Black and White Classics

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NickyV

New member
Just bought a copy of "A kind of Loving" from Amazon for my daRAB birthday. Its one of mine and his favourite 60s films starring Alan Bates and Thora Hird as mother in law from hell.

Whats your favourite black and white oldie?
 
My absolute fave since I was a kid has been Arsenic & Old Lace. I just remember cracking up watching the antics of Cary Grant and his sweet murderous aunts. Aww, I wonder if I can get hold of that on DVD anywhere....
 
Thanks for taking the time to post those links. I really didn't think they'd have it on DVD. Nice price too.

There's this other movie which is called Our Town - I think. It's like a pre-Seinfeld movie, just about a group of people in a small American town going about their daily business. It was a quaint little story about nothing in particular that caught my attention. Sort of like American Beauty, but without the violence and drugs etc - lol! Good movie though.
 
I remember my heart sinking when I went to see 'Paper Moon' (starring Ryan O'Neal & his daughter Tatum) because it was in B&W, but it worked.
 
I love 'Psycho' and 'The Haunting'. However I also love 'The Longest Day' which idiots in their infinate wisdom decided to make a coloured version. What was the point ?
 
The black and white era seemed to produce better comedies - I love all the Will Hay films, and the Marx Brothers. Also the film noir stuff like Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, Double Indemnity, Cassablanca (OK, that's not film noir, but...), and horror - Frankenstein/Bride of Frankenstein, The Haunting, Dead of Night, and the Val Lewton/Jacque Tourneur films Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, Night of the Demon, etc., and the old sci-fi's like It Came from Outer Space, Them, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, etc. (There's something about b&w that suits horror & scifi - maybe it makes it other-worldly. Imagine Eraserhead or Night of the Living Dead in colour - they wouldn't be half as good) (I think there is a colorized version of NOTLD around and, even worse, a colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life - the worst idea Hal Roach ever came up with)

BTW, I don't like It's a Wonderful Life - don't know what all the fuss is about. Sorry all fans out there.
 
My favourite is It's a Wonderful Life - so there Thinboy :p !!
Haunting is another great black and white film. Others I like include: Bringing up Baby, Will Hays and Marx Brothers films (not keen on the Three Stooges they just irrritate me!). Dead of Night - is that the one with multiple stories, one of which is about a ventriloquist dummy? If it is I like that too.
 
Casablanca
The Philadelphia Story
Seven Days In May (a bit more modern but still B&W!)

Citizen Kane

Metropolis
Things To Come
Intolerance

My choices, as you will see, divide into more modern-style movies (whenever they were actually produced) and older, more classic movies. The bridge between the two is Citizen Kane; in this one movie Orson W virtually created the modern cinema. It plays much better on the big screen, in the cinema, looking up at the image as intended, although you can, at least, get a passable impression of what it should be like on a LSTV of 40" or more at home.

Unfortunately, viewers with 24" sets may as well forget it; it just doesn't work on anything but an overpowering scale.
 
It's not an oldie, in fact it's all but brand new, but Luc Besson's Angel-A looks fantastic and that's shot in black and white.

Actually, to be technically correct, I'd imagine it was shot in colour and then twiddled with a computer to make it grey scale, but that's beside the point.

RegarRAB

Mark
 
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