What Are Your 3 Favorite Movies Pre-1950?

Would love to share your "favourite" per-1940 movies from any genre and why. Here are mine...

1) King's Row (1942). A wonderful epic about pride catastrophe and redemption. A lot of very dark subjects are dealt with - suicide, possible incest, insanity, absolute corruption and an eerie analogy to the eugenics movement (rampant at the time and now the domain of infanticidists everywhere) overcome by religious faith, honesty, willpower, friendship, love and most everything good in the human nature. Also one of the most beautiful and powerful music scores ever composed by a refugee from Hitler's Germany. The great Ronald Reagan was cast as the supporting actor but after editing in response to the power of his performance it really became his film when released. Love it cry to it every time.

2) Casablanca (1942). If you have not seen this film you then you simply cannot cll yourself a cultured or educated person. There is nothing I can say about this movie others have not already but here is an interesting fact: there is the classic scene where the patrons in Rick's sing the Le Marseillaise drowning out the Nazi officers who were singing "Watch on the Rhine" it is tear inspiring always but at the movie premiere the audience reaction was overwhelming the projectionist replayed it! What makes it more poignant is that many of the cast in the movie were themselves refugees from Nazi Germany or occupied Europe including the actor who leads the Nazi officers singing Watch on the Rhine! If you can watch this without crying then I am truly sorry for you.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTsg9i6lvqU]

3) Adventures of Robin Hood/Double Indemnity (1939 and 1944). Okay so I cheated! As a little girl I thought Errol Flynn was a god. I don't feel any different now he is just so beautiful, so cool. And so tragic ... which is what makes this film extra perfect. Why did they ever bother to make another? They have all trash. So many great lines but my favourite is by Basil Rathbone as Sheriff of Nottingham

Flynn: "Surely you wouldn't kill a man merely for speaking the truth?"

Rathbone: "If it amused me, yes" ( Yeah...My kind of man!)

Rathbone hated Flynn out of jealousy but this is also the film where Flynn and the beautiful and perfect Olivia de Havilland finally made love off screen as well as on screen and discussed getting married which was not to be.

I think Double Indemnity (1944) is simply the best of the film noir. Sharp dialogue people used to associate only with Americans until they decided they could best express their thoughts by using only in obscenities.

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah...and for once I believe you because it's just rotten enough."

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten."

Fred MacMurray: "Only you're a little more rotten."

Fred MacMurray was a devout Catholic and when they asked him to take off his wedding ring because the character he played was single he refused. "It only comes off when I am dead" he replied which was very brave cause he was not an influential actor and this was his big chance ... and the studio backed down which is you see him wearing it in the movie.

So...there my three. Obviously I have many more which is why I put "favorites" in quotation marks.

So if you wish please share yours and thanks!

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Kwek00 · 41-45, M

1. [b]M[/b] - Fritz Lang (1931) , really inteligent thriller made during the interbellum in Germany. The same person that made "[b]Metropolis[/b]" another great iconic SF movie made around the same time. Totally for free on youtube. The director had to flee germanny, went to hollywood and is considered to be one of the directors that pushed Hollywood into the golden age of cinema.

2. [b]Citizen Kane[/b] - Orson Welles (1941)

3. [b]The Great Dictator[/b] - Charlie Chaplin (1940)

Honorable mentions:

[b]Metropolis[/b] - Fritz Lang (1927)
[b]King Kong[/b] - M.C. Cooper & E.B Shoedshack (1933)
[b]Mr. Smith Goes to Washington[/b] - Frank Capra (1939)
[b]Mr Deeds Goes to Town[/b] - Frank Capra (1936)
[b]Cassablanca[/b] - Michael Curtiz (1942)
[b]The Invisible Man[/b] - James Whale (1933)

Abrienda · 26-30, F

@Kwek00 Oh yes...M! Peter Lorrie...hard to listen to Grieg without thinking about that movie and in beautiful black and white.

The only three is really hard to manage as you see! I would also mention Alexander Nevsky (1938) by Eisenstein for H.M.

He also made Fury when in the USA, his movie against lynching.

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Abrienda Well, if I make like a top 20 movies of all time... It's hard for me to not put M on there. It's really old, and it's slow, but the story ain't dated and the plot is pretty inteligent. And the end scene, the court, it just electrifies the brain if you think about the arguments of the defense. It's an incredible movie.

Abrienda · 26-30, F

@Kwek00 It was my introduction to German film and made a deep impression on me. And it is topical today. It also led me to a documentary about crime in 1920's Berlin and the German detective there who is said to have invented profiling.

A Western woman has a lot of free time in Saudi Arabia so best put it to god use or go mad.

We could also mention Nosferatu (1922).

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Abrienda If you haven't seen "Metropolis" yet... you should check that out too. It's a silent movie, but it's pretty iconic. And even more visually impressive since it has huge sets and verry nice imagery.

Abrienda · 26-30, F

@Kwek00 Well I started an on-line course in European film 1920-1939 this month and am "due" to watch it next week but since you mention it I will watch tonight as I am free so thank you and will get back to you here about my reaction!

Abrienda · 26-30, F

@Kwek00 Ummmm...the evil doppelganger! In the beginning the town of the workers and the homes of the elites...I cannot help but see similarities today as anyone who has seen Petrazalka in Bratislava, Slokania or North City in Prague or any of the Stalinoid atrocities built by the Communists in formerly Soviet occupied Europe where the elites hop that if they keep the people there supplied with enough cheap plastic crap made by slave-labort in China they will obey.

Kwek00 · 41-45, M

@Abrienda I have no idea what we are talking about now. If we are talking about "Metropolis", it's been quite a while since I saw it. So going in depth without rewatching it is almost impossible. I just know it was an intresting movie that made an impression, mainly because of it's visuals. I think when it comes to the story, M was way better (hence why I recommended M and not Metropolis.

I can't talk about specific stuff that happened in Eastern Europe... Because I just don't know. But didn't this film has a specific "class" logic behind it? With the workers in the under city while the rich live in wealthy situations? Also a narrative of industrialisation and technological process, where the underclass is always feeding the moloch which is industrial progress without really getting the fruits of their labor (since it goes to the upper class). There is a social criticism going on, just believe M was better... and Metropolis is still captivating for it's visuals.

Abrienda · 26-30, F

I believe I wrote "Metropolis" has a "class" aspect...you know, elites? Workers? As for having "no idea what I am talking about" that does not mean I DON'T KNOW what I am talking about, since as you wrote it has been long time since you saw the film. As for you writing you know nothing about CENTRAL Europe I am not asking for your commentary on it...I am informing you about it.

You needn't recommend "M" to me since as I wrote I already saw it - my reference to Grieg? You know,"Peer Gynt"...Peter Lorrie whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King"? - and yes it is by far the better film.