Unappreciated masterpieces?

[Two Types]

"That's the *first* time a taxicab driver went straight to where I told him to go."

I believe Hellzapoppin isn't available on DVD in the USA. That's a disgrace - no wonder people forget about it

[video=youtube;tHZXvty4OnI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHZXvty4OnI[/video]

 

[Denton]

A few suggestions:

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) has been celebrated on this website in the past. Worth mentioning because it is not as well remembered as Hawks's other masterpieces. The tone of this movie is what gets me. Extraordinary lightness of touch when dealing with complicated, difficult, morbid subject matter.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is less well known. Noirish, but with an unusual childlike fairytale element, because the characters, in their adult lives, retain all of the emotions from their childhoods. A great movie if you want the feeling of Hitchcock's Rebecca but don't want to watch Rebecca. Also boasts another scary performance by Judith Anderson.

Me and My Gal (1932). I have only seen this once. Would love to see it again. It had a wonderful off-kilter rhythm. Spencer Tracy is some kind of axiom of American masculinity, and Joan Bennett is so relaxed -- completely different from her glamorous roles in the 1940s -- I almost wonder if she is a different person.

 

[Blackthorn]

Boiling Point, with Wesley Snipes (1993)

 

[DNO]

Papillon (1973). Dustin Hoffman turns in a stellar performance.

 

[p51]

Papillon (1973). Dustin Hoffman turns in a stellar performance.

I need to watch that again, haven't seen it in years. The only part I recall is the kid on the freighter and them saying he'd never make it on Devil's Island, and the one guy who get drug out kicking and screaming to be beheaded for something. That scene really creeped me out.

 

[winterland1]

Papillion is an epic movie. Anyone who likes great movies should see it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Taxi!", a 1932 Warner Bros. drama that's one of James Cagney's least-known but most vigorous roles. Cagney plays an idealistic cab driver fighting the domination of his industry by a ruthless corporate syndicate. This is the picture in which Cagney calls an adversary a "yellow-bellied rat," the origin of all those "you dirty rat" impersonations, and the one where he also displays his skill at speaking Yiddish. Another one of those tight social-issue dramas that manages to pack a lot of punch into less than 70 minutes.

"The Match King", a 1932 Warner Bros. drama inspired by the life and suicide of Ivar Kreuger, the infamous "Swedish Match King," who for a time controlled the entire world supply of safety matches, only to have it all come crashing down on him when the Depression arrived. Warren William is at his greasy, unscrupulous best in this role as a man of no morality whatsoever who cons and swindles his way to the top of the business world, and the script is perfectly suited to the mood of the times.

"Thanks A Million," a 1935 comedy-musical from Fox in which Dick Powell is a vaudeville crooner is drafted to run for Governor of an unspecified state. Backed by a corrupt corporate political machine, the crooner quickly becomes the favorite to win the election, but his conscience gets the better of him and he exposes the fraud during a live broadcast. It has all the earmarks of a Frank Capra picture, but is much archer, much funnier, and much more pointed than anything Capra would have done, largely due to the script by Nunnally Johnson. Radio comedian Fred Allen steals the show as Powell's sarcastic press agent, and Ann Dvorak has plenty of acid as Powell's skeptical girlfriend. A quintessential thirties movie.

 

[Blackthorn]

Totally agree on Papillon. That was indeed a masterpiece.

 

[Fading Fast]

A few suggestions:

Only Angels Have Wings (1939) has been celebrated on this website in the past. Worth mentioning because it is not as well remembered as Hawks's other masterpieces. The tone of this movie is what gets me. Extraordinary lightness of touch when dealing with complicated, difficult, morbid subject matter.

I've never understood why this movie doesn't get more notice. In addition to your spot-on observation that the movie handles emotionally deep issues with a light, but seemingly appropriate - in that it reflects the devil-may-care attitude of the pilots at the time - attitude, it stars Cary Grant and Jean Arthur whose chemistry is on fire in this one (and, IMHO, Arthur does a better job than Grant who comes across uncharacteristically wooden in some scenes).

 

[Stearmen]

The Caine Mutiny 1954

 

[Fading Fast]

The Caine Mutiny 1954

Yes, you don't hear much about this one, but despite a hokey love story forced into the story, the mutiny and philosophy behind both the defendants and the prosecutors are thoughtful and universal. And, if memory serves, the defense lawyer delivers a very good dressing down of the sailors he just successfully defended as being technically innocent but basically spoiled and ungrateful to the, perhaps, less sophisticated men who also serve and defend our country in less glorious roles and in less glorious moments. Good catch - I wonder why this movie doesn't get more attention. The book is very good as well.

 

[DNO]

Cool Hand Luke (1967): I generally enjoy Paul Newman films but this one was his finest and George Kennedy turns in an excellent performance as Dragline.

 

[Blackthorn]

The Caine Mutiny 1954

I think the Caine Mutiny is pretty widely appreciated.

 

[Stearmen]

I think the Caine Mutiny is pretty widely appreciated.

With movie buffs it is, but the general public has never heard of it.

 

[Fading Fast]

With movie buffs it is, but the general public has never heard of it.

And that's an interesting distinction. With my movie buff friends, so many of our "under appreciated" movies listed here are really quite appreciated, but not so with the general public. Once you get away from twenty or thirty well known classics (maybe forty, I don't know), then the drop off in recognition by the general public is stark. Before I started working from home a few years ago, I found that other than the co-workers who were in their sixties, most people didn't know most of the movies listed here or even the names of the classic stars one-level down from Cary Grant, Clark Gable, etc.

When I grew up in the late 60s / early 70s, I discovered classic movies on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on the local TV stations. Of course, I had a total of five or six channels to choose from and no internet. Perhaps, the more recent generations having had all those cable channels and now that plus the internet, Netflix, etc. won't discover old movies the way I did as they have more choices of current entertainment to capture their attention.

I hope I'm wrong because that would be sad.

 

[DNO]

I don’t want to depress you, Fading Fast, but I have discovered that you cannot overestimate the ignorance of many young people regarding film.

At one time (about 10 years ago) I created and taught a film appreciation course at the Grade 11 level (16 year old all-male students). Surveying these students at the beginning of each semester I’d find that very, very few had seen any movie older that three years old…and that includes films such as Indiana Jones, Star Wars, even the Wizard of Oz. Sounds absurd but it was, unfortunately, true. I’d usually start them off with Cool Hand Luke. What 16 year old boy couldn’t empathize with that character? They always loved it and were amazed that ‘old movies’ could be so good! I hope they ended the course with a greater ability to judge and appreciate a film.

In the staff room, about 5 years ago, there was a poster of all the best movie Oscar winners. One time two early thirty-year-old teachers were looking at the poster and one of them unabashedly admitted to never having seen any of them except the two most recent films. I thought she was exaggerating so I asked her about The Godfather, or Lawrence of Arabia, or Gone with the Wind, or even Ghandi. Nope…hadn’t seen any of them. I despaired.

That’s why is so nice to see a thread like this one.

 

[DNO]

And while I'm at it I should mention The French Connection. Although it won for Best Picture in the early '70's it seems to have faded into oblivion, yet Gene Hackman did a superb job as Popeye Doyle.

Speaking of Hackman, his performance, together with Frances McDormand's, in Mississippi Burning really raised that film to a near masterpiece level.

 

[LizzieMaine]

No American under the age of about 45 has lived in a world where "old movies" were presented as routine entertainment -- without the need to "curate" or "contextualize" them "for modern audiences." Nowadays, whenever "old movies" are shown there has to be some kind of guest expert/teacher on hand to explain why they are the way the are, in hopes the viewers will "excuse their shortcomings" or whatever. The movies are presented as dusty artifacts of a lost world, not as something that's supposed to be, first and foremost, entertaining. And that's the easiest way to turn something that should be enjoyable into a chore. No wonder modern kids aren't interested.

Even TCM falls into this trap. I know Robert Osborne is a noted film expert, and he seems like someone who'd be fun to go to a show with --- but sometimes I wish he'd just shut up and show the damn movie.

 

[Blackthorn]

With movie buffs it is, but the general public has never heard of it.

You make a good point.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I can just picture some historian trying to explain Arnold Schwarzenegger at a screening of Terminator a hundred years from now.