (even at Christmas). Monroe is at her best in this movie, and the Billy Wilder script was based on another remake Fanfares of Love (1951). This was because the original film script was not available.

This film was reportedly filmed in black and white, as Lemmon and Curtis’s female characters reportedly looked “grotesque” and “ghoulish” in colour. I have seen coloured pictures made from this film, and it certainly loses a lot of its credibility and charm in colour. This black and white film also won an Oscar for Costume Design.

 

The 1960s… The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold – Trailer, Paramount Movies Digital

This Cold War spy movie was headlined by a favourite British actor Richard Burton. The film is an adaptation of a John Le Carre book. For these two reasons, it meant this film inevitably had to be reviewed here.

It tells of a British spy working for the West Berlin office, Alec Leamas, who – under advice from “Control” –  pretends to leave British Intelligence. However, he is on a secret mission, and is now “undercover”, and he appears to have become an embittered alcoholic. as a part of this ruse. He finds a job in a British library and starts to date Nan, a member of the Communist Party.

Leamas’ unruly drunken behaviour and subsequent jailing, get the attention of the East German Intelligence Service, who see him as a possible defector. In exchange for money, Leamus then offers false information about an East German officer, Mundt saying that this man is a paid informant for the British Secret Service. And there are a few twists and turns before the final credits…

I’ve only seen this recently but it’s a compelling British movie and has Richard Burton as his most enigmatic in this chilling script. Burton won many awards for this role including a BAFTA, but sadly only an Oscar nomination and no win. Burton heads a fabulous cast including Oscar Werner, Michael Hordern and Claire Bloom.

 

The 1970s… The Big Bus (1976)

The Big Bus – Trailer, Paramount Movies Digital

Another film I had heard of, thanks to my Dallas obsession, then watched for its all-star cast and outlandish plot including Larry Hagman (JR in Dallas) and now favourite Ruth Gordon. This all-star cast also includes Joseph Bologna, Richard Mulligan, Sally Kellerman, Ned Beatty and John Beck (Mark Graison from Dallas).

The Big Bus tells of a nuclear-powered bus – named Cyclops – which travels – without stopping – between New York and Denver. Needless to say, the characters have crazy backstories, and unexpected dramatic events and there are a few nods to movies such as a certain Michael Caine classic late 1960s film caper.

The film is a parody of those 1970s disaster movies I adore, and it has an in-trailer reference to the more famous of these movies including Irwin Allen’s The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972).

 

The 1980s… White Nights (1985)

White Nights (1985) – Trailer, Umbrella Entertainment

Nikolai ‘Kolya’ Rodchenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov) is a ballet dancer who defected from the Soviet Union. After his plane crashes in Siberia, he is hurt and recognised by a KGB officer, Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski). Chaiko wants him to dance at the Kirov on the new season’s opening night.

Rodchenko is placed under the care of a defected American tap dancer Raymond Greenwood (Gregory Hines) and his pregnant Soviet wife, Darya (Isabella Rossellini). The men initially don’t get on, then become firm friends, dance and then plan to escape the USSR, with the help of Rodenko’s ex-girlfriend Galina (Helen Mirren).

This was another film that had been on the to watch list ever since I heard the soundtrack. It’s another Cold War movie and has a young Helen Mirren (in the film where she met her future husband). There is also dancing from those two male leads, a fabulous soundtrack including Lionel Richie, Phil Collins and Helsinki in Finland standing in for Leningrad (now St Petersberg), Russia again. But both Finland and Russia, known for those long summer nights in the title… and this film was parodied in Archer (2009-)…

So to say me – these are my six of the best of the rest but don’t be surprised if these later become more in-depth posts coming to a Realweegiemidget review very, very soon, say me – what say you???

 

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6 Films 6 Decades Blogathon 2021, No 11

This post was added to For Classic Film and TV Cafe’s 6 Films – 6 Decades Blogathon. Other films with these casts include Clark Gable in Teachers Pet. Olivia De Havilland in The Love Boat, The Screaming Woman, Airport 77 and The Swarm. Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and On Golden Pond. Cary Grant in Indiscreet, North by Northwest, An Affair to Remember and Arsenic and Old Lace. Jack Lemmon in Airport 77 and The Apartment. Richard Burton in his Blogathon, Anne of the Thousand Days and Where Eagles Dare. Michael Horden in The Medusa Touch and The Slipper and the Rose. Larry Hagman in The Return of the World’s Greatest Detective and Dallas. Ned Beatty in Network, Superman and The Fourth Protocol. He is tributed in Hopscotch. Stockard Channing in Grease and Heartburn. Ruth Gordon in Columbo, The Love Boat and Harold and Maude. Helen Mirren in Fate of the Furious.  Gregory Hines in Steve Martin’s Best Show Ever.

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