Anybody else like old black-and-white movies?

[Freedom]

Watched a good one last night:

The Sign of the Cross (1932)

You can't go too far wrong with Cecil B. De Mille as director.


Here's some of the better ones I've watched during the past decade:

The Lost Patrol (1934)

City Lights (1931)

Death Takes a Holiday (1934) (Meet Joe Black is the remake, original is better)

The Crusades (1935)

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

The Petrified Forest (1936)

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936) (much better than the silly 1960s version)

Kid Galahad (1937)

Young and Innocent (1937)

Stagecoach (1939)

Les Misérables (1935)

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)

Destry Rides Again (1939)

City for Conquest (1940) (One of the best boxing movies)

Tower of London (1939)

Beau Geste (1939)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

This Gun for Hire (1942)

The Glass Key (1942) (Miller's Crossing has basically the same plot)

Gentleman Jim (1942)

For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)

Bataan (1943)

Casablanca (1942)

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

They Were Expendable (1945)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (194

The Set-Up (1949)

The Third Man (1949)

Winchester '73 (1950)

Sunset Blvd. (1950)

High Noon (1952)

Paths of Glory (1957)

Run Silent Run Deep (195

A Night to Remember (195

The Burmese Harp (1956)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Pork Chop Hill (1959)

Fires on the Plain (1959) (Ichikawa was probably the best ever at tragi-comedy)

The Longest Day (1962)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

[Beanz]

I don't like all this new fangled nonsense and personally prefer cave paintings

[El Kabong]

I love old movies, the old gangster movies are classics! The original Scarface was brilliant, and Howard Hawkes, what a director! Hitchcock! Kubrick did a few black and white movies as well.

[brocktonblockbust]

i love 1947-1957 sci fi

[bradlee180]

Yes, and on some color films, I adjust the television to black-and-white.

Originally I started turning off the color in the late 1980s because I was making pencil and black ink drawings from VCR tapes. Shifting the tv to black-and-white allowed me to see the highlights, shadows, cast-shadows, reflected light, and especially the half-tones with greater clarity. It's easier that way instead of seeing a color tone and trying to translate that into black-and-white.

I liked it and have kept doing it.

Just yesterday, I was watching The Sons of Katie Elder, but in black-and-white.

A few weeks ago, it was The Searchers, also adjusted to Black-and-White.



I'm eager to see the new Sin City film.

Rumblefish, shot in black-and-white in the early 80s, starred Mickey Rourke as The Motorcycle Boy. When Sin City came out, Rourke's Marv reminded me of an older version of his Rumblefish character.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is fraggin' awesome.
God bless Lee Marvin and Strother Martin!

[Gandalf]

I prefer older films and enjoy many of the films listed above. It isn't so much the lack of colour that I enjoy, but the acting, plot and direction. I'm a big fan of all those early Hitchock films and own most of them. I don't really enjoy watching new films as I struggle to get through the obvious CGI and lack of story. Obviously there are good new films, but I am not someone that wants to go to the pictures every week with the hope that I can get a good film once every couple of months. I am very selective in what I watch.

[Master]

I loved Cabin in the Sky which NVSermen would like and tells a story Little Joe, a man killed over gambling debts, is restored to life by angelic powers and given six months to redeem his soul and become worthy of entering Heaven—otherwise he will be condemned to Hell.

Secretly guided by "The General" (the Lord's Angel), Little Joe gives up his shiftless ways and becomes a hardworking, generous, and loving husband to his wife Petunia, whom he had previously neglected. Unfortunately, demon Lucifer Jr. (the son of Satan himself), is determined to drag Little Joe to Hell. Lucifer arranges for Joe become wealthy by winning a lottery, reintroduces Joe to beautiful gold-digger Georgia Brown, and manipulates marital discord between Joe and Petunia. Little Joe abandons his wife for Georgia, and the two embark on a life of hedonistic pleasure. As Little Joe and Georgia celebrate at a nightclub one evening, Petunia joins them, determined to win Joe back. Little Joe fights with Domino for Petunia and she prays for God to destroy the nightclub. A cyclone appears and leaves the nightclub in ruins, as Joe and Petunia lie dead in the ruins after being shot by Domino. Just as it appears that Joe's soul is lost forever, the angelic General informs him that Georgia was so affected by the tragedy that she has donated all the money that he had given her to the church. On this technicality, Little Joe is allowed to go to Heaven with Petunia. As the two climb the Celestial Stairs, Joe suddenly wakes in his own bed. He had not been killed in the initial gambling-debt fracas—he had only received a concussion, and all his supposed dealings with angels and demons were only a fever dream. Now genuinely reformed, Little Joe begins a new, happy life with his loving Petunia.

Louis Armstrong is in it playing the trumpet.

[Master]

I liked David Niven in A matter of life and death. It is like Wizard of Oz and goes from black and white to colour.