Jeb's Flicks: pre-1960s

Recent threads in Trash Talk have led me conclude you Philistines need someone to provide the touchpoints necessary for a decent understanding in motion picture entertainments. I'm handpicking 10 films per time period--I might not limit myself to decades or anything, but contiguous time periods. These are films I like. Expect it to be short on musicals, which I loathe.

Pre-1960's, the Hays Code and film technology make everything look and feel dated. There are some gems back here that should be watched so you can get the winks, nods and allusions of later generations of filmmakers.

Citizen Kane -- Orson Welles' magnum opus. Newspaper magnates aren't all the rage as they were in the 1930s, so the story can seem the drag a bit. But holy shit was this guy thinking ahead about how to use a camera and sets to convey his ideas. Prior to Citizen Kane, films tended to have a stationary camera in front of which a play would be performed or perhaps a vaudeville act. If a camera moved, it followed one thing. Welles breaks out of the mold in some totally fascinating ways that are still recognizably paid homage to today.

The Seven Samurai -- Kurosawa's masterwork. Classic adventure film with rag tag team getting together and defeating the "faceless" (ie, largely unfollowed or scripted for) bad guys. But is the victory worth the cost? What good is honor if you get shot? If you were going to starve, and you help the village because they will feed you--is that honorable?

Casablanca -- Kind of a hackneyed story, but you know about half the script of this film before you even see it. Flabbergastingly catchy writing from the Epstein twins and Howard Koch. I don't buy Bogart as a romantic lead, but Claude Rains tears shit up.

The General -- Some folks are Chaplin hardcases, and some folks go for Harold Lloyd, but you can get everything you need for silent era comedy from Buster Keaton in The General. Fucking crazy-ass stunts. He crashes a train. A real train. Into a creek. Train.

Rear Window -- The Hitchcock film. Grace Kelly just glooooooows. Jimmy Stewart is a creepy dick to her, but is in luck, because a neighbor is even creepier by comparison. If someone wants to watch a Hitchcock film, I send them here. Psycho is probably more "important" but it's a one-off in the director's body of work.

Rififi -- French film noir. It's called "film noir" because the French are fucking really good at it. This is some hardboiled gangster shit. Amazing heist scene.

M -- Fritz Lang's groundbreaking drama about child murder; not a Hayes Code topic! Peter Lorre is amazing, and the film uses all kinds of cool techniques like reflections and off-screen musical cues to keep you on your toes.

Freaks -- One of us, one of us... Genuinely fucked up movie.

Triumph of the Will -- Fucked up for different reasons! Hitler is an Executive Producer. Hitler. Again, groundbreaking filmmaking techniques. Really does make Germany seem pretty awesome. I mean that in the "awe" sense of that overused word.

La Grande Illusion -- Escape movie set in World War I. Seems pretty normal fare in this modern age, but this was made in 1937. World War II hadn't happened yet, but it sure looks like Jean Renoir thought it was going to. von Stroheim is a Nazi before the Nazis were even Nazis.

Honorable Mention: Paths of Glory. Hope you like 'em bleak! If you saw every film Kubrick made, you'd be fine, really.

See the 1960s list here.

See the 1970s list here.

See the 1980s list here.