Favorite B&W movies

[rm31d]

Ed Wood.  Truth is (much) stranger than fiction.

[jewishcarpenter]

I love many a black & white movie. I'm not going to list them all but the first to come to mind are Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Ed Wood.

[BEERxTaco]

I love many a black & white movie. I'm not going to list them all but the first to come to mind are Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Ed Wood.

Two of my all-time favorites right there.

Then add pretty much every Bogart film that was in B&W.

[GregMcduck]

Isn't this a bit broad for a thread?

That's our greggy! Any fucking thing to bitch about one of my threads!

Go take a midol or something....

First of, you should just use Greg, and then you should follow it with a (laugh track). That's were the humor comes from!

Secondly, B&W films describe roughly half of all films ever. B&W is not a genre, and 99% of the time it's not an artistic choice (with exceptions like Wizard of Oz or Ed Wood). Most B&W have no choice being what they are, and most people would love a film regardless of it's color or lack there of.

[Junkyard]

Buuuuttt....
A lot of people today just don't know a lot of B and W films. I have heard people say that they just don't watch them, because they're "dull."
For peoples Gen X and later, it's not usually too broad a category, frankly.

[stansimpson]

I'll go ahead and just mention the great comedians of the 20th century's first half (most anything they did was great):
Marx Brothers
Laurel & Hardy
Abbott & Costello
The Three Stooges
Charlie Chaplin
Buster Keaton
Harold Lloyd

[BEERxTaco]

Most B&W have no choice being what they are, and most people would love a film regardless of it's color or lack there of.

Sounds like social commentary...  movies as a metaphor for social commentary... hmmmm.... somebody call Hollywood, I just got a million dollar idea!

[stansimpson]

Most B&W have no choice being what they are, and most people would love a film regardless of it's color or lack there of.

Sounds like social commentary...  movies as a metaphor for social commentary... hmmmm.... somebody call Hollywood, I just got a million dollar idea!

Movies as a metaphor for social commentary?  Great!  How about a B&W world who are all "racist" of "colored" people!?  We could call it Pleasantville!

[mlcorcoran]

Casablanca

Young Frankenstein

Duck Soup

A Night at the Opera

[eclipt1c]

I like B&W movies better than Color because the image holds up better over time and just look clearer and crisper.

My favorite, and favorite movie has to be Yojimbo, closely followed by Seven Samurai.

[FordPrefect]

The Maltese Falcon

Seconded.

Duck Soup, Night at the Opera.

Seconded, and seconded.  (Three seconded's... Eighthed?)

Also rather fond of Monkey Business, Shadow of a Doubt, Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, Citizen Kane, and other such works that elude me at the moment.  (Out of curiosity, does the Wizard of Oz count towards this list, or would only those few odd minutes at the beginning and end of the movie count?)

And I'd just like to add that I have a number of friends who refuse to watch movies that aren't in color, and it makes me a sad panda.  They're outright refuse to watch Maltese Falcon because it's in black and white.  C'mon, kids, not cool.

That stinks. I've known people like that too. Just out of curiosity, would they watch the Legend Film colorized versions of B&W movies with you, or do they still refuse to watch them based on the "too old" argument?

[Dim of the Yard]

B&W is not a genre, and 99% of the time it's not an artistic choice (with exceptions like Wizard of Oz or Ed Wood).

I almost added Kill Bill: Vol. 1 to the "artistic choice" list, then I remember the black and white bits were only so that the movie could get away with an R-rating and would be shown in theaters, which only further proves your point.  It was a nifty trick, though.

That stinks. I've known people like that too. Just out of curiosity, would they watch the Legend Film colorized versions of B&W movies with you, or do they still refuse to watch them based on the "too old" argument?

Knowing the sort of people who subscribe to that school of thinking, they'd probably smack me for suggesting they watch a colorized film with me.  (On a related note, I need to find nicer friends.)

[mrbasehart]

Also the pace of older films can be a little slower than modern ones (though I think His Girl Friday is still perhaps the fastest film I've ever seen), and the lack of quick cutting can bore people...for some reason.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Holiday

Do you mean Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant Holiday?  If you do, I'll love you forever. 

My list could go on forever...but some highlights....

Bride of Frankenstein
Dracula (both the Lugosi and the Spanish version)
The Mummy (Karloff)
The Wolf Man
The Invisible Man
The Creature From the Black Lagoon
King Kong
MIghty Joe Young
Freaks
His Girl Friday
The Women
The Philadelphia Story
Stage Door
The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
20,000 Miles to Earth
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Third Man
The Stranger (Orson Wells)
The Thin Man
Casablanca
Page Miss Glory (an old Marion Davies film that should be on DVD)

I could go on forever.

(PS - couldn't put Ed Wood on my list even though I own it and do like the film to a point.  I just know how much they screwed around with the facts to make it a real favorite)

[mrbasehart]

Holiday

Do you mean Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant Holiday?  If you do, I'll love you forever. 

I mean that exact one.  I loved it all the more because it was a total surprise - I knew that Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn were good together, but Holiday has a level of genuine emotion in it that isn't really in Bringing up Baby and I think it's just funnier than Philadelphia Story.

Stage Door is a great movie too.  I love Ginger Rogers.