Thursday, December 25, 2008

Movie classics.

Recently my friend Joe asked me to write a list of my favorite "classic" movie that I would suggest he see. That is a real tough one. I had to decide what I considered classic and what I considered just amused my own strange sensibilities. I decided that the dictionaries definition of the word was best, IE: "Classic: A work recognized as definitive in its field" that works for me so let us now talk fields. No let's not talk fields, that will stretch this into an all night write and an all day read. I will just tell you a few of my classic picks that I will watch every time they are on, some of these are simply clumped by actors by the way. Oh, I will also not venture into the 80's or beyond.

That said, first their are the Marx Brothers, if Groucho and Chico never made you laugh then you have either never seen them in action, or you are a very boring person and must stay away from me. Then absolutely anything with Cary Grant in it, the man was the embodiment of what a Hollywood acting legend should be, Philadelphia Story(1940), His Girl Friday (1940) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)top the list of Grant movies for me.

I am a big fan of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Planer in the Sherlock Holmes series for m the 40's and 50's. I consider these must sees if you are a Homes fan that is. The Lady Killers(1955), the remake was good but the original was messed up and had Sir Alec Guinness in it. On the subject of Sir Guinness, the movie Murder by Death (1976), which he is in as well, is one of the greatest comedies of all time. Okay one foray into the 80's, Clue (1985) is the grand child of murder by death and must also be seen.

Now if you have a Steve McQueen movie anywhere that to, you must watch. The Great Escape (1963) The Cincinnati Kid(1965) and of course the Magnificent Seven (1960) top my list there. Since I am on the subject of the Magnificent Seven I should also point out its grand father, the Seven Samurai(1954) the Akira Kurosawa master piece see that also.

Okay this will take forever like this so what I will do is compile a list decade by decade and when it is done I will put it up for your perusal okay? sounds good.

Damn you Joe, there is not enough hours in the day for this kind of mad typing.

Here this will be fun and this way everyone can understand the "One of us" chant my friend Marty and I do to people on the street. Google the movie Freaks(1932) and stare in awe of the scene where the guy with no arms and no legs sloshes towards a person with a knife clenched in his teeth.