Originally published at: Rediscover 10 classic movies to spark your love for black & white films | Boing Boing
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Citizen Kane
La Strada
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Young Frankenstein
Hellzapoppin
Tetsuo
EtA (had to check, not sure they were B&W):
Persepolis
Pi
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Der Blaue Engel and The Last Command.
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agree with Paper Moon, Casablanca, Night of the Hunter, and Waterfront.
Gilda is one of my favorites.
there’s a spotlight on Olivia de Havilland on tv this week and I saw Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, a movie I would never have otherwise seen. at first I wasn’t sure I liked it, by the end I liked it a lot, but one thing was evident from the beginning: the lighting was a masterpiece. every frame could be a Rembrandt if his palate were limited to black and white
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The Thin Man series
The Third Man
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Classic: M, Sunset Boulevard, Seven Samurai
Recent: The White Ribbon
Among movies I watched recently, we really liked Persona and really hated The Lighthouse, the movie that wishes it was Persona.
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- Just about any Film Noir, regardless of quality
- Any b&w Kurosawa film
- Classic Hollywood: Any Bogie, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant film
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Not quite on-target, but it can be a revelation to see nearly any old B&W film in a good 35mm print. Decades ago, we stumbled into a revival house showing the Marx Brothers’ Horse Feathers and were struck by how good even a routinely-competent Hollywood production could look: sharp, well-lighted, with a contrast range far better than the 16mm copies I was used to seeing at university film-society shows (let alone the Nth-generation prints seen on TV before TMC).
Good film-making is good film-making, but a good print can be a pleasure even if the movie is a Falcon or Torchy Blaine series entry–those studio technicians and artisans knew their business.
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Every one of theses will get my full attention if I come across them while channel surfing.
Young Frankenstein
Grapes of Wrath
Stalag 17
Roman Holiday
Holiday Affair
King Kong/Mighty Joe Young
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
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I don’t think I know a lot of B/W films. But I’d put on there:
Seven Samurai (1954) as mentioned
Night of the Living Dead
Nosferatu
King Kong
Oh, the Lighthouse is a new one that I quite liked.
There are a lot of fun monster movies, though they tend to be partly a slog until you get to the monsters.
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My favourite B&W movie of all time, and in fact my favourite movie of all time, is Notorious, which I think you could plausibly argue is Hitchcock’s greatest film. Two preposterously attractive movie stars, Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, at the height of their beauty; gorgeous cinematography; romance, spy capers, dangerous driving, chills, thrills, and uranium-smuggling Nazis — what more could you ask of a movie?
Conversely, I think The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is borderline unwatchable, because Eddie Bracken was never more grimly manic and squawky. I would’ve replaced it on the Lifehacker list with Gilda, which is just sex sex sex sex sex, starring the staggeringly gorgeous Rita Hayworth and featuring the cruisiest relationship imaginable between Glenn Ford and George Macready, so blatant it’s not even subtext. Most cinematic “love triangles” are a straight line with a woman in the middle; this one really is a triangle.
Detour is so good, with a jaw-dropping reveal midway through. It’s a Poverty Row masterpiece of despair and hopelessness.
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What, no love for the cold war “we’re all going to die” flicks? Dr. Strangelove, or how I stopped worrying and love the Bomb, On The Beach, and the classic Fail Safe are all worth a view in their original filmed black and white versions.
(Ok, so technically Fail Safe doesn’t end in MAD, but that’s a Hollywood fantasy, that somehow such a war would stop at the point the movie ends.)
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Out of the Past
The Lady from Shanghai
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
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Beat the Devil (1953) - directed by John Huston, from a daily-revised script by Truman Capote. It’s a loose spoof of Huston’s own The Maltese Falcon. Blocking and lighting are stellar, of course, and the cast! Bogart, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, and Bernard Lee. It’s amiable and hilarious, and you can tell the actors are enjoying themselves.
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Dittos to The Thin Man movies, and Grapes of Wrath.
Stalag 17?
It’s a Wonderful Life gets some scorn for being overly sweet “Kapra-corn”, but you have to go through some quite dark and cynical stuff to get there. (Plus, it has what may be my favorite movie line of all time, “Youth is wasted on the wrong people.”)
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Oh! Twelve Angry Men!
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As just mentioned 12 Angry Men, the classic Seven Samurai, Clerks, definitely Young Frankenstein, along that line Frankenweenie, and of course Dr. Strangelove.
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Plus, try to check out any of these flicks if come to your local arthouse (or even commercial theater these days). There’s nothing like seeing these old B&W films on the big screen.
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My favourite movie, B&W or colour.
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