So I've been watching a lot of old movies over the last few years, largely through laserdisc collecting, and I've made threads for my top 10 films of the 40s, 50s, and 60s, but there are other old films I think are worth watching and want to talk about. I made another thread for this, but I feel like that kind of thread might get a bit unwieldy if I let it get too big, so I think I'm going to start a new one of these every 10 films or so. Some of these films will be great, some will be flawed but interesting, and some will be complete messes that are compelling to watch for whatever reason.
Two men on a whim decide to head down toward Mexico. They pick up a hitch-hiker only for him pull a gun on them. Turns out he's a serial killer who wants them to drive him to his escape route. A simple but extremely well executed noir thriller. William Talman is fantastic as the killer. The film is only 70 minutes, but with how much is packed into it, you might be surprised that what you watched was really that short.
And good news: this film is public domain, so it's very easy to find. I recommend this rather nice looking upload from the Library of Congress.
An American smuggler in Europe (Robert Arden) decides that he might be able to make himself a lot of money by blackmailing a rich Eastern European man, Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles). To his surprise, Mr. Arkadin seems pleased with with this and explains that he has no recollection of his life before 1927 and has been wanting to hire someone to research his background. The result is a globe trotting investigation.
This is one of the many Orson Welles films where he wasn't given the final cut and feels that the film was butchered. It is indeed kind of a mess, but I feel like it still would have been to a degree even in a proper cut. A lot of the early part of the film feels like a crappy B movie, complete with bad, overdubbed dialogue, and the investigation feels a bit rushed and disjointed at times. But Orson Welles' charisma saves every scene he's in, and the film gets better and better as it goes along. I'd say the second half is overall pretty solid. Not where I'd recommend starting with Orson Welles, but still worth seeking out.
I probably should have expected Clint Eastwood's favorite movie would be this dark and unsettling. The guy made Unforgiven, after all, and this is at least as much of a deconstruction of the fantasy of the western as that film is. Word comes to town that a farmer has been shot and his cattle taken, so an angry mob forms up, calls itself a "posse," and decides that they're going to bring justice themselves, the slow court system be damned. A great film in a decade of great films, and something I'm surprised got made in the Hollywood system of the time.
Good news is that someone uploaded it to Youtube, so you can just watch it here. And I'm sure glad someone did, as my LD had trouble playing and froze up about 48 minutes in.
An IRA agent who escaped from jail gets injured in a robbery, and things go south from there. Starts off as largely a thriller, but the latter half is more about the people our dying protagonist runs into, and whether you think this film is good or great is going to largely depend on how much that second half grabs you. That part didn't quite work for me, but for those it does work for, this is sometimes considered Carol Reed's true masterpiece, above The Third Man. This might be for you if you're really into how Robert Altman likes to flesh out the nobodies in his films. In any case, this is an extremely well directed downer of a noir film filled with grey morality.
Edward G. Robinson is a college professor in a mid life crisis who hooks up with a much younger woman who he first sees in a painting, but he's attacked by her lover and kills him in self defense. But even a self defense killing could ruin his reputation, so he decides it's a good idea to try covering up the scene and hiding the body. The resulting crime and investigation often feels like a Columbo episode, and I mean that in a good way. A suspenseful, influential noir that for some is one of the defining works of the genre.
And the good news is that this is another public domain film, so you can just watch it on Youtube here.
Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) is a con man living in London who makes his living largely by hustling people into a night club and getting a commission for it. But he dreams of much bigger. He's figured out the sure thing that'll get him enough quick cash to get him and his girlfriend out of this shitty life. He just needs a few hundred quid to get things going. It's totally different than the last few times he's borrowed a few hundred quid. This time he's going to make it as a professional wrestling promoter. Don't worry about the mobster who controls wrestling in this town and doesn't like competition.
This is one of those films that got shit reviews at the time but has retroactively been reevaluated as one of the best films of its era. While it technically follows one guy, there's a lot of material about other characters' lives and side plots, and I feel like the film pulls off the balancing act better than Odd Man Out did. This is often described as a film with "no sympathetic characters," but I feel like Harry's desperation evokes a kind of pity that makes you still kind of want to root for him, even if you know you shouldn't. It's a a great noir film that really comes together in the end.
And I'm not sure if it's public domain or not, but the complete film has been on Youtube for six years, so it's another easy one to see.