Bad Vintage Movies

[happyfilmluvguy]

I've heard so many speak so highly about films that were made in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s that it makes me wonder if there ever was a bad movie during that time. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, or maybe it's that the actors and actresses are more interesting, I don't know. What are some bad vintage movies? The one's with mediocre or bad acting, uninteresting stories, clich?©d, etc.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I usually end up liking those "bad" movies more than polished Hollywood films! If a film is "bad" to me, it has to suffer from the mortal sin of being boring. I could name a few, but they are biggish-name films and I'm sure they are beloved by many

 

[Fletch]

New Faces of 1937 kinda sucked. But in an entertaining way.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Howdy Broadway," a 1929 musical made in Fort Lee, NJ on a budget of two lead nickels and a bottle cap. It has been described as "what if Ed Wood got his friends together in his garage and filmed a benefit?", and I fear this is being charitable. It's pictures like this that make the uninformed think all early talkie musicals were trash.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

The Ultimate Bad Vintage Movie...

"Swell Hogan" (1926), produced by Howard Hughes. So bad, Hughes scrapped and destroyed it before it was ever released.


http://books.google.com/books?id=zST0HS3memIC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=swell+hogan&source=web&ots=AYaOcZCWqE&sig=laVYa7w-cZRcgHojkYwPxdLT7KY
-dixon cannon

 

[Sefton]

There must be hundreds of really awful western programers from the 30s and 40s. They must have been making more than a few each day to turn out so many pointless and generic oaters. The kind that usually filled the airwaves of Saturday afternoon TV in the 70s.

 

[jake_fink]

Anything with Janet Gaynor.

 

[jenny_dreadful]

I saw a really bad one last week called Gildersleeve's Ghost (1944). Really, I think there's a limit to how many times you can effectively use a gorilla mix-up gag in one movie. Especially one about ghosts and mad scientists.

 

[deadpandiva]

White Cargo has got to be one of the worst movies ever. I guess people love it for it's camp but I just can't enjoy it on any level.

 

[Nick D]

"The Great Gabbo" is a good idea, and a good movie in my opinion (but I like campy/corny/"bad" movies), there's just more movie than story. Lots of long and really not neccessary dance numbers.

 

[Quigley Brown]

"The Great Gabbo" is a good idea, and a good movie in my opinion (but I like campy/corny/"bad" movies), there's just more movie than story. Lots of long and really not neccessary dance numbers.

That spider web scene was pretty bizarre, though.

 

[Twitch]

While I can't think of titles, since they were so forgetable, yes there were some agverage to well below averag movies from the era. Back in the 1950s I saw a lot of movies of the era in theaters and older ones on the Late Show on TV.

The sci-fi films of the time were pretty sad/bad. Some had decent themes but their $50 budgets couldn't make it with even simple studio shots much less "special effects." Where there was one Forbidden Planet there were 25 more lame saucer flicks.

 

[jake_fink]

That spider web scene was pretty bizarre, though.

"Bizarre" as in "the mothuh-luvin righteous bomb!"

Great Gabbo is not a "bad" vintage movie. It is a masterpiece.

I hate those rancid Douglas Sirk movies, especially that horrid adaptation of Faulkner's Pylon called Tarnished Angels; they all make me want to run out and burn something. Anything.

 

[The Wolf]

Usually I can at least enjoy the decor or clothes in a bad 30s movie.
Some of the movies I don't like I've heard other people rave about.
I like Bette davis but one of her big movies has some (to me) awful over-acting. There's a Cary Grant soaper where the ending, when you think about it, is insulting.
I love the serials of the time and some are so bad I actually enjoy them. Like a lot of the Ed Wood movies some star Bela Lugosi.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Forgotten Man]

It’s funny, we think differently today then they did back then… it’s true, we really do. Some of the movies we really enjoy or call “Classics” are some of the films that flopped in the box office when they were new films.

“Bringing Up Baby” is a “Classic” today but, in 1938 it bombed! Kathryn Hepburn was known as box office poison in the late 30’s… in many WB cartoons or Tex Avery toons they portray her as a horse… also, “It’s A Wonderful Life” 1946 didn’t do so well the first go… but, now it’s an immortal classic.

I have seen some movies from the 20’s that bore me to death! I love most movies from the period… and I think I’d choose to watch a bad old movie over a new bad movie! Hahaha.

However, I do enjoy cheesy, corny flicks of the time… they crack me up! I totally enjoy those kinds of movies… Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello are my hero’s! I love corny slap stick… oh, can’t forget The Three Stooges! And the Blondie and Dagwood flicks are quite entertaining.

When watching an old movie, I get enjoyment out of most of it… the clothes, the cars, the props, the set design, the music… I guess my passion burns so bright for those years I really find my sell appreciating more then some… in turn over looking bad and seeing some good in them.

As for the numberless westerns that were made from the 20’s to the 50’s, they are all very cheesy… and we must remember that they were designed for kids… theaters used to be packed with kids to see their hero’s on the screen such as Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Hop along Cassidy and Gene Autry. Those films were cranked out at high numbers because they had to have an on going story for the kids each Saturday. I recall seeing a serial (can’t recall the name) that was the basis for the “Indiana Jones” films… I saw some of them at a friend’s house a year or so ago… and man, they were super bad! But, that’s what made them so darn enjoyable! We all laughed so hard at some of the lines and how they portrayed the Germans of WWII… my goodness, I recall one scene out of the film which was had three soldiers sitting by a radio receiver:

The Captain;
And I need you to go on patrol!

Soldier;
But sir, if I go on patrol, I’ll miss Hitler’s speech on the radio!

The Captain;
I’m sorry, but, orders are orders!

Soldier;
Awwwww geeezzz! (Then, the soldier raises his right arm almost pointing to the sky and goose steps out of the scene)

lol Now, it don’t get cheesier then that! lol

 

[Amy Jeanne]

However, I do enjoy cheesy, corny flicks of the time… they crack me up! I totally enjoy those kinds of movies… Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello are my hero’s! I love corny slap stick… oh, can’t forget The Three Stooges! And the Blondie and Dagwood flicks are quite entertaining.

When watching an old movie, I get enjoyment out of most of it… the clothes, the cars, the props, the set design, the music… I guess my passion burns so bright for those years I really find my sell appreciating more then some… in turn over looking bad and seeing some good in them.

My thoughts exactly!

I tend to adore the "bad" B pictures over polished Hollywood products because I just feel that the "B" movies are cozier and have a more "homely" feel to them. I absolutely LOVE classic exploitation flicks and I have a big collection spanning the 30s to the 60s. Alpha Video and Something Weird Video are my gods.

I also love the cheap pre-Code movies TCM used to air in the middle of the night. I went crazy recording them over the past 7 years I've had the channel and I'm glad I did -- they seem to be rarer and rarer on the schedule!

But my vote for the worst movie I've ever seen from the "Golden Era" would have to be Mae West's 1943 flick The Heat's On. No plot, too many STUPID musical numbers that made me want to kick the TV, and Mae was totally NOT into it and you could tell. Mae knew it was bad and that's why she retired from films until her two 1970s MASTERPIECES Myra Breckenridge and Sextette. Now those two movies are great -- and I really mean that!

 

[Fletch]

"Howdy Broadway," a 1929 musical made in Fort Lee, NJ on a budget of two lead nickels and a bottle cap. It has been described as "what if Ed Wood got his friends together in his garage and filmed a benefit?", and I fear this is being charitable. It's pictures like this that make the uninformed think all early talkie musicals were trash.

I gotta see this. If only for the song Atta Boy (Old Pal! Old Sock! Old Kid! Old Thing! Old Gold! Old Baby!) I know the tune from a Brunswick 78 by Tom Gerun's band, which, fittingly enough, contains what is undoubtedly the worst C-melody saxophone solo ever recorded.

 

[Sefton]

It seems like most of us agree that we can find something to enjoy in bad vintage movies,even if it's just the clothes or decor/cars,etc. while we don't enjoy current bad movies. Just maybe, 50 years from now there will be people having discussions on the merits of the clothes and cars in a Jessica Simpson movie.

Many of us who are in our 40s may enjoy some of the bad movies from our youth in that bad old decade "The 1970s" A little Sonny Chiba anyone?

 

[Ugarte]

Funny you should mention bad movies

I'm no expert, but I did just watch Hollywod Land last night. It's only relevant because it provided some insight into the studio system, specifically MGM's system, in the 1950's.

Under the old system, studios were movie mills. They didn't just make movies, they cultivated talent, created product (movies and movie stars) and distributed them via the theaters they owned. It was pretty much all about buying, developing and selling property.

In order to get that all to happen, they had to "break-in" or build talent. They would discover prospective actors, like John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Rita Hayworth and countless millions no one has ever heard of, sign them to a contract and start training them. They would teach them to sing, dance, act, ride a horse and who knows what else in order to get a working actor out of them. Along the way, they worked them.

This means that new writers would learn to write a movie for a producer who may or may not know what he's doing. That screenplay would be passed on to other newbies like a director, a cinematographer, and the rest of the small army it takes to make even a modest movie back then.

Some of them would find their element and rise to the top like cream. Some would not and you'd wind up with stuff like Swing Your Lady.

Bottom line: Warner Brothers spent years turning out about a movie a week. That's a lot of "movin' pitchas" and most of them weren't even good enough to make it to VHS.

But then, there's no accounting for taste. One of my favorite movies was Pillow to Post. What do I know?

Mark
.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

Some of the later Marx Brothers films, to me, didn't have that pizzazz that their earlier films did, especially "Go West", which seemed to recycle their humor, and "The Big Store", which seemed to be copying the Three Stooges' style, especially at the end.

Sun Valley Serenade was very cliche and predicable, and really the only reason it was made was to show the Glenn Miller Orchestra on film. Near the end the woman Ted Scott is going to marry suddenly becomes the evil jealous controlling type and it didn't seem natural at all.

The Royal Rodeo, which is about a young king whose bored and admires cowboys invites a rodeo show to his palace. It was a fun movie but not very interesting and the ending was kind of silly.