nickandnora34
Junior Member
Just a grease spot on the L&N
Posts: 76
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Post by nickandnora34 on Feb 13, 2023 4:17:10 GMT
My father showed me My Fair Lady when I was about 4 years old and I quickly became obsessed with it; I think I was the only child my age who knew who Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison were. My dad really set me on this path of older movies, and as I entered high school, all I watched were movies released before 1965.
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Post by gerald424 on Feb 28, 2023 2:55:19 GMT
My father showed me My Fair Lady when I was about 4 years old and I quickly became obsessed with it; I think I was the only child my age who knew who Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison were. My dad really set me on this path of older movies, and as I entered high school, all I watched were movies released before 1965. Many things led to me loving classic films:
- Reading about people who had seen their favorite films 20+ times. Back in the days when one could pay one time and watch films over and over all day long, one could really learn about the details of a film. People would learn to quote and speak dialogue for example.
- The look of classic films. The styles of the clothing. How people related to each other back in those days. The films can act like a time machine of sorts.
- The fact that there's acting going on. Less explosions, fights, crashes etc... One can really concentrate and notice the subtle nuances of a film. Because without special effects to rely on, the actors must act.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Mar 1, 2023 22:53:00 GMT
Well said, Gerald. Real acting, actual dialogue, and as my father used to say, a story.
nickandnora34 Did you wish eliza had married Freddie? At four I think I would have picked him. |
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nickandnora34
Junior Member
Just a grease spot on the L&N
Posts: 76
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Post by nickandnora34 on Mar 2, 2023 4:36:23 GMT
nickandnora34 Did you wish eliza had married Freddie? At four I think I would have picked him. I definitely was a bit sad at the ending every time I watched it, wishing Eliza and Freddie had had a nice life together haha. |
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Post by sepiatone on Mar 2, 2023 16:33:57 GMT
I always wished she'd run off with Col. Pickering.  Sepiatone |
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Post by Grumpytoad on May 22, 2023 21:49:31 GMT
I saw The Wizard of Oz on tv repeatedly as a young kid. Really liked it. Same for Gone With the Wind. But I didn't know they were classic, just old. I also remember at some point I concluded that all movies shot in black and white were horrible, and refused to watch them. What an idiot child I was. Then when I was 12 years old, I was taken to see my first grown-up movies. First,The Manchurian Candidate.Knocked my socks off. My black and white theory shot to hell! Next, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Suddenly I knew that there were such things as great actors, great directors, or great stories. But the biggest factor was probably cable tv. More channels, and more opportunity to see movies that were NOT the current big thing at theatres. TCM and the original format at AMC made it possible to find new-old favorites. I started with 50's sci-fi I remembered from childhood. Revisiting Hitchcock.Then Ford-Wayne westerns. Screwball comedies.Eventually pre-codes caught my interest. Noir was next. Now its all the above, and an occasional recommendation I see on forums. I'll even once in a great while try out suggestions generated by the soulless algorithm of my preferred streaming platform. The BEST part for me when it comes to the classics are the actors from the past that I've discovered. Hope to discover more.   |
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Post by BunnyWhit on May 23, 2023 8:25:08 GMT
My love for movies might have come from my grandparents. They met at the free movies. In their farming community, one of the little towns would project movies onto the side of the school building, and people would come from all around the area to view the film free of charge. I'd love to know the name of the film that I have to thank for my very existence.
My grandfather was a big fan of westerns, and I remember watching many with him when I was very little. Their rural area had two television stations, and there generally were either westerns or war films playing on weekend afternoons. I don't even remember any of the specific titles we watched together, but I suspect that is because at that very young age (well before school age) I was much more interested in sitting in the chair next to Grandpa than in anything else.
But in town, where my family lived, we had three television stations (four if you counted PBS). Between the Late Show and the Late Late Show, I was able to watch even more westerns and war films (Ha!). As I got older and moved around more in the world, as people do, I was able to start filling in some gaps simply because television and second-run houses made more films available. I went to the theater regularly in the 1970s-1980s, so that took care of the early post-studio period. Also, one of the most fortunate things for me was that I worked for several years in a college library. I was able to take advanged of the interlibrary loan program extensively, so that helped me see a lot of studio-era films from other genres, and I was also able to get into silent film in this way. Later, the old AMC and TCM became favorites.
Above all, I think my love for movies was really a natural extension of my love for literature. To me, a well-penned tale is one of the most exciting things in life.
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Post by Andrea Doria on May 23, 2023 11:02:04 GMT
Above all, I think my love for movies was really a natural extension of my love for literature. To me, a well-penned tale is one of the most exciting things in life. |
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Post by Fading Fast on May 23, 2023 12:26:07 GMT
...
Above all, I think my love for movies was really a natural extension of my love for literature. To me, a well-penned tale is one of the most exciting things in life.
I don't think this was the first book it happened for, for me, but I remember reading "The Great Gatsby" in the mid 1970s and then waiting anxiously for the 1974 version to show up on TV (I didn't even know there was a '49 version, as without the internet, you didn't really know that stuff back then).
Also, like you, BW, it was my grandmother (in two ways) who started me on a movie path. I spent a lot of time with her in the '70s when I was very young until she passed, and we used to watch old movie (on her 1950s B&W TV) that played on the local stations, like so many here did.
Plus she took me to see new movies in the theater and she didn't filter those choices as I saw whatever she wanted, so I saw adult movies at a young age (she had no patience for kid movies, so we didn't see them). My grandmother lived through the Depression and even later in life had little, which made movies (which in the Depression were still affordable to most) her one real fun thing throughout her life.
Then when she died, we got her old black and white TV, which we put in the world's tiniest den in our little house, but that gave me a TV to continue watching old movies on as I wasn't allowed to touch the other TV in the house, a color one, unless I had permission and, then, only if my parents weren't watching something else.
I was, basically, afraid of using that TV (if it broke, there'd be hell), so I never even asked for permission, but I could sit in that tiny den by myself and watch what I wanted on that old black and white TV. This is why all movies - "Gone With the Wind," etc., - were B&W for me growing up. |
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Post by sepiatone on May 23, 2023 15:35:27 GMT
. This is why all movies - "Gone With the Wind," etc., - were B&W for me growing up. Know the feeling. As I posted earlier here, I didn't see any color TV until I bought my own set, which wasn't until I bought my first house in '73. By then I was 22. And I was dazzled! Whenever possible I watched as many cartoons as possible. After growing up seeing all those Bugs Bunny cartoons and Disney animate features in black and white it was quite spectacular to finally see them in color. And, as I too, grew up seeing THE WIZARD OF OZ annually since it first aired in 1956, finally seeing the land of Oz in color was thrilling. Sepiatone |
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Post by BunnyWhit on May 23, 2023 20:02:16 GMT
This black-and-white vs. color television discussion made me think of what my dad has always told me about when television first came to that same farming community where my grandparents met. Dad and his brothers grew up there, and he remembers when one of the stores in town got a television set. They displayed it in the window, and people passing by on the sidewalk would stop and watch....the test pattern. That's all there was. Apparently, it was quite the evening's entertainment after supper to go to town to see it. Simpler times, my friends.
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Post by sepiatone on May 24, 2023 14:54:17 GMT
Yeah. Who could resist?  Sepiatone |
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Post by jamesjazzguitar on May 24, 2023 16:34:04 GMT
Yeah. Who could resist? Sepiatone Folks living on a reservation? |
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