Teens asked to recognize 1960s movies
Psycho is the first test case:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10iUHRosm-o
Interesting in a number of ways.
Its another reason I stick to THIS board, rather than newer films' boards. See? It does seem that at least Psycho "holds" as famous for that shower scene, and that one fellow impressively remembered the final shot of Norman in the cell. (Though I suppose these are still frames all over the internet now.
They are certainly attractive, sparkling WELL TRAINED(acting?) kids. I'm reminded that the Ryan Goslings and Leo DiCaprios and Jennifer Lawrences started very young.
But I got to thinking about MY own movie knowledge of the past at their age, and its rendered some interesting(to me) thoughts.
My kid years were roughly the 60's and early 70's, and there were a LOT of "old movies" on TV all the time(especially in my LA years; that city had multiple channels and a movie-mad populace.)
In the 60's -- particulary early/mid -- the movies on local TV were pretty much from the 30s, 40s and 50s. I can't say I watched these movies start to finish, but they were sort of a "backdrop" in the background of my family home.
KTTV-11 in LA had a lot of old MGM movies. Musicals were the backdrop; my mother loved them(Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, etc.) KHJ-9 ran The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, so that's where I became aware of Bogart as a "big star"(without really grasping why.)
I remember having the damndest time trying to keep Cary Grant and Gary Cooper apart. Cary/Gary. And in a 30's version of Alice in Wonderland, the men were so disguised I couldn't tell who from who.
But the bottom line is: in the 60s, I had pretty good knowledge going back 30 years.
But for these kids, Psycho is about 50 years.
50 years for me would have been ...silents, I guess. Well, I knew who Chaplin and Keaton and Valentino were(becuz they ran THEIR movies, but too fast, on TV sometimes too.)
Compare to "modernly": whether cable or streaming, the movies on the air are often only a decade or less old. "New" movies hit pay per view within months -- sometimes WEEKS -- of release. There really isn't much "old time" movies showing -- TCM, but it can't handle everybody. (Some channels are "retro" like Encore and Fox on cable.)
So there is no real need for kids to know Psycho or Breakfast at Tiffanys. I fear the 80's are fading fast, too. (Harrison WHO?)
It is sad but perhaps inevitable that history is being displaced in favor of the "here and now." Oh, history will still be in books and classes....but not widely known.
I'm reminded of that scene in the 1960 "Time Machine" where Rod Taylor, way in the future, finds a bookcase full of books -- and when he pulls one out, it crumples into dust in his hands. ALL the books do. Nobody has read them. Nobody cares.
Speaking of history, you would think if kids don't know Psycho from TV showings anymore(cable, streaming) they'd know it from SCHOOL. Ostensibly Psycho is a "classic to be taught" now as once Moby Dick and Great Expectations were.
And yet...I can't get sad about this. History moves on. Every generation decides how it will live.
I'll never forget a rather low level, small town local paper critic's review of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" that I read on its release in 1984. It was a rave(I personally didn't much like the film, less the ending and the climax), but the very "open" young writer -- no snob he, wrote:
"I feel so blessed to be alive at exactly the time that Spielberg and Lucas are making these amazing films."
I've never forgotten that quote from that obscure critic, because -- by accident of when I was born -- I too have been blessed to live across several movie eras. I've gone from Bogie and Cary and Marilyn through Hepburn and Newman and McQueen and Connery and on to Pitt and Leo and Margot.
And from Hawks, Ford, Hitchcock, Preminger, Wilder,....Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, Siegel...Lucas, Burton, Hughes...QT, Curtis Hanson(well, for one movie), Richard Curtis(well for one movie) to now.
Blessed.
>>But for these kids, Psycho is about 50 years.<<
I thought 40 years as they were born in the 2000s.
40 years for me is the silent era, too. I just know Charlie Chaplin, Lilian Gish, and whoever Granny watched from the Beverley Hillbillies reruns.
>>50 years for me would have been ...silents, I guess. Well, I knew who Chaplin and Keaton and Valentino were(becuz they ran THEIR movies, but too fast, on TV sometimes too.)<<
Now, that you mention it, I remember Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino, but would not remember their movies, especially from a cartoon satire scene. Maybe Modern Times and Buster Keaton on a train. We're at a disadvantage as tv would not show a silent movie re-run or would they?
Was this from a silent movie -- https://media.tenor.co/images/4585114d8e85229117ca3d5b4f4da7a9/raw?
>>KTTV-11 in LA had a lot of old MGM movies. Musicals were the backdrop; my mother loved them(Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, etc.) KHJ-9 ran The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, so that's where I became aware of Bogart as a "big star"(without really grasping why.)<<
Today's kids may not get that so much anymore if they stream their own movie to devices. Even within a family, we are becoming separated. I insisted on eating meals together, playing family board games, and watching a movie together at home or at a theater. Obviously, this could not be that often. Even then, the phone and internet interrupts these family events. Sheesh.
I thought 40 years as they were born in the 2000s.
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Well, its a hard one -- 50 years of being "aware and conscious" back to Psycho.
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40 years for me is the silent era, too. I just know Charlie Chaplin, Lilian Gish, and whoever Granny watched from the Beverley Hillbillies reruns.
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Since I grew up in a house with "movie mad parents," I got introduced to THEIR favorites from childhood and teens. I recall that a local LA channel had a weekly "Wheeler and Woolsey" film for a summer in the early sixties. WHO? Well, my dad knew who they were, enjoyed them when HE was a kid and taught us about these guys as we watched their movies. They seem forgotten now -- I mean, they weren't the Marx Brothers.
Speaking of the Marx Brothers, the Brothers in general and Groucho in particular got a BIG revival in the 70's(my college years.) A "too old" Groucho Marx was still alive and making the rounds of the Dick Cavett Show and PBS, but the younger, hotter Groucho was on view with re-releases of long lost movies like "Animal Feathers" and "The Coconuts" not to mention screenings of such classics as "A Night at the Opera" and "Duck Soup."
Indeed, in the early 70's as a corollary to my Hitchcock Jones, I had a Groucho Marx Jones as a matter of his performing skills only. Woody Allen wrote a liner note for an album of an "Old Groucho" performance that Groucho was "the finest comedian America has produced," and noted that Groucho mixed great line delivery with great physical humor. Agreed. So hot was Groucho during this time that an LA channel put his TV show "You Bet Your Life" on nightly at 11:00 pm . I would also contend that Alan Alda worked a little Groucho into his Hawkeye character on MASH(he actually wore a Groucho disguise on one episode, but used Groucho's timing all the time.)
Some favorite Groucho lines:
"I'm defending this woman's honor...which is more than she ever did."
"How would you like to feel as bad as that woman looks?"
(Confronted by a big man in a clown costume with big fluffy buttons) "I have a question: can you sleep face down wearing those things?" (Then Harpo knocks the man unconscious.)
"The blood rushes from the head to the feet, gets a look at those feet...and then rushes back to the head."
And must we now mourn the PC death of the OTHER funny Marx Brother -- Chico, whose Italian-American dialect humor("At'sa some-a joke, eh, boss?") may no longer be allowed. (As for Harpo, eh, the mime stuff, the harp -- not so funny to me.)
I digress...but not a lot. I'm saying that in the 70s, there was a craze for movies made FORTY YEARS EARLIER. Or more. The Marx Brothers. And Groucho in particular. Again, modernly, our culture seems to go back...10 years?
>>50 years for me would have been ...silents, I guess. Well, I knew who Chaplin and Keaton and Valentino were(becuz they ran THEIR movies, but too fast, on TV sometimes too.)<<
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A great stain on TV in the 60's and 70's was silent movies being run too fast. I guess it made the comedies even funnier, but it turned serious films into...comedies. TCM has corrected this by running silent movies on Sunday nights..properly slowed down and dramatic.
However, I will here salute one of the greatest TV series(syndicated) of the 60's:
"Fractured Flickers." It used sped-up silent movies (some comedies, some dramas) as the visual but had (to my mind) HILARIOUS voices and gags put over them. The writing was from Jay Ward, of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, and the voices of Rocky (a woman) and Bullwinkle were used in new ways. Hans Conreid was the host. It has to be seen and HEARD to get the humor. But I recall them mixing clips of silent movies into the "One Minute Mystery" with a "whodunit" question sequence:
Whodunnit?
Liz? (Footage of an ugly woman.)
Dick? (footage of an ugly man.)
This dirty rat?(actual footage of a dirty rat.)
They had an "awards show" in which there was hardly an audience and you'd only hear one guy clapping when some show or person won(how I wish this could REALLY happen).
And the silent "Hunchback of Norte Dame" became "Dinky Dunston, Boy Cheerleader."
Enough. Its funny. I own all of the episodes on DVD. "Fractured Flickers."
Now, that you mention it, I remember Buster Keaton and Rudolph Valentino, but would not remember their movies, especially from a cartoon satire scene. Maybe Modern Times and Buster Keaton on a train.
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Well, I don't think I ever saw an entire Valentino movie. Like I say, a lot of these movies were "in the background"during my younger days. My parents would tell me who they were, I'd retain the information and move on. Truth be told, that's how I first learned about Hitchcock. He was just this personality to me. always around on TV, book stores, magazine racks. It took me YEARS to learn him and his stuff.
I did see some Keaton films, in college. "7 Chances" with the chase of the hundreds of brides after Buster, is probably my favorite.
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We're at a disadvantage as tv would not show a silent movie re-run or would they?
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As I mentioned elsewhere on this thread, Turner Classic Movies runs properly "slowed down" silent movies every Sunday night, with musical accompaniment in the right "tone"(serious for serious movies.) Its a great public service, but I dunno if TCM get many viewers for this stuff. I can't make it through the silents.
Was this from a silent movie -- https://media.tenor.co/images/4585114d8e85229117ca3d5b4f4da7a9/raw?
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Hah! I can't tell you. Seems a bit like Metropolis, in some ways.
>>KTTV-11 in LA had a lot of old MGM movies. Musicals were the backdrop; my mother loved them(Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, etc.) KHJ-9 ran The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, so that's where I became aware of Bogart as a "big star"(without really grasping why.)<<
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Today's kids may not get that so much anymore if they stream their own movie to devices.
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Yeah. Keep in mind that my contention is that in the 60's, we weren't GIVEN any/many new movies (FROM the 60's) for much of the decade. Movie studios would only release their older stuff to TV. I have a lot of favorite movies from the FIFTIES that I saw on TV in the SIXTIES.
Which reminds me: my dad turned us all on to the "Road" movies of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby("Road to Rio" "Road to Morocco") and those have a certain feeling of "Bill Murray 40 years early." In short...they're HIP...with discussion of Paramount studio brass and much breaking of the fourth wall, with Hope as the funny guy and Bing Crosby as the straight man(and more likely to get the girl, even as Hope was actually more handsome.) I eventually figured out that these were the "buddy comedies" of my father's teens; they were HIS Belushi and Chase. (Indeed, Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd actually had Bob Hope cameo in their "modern road movie" Spies Like Us in the 80's.)
And the final "Road" movie was in...1962! A "one off reunion" with Bob and Bing..and Peter Sellers! And Frank and Dino! I saw it first run, and thought it was one of the ones from the forties!
Note in passing: Woody Allen may have said that Groucho Marx was the greatest comedian produced in America; but he ALSO said that he stole his on-screen persona(especially the "coward" part) from..Bob Hope. Allen loved the "Road" movies.
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Even within a family, we are becoming separated. I insisted on eating meals together, playing family board games, and watching a movie together at home or at a theater. Obviously, this could not be that often. Even then, the phone and internet interrupts these family events. Sheesh.
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As a kid, when not walking to school barefoot in the snow or reading the candlelight, I lived in a house with...only ONE TV. For a LONG time. So we watched together, and the parents ran the TV (except in the daytime.) It was actually quite "familial." I recall that the adults AND the kids in the family both dug the Chuck Jones canon: Bugs, Daffy, Porky...and the Road Runner/Coyote franchise. I recall my educated, hard-working father laughing his head off at Wile E. Coyote getting blown up all the time. BIG laughs...and they became my laughs. My mother loved Pepe LePew, who was what would today be called a "harasser" but who was quite funny then("She plays...hard to get!" " A leetle somesing for my leetle somewan". There was real artistry to those Chuck Jones cartoons, and our family grew up together on them.
Eventually we had a TV in the back for the kids and...the separation began. That's where I snuck my looks at Strait-Jacket and the first half hour of Psycho.
But all of that is gone today.
I just don't see how kids can be FORCED to enjoy the past.
In today’s sensitive Hollywood, I doubt a Groucho Marx figure would fly. Too bad, his jokes were great.
shareIn today’s sensitive Hollywood, I doubt a Groucho Marx figure would fly. Too bad, his jokes were great.
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Probably not...he was big on leering at women...and insulting that "mature" woman, Margaret Dumont.
There is somewhat of a "raging battle" about Political Correctness these days, but I really think the battle is over. Movies like MASH(the movie), Blazing Saddles, Breakfast at Tiffany's(Mickey Rooney's character), Animal House, Basic Instinct(says Sharon Stone herself!) would not be made today and new ones won't be bankable. A "character" like Groucho Marx couldn't be updated. James Bond's old sexist ways have been removed and he works for and with non-sexual women.
Somebody noted somewhere recently that the old SNL skit "Samarai (BLANK)," in which John Belushi emitted a series of "fake Japanese" grunts and yells to play a sword-swinging Samarai(baker, tailor, etc) could never be filmed again. And yet, Richard Pryor played ANOTHER Samarai in one of those skits; he wasn't offended.
Doesn't matter.
I would like to add that whereas Peter Sellers(in the sixties) made a mint doing "accent humor"(Japanese, Hindu Indian in The Party and elsewhere; Southern and of course, French as Clouseau) all accent humor sees to be forbidden today EXCEPT certain "white European accents"(German, Russian, French) and White Southerner. Gay accents were once widely accepted as funny -- and that's over(rightly so, but anybody remember Ernie Kovacs as "Percy Doventonsils"?) The Bugs Bunny/Chuck Jones character "Speedy Gonzales" with his "funny" Mexican accent, wouldn't fly today and an aversion to "Frito Bandito" types took out Eli Wallach's grandly macho Mexican bandit leader from The Magnificent Seven and replaced him with a sickly white dude(Peter Saargard as Bartholmew Bogue.)
Its funny. I think Political Correctness is...correct. I know too many gay people(many at these boards) to ever enjoy Percy Dovetonsils again. And if Mexican, Asian and Indian accents are not to be mocked...so be it. (Southern accents will evidently remain Fair Game -- Foghorn Leghorn is safe!)
To the extent that SOME political incorrectness was allowed to flourish in the past two decades, I'd say only one filmmaker and one movie got it done: QT(in general, and peaking with the multi-ethic "Hateful Eight") is the filmmaker and Martin Scorsese's "Wolf of Wall Street" is the movie. But QT cut back on that stuff with "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and Scorsese's The Irishman has none of it.
The people being mocked in Wolf of Wall Street are white male crooks and the white women hookers(of all stripes) who take them...pretty much the hookers and strippers and predatory beauties match up well with the young white guy Wall Street crooks. Sex and money go hand in hand and the oversexed men and women involved deserve each other. There's a little anti-gay and anti-Asian humor in Wolf of Wall Street, but as with Jack Nicholson's all-purpose bigot(and mentally ill) guy in As Good as it Gets, we are invited to see the anti-PC humor as coming out of the mouth of villains (even though Jack gets the girl at the end of HIS movie.)
Yeah, it's so bizarre that a generation that grew up on South Park and Family Guy has become so quick to take offense at everything.
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