Favorite 3 decades of film.

[Doctor Who?]

Just what the poll says.

[mrbasehart]

The 30s, 40s, and 70s were the best decades for American movies.

[Tripe]

My favorites stretch from the 30s to the 70s but I bunched up my choices to the last three in that.

[Doctor Who?]

I like the 30s for The marx brothers and King Kong.

The 70s for the gritty movies like Chinatown.

I like the 200s because i lover superhero movies and TLOTR.

[Doc Steve]

The 30s, 40s, and 70s were the best decades for American movies.

Those were my votes also.

The '70s are a no-brainer, because of the demise of the production code and the "opening up" of dramatic possibilities.  The last real period of innovation in American cinema.

I like the early sound films ('30s) and the films of the '40s for similar reasons.  For lack of a better word, I'd call it "pacing."  The films of these two decades did a lot of in-camera cutting, and they crammed a lot of story into a 90 minute running time.  Some friends and I watched Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid a few weeks ago, and we have been on a noir kick since.  It was amazing to me how dense and complicated some of these movies can be, and they have virtually no optical effects or other "production values."  For example, The Big Sleep is just wall-to-wall action and snappy dialogue.  The Maltese Falcon has the fire on La Paloma, but it is otherwise similar. 

[GregMcduck]

When sound first showed up in the late 20s, early 30s, films got really visually uninteresting for a while. Sound forced studios to make "talking pictures" for a while instead of "films," which effectivally killed off the silent stars like Chaplin and Keaton among a whole host of other things, and there just isn't a lot in the 30s I really enjoy.

My votes went to the most important decades, namely the 20s, 70s and 2000s. The 20s was when films really found their place as an art form, the 70s brought the destruction of the Hayes code and saw the rise of the first real film school generation (including the Spielberg/Lucas/Coppola power trio), and the 2000s brought cheaper and easier ways to make films, opening things up for a wide range of young filmmakers, as well as making foreign and obscure films easier to get thanks to DVD and the internet.

[Doctor Who?]

Didn't Chaplin make some talking pictures?

It's been a while since I watched it but I could have sworn The great dictator was a talkie.

[mrbasehart]

It was his first talkie, and it was also the last one he made as "the tramp".

[Doctor Who?]

OK thanks.

When did he stop making movies period?

[Doc Steve]

When sound first showed up in the late 20s, early 30s, films got really visually uninteresting for a while. Sound forced studios to make "talking pictures" for a while instead of "films," which effectivally killed off the silent stars like Chaplin and Keaton among a whole host of other things, and there just isn't a lot in the 30s I really enjoy.

My votes went to the most important decades, namely the 20s, 70s and 2000s. The 20s was when films really found their place as an art form, the 70s brought the destruction of the Hayes code and saw the rise of the first real film school generation (including the Spielberg/Lucas/Coppola power trio), and the 2000s brought cheaper and easier ways to make films, opening things up for a wide range of young filmmakers, as well as making foreign and obscure films easier to get thanks to DVD and the internet.

That really killed some of my favorites, like The Cocoanuts.  You can tell where the one microphone is hidden, because you catch people projecting into potted plants and the like.  Nothing is worse than seeing the Marx Brothers nailed down in one spot.  By Animal Crackers, the technology had improved, though.  

While I certainly agree with you, I happen to like the Warner Bros. gangster pictures and some of the other genre flicks of the '30s too much.  Still, I can't deny that early sound films look like early television.  Fortunately, by the end of the decade, you have Ford, Toland, and Welles hitting their stride.  

[mrbasehart]

I think the last he made was the Countess from Hong Kong or something, with Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren.  Apparently it wasn't a very harmonious picture to make.

[Tripe]

Didn't Chaplin make some talking pictures?

It's been a while since I watched it but I could have sworn The great dictator was a talkie.

It is, as are six more (possibly others too depending on how you're defining "made"), what killed Chaplin's career were really his politics and his taste in women

[GregMcduck]

I really didn't mean "Chaplin stopped making stuff" so much as I meant it destroyed that form of visual comedy, which I can best describe as artistic slapstick.

[BBQ Platypus]

I voted the 40s, 70s, and 80s.

The 40s and 70s have already been explained.  I voted for the 80s because it perfected the notion of an action movie that is fun to watch.  From big-budget ones to small, independent ones like Terminator and Escape from New York.  There was crap back then, yes, but the crap back then was more frequently enjoyable than the crap today.  Also, the 80s is when Road House came out.

[Doctor Who?]

D'oh!